Robert Tilton
Encyclopedia
Robert Tilton is an American
televangelist who achieved notoriety in the 1980s and early 1990s through his infomercial
-styled religious television program
Success-N-Life, which at its peak in 1991 aired in all 235 American TV markets (daily in the majority of them), brought in nearly $80 million per year, and was described as "the fastest growing television ministry in America." However, within two years after ABC's Primetime Live aired an expose into Tilton's fundraising practices, which started a series of investigations into the ministry, Tilton's program was no longer being broadcast.
Tilton later returned to television via his new version of Success-N-Life airing on BET
and The Word Network.
, and built a small church in Farmers Branch, Texas
, called the "Word Of Faith Family Church" in 1976. The church also started a local television program then known as Daystar (not related to the Daystar Television Network
, though both were started in the Dallas area).
The church was growing steadily, but Daystar failed to expand beyond the Dallas area until Tilton went to Hawaii—his self-described version of Jesus's forty days in the wilderness—and spent time fishing, drinking, and watching an increasingly popular new form of television programming: the late-night infomercial
.
Tilton was particularly influenced by Dave Del Dotto
, a real estate promoter who produced hour-long infomercials showing his glamorous life in Hawaii (which he constantly stressed anyone could achieve just by following the principles set up in his many "get rich quick" books) as well as "interviews" with students who were brought out to his Hawaiian villa for said interviews, specifically for their on-camera testimonials about the success in life they were now enjoying thanks to his teachings. Upon his return from Hawaii in 1981, Tilton, with the help of a US$1.3M loan from Dallas banker Herman Beebe, revamped Daystar into an hour-long "religious infomercial" with the title Success-N-Life.
. Tilton's ministry consisted mainly of impressing upon his viewers the importance of making "vows"—financial commitments to Tilton's ministry. His preferred vow, stressed frequently on his broadcasts, was $1,000. Occasionally, Tilton would claim to have received a word of knowledge
for someone to give a vow of $5,000 or even $10,000. When a person made a vow to Tilton, he preached that God would recognize the vow and reward the donor with vast material riches. The show also ran "testimonials" of viewers who gave to Tilton's ministry and reportedly received miracles in return, a practice that would be used as the basis for a later lawsuit from donors charging Tilton's ministry with fraud. A Dallas Morning News story published in 1992 observed that Tilton spent more than 84% of his show's airtime for fundraising and promotions, a total higher than the 22% for an average commercial television show; other sources put the total fundraising time during episodes of Success-N-Life closer to 68%. Some of Tilton's fundraising letters were written by Gene Ewing, who heads a multimillion-dollar marketing empire writing donation letters for other televangelists like W.V. Grant
and Don Stewart
.
As a result of Tilton's television success, the membership of the Word of Faith Family Church (renamed "Word of Faith Family Church and World Outreach Center") grew to become an 8,000-member megachurch
.
Tilton is the author of several self-help books about financial success, including The Power to Create Wealth, God's Laws of Success, How to Pay Your Bills Supernaturally, and How to be Rich and Have Everything You Ever Wanted. Most of Tilton's books were published in the 1980s and distributed via promotion on Success-N-Life and through the many mailings Tilton's ministry sent his followers. The books were republished in the late 1990s to be used as centerpieces of his 1997 infomercial series and are now promoted on his current daily live internet broadcast.
and ABC News
conducted an investigation of Tilton (as well as two other Dallas-area televangelists, W.V. Grant
and Larry Lea
). The investigation, assisted by Trinity Foundation
president Ole Anthony
and broadcast on ABC's Primetime Live on November 21, 1991, alleged that Tilton's ministry threw away prayer
requests without reading them, keeping only the accompanying money or valuables sent to the ministry by viewers, garnering his ministry an estimated US$80 million a year. Ole Anthony, a Dallas-based minister whose Trinity Foundation
church works with the homeless and the poor on the east side of Dallas, took an interest in Tilton's ministry after some of the people coming to the Trinity Foundation for help told him they had lost all of their money making donations to some of the higher profile televangelists, especially fellow Dallas-area minister Robert Tilton. Curious about the pervasiveness of the problem, the Trinity Foundation got on the mailing lists of several televangelists, including Tilton, and started keeping records of the many types of solicitations they received almost daily from various ministries.
Former Coca-Cola
executive Harry Guetzlaff came to the Trinity Foundation for help and told Anthony that Guetzlaff had been turned away from Tilton's church when he found himself on hard times following a divorce. He had been a longtime high-dollar donor and gave up his last $5,000 as a "vow of faith" just weeks earlier. Guetzlaff's experience, combined with the sheer magnitude of mailings from Tilton's ministry, spurred Anthony, a former intelligence officer in the United States Air Force
and licensed private investigator, to start a full investigation of Tilton's ministry. Guetzlaff joined Anthony in the task of gathering details on Tilton's operation and later did much of the legwork in finding and following the paper trail for the ABC news investigation.
-based marketing firm handling Tilton's mass mailings, to discuss a proposal sent by Anthony to Response Media about fundraising for a religious-based TV talk show. The director of Response Media, Jim Moore, described for Anthony and the hidden cameras (concealed in the undercover Primetime Live producers' glasses and handbags) many techniques used by Tilton to raise funds for his ministry. Moore also said that Tilton was doing "far better than anyone knows" and described the main strategy Tilton employed for such a high return rate on his mailings—that is, send the recipient a "gimmick" that compelled the recipient to mail something back in return, and most recipients would include some money along with it. Moore declined to disclose how much Response Media was paid for its services or how much money the mailings were generating for the Tilton ministry.
However, as part of his sales pitch to Anthony, Moore disclosed that the response letters generated by the fundraising mailings Response Media sends out for its clients were never delivered to the client; instead, they were sent unopened to the client's financial institution or other institutions of choice. "You never have to touch it," Moore added in response to a clarification question from Ole Anthony about dealing with the gimmick objects sent to the potential donors in the mailers. One ABC producers asked whether this was a standard practice—"So the mail goes straight to the bank?"—and Moore asserted that it was: "The mail goes to the bank, and they put the money in your account. We just get the paper with the person's name and how much they gave."
area as well as dumpsters outside the office of Tilton's lawyer, J.C. Joyce (also based in Tulsa). Over the next 30 days, Trinity's "garbologists," as Anthony dubbed them, found tens of thousands of discarded prayer requests, bank statements, computer printouts containing the coding for how Tilton's "personalized" letters were generated, and more, all of which were shown in detail on the Primetime Live documentary, now titled "The Apple of God's Eye." In a followup broadcast on November 28, 1991, Primetime Live host Diane Sawyer
said that the Trinity Foundation and Primetime Live assistants found prayer requests in bank dumpsters on 14 separate occasions in a 30-day period.
