Non-violent grass roots reform and Democracy: Growing Evidence Of Mega-Church Fraud Violence & Support For War?

Religion teaches morality.

Or so we've been told by religions for thousands of years. One of the most important morals might be, "Thou shalt not kill," assuming you'r not more concerned with obedience to God, or religious leaders appointed to represent God, which many Biblical verses seem to put higher priority on.

The growing movement towards increasing attendance in Mega-Churches is defended by the organizers of these Mega-Churches as well as many other people in the religious community supporting their religion.

Just for the sake of argument lets assume they're right and these Mega-Churches are more effective at teaching morality; which would theoretically mean that people that attend these Mega-Churches would be less inclined to commit murder and the murder rates around these Mega-Churches would be lower!

Right?

Well maybe not!

As I explained previously in Media is aiding and abetting in Televangelist Fraud, Apartheid States of America and Megalithic Churches correlated with local murder rates most Megachurches, on average are in cities with above average murder rates, often well above average. Few social statistical reviews show an exact correlation, since there are multiple causes for violence and they all have to be considered carefully; however the correlation between higher murder rates in cities with Megachurches compared to those without is stronger than most.

There are some exceptions, of course. One of the biggest is the Megachurches in New Jersey or Connecticut, which are among the least religious states, where the majority of Megachurches are in wealthy suburbs just outside of some of their worst abandoned inner cities. But these states don't have nearly as many Megachurches as the South or several other parts of the country where people are more religious. California has a larger number of Megachurches and most of them are in cities with below average murder rates but many of those are near more violent cities and those in more violent cities are often in much more violent cities like many other states, so the average murder rate for the cities in California is still above the national average, and most of those with lower murder rates are also in cities with much higher incomes.

A closer look comparing cities, within the same population range with Megachurches to those without shows even further how strong a correlation this is, when divided by population in four different population ranges of cities with above 100,000 people all four of them show the cities with higher murder rates have more Megachurches; when comparing the average murder rates for smaller cities where they don't always have Megachurches the ones in two of three population ranges show that they have higher murder rates in the cities with Megachurches, and the third is only higher in those without Megachurches as a result of a handful of cities with exceptionally high murder rates, when those are excluded even that range has higher murder rates in the cities with Megachurches than those without, as indicated in the following summation:

In the ten cities with a population over one million the five with the highest murder rates, the highest with 21 per hundred thousand and lowest with 10 per hundred thousand, have ninety-one megachurches and seventeen of them with attendance, according to at least one source, of over 10,000, which is what they call a Gigachurch; even though the five with the lowest murder rates, 3.3 to 10 per hundred thousand, have a much higher population they only have seventy Megachurches, and ten Gigachurches; if you counted the top six there would be one-hundred-and-eleven megachurches and nineteen Gigachurches; the bottom four would have about the same population but only fifty Megachurches and eight Gigachurches. In cities with a population of half a million to one million all of them have Megachurches; but the ten with the highest murder rates have more Megachurches than the ten with the lowest rates. The top ten in this range have average murder rates over a fifteen year period from 42.98 per hundred thousand in Detroit to 10.07 and they have a total of ninety-seven Megachurches and ten of them are Gigachurchs. The cities with the lowest murder rates in this range have murder rates ranging from 2.4 per hundred thousand in El Paso to 8.9 in Tuscon Arizona and they only have a total of sixty-nine Megachurches with only seven Gigachurches.

The same goes in all the other population ranges, or something similar including those between 250,000 and 500,000 where the cities in the top ten for murder rates have forty-six megachurches with three Gigachurches verses only thirty-one in the cities in the bottom ten for murder rates, although they do have four Gigachurches but there's still many more attending the ones in the top ten; and in the cities with a population from 100,000 to 250,000 where they have thirty-eight Megachurches with four Gigachurches in the cities with the top ten murder rates and only twenty-three Megachurches in the cities that have any with the lowest crime rates. This range also has fifty-four cities without any Megachurches and the average murder rates for those is significantly lower than the average for cities with at least one Megachurch.

In the cities with populations between 250,000 and 500,000 there are only two that don't have any megachurches, and one of them at least is above average and if the other one isn't it's not much below average for the cities in that population range; however this isn't statistically significant since there are so few. When it comes to cities with fewer than 250,000 and more than 100,000, the average rate for cities with at least one or more Megachurches in it is 6.05 per hundred thousand, which is about thirty percent hire than the cities without any Megachurches in them, with an average rate of 4.75. This omits four cities, which are large and have Megachurches just beyond the border. Three of these cities have a large volume of Megachurches and the other one only one in a bordering town but more near by, which for all practical purposes they serve with their own population. These cities include Kansas City, Kansas; Newport News Va.; North Las Vegas, Nevada; and Paterson NJ. There was one city, Syracuse NY, which I entered in those with Megachurches because East Syracuse, with only 3,000 people has a Megachurch which clearly must serve Syracuse. There were also six additional ones that were entered in the category of cities without Megachurches even though they also had Megachurches in bordering towns. Two of these were negligible, since they weren't much lower than the average but the other four were significantly above average. If anything it might have been more appropriate to omit those as well, or include the ones with a large number of Megachurches in bordering towns be entered on the list of cities with Megachurches, which would have increased the difference.

