TBN in the Hot seat

A church watchdog group recommended Tuesday that Jan and Paul Crouch step aside as leaders of Orange County-based Trinity Broadcasting Network while a panel of Christian leaders investigates its finances.

An executive for TBN, the world's largest Christian network, rejected the idea but said he would meet with critics and review audited financial statements and other related documents with them. "We will turn over to them whatever we need to turn over," said Paul Crouch Jr., a network executive.

Wall Watchers, a North Carolina group that monitors the finances of more than 500 Christian nonprofits, proposed the series of reforms in response to recent stories in The Times that detailed the Crouches' luxury lifestyle.

The stories have reported that the network takes in far more money than it spends and provided a $425,000 settlement to a former employee who said he had had a homosexual encounter with Paul Crouch. The televangelist has denied the accuser's claim.

Wall Watchers, a nonprofit organization founded in 1998, provides donors with independent financial analyses of ministries. In addition to ranking ministries for financial stability and openness, Wall Watchers officials warn donors about some Christian nonprofits...

Wall Watchers officials recommended that TBN revamp its board of directors, which consists of Jan and Paul Crouch and his sister, Ruth Brown, to be independent of the Crouch family. The group also proposed that the network stop relying on the "prosperity gospel" - a religious principle that donors will receive financial rewards from God by giving money to TBN - for fundraising...

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Wall Watchers was Founded in 1998. has issued its third Donor Alert for Trinity Broadcasting Network (TBN). Website www.MinistryWatch.com,

Wall Watchers CEO Rusty Leonard explained, "The decision by TBN leadership to revert to stonewalling MinistryWatch.com's attempt to obtain crucial answers to important questions of governance and finances at the ministry just two months after TBN Vice President of Administration Paul Crouch Jr. agreed to answer these questions has caused MinistryWatch.com to again recommend that donors withhold contributions to TBN."

Leonard added, "Additionally, because of thes eriousness of the allegations and governance issues that the Crouches refuse to address, as well as the hundreds of millions of donor dollars involved (TBN has received $643 million in donations over the last five years and has $341 million in cash and near cash investments on hand), MinistryWatch. com also reiterates its call for the establishment of an independent commission of respected Christianleaders to restore TBN to a place of unquestioned integrity in the eyes of donors." http://www.ministrywatch.com/mw2.1/pdf/MWDA_031805_TBN.pdf

Also in question are “$425,000 paid, for agreeing not to publicize Mr. Ford's allegations that he and TBN founder Paul Crouch had a homosexual tryst two years earlier in 1998, a former TBN employee, Enoch Lonnie Ford, while TBN vigorously worked to keep the information regarding the settlement with Mr. Ford private and questions remain regarding the source of those funds.

According to MinistryWatch “On October 8, 2004, a MinistryWatch. com official engaged in a cordial conversation with pledges of cooperation from Mr. Crouch Jr. Soon, however, the dialogue deteriorated, and within about two months, following an un-Biblical pattern it has used in the past with others, TBN threatened to sue MinistryWatch. com. The letter threatening legal action - dated December 9, 2004 - was the last official correspondence from TBN."

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