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Grifting 101: Fundies and Their Grifted Loot


Bethella

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IIRC, the Jeubs grifted for things for their home.

I also remember a rumor that Jim Bob Duggar went to some HVAC business and tried to get an AC unit or something for free from the business and the owner said no.

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On 4/24/2018 at 1:06 PM, JermajestyDuggar said:

I found it! Zoo is telling her congregation that 1) she’s not going to do shit for you and 2) you should help her and give her stuff. 

http://stevenandersonfamily.blogspot.com/2017/05/15-ways-to-be-blessing-to-your-pastors.html

I don't know much about this woman but, wow. That was an amazingly well handled grift. Very neatly done. My favorite bit was how she herself gets the gravy train rolling by making the first gesture of preparing gift baskets for other pastor's wives. She didn't give them something from her list like prayers or a text. Nope. Gift baskets. 

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To me, the difference between grifting and receiving a nice gift is, like others have said, if you mention how much you want something, and especially if you ask your followers to pray that God will provide it.  John Shrader is a classic example of the latter - he claims up and down that he's never asked people for any money, or any thing, but his posts are stuffed with how he could do so much more of God's work, if only he had X, so please please pray that God will provide it so we can save more souls in Darkest Africa etc etc. 

It is so hilariously transparent, that I can't believe anyone falls for it, but I guess there's some kind of pleasure in thinking God is moving through you to [save the primitives] that over-rides common sense. 

As we've said 1000 times, I would LOVE to see John Shrader go up against Jill Rodrigues in a grift-off.  if I ever win the lottery, maybe I'll set up a competition and invite them to enter...

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6 hours ago, SuperNova said:

I don't know much about this woman but, wow. That was an amazingly well handled grift. Very neatly done. My favorite bit was how she herself gets the gravy train rolling by making the first gesture of preparing gift baskets for other pastor's wives. She didn't give them something from her list like prayers or a text. Nope. Gift baskets. 

You should dive in if you have time. Her blog has been around for over a decade and you can read it like a story from the beginning until the present. She started out so well with only four children and lots of homeschool projects and learning. Now she has ten children and is completely overwhelmed. She does the bare minimum of everything except cooking/baking because she loves it. She starved her #9 child knowing she had a tongue tie she didn’t want to correct nor give bottles. But thought it was cute that the baby got in doll clothing at 4 months old. She handed her newest baby off to her 9 year old the second he was born. She’s a horrible person married to a horrible person. She’s also pushing her 16 year old out the door to make more room in their jam packed house.

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  • 1 month later...

If anyone doesn't know already, Jill Rodrigues has a Go Fund Me up in her daughter Nurie's name, trying to raise $20,000 to replace a car that must have been worth a couple of grand at most, and had been gifted to the family already.

Nurie was driving her sister Kaylee and flipped the car, landing in a ditch or creek.  Nurie looks ok, but Kaylee is sporting an eye patch, and it was pretty obscene how fast Jill got the grifting in motion.  This part of the story starts here:

https://www.freejinger.org/topic/31143-jrod-62-even-jill-probably-vaccinates-jill/?page=17&tab=comments#comment-1595932

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And someone has already given the Rodriguii a replacement car but they still have the GoFundMe up.  Gotta grift while the going is good.

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I love the fact, that even though I am a raging agnostic, I couldn't imagine doing this to people. While I'm not religious at all, I could never pull the Jesus card, especially to someone who is of lesser means than me. I thought the whole Jesus/God thing, was to help those who were less fortunate than yourself, NOT coming to the conclusion, that you are less fortunate, so you need all the help you can get.

As an aside, why don't these asshats "realize", that god is watching their ass? Are they all in a "god can't see me" bubble or what?Barring the fact that most fundies neglect the whole "judge not lest ye be judged" think, do they TRULY think, that god is going to judge them positively, for milking the last dollars from people, that don't need to give that money away?

They aren't Jesus, or God for that matter, and if God is all knowing, as they say he is, then don't they realize, that god, just might be on to their shenanigans? It is one thing, to spread the word of god for free, but I think god "might" have a clue, if a person spreads the word, for a monthly fee of $19.99. Sure they all hide behind their various "churches" and whatnot, but it floors me, that they forget god is all-knowing.

I'm pretty sure god, prefers the free method of testimony, since there is no other benefit, than a spiritual benefit.

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10 hours ago, SnazzyNazzy said:

Sure they all hide behind their various "churches" and whatnot, but it floors me, that they forget god is all-knowing.

And some of them don't actually believe in God and are simply con men and scammers, IMO.  Or they do believe in the "Christian" God, but are devout believers in Prosperity Gospel too.  Their God wouldn't shower all those donations on them if they weren't doing His Divine Will.