Primetime Live's original investigation and subsequent updates included interviews with several former Tilton employees and acquaintances. In the original investigation, one of Tilton's former prayer hotline operators claimed that the ministry cared little for desperate followers who called for prayer, saying that Tilton had a computer installed in July 1989 to make sure the phone operators were off the line by seven minutes. The former employee also revealed that very specific instructions were given to them in terms of how to talk with callers and that they were told to always ask for a $100 "vow" at a minimum. Also in the original report, a former friend of Tilton's from college (who remained anonymous and was shown in silhouette) claimed that both he and Tilton would attend tent revival meetings as a "sport" and would claim to be anointed and healed at the meetings. He added that the two had often discussed the notion that after graduation they would set up their own roving revival ministry "and drive around the country and get rich." In a July 1992 update to the investigation, Primetime Live interviewed Tilton's former maid, who claimed that prayer requests that were sent to Tilton's house by the ministry were routinely ignored until he told her to move them out of the house and into the garage; according to the maid, "they stacked up and stacked up" in Tilton's garage until he had them thrown away. In the same interview, Tilton's former secretary came forward and claimed that Tilton lifted excerpts from "get rich quick" books and used them in his sermons, and that she never saw him perform normal pastoral duties such as visiting with the sick and praying with members.
and the federal government became involved in subsequent investigations, finding more causes for concern about Tilton's financial status with each new revelation. After nearly 10,000 pounds of prayer requests and letters to the Tilton ministry were found in a disposal bin at a Tulsa area recycling firm in February 1992, along with itemized receipts of their delivery from Tilton's main mail-handling service in Tulsa rather than from the church offices in Farmers Branch, Tilton admitted in a deposition given to the Texas Attorney General's office that he often prayed over computerized lists of prayer requests instead of the actual prayer requests themselves, and that prayer requests were in fact routinely thrown away after categorization.
As each revelation became increasingly more damaging, viewership and donations declined dramatically. When Tilton announced the cancellation of Success-N-Life in 1993, viewership had fallen 85% and monthly donations went from $8 million to $2 million. The last episode aired nationally on October 30, 1993.
), that "Mr. Anthony could not be trusted and was obsessed with his crusade against [Tilton].". Tilton once more appealed the decision, this time to the U.S. Supreme Court
in 1996, but the court refused to hear the case.
As part of the defense strategy to the fraud cases, Tilton sued Ole Anthony, Harry Guetzlaff and four plaintiff's lawyers who had filed the fraud cases against him in federal court in Tulsa. The tactic is known to critics as a "SLAPP" (strategic litigation against public participation) suit. Tilton claimed that the individuals conspired to violate his First Amendment rights under a post-Civil War federal statute designed to protect blacks from the Ku Klux Klan. (42 U.S.C. Sec. 1985.) Defense attorneys Martin Merritt of Dallas and ACLU lawyer Michael Linz, also of Dallas, with others successfully won dismissal for the six defendants in federal district court. On appeal, in Tilton v. Richardson, 6 F.3d 683 (10th Cir.1993), the 10th Court of appeals affirmed the dismissal on the grounds that 42 U.S.C. Sec. 1985 did not protect a nonminority individual against a purely private conspiracy, if one existed. The fraud cases continued until the Texas Supreme Court eventually ruled that the plaintiffs could not prove damages because they could not show that, if Tilton had actually prayed over the prayer requests, the prayers would have been answered.
The decline of Success-N-Life also led to the end of Tilton's 25-year marriage to wife Marte, who had been administrative head of the Word of Faith Family Church and World Outreach Center, in 1993. Dallas lawyer Gary Richardson, who represented many of the parties suing Tilton for fraud, attempted to intervene in the Tiltons' divorce, citing the potential for the divorce settlement to be used to hide financial assets that were currently part of the many fraud cases; Richardson's petition to have the divorce action put on hold until after the fraud cases were settled was denied. Marte intervened in Tilton's second divorce from Leigh Valentine, who had asked the court to include the church and all its property as community property in the proceedings. Under Texas law, property accumulated during a marriage is considered community property and thus subject to division between the parties in a divorce. The jury eventually ruled against the request.
" practices usually involving Tilton shouting as loudly as possible at demons supposedly possessing people suffering from pain and illness. However, this program was far less successful than its predecessor, and was cancelled by the end of the year.
in 1996, Tilton returned to the airwaves in 1997 with a new version of Success-N-Life, buying airtime on independent television stations primarily serving inner-city areas. The new version of Success-N-Life returned to Tilton's previous message of asking for "vows of faith" from viewers instead of exorcisms. In 1998, the program began airing on Black Entertainment Television
(BET
) as part of the two-hour late night umbrella rotation block of religious programming entitled BET Inspiration. In 2008, Success-N-Life usually occupied the first hour of the programming block and also ran on The Word Network. Most of the episodes of Success-N-Life shown on BET Inspiration were taped in the late 1990s—with testimonials from 1980s-era episodes interspersed throughout the episodes—but Tilton also recorded infomercials for his books at least once a year from 2003 to 2007, often appearing with his third wife, Maria Rodriguez, and their four French poodles
. These infomercials also appeared under the title of Success-N-Life on BET Inspiration.
The Word of Faith Family Church and World Outreach Center was finally formally dissolved by Tilton in 1996. Though Tilton was still listed as the church's senior pastor, he had not preached at the church since March 16, 1996, when he named Chattanooga, Tennessee
, minister Bob Wright as senior associate pastor, and its membership had declined to less than 300. The church building was purchased by the city of Farmers Branch
in 1999 for use as a future civic center; however, the economy suffered a downturn and the plans were scrapped, and the building was finally demolished in 2003 to make room for a new youth hockey center.
In March 2005, Tilton started a new church in Hallandale, Florida, not far from his home in Miami Beach
. The church had already existed for some time under the pastorship of former televangelist David Epley
. Tilton's new church, now called "Christ the Good Shepherd Worldwide Church," had approximately 200 members in 2007. On Sunday, May 13, 2007, the church moved into a new location in Miami and was officially renamed "Word of Faith Church," much like his original church in Dallas. Tilton also established a church in Las Vegas
, Nevada
, in 2005, also originally named Christ the Good Shepherd Worldwide Church. It has also been officially renamed "Word of Faith Church." The Las Vegas church's resident pastor is Natalie Vafai and holds its services at the Henderson Convention Center.
