And on the next page. . .

So long as we're muddling through the Times this a.m., the first of their two-parter on Paul and Jan Crouch's Trinity Broadcasting Network begins today. Fascinating stuff. Hundreds of years ago when I was single and in the bloom of youth, I went with a girl who was sort of in on the ground floor of the Catholic Charismatic movement. She thought TBN and its "Praise the Lord" programme was just about the last word in up-to-date Gospel preachin'. She got me to watch it a couple of times. So far as I could tell, Irish-Catholic ghetto boy that I was, these folks were not just from another Church but another planet. I couldn't imagine sending these folks money any more than I could imagine sending it to, well, the Prohibition Party.

But as the article points out, a lot of folks did. And now they are, not to put too fine a point upon it, rolling in it. The Times doesn't like this wealth one little bit. And, as it happens, I don't care for it either. Especially not the bit about them soaking it out of the poor in order to finance their own lavish comforts.

But. . .

Isn't the Times confusing fundamentalist Protestantism with the Franciscan Order? I don't recall ever reading that Pentecostalists were inclined toward vows of poverty. Quite the reverse.

And one more thing; one has to wonder if the Times' expose of TBN has as much to do with 30 room mansions in Newport Beach as it does with this.

Just asking.