He Wished Death on Foes : Theologians Fault Prayer by Crouch

Several theologians reacted with expressions of distaste and concern Wednesday to remarks by a Tustin TV broadcaster that he had prayed “for the wrath of God to fall on enemies” of his network.

The Rev. Paul F. Crouch said that he had prayed against people who were “attempting to take the license” of his flagship Christian broadcasting station in Orange County and that “I probably did pray that God would kill anyone or anything that was attempting to destroy the ministry.”

Some Were Upset

This kind of talk proved upsetting to several theologians, although one noted that Crouch’s remarks had a basis in biblical precedent.

“I think this guy Crouch is stepping over the line,” said Joseph Hough, professor of religion and ethics at the School of Theology at Claremont College.

“That sort of notion of the use of religion as a way of demonizing enemies went out with the Inquisition. It’s a throwback to a kind of fanaticism that doesn’t have a place in a free society,” said Hough, a member of the United Church of Christ who also serves as director of Claremont’s Humanities Task Force.

“We’ve moved in our understanding of a pluralist world beyond the point where we can assume that God is on the side of anybody,” he said. “To assume that if someone is your enemy they are God’s enemy is an enormous political move. The arrogance that underlies that kind of assertion undergirds totalitarianism. That’s just dangerous.”

‘Out of Mainstream’

“If Crouch said that, he’s way out of the mainstream, even of the right,” said Martin E. Marty, professor of church history at the University of Chicago. Using such invocations of evil today, he said, “is extremely rare. It’s such a contrary thing to the central Christian norm of love your enemies, it’s just about unheard of. It’s unfair to tar the fundamentalist movement with the brush of Paul Crouch.”

Crouch is founder and president of Trinity Broadcasting Network, a 24-hour Christian programming service that owns 17 full-power television stations in this country and more than 20 others around the world. He is being investigated by the Ethics Committee of the National Religious Broadcasters, a voluntary association, for complaints including allegations that he engaged in unethical business and employment practices.

Crouch has denied the accusations and in a letter to Richard Bott Sr., chairman of the ethics panel, has demanded a hearing at which he can defend himself in person.

The committee has not decided whether to give Crouch a hearing, Bott said this week. He said he had received two complaints against Crouch and TBN--one from a former partner and another from a former employee--along with two letters from Crouch responding to the allegations.

He Could Be Invited

Copies of all the material will now be sent to other members of the Ethics Committee, and the group will then discuss the matter in a telephone conference call, Bott said. If members want to offer Crouch an opportunity to present his case in person, they can. The panel could recommend to the NRB’s executive committee that TBN be expelled from the voluntary organization.

Crouch declined comment Wednesday, referring all inquiries Wednesday to Philip Little, chairman of West Coast Detectives Inc., who works for TBN and sometimes serves as the ministry’s spokesman.

“At this point there has been no response from the committee (on) whether they will or won’t give us a hearing,” Little said. “This whole thing is kind of strange. Who knows what they’re going to do next?”

One charge made to the Ethics Committee by Marvin L. Martin, a former TBN producer, and acknowledged by Crouch in his response, concerned Crouch’s prayers against his foes.

‘Against God’s Anointed’

In his complaint to the NRB’s Ethics Committee, Martin wrote that “at one staff prayer meeting in the TBN chapel, Paul Crouch prayed that God would ‘kill’ a man who had filed for a Federal Communications Commission license to take over TBN’s flagship station (in Orange County). Paul Crouch said that those who opposed him or did anything to hurt the Trinity Broadcasting Ministry were ‘coming against God’s anointed.’ ”

Crouch, in his letter of response to Bott, acknowledged that “I did pray for the wrath of God to fall on enemies of TBN who at the time were attempting to take the license of KTBN-Channel 40. This would have destroyed the entire ministry, which was just beginning to burst forth and grow. . . . I probably did pray that God would kill anyone or anything that was attempting to destroy the ministry. My prayer has not changed today.”

Crouch, the son of an Assemblies of God missionary, attended one of that denomination’s colleges and was ordained by the church. However, he returned his ministerial credential in 1973 when he founded TBN.

Rooted in Precedent

Russell Spittler, professor of New Testament at Fuller Theological Seminary in Pasadena, the largest multidenominational, evangelical seminary in the United States, said that while Crouch’s use of such language was “exceptional” and “unusual” in modern times, it is firmly rooted in biblical precedent. It would be rare for a minister to deliver such “imprecations” from the pulpit these days, said Spittler, who has appeared as a guest on Crouch’s television show.

Such language often arises in the context of “spiritual warfare” and “would most likely be used by ministers put on the defensive by circumstance,” said Spittler, a member of the Assemblies of God and director of the David du Plessis Center for Christian Spirituality. “It’s consistent with (Jimmy) Swaggart and (Jim) Bakker, once they were put in defensive positions,” Spittler said.

But Murray Dempster, professor of social ethics at Southern California College in Costa Mesa, which is affiliated with the Assemblies of God, sharply disagreed with Spittler’s biblical justification, calling Crouch’s prayer “immoral.”

He Doubts Validity

Dempster said that when Crouch used such a prayer “in terms of a business transaction,” he had “serious doubt whether it has any biblical validity at all.”

The formulation, Dempster said, is “part of the whole shift politically to the right in the Pentecostal movement that has been led by Paul Crouch and Jimmy Swaggart.”

George Wood, assistant district superintendent of the Southern California Assemblies of God, said, “We encourage our people to follow the words of the Lord on the Cross and in the Sermon on the Mount,” and to forgive their enemies. In contrast to controversies involving issues of faith and belief, Wood said, “with people, we don’t take an us-against-them attitude.” Still, he said, “in the heat of battle, you get carried away with things.”

According to Walter Martin, director of the Christian Research Institute, an Irvine-based think tank, such language is only justified “if you are a biblical prophet, representing God in the Old Testament context.”

“Crouch has usurped for himself that position, the position of God’s anointed,” said Martin, an evangelical Baptist who is not related to Marvin Martin. “He’s not a biblical prophet.”