, where his lawyer J.C. Joyce's offices were located, and set up a post office box
as its mailing address. A woman employed by Mail Services, Inc., a Tulsa-area clearinghouse that handled mail sent to Tilton's ministry, said that when she worked for Mail Services, Inc. in 2001, prayer requests were still routinely thrown away after donations and pledges were removed. However, Tilton dropped the Tulsa address in late 2007 and now uses a Miami Post Office box to receive responses to his fundraising mailings.
In 1998, the Washington Post reported that Tilton's following disappeared after the investigations but he had "joined dozens of other preachers to become fixtures on BET." Consequently, Tilton, along with Don Stewart
and Peter Popoff
received "criticism from those who say that preachers with a long trail of disillusioned followers have no place on a network that holds itself out as a model of entrepreneurship for the black community."
Steve Lumbley, who worked for Tilton's ministry in 1991 when the original Primetime Live investigation took place, told a reporter for the Dallas Observer in 2006 that reports of prayer request disposal that were the centerpiece of the 1991 Primetime Live exposé were highly exaggerated. In an article for the dallasobserver.com blog "Unfair Park," Lumbley asserted that "[t]he mailings all had some kind of gimmick. They weren't godly at all. But the primary allegation that came out of that—that prayer requests were thrown away—was categorically untrue, and I can guarantee you that was not a normal practice." However, Lumbley, who now runs a Christian watchdog website called ApostasyWatch.com, does credit ABC and the Trinity Foundation for exposing Tilton's unethical fundraising tactics, noting that "God was using Ole and ABC to chastise Tilton and bring him down."
The Trinity Foundation still monitors Tilton's television ministry as part of Trinity's ongoing televangelist watchdog efforts. In a 2003 interview published in Tulsa World, Ole Anthony estimated that with none of the Word of Faith Family Church overhead and with television production costs at a fraction of the original Success-N-Life program, Tilton's current ministry was likely grossing more than US$24M per year tax-free.
. Unofficial VHS copies of the video circulated in the United States through the late 1980s under such titles as Heaven Only Knows, The Joyful Noise, and The Farting Preacher. After the hosts of The Mark & Brian Show, a radio program in Los Angeles
, mentioned the video on the air, the video's authors saw the market potential and began selling official copies of their creation. Similar videos have since been made in more recent times using more recent footage of Tilton and are distributed throughout the internet, all under the Farting Preacher name. The video distribution (including digital bootlegs distributed online) expanded public awareness of Robert Tilton and his controversial television ministry.
The stand-up comedy
material of Ron White
also includes mention of Robert Tilton. In the opening to White's act in the first Blue Collar Comedy Tour
movie, Ron claims that "while sitting in a beanbag chair naked eating Cheetos," he finds Tilton on TV and believes Tilton is talking specifically to him: "Are you lonely?" "Yeah." "Have you wasted half your life in bars pursuing sins of the flesh?" "This guy's good..." "Are you sitting in a beanbag chair naked eating Cheetos?" Ron gapes in horror before squeaking, "...Yes sir!" "Do you feel the urge to get up and send me a thousand dollars?" (pause for effect) "Close! I thought he was talking about me there for a second. Apparently, I ain't the only cat on the block (who) digs Cheetos!"
In the early 2000s, the Trinity Foundation
put together a number of news broadcasts, including the initial Primetime Live piece, from the years surrounding the investigations into Tilton's ministry on a DVD entitled The Prophet of Prosperity: Robert Tilton and the Gospel of Greed. The DVD also includes segments from The Daily Show's
"God Stuff" (hosted by Trinity Foundation
member John Bloom, a.k.a. Joe Bob Briggs
), excerpts from the Pastor Gas videos, and a number of mocking music videos, as well as moments from Success-N-Life showing Tilton's more outrageous claims of "visions from God."
A comedian on BET's ComicView
once made fun of Success-N-Life, mainly because BET usually aired it immediately following their explicit music video show Uncut
.
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
televangelist who achieved notoriety in the 1980s and early 1990s through his infomercial
Infomercial
Infomercials are direct response television commercials which generally include a phone number or website. There are long-form infomercials, which are typically between 15 and 30 minutes in length, and short-form infomercials, which are typically 30 seconds to 120 seconds in length. Infomercials...
-styled religious television program
Television program
A television program , also called television show, is a segment of content which is intended to be broadcast on television. It may be a one-time production or part of a periodically recurring series...
Success-N-Life, which at its peak in 1991 aired in all 235 American TV markets (daily in the majority of them), brought in nearly $80 million per year, and was described as "the fastest growing television ministry in America." However, within two years after ABC's Primetime Live aired an expose into Tilton's fundraising practices, which started a series of investigations into the ministry, Tilton's program was no longer being broadcast.
Tilton later returned to television via his new version of Success-N-Life airing on BET
Black Entertainment Television
Black Entertainment Television is an American, Viacom-owned cable network based in Washington, D.C.. Currently viewed in more than 90 million homes worldwide, it is the most prominent television network targeting young Black-American audiences. The network was launched on January 25, 1980, by its...
and The Word Network.
Biography and the early years
According to Tilton's autobiographical materials, he had a conversion experience to Christianity in 1969 and began his ministry in 1974, taking his new family (including wife Martha "Marte" Phillips, whom he married in 1968) on the road to, in his words, "preach this gospel of Jesus." Tilton preached to small congregations and revivals throughout Texas and Oklahoma. Tilton and his family settled in Dallas, TexasDallas, Texas
Dallas is the third-largest city in Texas and the ninth-largest in the United States. The Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex is the largest metropolitan area in the South and fourth-largest metropolitan area in the United States...
, and built a small church in Farmers Branch, Texas
Farmers Branch, Texas
Farmers Branch is a city in Dallas County, Texas, United States. It is both an inner-ring suburb of Dallas and is part of the Dallas–Fort Worth Metroplex. The population was 27,508 at the 2000 census. A July 1, 2008 U.S...
, called the "Word Of Faith Family Church" in 1976. The church also started a local television program then known as Daystar (not related to the Daystar Television Network
Daystar Television Network
The Daystar Television Network is an American evangelical Christian television religious broadcasting network headquartered near Dallas/Fort Worth Metroplex in Bedford, Texas...
, though both were started in the Dallas area).
The church was growing steadily, but Daystar failed to expand beyond the Dallas area until Tilton went to Hawaii—his self-described version of Jesus's forty days in the wilderness—and spent time fishing, drinking, and watching an increasingly popular new form of television programming: the late-night infomercial
Infomercial
Infomercials are direct response television commercials which generally include a phone number or website. There are long-form infomercials, which are typically between 15 and 30 minutes in length, and short-form infomercials, which are typically 30 seconds to 120 seconds in length. Infomercials...
