"We're not just a church, we're an international corporation. We're not just a bumbling bunch of preachers who can't talk and all we're doing is baptizing babies. I deal with the White House. I deal with Tony Blair. I deal with presidents around this world. I pastor a multimillion-dollar congregation. You've got to put me on a different scale than the little black preacher sitting over there that's supposed to be just getting by because the people are suffering."
--Bishop Eddie Long, New Birth Missionary Church, August 2005.

In 2005, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported that the Bishop Eddie Long Ministries Inc. -- the charity he established in 1995 -- provided him with at least $3.07 million in salary, benefits and the use of property between 1997 and 2000 - nearly as much as it gave to all other recipients combined during those years, tax records show."

It has also been reported that Long was a big time supporter of President George W. Bush's faith-based initiative. In a recent piece at the Huffington Post, columnist Earl Ofari Hutchinson called Long "a leader of the anti-gay pack."

In November 2007, Long became one of the targets of a Senate Finance Committee investigation into charges of misspending and negligent financial accountability.

With the Long story continuing to garner unflattering headlines, both for himself and the charismatic evangelical community, a prominent evangelical author is again warning his brethren that "A sinister spirit of perversion has invaded the ranks of charismatic churches."

In his latest "Fire In My Bones" column, J. Lee Grady, a contributing editor of Charisma Magazine, and the author of several books including 10 Lies the Church Tells Women, pointed out that "Whether the charges are true or not (please pray for Long and his church during this ordeal), it was awkward to hear newscasters suggesting that a married Pentecostal bishop had abused his power and carried on secret gay affairs. What's really sad is that in our sexually desensitized culture people don't even blush when they hear such talk about a minister."

In a spirited defense this past Sunday, Long maintained that he will fight the allegations against him, and that he is "not the man" being portrayed in the lawsuits. According to the blog "Media Outrage," Long took the pulpit on Tuesday night September 28, "and addressed his congregation for the 3rd time since the sexual coercion scandal broke early last week," this time calling the charges against him "spiritual warfare."

Long first drew nationwide attention when on February 7, 2006, his church hosted the funeral service for Coretta Scott King. The service was attended by President George W. Bush, former presidents Bill Clinton, George H.W. Bush, and Jimmy Carter, as well as a host of other political officials, religious leaders and civil rights luminaries.

"At this point" Grady wrote, "it is Bishop Long's word against the four men, and we will soon endure the embarrassment of a civil trial that could be very ugly -and even more shameful if evidence supports the accusations." Grady is concerned that, similar to the sex-abuse scandals that have involved the Catholic Church - including the widespread officially-sanctioned cover-up -- "and numerous recent scandals among Christian leaders, the name of Jesus will be dragged through the mud and Christians will be broad-brushed as hypocrites who preach one thing and do another."

Grady maintained that "A sinister spirit of perversion has invaded the ranks of charismatic churches." He pointed out "a few examples that have been reported to" him by those close "familiar with the situations":

* "The leader of one supposedly Christian ministry encouraged the wives of two men to have adulterous affairs, and then asked the women to provide detailed descriptions of their activities

• "A group of traveling ministers routinely met for weekend getaways that included wife-swapping

• "The male leader of a "prophetic" church on the West Coast seduced several men in his core leadership team. (The church shut down after the sin was exposed.)

• "A pastor learned that members of his staff were having sexual affairs in the sanctuary of his church, and he did nothing to stop the debauchery."

• "A church in the Southeast hosted a marriage seminar in which Christian couples were encouraged to install poles in their bedrooms so wives could engage in pole dancing prior to sex. (Question: Didn't pole dancing originate in strip clubs? Did someone visit a strip club to get this idea?)"

'A charismatic meltdown'

In a 2008 column he called for "a Holy Ghost housecleaning," writing that "Many unbelievers now associate ministers with wife-swapping, wife-beating, no-fault divorce, gay affairs, and $10,000-a-night hotel rooms."

"J.Lee Grady didn't wait for an economic recession [or for that matter another high-profile scandal] to battle the prosperity gospel. He has been fighting it for years, Christianity Today's Sarah Pulliam Bailey pointed out in her introduction to a November interview with Grady.

Grady claimed that there is "a charismatic meltdown," and cited: the case of "Bishop Thomas Weeks III [who] married Christina Glenn in October 2009, just two years after being charged with assaulting then-wife Juanita Bynum in an Atlanta hotel parking lot"; activities at "The Cathedral at Chapel Hill in Atlanta, [where] one of the most celebrated Pentecostal churches in the United States, sold its property in August 2009.... [and] The church's founder, the late Earl Paulk Jr., faced accusations throughout his career of coercing women into having sex and molesting children. In 2007, DNA testing revealed that Paulk had fathered a child with his brother's wife"; and, the Florida megachurch where pastor Paula White "returned to lead Without Walls International Church in July 2009 after she and husband Randy divorced in October 2007. The church faced foreclosure in November 2008 but renegotiated its loan.

Pulliam Bailey pointed out that "The Pentecostal movement is more than a century old and encompasses denominations that encourage speaking in tongues, healing, and prophesying. The broader charismatic movement emerged four decades ago when Christians in non-Pentecostal denominations and congregations began adopting similar emphases."

"Regardless," of the outcome of the lawsuit, "pastors and experts say the Long case demonstrates how vulnerable the country's independent churches still are to being damaged by the misbehavior - sexual, financial or otherwise - of leaders whose considerable influence often comes with temptation and little accountability," the Associated Press' Breen recently reported.

"The more powerful a Christian leader becomes, the fewer restraints that other people can put on them," the Rev. H.B. London Jr., vice president of ministry outreach for Focus on the Family, told AP. "Some of these men and women become so powerful that no one can tell them 'no.'"

With so much money and power at stake, it is difficult to imagine that Grady's "spiritual housekeeping" will be happening anytime in the near future. In the meantime, as sure as the Law & Order franchise will continue in perpetuity ("Law & Order: Los Angeles" debuted on Wednesday, September 29), there will be charismatic preachers raking in the dough from their parishioners, living the high life, and reveling in the sleazy.