The prayer rug.
The sales pitch.
My brother contacted me through MSN Messenger last night to tell me about this amazing item he had received in the mail yesterday from the fine folks at Saint Matthew’s Church out of Tulsa, Oklahoma that just sounded amazingly wonderfully amazing: The Anointed Jesus Prayer Rug.
Now most of you don’t know my brother, but he’s largely responsible for my education in evilness and the darker side of my sense of humor is a result of his influence over the years, which is a fact I’m sure he’s quite proud of. This makes it perfectly understandable that someone out there might see him as a soul in desperate need of saving, but it turns out that’s not what this amazingly wonderfully amazing bit of mail was all about. No, the mail assumes that Wes is already saved and it offers to help bring the Lord’s blessing down upon him and his family. In particular, the mailing makes a point of emphasizing the idea that the Lord will grant him a financial blessing. All through the amazingly wonderfully amazing power of the Anointed Jesus Prayer Rug. As a bonus the rug itself will perform a minor miracle to prove its authenticity:
Notice the face of Jesus on this Church Prayer Rug. When you first look, you will notice that His eyes are closed. If you relax and continue looking straight into His eyes, you will see His eyes slowly opening, and He will begin looking back at you. Jesus sees your needs (Philippians 4:19). Use this unusual, important, Church Prayer Rug for tonight only.
Let us ask you: Would you like to have God’s blessings upon Your home, your family and your finances? Say, “Yes, Lord Jesus, I do need Your financial blessings upon me and my family’s finances!” Deuteronomy 28:6 Just put a mark (√) by your needs below, telling us that you want prayer. Also, check any other needs you are facing. Pray about sowing a seed gift to the Lord’s work. Give God your best seed and believe Him for His best blessing (St. Luke 6:38). Now, go and use this Church, Faith, Prayer Rug. The Lord is watching and waiting. You are about to enter the Holy Spirit of God right here in your home, through this faith exercise. Then, it is a must that you return it for another to use.
You can see part of the sales pitch by clicking on the image to the right underneath the amazingly wonderfully amazing Anointed Jesus Prayer Rug. As it turns out this whole thing is another religious based scam that promises the overly credulous true believers riches from God in return for a little “seed money” for Saint Mathew’s Churches, which only exist in the form of a Tulsa post office box, natch. The only person getting rich from this scam is the Rev. James Eugene Ewing who seems to have built up quite a racket with this and other similar scams to the tune of several hundred million dollars:
The approach reaped Ewing and his organization a gross income of more than $100 million since 1993, including $26 million in 1999, the last year Saint Matthew’s made its tax records public. And while much of the money is spent on postage and salaries, Ewing’s company receives nonprofit status and pays no federal taxes.
Though Ewing claims it is a church, Saint Matthew’s Churches, once called St. Matthew Publishing Inc., has no address other than a Tulsa post office box. It has two listed phone numbers in Tulsa and both are answered by a recorded religious message.
The organization is not related to other Tulsa-area churches named St. Matthew’s, though many of them have received calls asking to be removed from its mailing list.
Ole Anthony, founder of the Trinity Foundation, a nonprofit religious watchdog group, has tracked Ewing’s organization for years. The foundation was largely responsible for exposing televangelist Robert Tilton in 1991 after Anthony said he found prayer requests sent to Tilton in Tulsa trash Dumpsters.
Doing a Google search for Jesus Prayer Rug will reveal that a lot of people have written about this scam including our friends over at Chaotic Not Random as well as Ryan Cragun who handily provides a PDF of the complete mailing that he scanned in. This mailing and others like it are sent out at an estimated rate of 1 million a month and are aimed mainly at the hardcore true believers who are poor, uneducated, and most vulnerable to promises of financial reward for a demonstration of faith. The mailing includes a story about a woman who received a $46,000 windfall and another of someone receiving $10,000 after using the prayer rug. Gee, that God Guy sure is generous!
At the time, Tilton and Ewing shared the same Tulsa attorney, J.C. Joyce. Saint Matthew’s Churches is incorporated at Joyce’s downtown Tulsa law office and the organization paid Joyce’s law firm more than $2.6 million for legal services during three years, records show.
Anthony has also obtained documents that describe how Ewing and his organization use demographic data to target the poor.