.
Tilton was particularly influenced by Dave Del Dotto
Dave Del Dotto
David “Dave” P. Del Dotto is a former real estate investor who sold a course he called the “Cash Flow System” through infomercials on late night television in the 1980s and early 1990s...
, a real estate promoter who produced hour-long infomercials showing his glamorous life in Hawaii (which he constantly stressed anyone could achieve just by following the principles set up in his many "get rich quick" books) as well as "interviews" with students who were brought out to his Hawaiian villa for said interviews, specifically for their on-camera testimonials about the success in life they were now enjoying thanks to his teachings. Upon his return from Hawaii in 1981, Tilton, with the help of a US$1.3M loan from Dallas banker Herman Beebe, revamped Daystar into an hour-long "religious infomercial" with the title Success-N-Life.
Success-N-Life
In Success-N-Life, Tilton regularly taught that all of life's trials, especially poverty, were a result of sinSin
In religion, sin is the violation or deviation of an eternal divine law or standard. The term sin may also refer to the state of having committed such a violation. Christians believe the moral code of conduct is decreed by God In religion, sin (also called peccancy) is the violation or deviation...
. Tilton's ministry consisted mainly of impressing upon his viewers the importance of making "vows"—financial commitments to Tilton's ministry. His preferred vow, stressed frequently on his broadcasts, was $1,000. Occasionally, Tilton would claim to have received a word of knowledge
Word of Knowledge
In Christianity, the word of knowledge is a spiritual gift listed in 1 Corinthians 12:8. Among Pentecostal and charismatic Christians, it is regarded as a supernatural revelation of knowledge through the power of the Holy Spirit...
for someone to give a vow of $5,000 or even $10,000. When a person made a vow to Tilton, he preached that God would recognize the vow and reward the donor with vast material riches. The show also ran "testimonials" of viewers who gave to Tilton's ministry and reportedly received miracles in return, a practice that would be used as the basis for a later lawsuit from donors charging Tilton's ministry with fraud. A Dallas Morning News story published in 1992 observed that Tilton spent more than 84% of his show's airtime for fundraising and promotions, a total higher than the 22% for an average commercial television show; other sources put the total fundraising time during episodes of Success-N-Life closer to 68%. Some of Tilton's fundraising letters were written by Gene Ewing, who heads a multimillion-dollar marketing empire writing donation letters for other televangelists like W.V. Grant
W.V. Grant
Walter Vinson Grant, Jr., who goes by W. V. Grant, is an American televangelist whose ministry has been based in the Dallas, Texas, area...
and Don Stewart
Don Stewart (preacher)
Don Stewart is a Pentecostal minister and faith healer. He is a televangelist who hosts "Power and Mercy" on Black Entertainment Television, The Word Network, and other television channels...
.
As a result of Tilton's television success, the membership of the Word of Faith Family Church (renamed "Word of Faith Family Church and World Outreach Center") grew to become an 8,000-member megachurch
Megachurch
A megachurch is a church having 2,000 or more in average weekend attendance. The Hartford Institute's database lists more than 1,300 such Protestant churches in the United States. According to that data, approximately 50 churches on the list have attendance ranging from 10,000 to 47,000...
.
Tilton is the author of several self-help books about financial success, including The Power to Create Wealth, God's Laws of Success, How to Pay Your Bills Supernaturally, and How to be Rich and Have Everything You Ever Wanted. Most of Tilton's books were published in the 1980s and distributed via promotion on Success-N-Life and through the many mailings Tilton's ministry sent his followers. The books were republished in the late 1990s to be used as centerpieces of his 1997 infomercial series and are now promoted on his current daily live internet broadcast.
Exploitation of vulnerable people
In 1991, Diane SawyerDiane Sawyer
Lila Diane Sawyer is the current anchor of ABC News' flagship program, ABC World News. Previously, Sawyer had been co-anchor of ABC Newss morning news program, Good Morning America ....
and ABC News
ABC News
ABC News is the news gathering and broadcasting division of American broadcast television network ABC, a subsidiary of The Walt Disney Company...
conducted an investigation of Tilton (as well as two other Dallas-area televangelists, W.V. Grant
W.V. Grant
Walter Vinson Grant, Jr., who goes by W. V. Grant, is an American televangelist whose ministry has been based in the Dallas, Texas, area...
and Larry Lea
Larry Lea
-Early years:He attended and graduated from Dallas Baptist University where he met his first wife, Melva. He completed his graduate work at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Fort Worth. Larry and Melva married in 1972, and together they have 3 children. He became the youth pastor of...
). The investigation, assisted by Trinity Foundation
Trinity Foundation (Dallas)
The Trinity Foundation is a watchdog ministry founded by Ole Anthony in 1972 and based in Dallas, Texas .Trinity has primarily investigated televangelists such as Benny Hinn, Kenneth Copeland, Joyce Meyer, Paula White, Robert Tilton, W.V. Grant, pastor Edwin Barry Young, and the Trinity...
president Ole Anthony
Ole Anthony
Ole Anthony , a native of Minnesota, is the current editor of The Door, a magazine of Christian satire. He was the subject of a lengthy profile in the December 6, 2004, issue of The New Yorker. As head of the Trinity Foundation, he is also involved in investigating the financial activities and...
and broadcast on ABC's Primetime Live on November 21, 1991, alleged that Tilton's ministry threw away prayer
Prayer
Prayer is a form of religious practice that seeks to activate a volitional rapport to a deity through deliberate practice. Prayer may be either individual or communal and take place in public or in private. It may involve the use of words or song. When language is used, prayer may take the form of...
requests without reading them, keeping only the accompanying money or valuables sent to the ministry by viewers, garnering his ministry an estimated US$80 million a year. Ole Anthony, a Dallas-based minister whose Trinity Foundation
Trinity Foundation (Dallas)
The Trinity Foundation is a watchdog ministry founded by Ole Anthony in 1972 and based in Dallas, Texas .Trinity has primarily investigated televangelists such as Benny Hinn, Kenneth Copeland, Joyce Meyer, Paula White, Robert Tilton, W.V. Grant, pastor Edwin Barry Young, and the Trinity...
church works with the homeless and the poor on the east side of Dallas, took an interest in Tilton's ministry after some of the people coming to the Trinity Foundation for help told him they had lost all of their money making donations to some of the higher profile televangelists, especially fellow Dallas-area minister Robert Tilton. Curious about the pervasiveness of the problem, the Trinity Foundation got on the mailing lists of several televangelists, including Tilton, and started keeping records of the many types of solicitations they received almost daily from various ministries.