When it comes to the cities with a population between 40,000 and 60,000, the cities with Megachurches have an average murder rate of 3.7 per hundred thousand which is about forty percent higher than the cities without Megachurches which are only 2.7.

The cities with a population of 60,000 to 100,000 is the only population range where the murder rates are higher in cities without Megachurches where the average rate is 4.17 about fifteen percent higher than the cities with Megachurches, which have a rate of 3.57. However the murder rates for both categories are driven up by the eight cities with the highest murder rates, which are, all more than four times the national average one of them are as much as sixteen times the national average, and six of them are in cities without Megachurches, although four of these have Megachurches in towns bordering them, including one that is a Gigachurch, which must draw some funds and parishioners from Gary, and one more has a Megachurch in a small town no more than ten miles away. These six cities, Youngstown Ohio, Wilmington Delaware, Gary Indiana, Compton California, Camden and Trenton NJ, have an average murder rate of 41; the two highest with Megachurches, Macon Georgia and Fort Myers Florida have an average murder rate of about 22. Even in this population range if these cities weren't counted then the cities with Megachurches would still be higher, with a rate of 3.14 than those without with a rate of 2.81.

Date for cities with less than 40,000 people is limited; however, even though I didn't look up the rates for those without Megachurches, and Wikipedia doesn't list them, I compiled a list of those with megachurches, and calculated rough averages. These use averages for fifteen years of data for each city, or as much as is available, which is more comprehensible than the one year data used to compare with other cities; however they were straight averages without converting back to murders and accounting for populations changes. The margin of error using this method is minimal when it's the same city with modest population changes, but with cities that fluctuate from 195 to almost 40,000, it is of course higher making this rough. The average murder rates for 296 cities with Megachurches is 3.49 which is only slightly lower than those with a higher population, even though murder rates seem to be going consistently down. Thirty-four of these cities had rates above seven, some well above this, which is more than double the average rate for this range and they drove it way up. These thirty four have an average rate of 13.83; without these the rest of them would only have an average rate of 2.15. Some of these thirty four cities are urban cities bordering much larger cities with high rates; however some of them, especially in South Carolina, and other parts of the South including Alabama and Louisiana, are in rural areas where you might expect them to be much lower.

The data to come to these conclusions has been reposted here on Megalithic Churches correlated with local murder rates by population an additional explanation of some of the details will be posted here shortly that will enable anyone that might be inclined to check the math and decide for themselves whether I'm distorting the "Lies, damn lies or statistics," as Mark Twain or Benjamin Disraeli might say.

Phil Zuckerman makes a similar point in his review published in the Los Angeles Times a few years ago, Think religion makes society less violent? Think again. 10/30/2015, where he compares rates of violence in countries, or states that are more religious and finds that they have higher rates of violence. He also cites statistics of child abuse deaths when he says, "Consider child-abuse fatality rates: Highly religious Mississippi's is twice that of highly secular New Hampshire's, and highly religious Kentucky's is four times higher than highly secular Oregon's."

Apparently he makes the same argument in The Nonreligious: Understanding Secular People and Societies By Phil Zuckerman, Luke W. Galen, Frank L. Pasquale where he cautions against confusing correlation and causation, as many good sociologists and statisticians do; however I believe that in addition to his research additional work by Alice Miller and Philip Greven strengthens the argument that early child abuse leads to escalating violence, and that religious support for corporal punishment is also a major factor teaching small children to deal with their problems through violence later in life, which would explain the strong correlation between high murder rates near megachurches or in highly religious states compared to more secular communities.

His article in the Los Angeles Times is in the op-ed section, claiming that it's a matter of opinion, which part of it may be, but a large portion of it is based on facts which can be confirmed or refuted; and the mainstream media often allows many politicians or people of faith to make wild claims, loudly with conviction and appeals to emotions, without any fact checking, even when they're full of obvious flaws. Good academics often go to far in the other extreme by saying they're not sure even when there is much more evidence that has been fact checked to support some of their claims.

