Before Sex Scandal, Bishop Long Built an Empire

[WestVirginiaRebel]

AOL News:

(Sept. 24) -- Embattled Bishop Eddie Long is not only the pastor of a megachurch but the leader of a spiritual empire who is unapologetic about his success.

"We're not just a church, we're an international corporation," Long told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution in 2005, as he defended himself against criticism that he had profited too generously from a charity his church created. Between 1997 and 2000, the pastor earned $3 million from the charity, Bishop Eddie Long Ministries Inc., the paper showed.

The North Carolina-born pastor seemed to bristle at the suggestion that he was being overcompensated for his work.

"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," Long told the paper. "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."

Now, the 57-year-old preacher is battling accusations that he used that influence to coerce young men in his church into having sexual relationships with him, something the married pastor and father of four has vehemently denied through surrogates. But as a major evangelical figure who preaches against homosexuality -- and one who has far from avoided the limelight in his meteoric rise -- the pastor will find it hard to escape scrutiny.

When he arrived at New Birth Missionary Baptist Church in 1987, it was home to just a few hundred members, according to its website. Over the past two decades, though, thousands began to flock to the church as the pastor's prominence grew. Long became a popular televangelist with his weekly TV show and authored numerous books about faith and relationships, including one called, "What a Man Wants, What a Woman Needs."

Today, the suburban Atlanta church has more than 25,000 members, making it one of the largest in the country. It boasts a school, a youth fellowship for young men called LongFellows Academy and a list of well-heeled and well-connected congregants from Atlanta's black upper class. And at its center is Long, a flashy and charismatic leader who wears diamonds, lives in a $1 million home and has hosted heads of state such as President Bill Clinton.

Long's lifestyle doesn't resonate with everyone, however. Julian Bond, a former head of the NAACP and a longtime rights activist, said the pastor's gospel is one of financial success.

"He is a prosperity minister," Bond told AOL News today in a phone interview. "He preaches that if you follow his teachings then you will become rich. So it's not as much about salvation as it is about putting cash in your pockets. And he puts cash in his pockets too. He's extravagantly paid."
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And verily, the flock shall be fleeced...