‘He capitalizes on the isolation of the loneliest and poorest members of our society, promising them magical answers to their fears and needs if only they will demonstrate their faith by sending him money,’ Anthony said.
‘He is, quite literally, the father of the modern-day ‘seed-faith’ concept that fuels the multibillion-dollar Christian industry known as the ‘health-and-wealth gospel.’—Religion in America: ‘St. Matthew’s Churches’ Mail Ministry is Highly Lucrative
It’s hard to say how illegal this sort of scam might be. While recipients are encouraged to send in money in return for the blessings promised in the mailing, there’s nothing that states it as a requirement so it’s technically not selling you anything other than a false hope. My cynical side says this is what you get when you buy into a concept as ridiculous as Gods and that those folks who are fleeced by it deserve the pain they’re bringing on themselves for being so credulous, but my sense of fair play also seeks to see people like the “good” Reverend here strung up by his testicles for taking advantage of the willfully stupid in the population.
It doesn’t take much cleverness to fleece folks who will believe wholesale in the idea of a Virgin Birth and who put more stock into Genesis than Evolution and that’s the biggest crime Christianity has visited upon so many of its believers. Some of you folks truly are like sheep and you’re just as defenseless when the wolves like Rev. James Eugene Ewing put on sheep’s clothing and come prowling around.
It’s a slow morning…
People acquire god belief for many different reasons. Some are indoctrinated into it from childhood, for others it’s a conscious choice, some are satisfied with a superficial “answer” that is of great concern to them. Some assert a different type of knowledge, others rationalize their beliefs.
In short, god belief is irrational in some way, shape, or form.
What DOF said. Monotheistic religions with their Biggest Swinging Deity contests are fairly new and predated by polytheistic religions, which are predated by more elementary form of spiritual beliefs. Our species has always preferred to make things up as we go rather than plead ignorance.
Science lends no support whatsoever to religious beliefs in general and the Christian deity in particular. On the other hand, science explains the appeal of the religious meme.
It’s not offensive if somebody believes in some deity or other. What they use this belief for can be more than offensive, though.
Let me rephrase it: If god belief is irrational in the first place, then so is the belief in the so-called miracles.
I haven’t heard anybody here claim to have evolved past religion. It’s just that we’re not buying what the religious are selling. And most of the posters here can make the distinction between simple faith and the terminally gullible.
Quoting elwed:
True, doen’t prove or disprove. There is a limit as to what science can uncover, you may hit a point where you don’t have a way of tracing back further (i.e. what makes the smallest unit of matter, what makes that?), also you may not be able to vary a certain condition to fully test a property, i.e. you can’t experimentally make time run backwards and there is not necessarily symmetry if you did. Also the most fundamental rules of science themselves need a reason to be, either that or the multiverse idea of “they are because they’re possible, and there’s an infinite number of opertunities for it to be the case if there’s an infinite number of universes”
Anyway making profit out of the gullible sounds quite easy and attractive, reminds me of a certain Dilbert episode (I like the cynical nature)
They do?
elwed:
Science is driven by asking why something’s the case and not being satisfied with an answer as a termination point if it’s not self-justifying, otherwise it would not be much better than an advanced religion. If science is to be able to completely explain the universe by itself we need a complete theory.
If there was no reason for the fundamental laws to exist, i doubt nature would go to the effort of obeying them exactly to the same extent, you would at least expect it to be obeyed to a random extent due to entropy (an inescapabe statistical effect)
The rules could be arbitary with a possibility of existing as they are, and with a possibly infinite number of universes their existence could be guaranteed. You can’t quantify the probability but
any positive value*infinity=infintity
Nethertheless if the laws of physics were interdependant – and could only exist because of each other and all formed simultaneously, we set up a kind of cyclic dependance and remove the termination point. It would seem impossible to find interdependance as you can’t turn off or tune down a law of physics directly. The idea of god would be an unacceptable termination point which again couldn’t be backtracked, unless god was also fed into interdependance and could only exist simultaneously with the laws of physics.
I wonder if it’s possible to backtrack past a cyclic dependance? Maybe it formed arbitarily, maybe there is other things that depends on, it’s possible to depend on something that isn’t real, just as maths can use imaginary numbers for some purposes
Aa writes:
True.
True.
Not necessarily true.