I think people like Doug the Tool Phillips belong in the first category.  It becomes increasingly obvious that the Tool never practiced what he preached but he lived high on the hog off donations to Vision Forum Ministries.  I'd put people like Benny Hinn and the Crouches there too.  Also Peter Popoff, who is back selling Miracle Water. Scammers, plain and simple.

The Prosperity Gospel crowd includes people like Joel Osteen, Oral Roberts, Robert Tilton, and the aptly named Creflo Dollar.  God wants Creflo to have his eleventy million dollar plane.  And, yes, they are scammers too, but they *may* genuinely believe in a God but practice a twisted form of Christianity. 

Shrader has often preached pure Prosperity Gospel, although he would vehemently deny it.  Jill R. does too.  I don't think Bro Gary preaches Prosperity Gospel, partly because he hasn't had much to boast about yet, but I haven't followed him very closely.  I believe he has threatened people with hell fire for not donating to him though.

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That’s why we need you @Palimpsest. Come do a analytical breakdown of the teachings of Bro G. Take that project on while the rest of us roll around on the floor. :my_tongue:

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20 hours ago, SnazzyNazzy said:

I love the fact, that even though I am a raging agnostic, I couldn't imagine doing this to people. While I'm not religious at all, I could never pull the Jesus card, especially to someone who is of lesser means than me. I thought the whole Jesus/God thing, was to help those who were less fortunate than yourself, NOT coming to the conclusion, that you are less fortunate, so you need all the help you can get.

As an aside, why don't these asshats "realize", that god is watching their ass? Are they all in a "god can't see me" bubble or what?Barring the fact that most fundies neglect the whole "judge not lest ye be judged" think, do they TRULY think, that god is going to judge them positively, for milking the last dollars from people, that don't need to give that money away?

They aren't Jesus, or God for that matter, and if God is all knowing, as they say he is, then don't they realize, that god, just might be on to their shenanigans? It is one thing, to spread the word of god for free, but I think god "might" have a clue, if a person spreads the word, for a monthly fee of $19.99. Sure they all hide behind their various "churches" and whatnot, but it floors me, that they forget god is all-knowing.

I'm pretty sure god, prefers the free method of testimony, since there is no other benefit, than a spiritual benefit.

I think that it's denial on a grand scale, that they are doing anything wrong.  Or that they are just so special and perfect, that of course they deserve everything the want and everyone's admiration.

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6 minutes ago, Briefly said:

Or that they are just so special and perfect, that of course they deserve everything the want and everyone's admiration.

ding, ding, ding- we have a winner!

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  • 1 month later...
On 6/21/2018 at 7:03 PM, Briefly said:

Or that they are just so special and perfect, that of course they deserve everything the want and everyone's admiration. 

On 6/21/2018 at 7:11 PM, Bethella said:

ding, ding, ding- we have a winner!

ITA on the above.  And I would like to add that these individuals are the type who would think they are special and would want everything no matter what.   They just found being the leader of a church / ministry as the way to accomplish it.

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I wasn’t sure where to post this so I’ll try here. Has anyone heard of Wave church or Wave ministries?  They just bought a pretty big historical building in the middle of my Chicago suburb. They posted a video and god called them out here... I don’t speak fundie because I am not religious at all, can anyone help me understand if this is a fundie type church or just a regular one?

thanks for any insight.

Wave church link

My town link

scroll down to see the Batavia video on 2nd link. The husband and wife describe the church.

Edited by TeaELSee
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21 hours ago, TeaELSee said:

I don’t speak fundie because I am not religious at all, can anyone help me understand if this is a fundie type church or just a regular one?

I'm not familiar with Wave Church (as opposed to W.A.V.E. Ministries who have their very own charismatic Prophetess) but I did a quick bit of Googling.  I speak some Fundie and a bit of cult awareness too.  

Your lot seem to be church planters out of Wave Church of Virginia Beach.  https://wavechurch.com/ 

I'd say Fundie (loosely defined), mega-church aspirations, Pentecostal, hip and cool as hell, really big on youth ministry (AKA preying on young people), and possibly some cult-like aspects. There are also accusations of connections to Hillsong.  MMV on that.

Proceed with caution.  I do not like the look of them. 

They seem great at collecting donations from their flock and apparently the head honcho lives a very luxurious lifestyle.

If you aren't religious you probably aren't at risk, but steer very clear and recommend others do likewise until you do a lot more research.

Honestly, it is like whack-a-mole.  For every Bill Hybels or Mark Driscoll who goes down in disgrace another culty-looking church with possible connections to abuse and malfeasance pops up.  It really is buyer beware.

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2 hours ago, Palimpsest said:

Proceed with caution.  I do not like the look of them. 