Former Coca-Cola
Coca-Cola
Coca-Cola is a carbonated soft drink sold in stores, restaurants, and vending machines in more than 200 countries. It is produced by The Coca-Cola Company of Atlanta, Georgia, and is often referred to simply as Coke...
executive Harry Guetzlaff came to the Trinity Foundation for help and told Anthony that Guetzlaff had been turned away from Tilton's church when he found himself on hard times following a divorce. He had been a longtime high-dollar donor and gave up his last $5,000 as a "vow of faith" just weeks earlier. Guetzlaff's experience, combined with the sheer magnitude of mailings from Tilton's ministry, spurred Anthony, a former intelligence officer in the United States Air Force
United States Air Force
The United States Air Force is the aerial warfare service branch of the United States Armed Forces and one of the American uniformed services. Initially part of the United States Army, the USAF was formed as a separate branch of the military on September 18, 1947 under the National Security Act of...
and licensed private investigator, to start a full investigation of Tilton's ministry. Guetzlaff joined Anthony in the task of gathering details on Tilton's operation and later did much of the legwork in finding and following the paper trail for the ABC news investigation.
Undercover investigation
ABC producers, who had began their own investigation into a number of televangelists in early 1991, contacted the Trinity Foundation for information on Tilton. After comparing their accumulated notes, data and details, the two groups decided to pool their efforts and began planning the undercover portion of the story. Anthony agreed to portray himself, a Dallas-based minister with a small church looking into the ways televangelist ministries could grow so quickly, and ABC producers would pose as Anthony's "media consultants." The team, armed with hidden cameras and microphones, arrived for a meeting at Response Media, the TulsaTulsa, Oklahoma
Tulsa is the second-largest city in the state of Oklahoma and 46th-largest city in the United States. With a population of 391,906 as of the 2010 census, it is the principal municipality of the Tulsa Metropolitan Area, a region with 937,478 residents in the MSA and 988,454 in the CSA. Tulsa's...
-based marketing firm handling Tilton's mass mailings, to discuss a proposal sent by Anthony to Response Media about fundraising for a religious-based TV talk show. The director of Response Media, Jim Moore, described for Anthony and the hidden cameras (concealed in the undercover Primetime Live producers' glasses and handbags) many techniques used by Tilton to raise funds for his ministry. Moore also said that Tilton was doing "far better than anyone knows" and described the main strategy Tilton employed for such a high return rate on his mailings—that is, send the recipient a "gimmick" that compelled the recipient to mail something back in return, and most recipients would include some money along with it. Moore declined to disclose how much Response Media was paid for its services or how much money the mailings were generating for the Tilton ministry.
However, as part of his sales pitch to Anthony, Moore disclosed that the response letters generated by the fundraising mailings Response Media sends out for its clients were never delivered to the client; instead, they were sent unopened to the client's financial institution or other institutions of choice. "You never have to touch it," Moore added in response to a clarification question from Ole Anthony about dealing with the gimmick objects sent to the potential donors in the mailers. One ABC producers asked whether this was a standard practice—"So the mail goes straight to the bank?"—and Moore asserted that it was: "The mail goes to the bank, and they put the money in your account. We just get the paper with the person's name and how much they gave."
The Apple of God's Eye
Trinity Foundation members, acting on this information, started digging through dumpsters outside Tilton's many banks in the TulsaTulsa, Oklahoma
Tulsa is the second-largest city in the state of Oklahoma and 46th-largest city in the United States. With a population of 391,906 as of the 2010 census, it is the principal municipality of the Tulsa Metropolitan Area, a region with 937,478 residents in the MSA and 988,454 in the CSA. Tulsa's...
area as well as dumpsters outside the office of Tilton's lawyer, J.C. Joyce (also based in Tulsa). Over the next 30 days, Trinity's "garbologists," as Anthony dubbed them, found tens of thousands of discarded prayer requests, bank statements, computer printouts containing the coding for how Tilton's "personalized" letters were generated, and more, all of which were shown in detail on the Primetime Live documentary, now titled "The Apple of God's Eye." In a followup broadcast on November 28, 1991, Primetime Live host Diane Sawyer
Diane Sawyer
Lila Diane Sawyer is the current anchor of ABC News' flagship program, ABC World News. Previously, Sawyer had been co-anchor of ABC Newss morning news program, Good Morning America ....
said that the Trinity Foundation and Primetime Live assistants found prayer requests in bank dumpsters on 14 separate occasions in a 30-day period.
Denial
Tilton vehemently denied the allegations and took to the airwaves on November 22, 1991, on a special episode of Success-N-Life entitled "Primetime Lies" to air his side of the story. Tilton asserted that the prayer requests found in garbage bags shown on the Primetime Live investigation were stolen from the ministry and placed in the dumpster for a sensational camera shot, and that he prayed over every prayer request received, to the point that he "laid on top of those prayer requests so much that 'the chemicals actually got into my bloodstream, and... I had two small strokes in my brain." Tilton remained defiant on claims regarding his use of donations to his ministry to fund various purchases, asking, "Ain't I allowed to have nothing?" with regards to his ownership of multiple multimillion-dollar estates. Tilton also claimed that he needed plastic surgery to repair capillary damage to his lower eyelids from ink that seeped into his skin from the prayer requests.Further revelations
After Trinity Foundation members spent weeks poring over the details of the documents they and ABC had uncovered, sorting and scrutinizing each prayer request, bank statement, and computer printout dealing with the codes Tilton's banks and legal staff used when categorizing the returned items, Ole Anthony called a press conference in December 1991 to present what he described as Tilton's "Wheel of Fortune," using a large display covered in actual prayer requests, copies of receipts for document disposition, and other damaging information that demonstrated what happened to money and prayer requests that the average viewer of Tilton's television program sent him. When both Tilton and his lawyer J.C. Joyce reacted to the news by claiming that the items Anthony was displaying had somehow been stolen by "an insider," Anthony responded in a subsequent interview that "Joyce was our mole—a lot of this stuff came from the dumpster outside his office."Primetime Live's original investigation and subsequent updates included interviews with several former Tilton employees and acquaintances. In the original investigation, one of Tilton's former prayer hotline operators claimed that the ministry cared little for desperate followers who called for prayer, saying that Tilton had a computer installed in July 1989 to make sure the phone operators were off the line by seven minutes. The former employee also revealed that very specific instructions were given to them in terms of how to talk with callers and that they were told to always ask for a $100 "vow" at a minimum. Also in the original report, a former friend of Tilton's from college (who remained anonymous and was shown in silhouette) claimed that both he and Tilton would attend tent revival meetings as a "sport" and would claim to be anointed and healed at the meetings. He added that the two had often discussed the notion that after graduation they would set up their own roving revival ministry "and drive around the country and get rich." In a July 1992 update to the investigation, Primetime Live interviewed Tilton's former maid, who claimed that prayer requests that were sent to Tilton's house by the ministry were routinely ignored until he told her to move them out of the house and into the garage; according to the maid, "they stacked up and stacked up" in Tilton's garage until he had them thrown away. In the same interview, Tilton's former secretary came forward and claimed that Tilton lifted excerpts from "get rich quick" books and used them in his sermons, and that she never saw him perform normal pastoral duties such as visiting with the sick and praying with members.
