A senator's high-profile investigation of spending by televangelists wrapped up after more than three years Thursday with no penalties for the pastors who refused to cooperate and no definitive findings of wrongdoing.
The report released by Iowa Sen. Chuck Grassley raises questions about the personal use of church-owned airplanes, luxury homes and credit cards by pastors and their families, and expresses concern about the lack of oversight of finances by boards often packed with the televangelists' relatives and friends.
However, the senator draws no specific conclusions about whether the ministries violated IRS rules that bar excessive compensation for leaders of religious nonprofits.
Grassley, a Republican, began the investigation in November 2007 and released the report at the end of his tenure as the ranking member of the Senate Finance Committee. The senator will remain on the Finance Committee, but will become the ranking member of the Judiciary Committee.
The six televangelists targeted in the investigation preach some form of the prosperity gospel, which teaches that God wants to bless the faithful with earthly riches. Ministers in this tradition often hold up their own wealth as evidence that the teaching works.
Many conservative Christians condemn the prosperity gospel and consider the televangelists an embarrassment. Still, leading evangelical organizations worried that Grassley's inquiry could lead to changes in tax rules for all religious nonprofits, so the groups protested. The flagship magazine of centrist evangelicals, Christianity Today, editorialized in 2008 that the Grassley investigation amounted to an "oversight overstep" that risked delving improperly into theology.
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