The prayer rug.
The sales pitch.
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.
Got one of these in the mail today....very weird. The “prayer rug” is actually “prayer paper”...not a rug at all. They demand that you send the “rug” back within 24 hours so it can help others.......I guess help others send in money. This scam is just sick. I’m torn as to what to do with the creepy Jesus though....I like everyone’s ideas about sending back heavy stuff.....very clever.
I received one of these dohickies a long time ago and when i told them not to mail me again they sent me three of them!! and then when i tossed the image for it is just wrong to print jesus (peace be upon him) in order to make a profet (yes it was on top of the trash bags i was like 6 months preg and i wasnt gonna shove it under that stinky garbage i had had enough mornin sickness already that day) apparently some of the local do gooders saw this and during the next week i got pamplets of the evils of those that do no tturn to jesus (peace be upon him) for salvation. i eve got an “evilness of the pagans” pamplet that highlighted islam as a pagan religion and said a few bad things bout mormons!! hey dont we worship the same god? and then the following few months i received like 6 of these things!! until i printed out a few laws that alowed me to sue the pants off of them and wrote a nice letter that basically said “i dont need to be saved i am happy where i am at, go bug someone else” on the back of the pratyer rug (bet they loved that)and placed the other 5 packages with various remarks in with it and sent them back!! (i politely told them where they could shove their hypocratic leters) and i never saw another one of those things again!! i would tell yall what i did to some jahovahs witnesses that kept comeing back almost everyday for 2 weeks!! but this is a prayer rug issue (which of course is an insult on muslims to have a face of the prophet jesus 9peace be upon him) on a purple paper rug just so someone can use it to scam people out of their hard earned money!!) i say we all get together and write a well thought out letter asking them for a large amount of money and print it off and then stuff it into those letters or print them off and send them bulk mail to this person!! individually stuffed of course!! see how they like it!
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.