Church That Accepted a Man’s Life Savings Returns it

It’s a start. Getting a foot in the door. If a pastor can bow to pressure here, it can happen elsewhere with other issues.

Just a little bit’ve reinforcement that it was the right thing to do…and what’ll *really* happen to them if they do wrong, instead of fables.

“This is just damage control. I get no sense of any remorse over what they did, just regret that they got caught.” Ah yes, the 11th commandment “Don’t get caught”

OneSTDV Says:I’m sorry but I feel no sympathy for the guy. If you’re dumb enough to give away your money. oh well.

HE IS BRAIN DAMAGED YOU UNFEELING IDIOT!!

IF the post consisted only of the first part (him giving the money) and the last part (Church returning the money) I’d give him credit. However there’s that pesky little middle part, where the pastor went to the care home of this poor (and quite possibly mentally unsound) man and leaned on him to sign a legal document he clearly did not understand. That’s thugish, pure and simple, and it shows that his true intentions are the protection of his reputation, not the care of his people. No credit to that swindling pig.

I have to agree with the readers that see the pastor’s behavior as damage control and nothing more.
The guy deserves no credit whatsoever for doing the right thing. In fact, as he advocates for a belief system with claims to higher moral standards, he should be held to respectively higher standards as well. With his “lawyerly” behavior, I’d say he fell far short of the morals of most drug dealers and pimps. I only regret they don’t imprison people for victimizing the helpless as he did.
Someone needs to keep a close eye on this jerk…

It’s a good development, Hemant, but I can’t give the pastor or this church any credit. They should never have taken the money in the first place–not because they can’t afford it, but because the church is the oldest con game in the world. Allowing people to think that if they don’t give of their resources to the priestly caste they will go to hell is how the clever yet lazy have fed off the rest of society for thousands of years.

I think all of you who wrote emails to him deserve a lot of credit, too, for keeping the pressure on.

Pastor Collingwood made a horrible situation right again and I applaud him for doing that.

I find your last sentence at odds with the one directly before it.

Between emails and media (which he tried to brush off as “unfair”) the son of a bitch had to be shamed into doing what was right.

If he was a child he might get credit because he’s learning a life lesson. But the pastor is a grown damn man, he should know better… especially since he is religious and therefore has copyright on all morality ever ever.

Maybe, just maybe, if he didn’t go further and try to strong arm the guy with legal documents I could see my way to giving him some measure of credit.

You give him credit after pulling that douchebag move? It could be that you’re right, that he “saw the light”. It’s far more probable that he’s still a gigantic douche. A douche who saw the writing on the wall and knew that if he didn’t return the money it was only going to get worse for him.

Sorry Hemant, I think in this case you’ve exceed your quota on friendliness. 😛

99.9% of the credit the pastor earns for doing the right thing is negated by the fact that they tried to coerce Whetu into signing a document to clear the church.

How much do you want to wager that within the next two years, he’s ‘tithed’ away his life savings again? Shame doesn’t keep a conman away from a willing mark for long.

I’ll only be satisfied by what this pastor did when he signs a legal statement that he will no longer accept large “tithe” monies from this poor gentleman.

Not to piss on the rainbow, but who’s to say that once the publicity dies down, this pastor goes back to taking large sums of this man’s money? Or even asking for the money back, in cash so it can’t be “identified”?

Pastor Collingwood needs to either get new reading glasses or go back to elementary school math. Tithing is 10% not 100%. This “church” should have been giving to him, not taking.

Agree completely with both of Gwen’s comments (wth, oneSTDV!) and Matto the Hun’s.

And I’ll go one further than everyone else calling this man of god out for the scumbag he is — better check with the nursing home before believing it.

This sleazoid did rip off a severely disabled man. (And I have to ask, who made this man feel like he had to give the church money to get into heaven? Three guesses and the first two don’t count.)

When the nursing home questioned it and got the church bad publicity by speaking publically of his bamboozling of a brain-injured man, did he red-faced try to do damage control at that point? No, he rushed over to the nursing home and tried to strong arm (and you can betcha there were some hellfire and brimstone threats in that) the man to sign a release form.

When that failed and only when it did and he got pressure from the press, from you Hemant and everyone that e-mailed him (this can’t be the only blog to call him out and I’m sure he must got letters of disgust from the article itself, from all kinds of people not just nonbelievers), he, like a rat deserting a sinking ship, returned the money.

I suspect it was mainly a diversionary tactic to keep the rest of the church books from being looked at too closely. It’s a sure bet that this isn’t the only elderly/disabled he’s taken advantage of and he only didn’t get away with it because of the diligence of the nursing home. How much you wanna bet that what he’s really learned is strong arm the release form up front as soon as you get a large donation, before some vigilant dogooder wises up to it? Let’s just hope the diversion doesn’t work.