Thank you so much for your reply.  The couple in the video skeeved me out and set off inner alarm bells. I’m not worried about myself but I worry about my town becoming a magnet for the super religious.  You can literally throw a baseball and hit 2 churches from their new building.  

The ministers are part of “Ministry Wave”, is that different?

The population is about 26k and according to city data we already have 26 churches with Batavia addresses.

The 26k population is a bit misleading since we are a suburb and other towns blend into ours.

Edited by TeaELSee
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This right here: 

We believe that divine healing, physical, emotional and spiritual, is included in the atonement of Christ (Isa. 53.4, Matt. 8:17, 1 Peter 2:24-25).

Yep.  Bethel/Hillsong nonsense.   I'm into this sort of thing on a "this is why I FJ" level.  These sorts are nuts and dangerous to one's wellbeing,  imo.  Faith healing, tongues, raise the dead, grow out legs ( I can never understand the leg thing, like what, we all have one leg an inch shorter and if a believer offers to help this malady of sorts, all is well? Because Jesus?) and general fuckery.  It's nonsense and only serves those who run such an operation.   I wouldn't want them in my town either.

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JillRod basically got free doggie daycare from a stranger for a few days so they could enjoy the beach. And she repaid the kind rescuer with a lovely photo of the Rod family :5624798e9d94f_No-clue-man-no-clue-shurg:

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  • 7 months later...

I stumbled upon this family on YouTube,  1000 of roots . They are super religious, crunchy, live off the grid etc.. The Dad CREEPS me out the Mom wears a Christian head covering of some sort. I thought they were Jewish at first.

They are really into holistic medicine and a few of their kids have alopecia. They post thank you videos all the time for the gifts they get from YouTube viewers. I find it hypocritical that they shun modern life but gain by using it. 

I apologize if this family has been discussed before, I looked around and didn’t see anything. I just wanted to drag someone else down this rabbit hole with me!

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On 4/27/2018 at 12:26 AM, SuperNova said:

I don't know much about this woman but, wow. That was an amazingly well handled grift. Very neatly done. My favorite bit was how she herself gets the gravy train rolling by making the first gesture of preparing gift baskets for other pastor's wives. She didn't give them something from her list like prayers or a text. Nope. Gift baskets. 

Jeezuz. Reading that again just put everything fluttering around back into one neat package. Zoo is a selfish, horrible, immature, nasty, nasty woman. 

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On 4/13/2019 at 3:18 PM, TeaELSee said:

I stumbled upon this family on YouTube,  1000 of roots . They are super religious, crunchy, live off the grid etc.. The Dad CREEPS me out the Mom wears a Christian head covering of some sort. I thought they were Jewish at first.

They are really into holistic medicine and a few of their kids have alopecia. They post thank you videos all the time for the gifts they get from YouTube viewers. I find it hypocritical that they shun modern life but gain by using it. 

I apologize if this family has been discussed before, I looked around and didn’t see anything. I just wanted to drag someone else down this rabbit hole with me!

We have talked about them on FJ. And you are most definitely not alone in thinking the dad was a creep. That was a common opinion on the thread. 

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  • 3 weeks later...
On 4/13/2019 at 3:18 PM, TeaELSee said:

I stumbled upon this family on YouTube,  1000 of roots . They are super religious, crunchy, live off the grid etc.. The Dad CREEPS me out the Mom wears a Christian head covering of some sort. I thought they were Jewish at first.

They are really into holistic medicine and a few of their kids have alopecia. They post thank you videos all the time for the gifts they get from YouTube viewers. I find it hypocritical that they shun modern life but gain by using it. 

I apologize if this family has been discussed before, I looked around and didn’t see anything. I just wanted to drag someone else down this rabbit hole with me!

Sorry about the delayed response but, if you haven't already found it, the Smyths were discussed on this thread.  

Yes. Kip is rather creepy.

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8 hours ago, Palimpsest said:

Sorry about the delayed response but, if you haven't already found it, the Smyths were discussed on this thread.  

Yes. Kip is rather creepy.

Thanks, I didn’t know their last name. Now I have something to read tonight!

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  • 1 month later...

Gil Bates has also recently grifted a lot of work on that new church.  A group of "christian craftsman" came in for a short period of time and did a butt load of the work.  I don't know if they brought supplies with them or not.  Don't remember.  I'm also sure that several of the weddings, they have been given free photography for promoting. 

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Nobody will, ever beat Jill Rodrigues at grifting, not the amount or the shamelessness when doing it. 

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On 7/7/2019 at 12:56 PM, SilverBeach said:

Nobody will, ever beat Jill Rodrigues at grifting, not the amount or the shamelessness when doing it. 

She's definitely in the top 3.  I still think DPIAT and Shrader are up there in the shamelessness and the $$$ values though. ;)

 

 

 

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