Belief in a god or gods does not offend me. I myself am on the fence regarding whether or not I believe in a higher power. It is the insistence by True Believers that an unwavering belief in god is rational, given what we as a species currently know, that offends me.
DC, I disagree with you—if only because I dislike the loaded term reason. You seem to conflate the pursuit of science and the philosophy of it, but it takes more time than I have to dissect your posts
I admit i’m not summarised, i think on tangents and try to be complete
The main point:
the rules could be arbitary and exist, the probability of the physical constants of these laws having values the values they do is low for one universe but with a possible infinite multiverse it’s guaranteed to take that value in some cases. an imaginary multiverse automatically exists using imaginary dimensions just because it can
this theory has the problem of justifying the constantness of constants in all situations
Don’t buy into this scam. Mr. Ewing and St. Matthew’s Churches don’t need your hard earned money!!!!
He and his wife wear expensive suits, have expensive purses, shoes, private drivers, and an apartment on 5th avenue. Keep your money. Give it to a REAL charity.
I, your Lord High Arch Pope, offer you a Les prayer wallpaper. Merely use your mystical pointer device to right click on his picture, and select “Set as Background”, and as proof of His Love he will appear on your VDU.
helema
Holy Crap! Whenever I lived in Tennessee about 3 years ago we got that in the mail, then whenever we moved down here to Florida we got it again.
I was pretty shocked whenever we got it again, because it was reported about a lot on one of the news channels in Tennessee. Plus I never thought one scam could get this big. lol
ily
-Genni.
My mum scares Jehova’s Witnesses. She invites them in for a chat. Hind Legs. Donkey
I just got the rug. Desperate times actually. Well, so I wrote back, yesterday, enclosing the rug, as follows:
My prayer (below in bold) dear Lord, is based upon:
Dear Lord,
Let me mince words today, but make it perfectly clear. You know I
write.
You know I have written about 1300-plus pages, single space lines in the last 4 years in the 2 civil cases against county, city, state government for violation of my speech amendment. One case is a suit for wrongful SWAT arrest and trauma incurred when they alleged I “threatened” a police officer with mere words (if such is even possible) by a random posting in a web forum Apr. 4, 2004 (oh four). You know I have been enslaved against my will, writing all this (cases) on a forced anachronsim computer: 133MHZ; 1 1/2 GB harddrive; 32MB Ram. (After they stole my “mainframes,” not returned to date, they had overlooked my runt-runt starter computer in a clean garbage sack in the corner, which I hoped I would never have to use again.) You know I have been crucified on this machine now for 4 years daily, Saturdays and Sundays and holidays included, trying to keep up because of what it is, and because my health has never been normal in well over a decade.
You know I have not eaten a square meal in 35-plus years, and that my new computer they stole, but a year old at the time in 2004, was something I finally had found I could live for.
You know the court’s dally is killing me outright.
You know they lost their first speech case (posting in a web forum)
against me after dragging me through the courts for over 2 years.
You know they initiated another speech case against me 2 weeks before I even knew I would get the acquittal on the web forum posting-case, alleging this time I had illegally used mere words against another certain policeman, by saying something on his anwering machine.
You know they have defaced me physically down through the years now. You know I have been enslaved against my will. You know I call them Judas; You know I call this subjugation, since long ago, “a little american made Battaan residence march”; You know they have long since broken what I was, and they could ever, ever care less. You know I have been remote-matrixed, butched, extracted of my soul and spit upon by Satan and his county, city, state government. The federal government has not intervened, either.
You know that the 2 cases I have initiated against the Satan-county, city, state governments in San Francisco and Oakland federal court
(C07 0113 SBA; now in appeal by me, plaintiff, as 07-16966; and case C07 5816 EMC; latter is San Fran.) both demand awards, recompense, which I have promised before the court…I will give all of it to the poor. The 0113 demands 1360 million for violation of me and extreme persecution and life-gone, ripped out, for speaking in this country. Because they didn’t put a stop to that first amendment stuff, the second, come along later in sequence, also a first amendment violation-case, demands 7 billion, plus 10 million a day (they were put on notice of this) since May 22, 2007 for every day they don’t return me my life and possessions with the demanded recompense for having, through their ignorance of the computer age and other reasons, ripped out my life for these lengths.