Matt, when I saw that pic on the article, my first thought was he looks like the sleazy kind of con man who’s always trying to look for ways to use the law to enable his scamming of the gullible.

I hope to hell if I ever land in a nursing home, it’s one like that!

What I’m concentrating on isn’t so much that the man was, er, fleeced, but that the pastor eventually did the right thing. Sure, it took a lot of prodding, but he did it. And maybe, just maybe, this experience will start him thinking.

[Said Rest home manager Lucy Dever] “He’s got no family or next-of-kin on our list, and they’ve taken everything from him. It is unethical, immoral and I believe un-Christian.

I love that she separated “un-Christian” from unethical and immoral. Because we all know something can be unethical and immoral while still being Christian.

But in general, that’s my viewpoint.

@OneSTDV,

But in general, that’s my viewpoint.

Understood and agreed. There’s way too much social engineering going on in ill-fated attempts to prevent bad things from happening to people and not enough personal responsibility being taken. I get that, but as you can see, this was a clear cut case of a predatory act upon an unknowing and helpless individual.

The church I attended as a kid used to publish a list of all its members and how much they donate as a way to shame people into giving more. They even included the teenagers in the list.

Those that gave more money tended to outwardly show how important they felt they were.

I found out years after I left the town that they were still putting my name on the list with a big 0 next to it.

Anyway, it’s just been my experience that churches do pressure in some way. Even before the list it seemed like everyone always knew what everyone else tithed. I’m assuming some see it as part of the “keeping up appearances” thing.

Also, nothing helps like a good sermon to shame people into giving more. That was how they did it in a different church I attended….just periodic sermons on tithing.

Hemant, congratulations on living up to the “Friendly” part of your cognomen, but I really think that your conclusion gives this pastor a degree of credit that he doesn’t deserve. As others have pointed out, while this outcome is a good one, the sequence of events clearly shows that the returning of the money was motivated by pure self-interest and a desire for damage control.

Consider the following scenario:

“Your honor, I didn’t take any money from that crippled candy store owner! He offered it to me for providing protection … from, uh, neighborhood thugs, yeah!”

“Well, sure, I did come see him after I got out on bail, but only so’s I could coach him on what he should say about me on the witness stand; he ain’t too bright, y’know, and I didn’t want the prosecutor to get him all confused and saying bad things about me, y’know? I was just trying to help him get his story straight.”

“Oh, okay, Your Honor, I’ll tell you what: I’ll give back all the money that he freely gave to me in the first place — that I can find, anyway. Then we can call it square, right? ‘Course, that’ll mean that I won’t be able to protect him no more….”

~David D.G.

It reminds me of when Galileo had to sign a document stating the Catholic church did not try to coerce him into recanting some things he said (this was before he was officially thrown in jail).

Even nowadays people point to that as proof the church didn’t oppress him, the latest example being Armstrong in “The Case for God” where she said Galileo shared half the blame for what happened, and the document he signed was somehow proof that he was free to say what he wanted and shouldn’t have made fun of the pope (which he apparently did once).

You are generous Hemant. I don’t see any recognition of doing the ethical thing, I only see Mr. Collingwood doing something to relieve Mr. Collingwood from pressure.

Well, damn. Now how is Mr. Whetu Abraham supposed to be guaranteed of a place in heaven?

But seriously. I do wonder what this gentleman thinks of getting his money back. It’s possible that he’s been so convinced (brainwashed) of the need to give all he can, and more, that now he’s scared shitless about his eternal future. What this situation needs is someone who can convince the fleeced gentleman and the pastor that the pastor & those well off in the church should provide material and emotional support to Mr. Abraham…free of charge.

Hmmm. A commanding voice from on high would come in handy right about now…

Wow that article, the foodbank turning hungry poor people away if they didn’t give 10% of their gross income? … I am speechless.

Here’s a follow-up I just found in the Kiwi posts:

“Church pastor Bruce Collingwood says the money was given willingly by Mr Abraham “out of his own heart”, and he was comfortable about taking it after he and Mr Abraham had talked about Mr Abraham’s financial and medical situation.

Others, including the church’s national body, are not.”

Based on the implication here that old BC is being “overseen” by a national body & isn’t entirely free to go off on his own hook, makes me think Mr. Abraham really did receive his money back. Let’s see if the “national body” makes meaningful amends for their wayward son’s, BC’s, behavior. In other words, Pony up some cash, boys!

I’m glad you’re so frugal and your church does so many good things, Bruce, but that doesn’t justify taking this man’s money. Nothing you wrote says anything is actually “WRONG” with the story.

‘We may have taken money we shouldn’t have, but we were going to do good things with it (until we got caught and gave it back)’ is just an excuse, a distraction.

