Here’s a lesson in Prosperity Pimping 101: Gaslight your congregation. If you’re not familiar with the term “gaslighting,” it means to manipulate someone psychologically into questioning his or her own sanity or beliefs. And that’s exactly what Creflo Dollar seems to be doing with his congregation in his quest for a new jet.
Dollar is still talking about how people who don’t understand God or the Bible are the only ones who question why he needs a $65 million jet. Never mind that there are tons of commercial airlines flying all over the world, every single hour of the day. It would be one thing if he were reaching into his own pockets to buy a jet, but he started off his quest by asking for donations.
His tactics are quite interesting.
Uplift those in his congregation who actually believe their pastor deserves a jet by letting them know that they will be blessed for helping, but make them question those people who don’t believe he deserves one. In return, his congregation scoffs at anyone who disagrees with him, and questions why they ever disagreed in the first place.
“See, don’t get upset when the world says stuff and talks about stuff, and all that. They’re just looking through the wrong lens; they don’t understand,” Dollar said in a recent sermon.
“‘What does a preacher need with an airplane?’ They don’t know,” the preacher added. “They’ll never know because they’re not looking through the Word. They will never know, never never know.”
What he doesn’t understand is that it’s not whether he needs a $65 million jet, it’s the fact that he’s asking others to purchase it. If that’s how his church works, then I wonder how many cars he’s purchased for his congregation members after theirs broke down, or how many houses he’s built for church members once they lost theirs because of foreclosure or eviction?
Label me a cynic, but the only people prospering from these prosperity churches are the ministers. I hope everyone who has already donated to Dollar’s jet fund will receive some sort of return from God. Maybe they’ll get a tour of the jet. Or be allowed to sit in the cockpit for a few minutes and get a pair of plastic wings to pin on their church outfit.