___________________
MY PRAYER:
My prayer is the immediate asked award in these cases, as in the previous paragraph, made real; my prayer is that I will give it to the poor; my prayer is the courts will immediately, sooner than all present calendar, (which court “calendars” I call a malinger of beguile, an exhibit of Satan’s cornerstoned atrocities against my house and soul, which break my spirit by the seconds yearly in extreme anguish and loss)—my prayer is that they will, with Your angry whip of righteousness upon them, sooner than ANY calendar, return my life and possessions, and make the exact recompense; my prayer is that “Judas/Satan” and his courts, cops, prosecutors, judges will become a closed door immediately on these first amendment matters they/he came to infest and parasite upon me with, unmercifully nearly half a decade ago now, not letting me move about or be released from to date, that I may resume my former life, and remember them no more as torturers of me; my prayer is that You will allow, dear Lord, of the full and exact award which they shall pay, for me to give from it 2 million-each, to a 2 certain world-traveled English teachers I met on the web who wrote letters on my behalf during the web-posting indictment-case (before acquittal), which letters I did include as exhibits in my appeal I won shortly later; my prayer, and promise, Lord…is that every penny of the rest, in Your name or whatever, shall go to the poor.
You know that I have never prayed before; but, the broken have nothing to lose.
I know, may You know that I know, that You don’t need the money, for proper definition of You is that You have the world. Well…if there’s anything I can do to repay You for my prayer, dear Lord, let it be but…that I didn’t spend it on myself, that I gave it to the poor—that I never will spend a penny upon myself, and You may heartily set any monitor upon me for every length to ensure this, accounts, statements, ANYTHING—let it be that I gave it to the poor, every single penny.
May I have this “transaction,” this prayer with You, dear Lord? They have been so evil to me…I cannot go on….
I ask this truly, in Your name. Though all I will have owed You, is that I give it to the poor, You can rest assured, I may marvel once more….
__________________
__________________
But then, 1 day after, as follows, I pulled up the 2 Tulsa addresses, (prayer by letters
saint matthew’s churches
P.O. Box 21210 Tulsa OK 74121-9938; and Prayer
Box 3036 Tulsa, OK 74101-3036), and just slammed them to hell with this:
I SENT IN MY PRAYER RUG YESTERDAY AFTERNOON,
JAN. 4, 2008, WITH A 3 PAGE PRAYER REQUEST LETTER:
God must die and get out of the universe for beguiling me, for that same evening a bad storm arose, and god wrecked part of my old fence and gate with it. Is THIS how the shitmouth God answers my prayer?! He knows my health and Satan’s “legal” matters distracting me (C07 0113 SBA and its appeal 07-16966; also, C07 5816 EMC, as I posted in my Jan. 4th pray-rug send in) have massively already brought ruin to the wood in my house…because the distraction forced me to neglect it…all against my will. That shitmouth god DARES go against my will at this point with more of this sample….
I have beaten God through the ages; I have had more patience, because of more denial, and this across time, than he shall ever know.
I’m done “praying” to that shitmouth imp, God. Get him out of the universe, out of my house and temple. If for any reason your organization causes my Jan. 4 prayer to come true, I disown and kill what I said in it. I will, instead, BURN IN A BURN BARREL any awards given by the court, NOT give it to the poor. That shitmouth god is not sufficiently right with anyone here.
Your “god” is a vermin imp-parasite-infest-maker-gypster-pilferer…ad infinitum.
Worship me when I slaughter you, shitmouth God! for good! W’e’ve smelled enough of your imp-kind. Go and die.
You christians worship me when I slaughter you; for good. Get out and die.
________________
Yeah, so much for “god,” and his shitmouth gospel.
I do believe Ewing’s church has certain sincerety; they’ve got pics of very typical church halls filled. But god I will never credit for being more than a dead f*ck, bowed to his grave in front of me.
You know, I saw quite a bit of the “scam” screaming on the net pertaining to the St. Matthew’s Prayer Rug, and what have you, mailing operations.
Not one damn f*cker is digging a little about the many so and so’s among St. Matthew’s testimonies saying “I got $8,000 blah blah.” There are tons of these.
I wouldn’t be surprised if James Eugene Ewing played the offering’s Robin Hood in most or all of these. Nobody has even thought to question or check it before calling him out as a “Ken Lay.”
Shit-merica the fallen, as usual on that one….