I've written about this numerous times with many more sources in past articles and there's little or no doubt in my mind that there's an enormous amount of evidence, including the research by Greven, Miller, Coloroso, Garbarino, Straus and many more that early child abuse leads to escalating violence later in life. This includes corporal punishment which has been demonstrated to escalate to more violence over and over again; and this conclusion is backed by by statistics where the states that still allow it in schools, and presumably use it much more in homes routinely make it into the top ten for murder rates, with six to eight of them included. The only one that ever makes it into the bottom ten states for murder rates is Idaho, which uses it the least, and has no major abandoned inner cities, which is another major contributing cause to violence.

As Philip Greven and Alice Miller also argue early child abuse, often starting with corporal punishment, is also a major part of an indoctrination process designed to teach children to blindly obey orders, believe what their taught without question from their leaders, and to go along with the crowd, without developing critical thinking skills which are necessary to participate in the democratic process and hold leaders accountable, especially when they fight one war after another based on lies.

There may also be far more evidence that many of these Megachurches are also involved in far more child abuse scandals than most people realized; and it may also be related to escalating violence in the areas that they serve, although proving that connection is far more difficult. However, we've all heard about plenty of scandals involving Televangelists, and many of them have involved sex abuse or child abuse, assuming you've paid attention to the news; but it may be far more common than I suspected. To find out how common this is I looked up a little more on the internet and started finding far more stories than I expected, including some from a few of the biggest megachurch pastors in the country, and many with political connections, including to many presidential candidates.

There are dozens if not hundreds of these reports across the country that aren't hard to find once you start searching. Many of them are new, which might mean that more of them are being exposed, or there have been more all along than most people realized or more likely a little of both. One of the biggest examples might be Rod Parsley's Church in Ohio, who apparently settled a lawsuit a few years ago for a Daycare beating in 2006. The insurance company that they're still in the process of trying to convince to shoulder the settlement refuses to do so because they claim their coverage didn't cover use of corporal punishment, which is being disputed.

According to Televangelist Rod Parsley's World Harvest Church Refuses to Fully Shoulder $3.1M Settlement for Daycare Beating 10/10/2015 one of the fund raising pitches that they use is a pitch saying "Do not miss this opportunity for Pastor Parsley to pray for you, along with KENNETH COPELAND, a gifted preacher with incredible understanding of God's power — a man of astonishing faith! They will lead an army of prayer warriors to pray for YOUR needs! Then we'll send your prayer cloth back to you saturated with the anointing!"

Apparently this is just one of many incredibly bad scams that the faithful fall for, as long as it's given in a hyped up manner from a charismatic preacher. I don't know if many of their donors know that their money is going to pay for past legal settlements or Parley's lavish lifestyle; however this is typical of the claims that hundreds of preachers across the country make either on TV, in Megachurches, online, in revivals or any other way they have of communicating and a shocking percentage of the public seems to trust them.

A little noticed sideline to a much higher profile abuse case a few months ago in California also indicates the values of some of Parsley's fellow preachers, or more specifically the brother of the president of “The Valor Christian College." David Turpin, who was arrested in January in the now infamous "Horror House" case where they imprisoned there own kids and kept them on a starvation diet, is the brother of Dr. Randy Turpin, who is the president of “The Valor Christian College," which was founded by Rod Parsley. This is apparently the same Rod Parsley that met with John McCain who was seeking his endorsement in the 2008 primary, saying "I'm very honored today to have one of the truly great leaders in America, a moral compass, a spiritual guide, Pastor Rod Parsley," and received it; but then when his comments about destroying Islam were reported in the media he distanced himself politically, as they often do, before eventually rejecting his endorsement.

Randy Turpin claims to be estranged from his brother, and has volunteered to adopt his nephew's and nieces; however he wrote a 2016 book about prayer and fasting, which authorities are considering in relation to the starvation diet of David's children; and his parents clearly weren't estranged from David when they visited the family in a five day visit to California in 2012. They claimed they had no idea anything was wrong and said that "They are the sweetest family."

This is why politicians are constantly courting Televangelists and Megachurch pastors, because if their followers trust them even when they get caught at one scam after another they often blindly support the candidate that their leaders tell them to even if their religious leaders and their political leaders are constantly supporting positions that go against the interests of the followers. However, the mainstream media minimizes the coverage of this or buries it where few will notice it, just like they minimize coverage of all the sex scandals so most people don't realize how extensive it is. If the truth isn't repeated over and over again like the deceptive propaganda that faithful quickly forget.

Televangelists look the other way at the scandals that politicians get caught up with just like politicians look the other way in the scandals that Televangelists get caught up in and reports of their conections are only found by those that look closely. But there are plenty of them including Bill Clinton's relationship with Bill Hybels, ties between Kirbyjon Caldwell and George Bush, And many more including a long list of Televangelists that lined up behind Donald Trump, like Kenneth Adkins, who was found guilty of child molestation.

I have no doubt that if I started searching I could easily find dozens more, including some that I already came across and more that were almost certainly buried demonstrating that the separations between Church and State has been dramatically reduced if not completely eliminated.