Government involvement
Despite Tilton's repeated denials of misconduct, the State of TexasTexas
Texas is the second largest U.S. state by both area and population, and the largest state by area in the contiguous United States.The name, based on the Caddo word "Tejas" meaning "friends" or "allies", was applied by the Spanish to the Caddo themselves and to the region of their settlement in...
and the federal government became involved in subsequent investigations, finding more causes for concern about Tilton's financial status with each new revelation. After nearly 10,000 pounds of prayer requests and letters to the Tilton ministry were found in a disposal bin at a Tulsa area recycling firm in February 1992, along with itemized receipts of their delivery from Tilton's main mail-handling service in Tulsa rather than from the church offices in Farmers Branch, Tilton admitted in a deposition given to the Texas Attorney General's office that he often prayed over computerized lists of prayer requests instead of the actual prayer requests themselves, and that prayer requests were in fact routinely thrown away after categorization.
As each revelation became increasingly more damaging, viewership and donations declined dramatically. When Tilton announced the cancellation of Success-N-Life in 1993, viewership had fallen 85% and monthly donations went from $8 million to $2 million. The last episode aired nationally on October 30, 1993.
Failed libel action
In 1992, Tilton sued ABC for libel because of its investigation and report, but the case was dismissed in 1993. Federal Judge Thomas Brett, in his July 16, 1993, dismissal of the case, stated that information in the Trinity Foundation's logs on prayer requests reportedly found in dumpsters on September 11, 1991, "could not have been found then because the postmark date was after September 11, 1991," but also noted that Ole Anthony had recanted the erroneous entries in a subsequent affidavit. Tilton appealed the decision in 1993; although the findings of the original court were upheld in 1995, Federal Judge Michael Burrage's opinion criticized ABC and the Primetime Live producers for their editing of the story and noted that ABC had been warned by their own religion editor, Peggy Wehmeyer (who knew Ole Anthony from her work as a religion reporter at WFAA-TV in Dallas, TexasDallas, Texas
Dallas is the third-largest city in Texas and the ninth-largest in the United States. The Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex is the largest metropolitan area in the South and fourth-largest metropolitan area in the United States...
), that "Mr. Anthony could not be trusted and was obsessed with his crusade against [Tilton].". Tilton once more appealed the decision, this time to the U.S. Supreme Court
Supreme Court of the United States
The Supreme Court of the United States is the highest court in the United States. It has ultimate appellate jurisdiction over all state and federal courts, and original jurisdiction over a small range of cases...
in 1996, but the court refused to hear the case.
Tilton sued for fraud
Several donors to Tilton's television ministry sued Tilton in 1992-93, charging various forms of fraud. One plaintiff, Vivian Elliott, won $1.5 million in 1994 when it was discovered that a family crisis center for which she had made a donation (and recorded an endorsement testimonial) was never built or even intended to be built. The judgment was later reversed on appeal.As part of the defense strategy to the fraud cases, Tilton sued Ole Anthony, Harry Guetzlaff and four plaintiff's lawyers who had filed the fraud cases against him in federal court in Tulsa. The tactic is known to critics as a "SLAPP" (strategic litigation against public participation) suit. Tilton claimed that the individuals conspired to violate his First Amendment rights under a post-Civil War federal statute designed to protect blacks from the Ku Klux Klan. (42 U.S.C. Sec. 1985.) Defense attorneys Martin Merritt of Dallas and ACLU lawyer Michael Linz, also of Dallas, with others successfully won dismissal for the six defendants in federal district court. On appeal, in Tilton v. Richardson, 6 F.3d 683 (10th Cir.1993), the 10th Court of appeals affirmed the dismissal on the grounds that 42 U.S.C. Sec. 1985 did not protect a nonminority individual against a purely private conspiracy, if one existed. The fraud cases continued until the Texas Supreme Court eventually ruled that the plaintiffs could not prove damages because they could not show that, if Tilton had actually prayed over the prayer requests, the prayers would have been answered.
The decline of Success-N-Life also led to the end of Tilton's 25-year marriage to wife Marte, who had been administrative head of the Word of Faith Family Church and World Outreach Center, in 1993. Dallas lawyer Gary Richardson, who represented many of the parties suing Tilton for fraud, attempted to intervene in the Tiltons' divorce, citing the potential for the divorce settlement to be used to hide financial assets that were currently part of the many fraud cases; Richardson's petition to have the divorce action put on hold until after the fraud cases were settled was denied. Marte intervened in Tilton's second divorce from Leigh Valentine, who had asked the court to include the church and all its property as community property in the proceedings. Under Texas law, property accumulated during a marriage is considered community property and thus subject to division between the parties in a divorce. The jury eventually ruled against the request.
Transitional ministry
Tilton returned to television in 1994 with a new show called Pastor Tilton, a show with an emphasis on "demon blastingExorcism
Exorcism is the religious practice of evicting demons or other spiritual entities from a person or place which they are believed to have possessed...
" practices usually involving Tilton shouting as loudly as possible at demons supposedly possessing people suffering from pain and illness. However, this program was far less successful than its predecessor, and was cancelled by the end of the year.
Reviving Success 'N' Life
After moving to Fort Lauderdale, FloridaFort Lauderdale, Florida
Fort Lauderdale is a city in the U.S. state of Florida, on the Atlantic coast. It is the county seat of Broward County. As of the 2010 census, the city had a population of 165,521. It is a principal city of the South Florida metropolitan area, which was home to 5,564,635 people at the 2010...
in 1996, Tilton returned to the airwaves in 1997 with a new version of Success-N-Life, buying airtime on independent television stations primarily serving inner-city areas. The new version of Success-N-Life returned to Tilton's previous message of asking for "vows of faith" from viewers instead of exorcisms. In 1998, the program began airing on Black Entertainment Television
Black Entertainment Television
Black Entertainment Television is an American, Viacom-owned cable network based in Washington, D.C.. Currently viewed in more than 90 million homes worldwide, it is the most prominent television network targeting young Black-American audiences. The network was launched on January 25, 1980, by its...