What would stop him from evaluating (prayer-request) cases, and rerouting money to people he truly believed were needy? Why..the..damn..hell..haven’t..you..twerps even mentioned this possibility in all this scam screeching? Check it out you STUPID EVIL hasty-accusing sh*t-merican BASTARDS!
We need muzzles for the sh*t-merican government in here! They accuse like Stan (I call ‘im dat).
Yeah, jeth, that’s the most likely explanation: a saint disguised as a huckster. Thanks for straightening us out on that one.
Is it just me, or did Jeth’s two comments contradict each other?
I got my jesus rug last week. I wished for 1 million dollars and rubbed his crotch. Still waiting for my wish to come true. I wonder, do I get three like with Aladin? If so I wish Ewing dead and all other religious zealots, including your president, to a life in a bed of elephant dung and leeches. Jesus is on my shower tile, I wish it was Wayne Gretzky instead. All hail Wayne. Look for your Gretzky prayer rug in the mail from my nonprofit ‘religion’ soon.
I received a paper rug yesterday. I thought it was funny, in a way, just another example of how disgustingly evil some people are to dream up crap like this. Fraud and scam are ubiquitous. The rug is no worse, however, than all the other junk in my mail box, attempts to get me to sign up for credit cards or spend the equity in my home on a trip around the world. America has lost its soul. What do you expect, though, when we have a president who has told 935 documented lies to the public since 9/11 in order to invade a sovereign country, the upshot of which has so far caused the death of at least half a million people and destroyed a country? Ewing lives in a huge house in Beverly Hills and Bush lives in a huge house in Wn DC. There’s not much difference between them.
what about that scam Kars 4 Kids? fuck them. lets all unite against scammers and spammers and kill em all
I just recieved one of these from prayer by letter my just for spite was to send it back to them just as they sent it to me. This month I did the same as I recieved two pennies.. I kept the pennies and sent the same back, next month if I get some I am gonna send them the coupons I don’t want for charity
So i’m from California and i get these letters like all the time. I’m Sorry But God does not want me to put shit in my pants and send money to a RETARDED CHURCH down in hillbilly world OKAY… You could take that Fuckin carpet crap and shove it up Your ASS!!!!!!!!! and make money like the rest of us americans do.
My names are Momodu Michael Onoshioze from Nigeria.Am prayin for a good job, Healing of mind and body,spiritual upliftment on me and my family and also breakthrough in all my heart desires ,Gods protection in Jesus name
Wait! You’ll need Jesus’ bank name and account number . . .
The Jesus in the rug did not open his eyes for me. But a while back The Incredible Winking Jesus did wink at me and my goldfish died so now I don’t know what to think.
dear friend,
believe in god, see yeshu kristhu(jesus christ) in your heart, you can see him in your heart,why should statues and pictures come between us, more over we have been restricted to not pray in front of pictures and statues it is a great Sin.
if my words hurt’s you i am sorry, Your belief will save you my brother,God Bless You
Why people gotta come on here telling us to embrace jesus? this is about a scam and i agree with a poster above jesus was middle eastern and is respected by all but umm why people gotta use jesus to make money? this is just wrong!! and yes im muslim but i aitn gonna tell others how to worship like certain bible beaters do!!
That’s what they believe they have to do according to their invisible sky fairy, Helema. Some of them even seem genuinely concerned. Not all, but some.
LoL or mabey they think a book that was chopped up over the centuries and editted to make it “sound” better is the only one there is? i mean comeon they are knockin on my door and telling me to “embrace the light and the lord jesus” to save my soul….im with the other sister on here im happy where i am and next time i might write a “jesus save me from your followers” or “save me from the scammers” in it then toss several religions pamplets into that envelope and see how they feel getting a bunch of mail with religious stuff in it!! let them read about islam…..
I’m so, glad that we listen to the Holy Spirit today, we have been getting this bunch of trash in my mail box that, that we started praying with my family an we really thought that it’s sound very familier, like Robert Tilton. we had sent him money which it has been in the 80′s, and we never had our prayer ans. But now we know that this monsters that don’t work BUT!! like to take the senior’s money, will come out to light.we don’t understand how this eviel mosters lay thier head on the pillow at night when they go to sleep.we have recieved white cloth with a drawing of a heart,to sleep with it and sent it back as soon as next day so, we can have our blessing’s. we, here we were quick to the draw………found them in the computer, and LoL..we are believers in All Might God, sence’s the 40′s centery.Thank God for this Watchdog.Love from Tex.