Additional research will surely show that the religious areas that have high crime problems and a high concentration of Megachurches, also have much more economic inequality environmental destruction, cheating scandals, often in areas where for-profit Charters Schools are concentrated, and many other social problems.

Politicians understood how to use this mentality to manipulate the public going back thousands of years, as some people including Hermann Göring demonstrated that they understood, especially when stirring up paranoia to fight wars based on lies, even when it's against the interests of the majority of the public!

Hitler was of course famous for Hitler's Youth which trained thousands of children to blindly obey orders in the thirties using many of the same tactics that Megachurch pastor's use to indoctrinate their followers. He learned this from observing religious indoctrination taking place before him, in both the Protestant and Catholic religions. They both had their Youth groups that were taught to blindly obey from an early age without questioning authorities.

Before Hitler rose to power Mussolini took control of of Italy in the March on Rome shortly after Pius XI was elected Pope, and like the competition between Pius XII had with Hitler to control the education system, as described in "Hitler's Pope" by John Cornwall, Pius XI had a similar battle for power with Mussolini, as described in The "Pope and Mussolini: The Secret History of Pius XI and the Rise of Fascism in Europe" by David Kirtzer. Both Popes, Hitler and Mussolini all agreed that the education system should be authoritarian and oppose teaching of critical thinking skills.

Pius XI negotiated deals with Mussolini starting within a few months after Mussolini's March on Rome, to restore some of the Catholic power that started collapsing when Napoleon invaded Europe and escalated when Pius IX was exiled during the 1848 revolution. Both Pope's wanted a restoration of the political power that the Catholic Church had in the past which is when they led Crusades and Inquisitions, although they wouldn't have been inclined to say they wanted to return to that. In both cases Pius XII, starting as Eugenio Pacelli negotiating a deal with Germany over control of the education system and later with Hitler; and Pius XI negotiating with Mussolini for control of Italy as well as the education or indoctrination of children were willing to put their best interests ahead of the children or those that wanted to teach democratic principles, and rather than allowing Democracy to spread they enabled Hitler and Mussolini to rise to power.

Only after Pius XI lost the power struggle to Mussolini did he say, “I am ashamed, not as pope, but as an Italian! The Italian people have become a flock of stupid sheep. I will speak up, have no fear of that. The concordat means a lot to me, but my conscience means more.... Here they have become like so many Farinaccis. I am truly upset, as a pope ..." ("Pope and Mussolini" Kirtzer also cited in "Hitler, Mussolini and the Vatican" Emma Fattorini with additional excerpts) Perhaps he should have been ashamed, but he shouldn't have been too surprised!

Indoctrination methods designed to control the public instead of educational methods to teach them to govern themselves is what he encouraged from the beginning; the main thing that he was ashamed of was that he didn't have the upper hand in controlling the educational and political system!

Amazingly, Mussolini was able to convince the masses that he was the leader of the religious faithful, like Donald Trump, even though his early career was a rabid anticlerical Publishing God Does Not Exist text in 1904! Mussolini seemed to recognize flaws in the religious argument when he recognized Epicurus in 1904; however he demonstrated, with his actions that he wasn't overly concerned with morality, when he started using thuggish tactics no later than WWI and shortly after that when he formed his Fascist Party. Only after he lost the power struggle did he express shame because the "Italian people have become a flock of stupid sheep."

Mussolini remained strongly opposed to the Vatican at least until 1919, then in 1922 after his March on Rome, he claimed to be a strong defender of the Church and began giving them their privileges back in return for the support of Pius XI, who should have realized this was a political deal, not based on true faith on Mussolini's part. The Pope accepted this because the deals he made with Mussolini's advanced his own power and he used his perceived credibility with the faithful to encourage them to support Mussolini even though it wasn't in their own best interests!

Donald Trump didn't rise to power in exactly the same way as Mussolini, of course, but there were a lot of similarities. One of the ways that he was able to win the election, or at least appear to win, as I've said in past articles, is the mainstream media that pretends to oppose hims gave him the obsession coverage he needed to gain name recognition, fist with decades of periodic coverage, then escalating with his show "The Apprentice" and finally with obsession coverage during the campaign when they knew there was an lot of anti-establishment sentiment, and the media gave them a pretender that claimed to be anti-establishment. Another major advantage that he had was courting the support of Televangelists, who were able to convince their followers that Trump was among the faithful even though like Mussolini he had a long history of having no respect for the Church and even now it should be obvious that he's only pretending the support religious faith for political and control purposes!

Now once again he's demonstrated that he supports wars based on lies, just like establishment politicians; and the rest of the political establishment can pretend to speak out against him claiming what they hope to be perceived as the higher ground as they speak out against his actions in Syria!