(BET
Bet
Bet or BET may refer to:* A wager in gambling* Basic Economics Test * Bet , the second letter in many Semitic alphabets, including Aramaic, Hebrew, Phoenician and Syriac* Brunauer-Emmett-Teller isotherm. See BET_theory...
) as part of the two-hour late night umbrella rotation block of religious programming entitled BET Inspiration. In 2008, Success-N-Life usually occupied the first hour of the programming block and also ran on The Word Network. Most of the episodes of Success-N-Life shown on BET Inspiration were taped in the late 1990s—with testimonials from 1980s-era episodes interspersed throughout the episodes—but Tilton also recorded infomercials for his books at least once a year from 2003 to 2007, often appearing with his third wife, Maria Rodriguez, and their four French poodles
Poodle
The Poodle is a breed of dog. The poodle breed is found officially in toy, miniature, and standard sizes, with many coat colors. Originally bred as a type of water dog, the poodle is highly intelligent and skillful in many dog sports, including agility, obedience, tracking, and even herding...
. These infomercials also appeared under the title of Success-N-Life on BET Inspiration.
The Word of Faith Family Church and World Outreach Center was finally formally dissolved by Tilton in 1996. Though Tilton was still listed as the church's senior pastor, he had not preached at the church since March 16, 1996, when he named Chattanooga, Tennessee
Chattanooga, Tennessee
Chattanooga is the fourth-largest city in the US state of Tennessee , with a population of 169,887. It is the seat of Hamilton County...
, minister Bob Wright as senior associate pastor, and its membership had declined to less than 300. The church building was purchased by the city of Farmers Branch
Farmers Branch, Texas
Farmers Branch is a city in Dallas County, Texas, United States. It is both an inner-ring suburb of Dallas and is part of the Dallas–Fort Worth Metroplex. The population was 27,508 at the 2000 census. A July 1, 2008 U.S...
in 1999 for use as a future civic center; however, the economy suffered a downturn and the plans were scrapped, and the building was finally demolished in 2003 to make room for a new youth hockey center.
In March 2005, Tilton started a new church in Hallandale, Florida, not far from his home in Miami Beach
Miami Beach, Florida
Miami Beach is a coastal resort city in Miami-Dade County, Florida, United States, incorporated on March 26, 1915. The municipality is located on a barrier island between the Atlantic Ocean and Biscayne Bay, the latter which separates the Beach from Miami city proper...
. The church had already existed for some time under the pastorship of former televangelist David Epley
David Epley
David Epley was a minister who broadcast his weekly Christian TV show across the United States in the 1970s and 1980s, after initially gaining recognition through his regular daily broadcasts on more than fifty radio stations. Rev. Epley pastored a church in South Florida for almost forty years...
. Tilton's new church, now called "Christ the Good Shepherd Worldwide Church," had approximately 200 members in 2007. On Sunday, May 13, 2007, the church moved into a new location in Miami and was officially renamed "Word of Faith Church," much like his original church in Dallas. Tilton also established a church in Las Vegas
Las Vegas, Nevada
Las Vegas is the most populous city in the U.S. state of Nevada and is also the county seat of Clark County, Nevada. Las Vegas is an internationally renowned major resort city for gambling, shopping, and fine dining. The city bills itself as The Entertainment Capital of the World, and is famous...
, Nevada
Nevada
Nevada is a state in the western, mountain west, and southwestern regions of the United States. With an area of and a population of about 2.7 million, it is the 7th-largest and 35th-most populous state. Over two-thirds of Nevada's people live in the Las Vegas metropolitan area, which contains its...
, in 2005, also originally named Christ the Good Shepherd Worldwide Church. It has also been officially renamed "Word of Faith Church." The Las Vegas church's resident pastor is Natalie Vafai and holds its services at the Henderson Convention Center.
Current ministry
When Tilton returned to television in 1997, he established his ministry's headquarters in Tulsa, OklahomaTulsa, Oklahoma
Tulsa is the second-largest city in the state of Oklahoma and 46th-largest city in the United States. With a population of 391,906 as of the 2010 census, it is the principal municipality of the Tulsa Metropolitan Area, a region with 937,478 residents in the MSA and 988,454 in the CSA. Tulsa's...
, where his lawyer J.C. Joyce's offices were located, and set up a post office box
Post Office box
A post-office box or Post Office box is a uniquely addressable lockable box located on the premises of a post office station....
as its mailing address. A woman employed by Mail Services, Inc., a Tulsa-area clearinghouse that handled mail sent to Tilton's ministry, said that when she worked for Mail Services, Inc. in 2001, prayer requests were still routinely thrown away after donations and pledges were removed. However, Tilton dropped the Tulsa address in late 2007 and now uses a Miami Post Office box to receive responses to his fundraising mailings.
In 1998, the Washington Post reported that Tilton's following disappeared after the investigations but he had "joined dozens of other preachers to become fixtures on BET." Consequently, Tilton, along with Don Stewart
Don Stewart (preacher)
Don Stewart is a Pentecostal minister and faith healer. He is a televangelist who hosts "Power and Mercy" on Black Entertainment Television, The Word Network, and other television channels...
and Peter Popoff
Peter Popoff
Peter Popoff is a German-born American faith healer and the president of Peter Popoff Ministries. He conducts revival meetings and has a national television program...
received "criticism from those who say that preachers with a long trail of disillusioned followers have no place on a network that holds itself out as a model of entrepreneurship for the black community."
Steve Lumbley, who worked for Tilton's ministry in 1991 when the original Primetime Live investigation took place, told a reporter for the Dallas Observer in 2006 that reports of prayer request disposal that were the centerpiece of the 1991 Primetime Live exposé were highly exaggerated. In an article for the dallasobserver.com blog "Unfair Park," Lumbley asserted that "[t]he mailings all had some kind of gimmick. They weren't godly at all. But the primary allegation that came out of that—that prayer requests were thrown away—was categorically untrue, and I can guarantee you that was not a normal practice." However, Lumbley, who now runs a Christian watchdog website called ApostasyWatch.com, does credit ABC and the Trinity Foundation for exposing Tilton's unethical fundraising tactics, noting that "God was using Ole and ABC to chastise Tilton and bring him down."