[...] their potential donors who'd be more likely to believe it has magic powers, similar to the classic Jesus prayer rug [...]
You can see the pupils of Jesus’s eyes in the printed material. Some poor schmuck is going to see what is on the printed material and think it is a miracle. I have no room in my life for people who take advantage of the stupid via religion.
My great grandmother ate dog food because she sent ALL of her money and social security check to Oral Roberts and Jimmy Swaggert. If you gave her money for food or he heat bill she would send that also to Oral Roberts. She was old and it was her money to do with what she pleased but it was really sad.
I just got mine in the mail too and Jesus didn’t open his eyes for me! I think I’m going to mail it back in the postage paid envelope telling them I’m sorry but my dog pooped on it.
This is the same scam, pictures, wording and the same picture of a lady who won $46,000.00 that circulated back in the 1960′s.
It is a shame what people do in the name of God, Christ or religion to each other.
Between the televangelist today and the on demand preachers promising everything you want if you only give. I can see why there is so much mistrust and none to little belief.
This so called church is a blight on everyone.
Has always been and so it will be. As long as there are people who out of desperation give money to them.
I have heard of people sending the return envelope back, which is postage paid by Matthew’s Church. Firmly wrapped around a brick. I understand the church must pay first class postage for the return. It is postage guaranteed. I look at it as helping to build their new building they need. No fraud intended. Give what you can.
I got it today. I did beleive it! and did what it said all the way up to putting it in the bible. then after that I got on the internet and looked it up. and I took the seed money and a donation request and not something that was requiered like in real church. but one good thing that did happen was I realized I need to get closer to God and go back to church and pray more.
I got up to Dec 7 2006 and finally had to stop. Only bc I had to go and get more lick her. This has been the most hilarious so far, I’m gonna bookmark and come and read the rest. You wouldn’t believe how many times I wanted to hit reply/quote, but there was just so much to read. I got mine today 4/16/12, I’m behind the game, but am going to send the image to mom framed, with the bottom cut off. I also saw in the letter I could pray to be saved.
What I did see is that your original post was spot on. I’m in a low income zip code and the response from the zealots did reveal a true lack of education and use of grammar and spelling. I hope you didn’t ban Rose, as I will have to catch up on this tomorrow. But for now, getting my drink on, bought the beggar at the liquor store some small bottles, as my way of paying it forward. Les, you made my day.
A … A hundred million dollars?!?!
Fascinating history. I just got one of these in the mail today. It’s word-for-word identical; the only thing that has changed are the numbers beside the word “Copyright”. They’re up to six digits now, almost 120000. Each piece of paper has its own number in sequential order, with the exception of the “rug” which was in the low-80000s. On the envelope (with a 6-digit number) is a barcode, with an 10-digit number, and a two-alpha-6-numeric (the 6-numeric appears to be a year/month in the form AA2012MM, but the two alphabetical characters don’t correspond to anything obvious.)
Portions of the 10-digit number corresponds to the string of digits above the snail-mail address that appeared in the window envelope, so presumably the numbers beneath the barcode on the back of the envelope can be used to quickly identify which individuals have fallen for the scam and add them to suckers’ lists. Or target them for harassment.
I’m not part of the target demographic, nor is anyone I know – first time I’ve gotten a hardcopy scam in junk mail in more than a decade – but like lovesclutter up there a couple of days ago, there are large segments of the target demographic (gullible seniors, etc) in my ZIP code.
I believe there is something much larger than us when we pass on, perhaps awakening to a room full of highly intellegent beings that are your friends, all laughing and going “man, I cannot believe some of the stuff you did”…..followed up by…”but at least you were smart enough not to fall for the prayer rug scam!”
Ugh.. I fell prey to this scam, just a few weeks ago.. Sadly I sent them three dollars. That was all I could spare. But if these con-artists are preying on the poor what can they expect to get from them? And how do they know that I am a poor christian? Funny thing is I get scams by e-mail all the time, from people that want to leave me millions of dollars, for various reasons. Am I a brainless victim? I think not. However, I am a compassionate human being.
I just tell em (on line of course) I will pray for you.