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(Hey, just think of all the prayers offered up at take-offs and landings and during bumpy turbulence!) No doubt, airpower has played a significant role in the spread of the gospel. Some of our more seasoned readers may remember that in 1956, three missionaries – including pilot Nathaniel Saint of the Missionary Aviation Fellowship – flew into the jungle of Ecuador to contact the savage Auca Indians with the gospel. They were murdered by the Indians, although later most of the tribe was converted. But since those Spartan days, spreading the gospel by air has become more centered on comfort, glamour and status than efficiency. In the late 20th century, American Christian aviation rose closest to heaven as televangelists and revivalists started junking the semis that toted their tent-revivals and started purchasing satellite time. And with the satellites came the advent of Big Bucks. And lo, in almost metronome-like purity, the Big Bucks led to the purchase of fancier, faster and more expensive jets. From the fall of Icarus to the rise of the dirigible; from the Sopwith Camel to the Space Shuttle, this new breed of televangelist flyboys (and gals) have loosed the surly bonds of earth in their efforts to be faster, sexier, and more prestigious than the competition. Hey – would YOU want to be the only televangelist on the block with a lowly Mooney when all of the rest of the guys have Lear Jets? We didn't think so. As they pass by in perfect formation overhead – each a Charles Lindbergh or Amelia Earhart in their own minds – we salute them, and wonder which ministry will be the first to purchase the new Airbus A380 super jumbo, a 555-passenger double-decker plane with a gym on board. Mind you, we're all about comfort. We don't begrudge the folks up in the first class cabin, sipping their Baileys neat, stretching their Gucci-clad legs out while we rub shoulders with people who have turned perspiration and gastric distress into an art form.
Or something. And maybe it really is necessary. With the great demand for miracle crusades and the need to save the world from evil, having your own personal jet isn't just hip, it's a tax write-off. (Of course, having your initials next to the N number on the tail is way hipper.) Still, when you're hopping from country to country, or from resort to resort, there are no worries about layovers or flight schedules when you own the plane. Creflo Dollar, for instance, has three jets: two Gulfstreams and a Saberliner. With that many spare parts, bring on the turbulence! Of course, Creflo and other televangelists must pay dearly for this luxury. With the high cost of jet fuel and the cost of regular FAA inspections, typical operating cost runs between $2,000 and $3,500 per hour. And some of these beauties cost a couple million or more to buy. Which is cheap when you consider what it would take to bring clean drinking water to Calcutta for a year or something. The question is this: Is there a problem with these VIPs owning their own private corporate jets? The American dream shouldn't exclude these chosen messengers, should it? And remember when Robert Schuller roughed up that flight attendant? Maybe we don't want televangelists flying the public airways anyway. Even has-beens like Bakker, Swaggart and Tilton are back on the air and making enough money to join this exclusive club. They can join Randy and Paula White with their antique Hawker jet (just follow the smoke) or Paul and Jan Crouch with their $20 million Challenger 604 furnished with special flight attendants – coffee, tea or hypocrisy? Down on The Hacienda, or at least that's what he calls his Texas mansion, there's still another jetsetter with a penchant for exotic animals. Mike Murdock's "wisdom faith keys" might simply ignite his jet engines. You gotta be careful with that faith-thinking, Mikey, so as not to unintentionally blast into orbit! Cowboy biker-pilot evangelist Kenneth Copeland owns Kenneth Copeland Airport near Fort Worth, Texas, a mansion, and several personal jets to boot. Just what is the reason many of these televangelists fly into and out of Copeland's airport so regularly? Is it because he's the dude ranch prince of blab-it-and-grab it? Or is it to deliver franchise fees from the corporate chain of Word Faith churches? Incidentally, the daddy of the Word Faith movement, Kenneth Hagin, owned his own private jet too – another Challenger. Since he died last year, I'm sure they've got somebody still flying it. Other Word o' Faith jetsetters include Joyce Meyer, Fred Price, Mark Bishop, Jerry Falwell, Jesse Duplantis, and Franklin Graham, Billy's terminally goofy son. Still another well-heeled aviation heel is Brother Benny Hinn. Now that the Concorde has been retired, there'll be no more of those top-quality trips to Europe. (You may remember that CNN reported in the late 1990s that an impromptu trip on the Concorde by Hinn and two bodyguards from New York to London cost him a cool $27,000.) A puny leased Gulfstream II is having to suffice these days. Dang – times are tough all over. So what's the point? No point, unless you consider that the vast majority of all dollars flowing into televangelism's coffers – the money that pays for these flying palaces – comes from the same small pool of widows and pensioners, signing away their life savings to glib snake-oil salesmen who promise prosperity. Or at least solvency. The money that pays for mansions and silk suits and limos is blood money. It was earned from the honest labor of hard-working men and women. And it is being burned at the rate of $2,500 an hour for the aviation fuel to propel yet another slick pretty boy to yet another spa. Meanwhile, Grandma mails another check to bless the ministry. All is well. So this issue's Air Force blue-coated model Lear Jet Loser of the Bi-Month goes to the Tulsa Airmen, those brave boys (and a few girls) who – just when you think they've exhausted all possible ways for bringing shame to the Body of Christ – come up with one more inventive way to waste "their" millions. Up, up and away, Junior Birdmen – may your landings always equal your take-offs.
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