Okay, so you didn’t realize (because you don’t keep up with accounting, and didn’t worry about the huge check), and you thought it was okay (because the man with head injuries insisted it was, despite his caretakers’ concerns), and you don’t think the story should’ve been reported (so that you could’ve kept the money to do good things with instead of having to respond to public pressure to return it). At least that’s all more relevant to the story than your first comment was.

It’s too late now, though. The story was reported and the public formed opinions about it. If you’d like to share some belated clarifications now to try to look/feel better and change people’s opinions, go right ahead.

The reality is that this kind of stuff (people donating more than they can afford) undoubtedly happens with tons of people in tons of churches around the world, and everyone involved just tries not to look too hard at it and tries to justify it for the sake of the mission and good intentions. This particular example was just egregious enough to get attention because the person is disabled with head injuries and in a rest home, a significant portion of his donations were identifiable, and his caretakers noticed what was going on and came forward.

Parse: I found the link in the comment on June 23 from ‘disposable’ to be informative as well… the problems appear to involve more than just Whetu: http://www.stuff.co.nz/dominion-post/national/3847032/Pastor-sold-vitamins-to-his-flock
I’ll go ahead and quote it here:

Embattled Napier Elim Church pastor Bruce Collingwood sold packages of a controversial vitamin programme to churchgoers seeking health or spiritual counselling, a former church leadership member says.

His church came under the spotlight this week when it was revealed the church took at least $20,000 in donations from a disabled resthome resident with head injuries.

The church hierarchy has since told Mr Collingwood to repay the donations it can trace through documentation.

But now Mr Collingwood faces more scrutiny, with former friend and church leadership member Rodney Rawiri alleging the pastor signed churchgoers up to buy Mannatech vitamins when they went to him for counselling sessions.

“He would use counselling to get them into the multi-vitamin scheme … from memory, the upfront cost was around $250 … I joined it [the vitamin scheme] as well,” he said.

“I thought it was a conflict of interest and, at that time, about 40 per cent of the church were unemployed.

“I got disillusioned with it as some people had medical problems and they were using a miraculous healing with vitamins.”
Mr Rawiri said the vitamin selling occurred about seven years ago.

Last year, the vitamins’ manufacturer, Mannatech Inc, paid US$6 million (NZ$8.5m) to settle allegations by the Texas attorney-general that it made false claims about the health benefits of its products. Marketing material falsely claimed Mannatech’s supplements, especially its big seller Ambrotose, could cure or treat Down syndrome, cystic fibrosis, cancer and other serious diseases, the attorney-general alleged.

Mr Rawiri said he helped Mr Collingwood set up the Napier branch of the church and boarded with him for about two years.

But after seeing churchgoers being pressured to donate, he began to question the pastor and others about church literature which said “if they [the church followers] did not give money you were in direct rebellion with God”.

“The crux of it came down to when he had a pamphlet handed out that was saying if you didn’t give your money to the church you were robbing God.”

Mr Rawiri said he witnessed solo mothers and unemployment beneficiaries being told they could not get help from the church unless they were donating 10 per cent of their benefit.

“I said, `What you are doing is wrong’, and I went to the leadership team and said: `This is wrong.”‘

Mr Rawiri said he left the church in 2003 because of its focus on getting money from people with little money to give. He now lives in Australia.

He was backed by another former church leader, Andrew Lamont, who said he had witnessed some followers seeking assistance from the church’s foodbank being asked by Mr Collingwood if they had donated 10 per cent of their gross income.

Mr Lamont said he also saw beneficiaries being told that if they had not given 10 per cent of their gross income, they would not get food parcels.

He estimated about half the congregation were signed up for the Mannatech vitamin package.

Mr Lamont said he got into trouble with Mr Collingwood for telling some church members they should not give 10 per cent of their gross income but rather 10 per cent of what they had left after paying for food and other living costs.

Mr Collingwood declined to comment yesterday.

Again the truth was twisted. After the story was all splattered over the news I thought
[ in hindsight unwisely, as it was bound to get misinterpreted ] I would go over and see Whetu who I have known for over 11 years. We have a good relationship so I would have a sit down chat with a friend who I know gave what he gave because he wanted to and we would clear things up….well that backfired coz the nation had already made up their mind i had done wrong….He is a smart man and can make his own decisions contrary to what the media portrayed. He lived independently 4 years ago and we actually encouraged him to go into the home and helped him get there as I and many others in the church got called out to his home many times to pick him up off the floor coz he had fallen and couldnt get back up…On a winter night at 10pm after being on the floor since 2pm he managed to drag himself to the phone and called me. After that we tried to get him in a home so he would be safe…and funnily enough now they had a go at us….and the vitamin thing again twisted. i was involved for a little while in the early days of starting the church. I soon stopped it as i felt it was a conflict of interest and now I know why I did coz it can get all twisted. In the end people will believe what they want to believe. Im human not pefect but I didnt do anything wrong.