The Trinity Foundation still monitors Tilton's television ministry as part of Trinity's ongoing televangelist watchdog efforts. In a 2003 interview published in Tulsa World, Ole Anthony estimated that with none of the Word of Faith Family Church overhead and with television production costs at a fraction of the original Success-N-Life program, Tilton's current ministry was likely grossing more than US$24M per year tax-free.
Satire
In 1985, two men began distributing a video they compiled lampooning Tilton and his ostensible conversations with God. The video exploits Tilton's facial expressions and preaching style. Entitled Pastor Gas, the video featured a medley of footage from Success-N-Life overdubbed with well-timed sound effects of flatulenceFlatulence
Flatulence is the expulsion through the rectum of a mixture of gases that are byproducts of the digestion process of mammals and other animals. The medical term for the mixture of gases is flatus, informally known as a fart, or simply gas...
. Unofficial VHS copies of the video circulated in the United States through the late 1980s under such titles as Heaven Only Knows, The Joyful Noise, and The Farting Preacher. After the hosts of The Mark & Brian Show, a radio program in Los Angeles
Los Ángeles
Los Ángeles is the capital of the province of Biobío, in the commune of the same name, in Region VIII , in the center-south of Chile. It is located between the Laja and Biobío rivers. The population is 123,445 inhabitants...
, mentioned the video on the air, the video's authors saw the market potential and began selling official copies of their creation. Similar videos have since been made in more recent times using more recent footage of Tilton and are distributed throughout the internet, all under the Farting Preacher name. The video distribution (including digital bootlegs distributed online) expanded public awareness of Robert Tilton and his controversial television ministry.
The stand-up comedy
Stand-up comedy
Stand-up comedy is a comedic art form. Usually, a comedian performs in front of a live audience, speaking directly to them. Their performances are sometimes filmed for later release via DVD, the internet, and television...
material of Ron White
Ron White
Ronald "Ron" White is an American stand up comedian and satirist who has had two Grammy Award-nominations, and is RIAA certified 10x Platinum for CD and DVD sales of over 10 million units...
also includes mention of Robert Tilton. In the opening to White's act in the first Blue Collar Comedy Tour
Blue Collar Comedy Tour
The Blue Collar Comedy Tour was a comedy troupe featuring Jeff Foxworthy with three of his comedian friends, Bill Engvall, Ron White, and Larry the Cable Guy, who had replaced fellow comedian Craig Hawksley, who performed in the first twenty shows on the tour...
movie, Ron claims that "while sitting in a beanbag chair naked eating Cheetos," he finds Tilton on TV and believes Tilton is talking specifically to him: "Are you lonely?" "Yeah." "Have you wasted half your life in bars pursuing sins of the flesh?" "This guy's good..." "Are you sitting in a beanbag chair naked eating Cheetos?" Ron gapes in horror before squeaking, "...Yes sir!" "Do you feel the urge to get up and send me a thousand dollars?" (pause for effect) "Close! I thought he was talking about me there for a second. Apparently, I ain't the only cat on the block (who) digs Cheetos!"
In the early 2000s, the Trinity Foundation
Trinity Foundation (Dallas)
The Trinity Foundation is a watchdog ministry founded by Ole Anthony in 1972 and based in Dallas, Texas .Trinity has primarily investigated televangelists such as Benny Hinn, Kenneth Copeland, Joyce Meyer, Paula White, Robert Tilton, W.V. Grant, pastor Edwin Barry Young, and the Trinity...
put together a number of news broadcasts, including the initial Primetime Live piece, from the years surrounding the investigations into Tilton's ministry on a DVD entitled The Prophet of Prosperity: Robert Tilton and the Gospel of Greed. The DVD also includes segments from The Daily Show's
The Daily Show
The Daily Show , is an American late night satirical television program airing each Monday through Thursday on Comedy Central. The half-hour long show premiered on July 21, 1996, and was hosted by Craig Kilborn until December 1998...
"God Stuff" (hosted by Trinity Foundation
Trinity Foundation (Dallas)
The Trinity Foundation is a watchdog ministry founded by Ole Anthony in 1972 and based in Dallas, Texas .Trinity has primarily investigated televangelists such as Benny Hinn, Kenneth Copeland, Joyce Meyer, Paula White, Robert Tilton, W.V. Grant, pastor Edwin Barry Young, and the Trinity...
member John Bloom, a.k.a. Joe Bob Briggs
Joe Bob Briggs
John Irving Bloom , who uses the pseudonym Joe Bob Briggs, is a syndicated American film critic, writer and comic performer.-Early years:...
), excerpts from the Pastor Gas videos, and a number of mocking music videos, as well as moments from Success-N-Life showing Tilton's more outrageous claims of "visions from God."
A comedian on BET's ComicView
ComicView
ComicView was an American stand-up comedy show that aired on BET on Tuesdays and Fridays from September 1992 to December 2008. The show has been the launching pad for such comedians as Dante, D.L. Hughley, Cedric the Entertainer, Sommore, and Rodney Perry....
once made fun of Success-N-Life, mainly because BET usually aired it immediately following their explicit music video show Uncut
BET: Uncut
BET: Uncut was a television program that aired on BET. The music video program contained highly sexualized imagery. Because of its content, the show was rated TV-MA and accompanied by an on-air message stating that it is not suitable for children under the age of 17. The show aired on Wednesdays...
.
External links
- Robert Tilton's official ministry website
- CRI Journal Article, includes section on Robert Tilton
- Success-N-Life Episode Guide
- Tilton wins a victory in divorce court
Articles
- Rowe, Sean. "Second Coming" - Dallas Observer, November 6, 1997
- Rowe, Sean. "The Resurrection of Robert Tilton." Miami New Times January 1, 1998.
- Branstetter, Ziva. "Robert Tilton: From downfall to windfall: Living on a prayer." Tulsa WorldTulsa WorldTulsa World is the daily newspaper for the city of Tulsa, Oklahoma, is the primary newspaper for the northeastern and eastern portions of Oklahoma, and is the second-most widely circulated newspaper in the state, after The Oklahoman. It was founded in 1905 and remains an independent newspaper,...
May 4, 2003. - Bender, Stephen. "Oh God, you devil." Salon.comSalon.comSalon.com, part of Salon Media Group , often just called Salon, is an online liberal magazine, with content updated each weekday. Salon was founded by David Talbot and launched on November 20, 1995. It was the internet's first online-only commercial publication. The magazine focuses on U.S...
November 21, 2000.