I spent a few hours watching this guy. if he wasn't a high end audio
guy, he should have been.
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Gene Scott, the American television evangelist who has died aged 75,
offered his followers all the advantages of Christianity with none of
the inconveniences, and thus became immensely rich.

Scott's followers were assured that they did not have to go to church
on Sunday and that such foibles as homosexuality, adultery, abortion,
profanity and drinking were just fine. "I don't ask you to change," he
told his congregation. "I take you as you are." He had little time for
the conventional pieties. "You ever meet Christians?" he asked. "You
wish you could shove a pipe in their mouth. Anything to shut them up."


To qualify as a member of his church, the main requirement was a valid
credit card, Scott's aim apparently being to make it richer than the
Vatican. "A skinflint may get to heaven," he admitted, "but what awaits
him are a rusty old halo, a skinny old cloud, and a robe so worn it
scratches. First-class salvation costs money."


Anyone requiring salvation had to hand over 10 per cent of their
income. This was a bare minimum. "I want 300 people to give $1,000 by
June 30 to humiliate Satan's efforts to destroy us," read a recent
message on his website. "I also want 700 to commit to $10,000 by
Christmas." He once excomminucated the entire congregation for not
giving enough. Those who did not respond to his barked instruction "Get
on the telephone!" were told to "vomit on yourself with your head up in
the air."


His fund-raising efforts were spectacularly successful. Individual
donations from his 15,000-strong congregation at the Los Angeles
University Cathedral (housed in a Spanish baroque-style former cinema),
and from the estimated 50,000 contributors reached through his global
broadcasting empire, were said to average $350 a month. In 1980 Werner
Herzog made Scott the subject of a documentary, God's Angry Man, which
showed the preacher raising several hundred thousand dollars during a
television show lasting half an hour.


Scott's appeal lay in his genius as an entertainer. Buccaneering,
shaggy-haired and bearded under a bandana or flamboyant hat, he was by
turns unpredictable, outrageous, funny and inspired, but always
compelling. Fat cigar in hand, his face contorted with rage, he would
mix scripture with profanity-laden monologues about the state of the
world ("Nuke 'em in the name of Jesus!" he cried during the Gulf War),
punctuated with demands for more money.


No gimmick was neglected. At church services a rock band would belt out
such hymns of praise as "Kill a ****ant for Jesus." His television
shows would sometimes feature "Scott's Bunnies", a bevy of female
followers in thong bikinis. (He felt he could "probably teach Hugh
Hefner a thing or two" about sex.) When he found himself under
investigation by the authorities for alleged fraud, he assembled a band
of wind-up toy monkeys, then proceeded to smash them to pieces on
television with a baseball bat.


Scott enjoyed a lifestyle that included a chauffeured limousine, a
mansion in Pasadena, 24-hour bodyguards, several ranches and a stable
of more than 300 thoroughbred horses. It would be easy to dismiss him
as a charlatan, yet he also spent lavishly on charity. When the Los
Angeles Central Library was damaged by fire, he organised a telethon
that raised $2 million, and there were many other examples of
well-judged philanthropy. In consequence he acquired powerful friends
who were generous with their testimonials.


During show-downs with the authorities, Scott seldom hesitated to drop
a few hefty names to aid his cause. When, during the 1970s, the
California Attorney General's office launched an investigation into
Scott's church (and several others) following allegations of financial
malpractice, the investigation was dropped after the state legislature
passed a law barring prosecution of civil fraud against tax-exempt
religious organisations.


The son of a travelling preacher, Eugene Scott was born on August 14
1929, at Buhl, Idaho. When he was six, his mother gave birth to
premature twins, one of whom died within hours. The following month,
Gene began having convulsions and his mother saw a stairway come down
from heaven: "Two angels walked down and they stopped in front of
Gene," she recalled later. "I said, 'Oh no, Lord, you can't take Gene!'
and they just went around him and picked the baby up." The surviving
twin died but Gene was saved; it was clear that he had been spared for
some purpose. Shortly afterwards, the family moved to Gridley in
northern California where Gene's father took over as pastor of an
Assemblies of God church after the previous incumbent crucified
himself.


Young Gene was an exceptional student. "Do you know you have a genius
for a son?" asked a teacher on his school report. He ended up at
Stanford University, where he took a doctorate on the works of the
protestant theologian Reinhold Niebuhr in 1957. Despite having no
formal training in theology, Scott then taught briefly at a Midwestern
Bible college, helped Oral Roberts to establish his university in
Tulsa, Oklahoma, and joined his father's church, the Assemblies of God
movement, where he soon established himself as a brilliant preacher and
fund-raiser.


But in 1970, Scott renounced his membership of the denomination to
launch his own ministry. Five years later he was invited to take over
the Faith Center Church at Glendale, California, an ailing evangelical
enterprise which boasted four broadcasting stations and a $3.5 million
debt. He agreed on condition the church leaders gave him carte blanche
to do what he wanted. To his surprise, they accepted, and he went on to
build his huge evangelical empire.


Scott had several run-ins with the authorities. In 1983 the Federal
Communications Commission stripped the church of three broadcast
stations after he refused to hand over financial records. Later he
frustrated attempts to scrutinise the church's finances by instructing
contributors to sign pledge slips stating that he could spend the money
however he pleased.


When Scott was diagnosed with cancer, he decided to "give God the first
shot" before resorting to conventional medicine. By the time it became
clear that the Almighty had stayed his hand, it was too late. He died
on February 21, and is survived by his third wife, Melissa.

I just pasted it, I didn't write it. My guess was he was a fundie
preacher first who then went to school.