(Evangelical Dark Web) Joel Osteen landed in hot water when the Houston Chronicle broke the story that Lakewood Church had indeed accepted Payroll Payment Protection loans under the Small Business Administration’s allocation for non-profit organizations to benefit from this lockdown relief program, which he previously denied. But Joel Osteen was far from the only pastor and Lakewood Church was far from the only church to have received these forgivable loans. In fact, Lakewood Church’s $4.4 million haul was not even the largest.
Methodology
The Evangelical Dark Web analyzed the data released by the Small Business Administration of all organizations that were approved of loan amounts greater than $150,000. We searched and selected several prominent Evangelical organizations found to have been granted a loan. Catholic Dioceses and mainline denominations are excluded from these findings. It is possible that some of the churches under non-denominational are affiliated organizationally or ideologically with established denominations. The exact loans amounts were not disclosed in the SBA metadata. The selected examples are not exhaustive, but they are meant to contain the largest churches and America’s most influential pastors, particularly those who are in and represent Big Eva, and teachers and churches that readers have requested more research on. These results contain churches, seminaries, faith-based media outlets, and ministries. Blatant heretical movements are labeled but this categorization is not universally applied to organizations theologically aligned to these movements for the brevity of research.
Results
The organizations synonymous with Big Eva such as The Gospel Coalition, 9Marks, and programs under the Cooperative Program of the Southern Baptist Convention all have forgivable loans. Tim Keller’s The Gospel Coalition received up to $1 million while his church, Redeemer Presbyterian Church of New York City, received up to $5 million. Mark Dever’s 9Marks and his church, Capitol Hill Baptist Church, received up to $350,000. The SBC’s Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission, helmed by Russell Moore, received up to $1 million. Five of the six Southern Baptist Seminaries (SBTS being the outlier) received loans ranging from $1 million to $5 million…
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