The Televangelist Tier List

[Applause] [Music] [Applause] can we just take a second to appreciate how weird of a choice you just made I mean there are tons of other videos that you could watch right now but you prefer to click on a video that uses gaming terminology to rank the power levels of people that are mainly popular with conservative Christian boomers and I guess I've spent the last several days researching for it and creating it so does that say about me televangelists are incredibly polarizing you either absolutely love them or you actually have the correct opinion of them some of these guys just use religious narratives to take advantage of desperate people and get rich while the rest use religious narratives to get rich and gain political influence you already know these guys are total hacks but do you know how much influence these hacks actually have probably not so I'm here to inform and probably depress you remember a couple of things as we go through the list I've chosen and ranked these guys according to their current activity so that means I won't be listing anyone that used to be a televangelist but has either died or moved on to other things also while the ranking and every tear list I make is subjective I want to stress that point especially strongly this time depending on what traits you think make a televangelist worthy of top-tier you can easily rearrange my list entirely that said I'll be ranking contenders by the following stats reach the number of viewers listeners and readers reached often judged by the popularity and accessibility of content money the level of usable wealth at the person's disposal doctrinal extremism the extent to which the person's rhetoric justifies or encourages the adoption of ideas which infringe upon human rights cause psychological or bodily harm and/or cause extreme political polarization and finally political power the level of influence a person has over the political climate surrounding them as usual I'll cover six contenders with ft R being released powerful and s tier being the most this time we'll actually start in D tier here we have the man the myth the testament to the power of plastic surgery because you're probably shocked to learn that he's actually 56 Joel Osteen boast became the pastor of Lakewood Church in Houston Texas in 1999 after his father the original pastor of Lakewood passed away the church was already large having an attendance of about 5,000 but Joel saw the church become just absolutely massive after a 105 million dollar renovation where five stories were added to an already gigantic basketball stadium Lake Woods grand reopening in 2005 was attended by an estimated 56,000 people now it has a regular attendance of about 43,000 Osteen's Reach is actually the highest on this list his sermons which are broadcasted to over 100 countries received twenty million views or more monthly he's also a massively popular author with his first and second books becoming immediate number ones on the New York Times bestseller list he's been to the White House he's been on daytime talk shows Larry King Live and he's even had Kanye West speak at his church there's a good reason he's probably the most recognizable person on this list his money is fairly moderate I mean he's incredibly rich obviously but he's definitely not the richest televangelist out there his net worth is estimated to be between 40 and 60 million his house alone is estimated at 10.5 million dollars reportedly he doesn't take a salary from his churches seventy million dollar annual budget but instead makes all of his income from book sales Osteen is probably the only person on this list that I wouldn't consider an extremist so that stat is very low he purposely stays away from religious controversy and all but refuses to speak about concepts that could be seen as negative or derogatory toward any group of people for instance when asked Osteen has confirmed that he believes homosexuality to be a sin but he also publicly stated that he won't preach on that point due to his belief that God loves and accepts everyone you could see this as a commitment to positivity and encouragement but you could also easily see this as an effort to only tell people what they want to hear despite his reach his political power is negligible in an effort to stay out of controversy he rarely ever comments on political issues he's a nearly perfect representation of a prosperity gospel only preacher God wants all of his children to thrive in every way as long as they follow him or he says this leads me to his special ability prosperity and positivity this is like I said hyper focusing on positive messages in order to appeal to a wider audience and gain followers it boosts reach but completely hinders doctrinal extremism and severely limits political power with wildly unbalanced stats joel osteen goes indie tear in see tear we have a man from Israel who was born in December and is known to preach the gospel and heal the sick he's not quite Jesus though because this guy realized it would be a good idea to have copious amounts of video literary and physical evidence for his ministry rather than having a bunch of scholars write down word of mouth accounts that they heard about him generations after he lived yet we're talking about Benny Hinn hin founded Orlando Christian Center a Pentecostal Church in Orlando Florida in 1983 a few years later he began claiming to have the ability to perform miraculous healings through God's power and he held his first healing services at his church not long after that him began touring the United States as a preacher and faith healer giving these tours the understated dignified name of miracle Crusades these tours weren't held in small churches but in stadiums and large auditoriums absolutely crushing any reasonable person's faith in humanity at the time out of these events came Hinsdale II talk show called this is your day in addition to doing the normal Christian talk show thing this show aired clips of Hinz miraculous healings since 1990 he's continued to host his talk show and go around on miracle Crusades around the world Hindes Reach is moderate as far as popular televangelist go his talk show is among the more popular Christian programs in the world and his events are well attended in several countries while it isn't reflective of his regular events he did see the attendance of over 7 million people across three faith healing events in India and 2007 his money is also fair at a net worth of 40 to 60 million comparable to Joel Osteen's it's a bit disturbing that Benny Hinn claims to heal people without any medical education or any proof for his methods efficacy while doctors go through a grueling process of schooling and residency have proof that their methods work and yet Benny Hinn is a millionaire and people tend to thank God for healing regardless of who healed them his doctrinal extremism is high due to the fact that he claims that severe medical issues can be completely healed through faith and prayer alone that's the kind of teaching that gets people killed and his ministry is entirely based upon that claim faith healing is just a magic show where those in attendance think the magic is real and would literally bet their lives on while Hinn believes in other ridiculous charismatic Christian ideas his fervent practice of faith healing is enough to earn him a high doctrinal extremism stat lastly his political power is low as he doesn't seem to have many direct political ties actually had trouble finding anything about his political statements or affiliations so if you know something that I don't which could affect his political power stat do let me know in the comments with one major weakness and otherwise moderate stats benny hinn Lanzon see tear on two beats here where we have the only man on earth who could probably pull off Jack Nicholson's Joker look without any makeup Kenneth Copeland I'm not trying to be mean but like when I was researching for this video I let out multiple audible gasps when Kenneth Copeland's face came across my screen it's not just his face either it's his expressions I mean someone should tell him that God wouldn't mind if he just aged gracefully or either that or we just need to tell his family to stop feeding him after midnight Copeland has been a televangelist for decades his show believers voice of victory runs on multiple popular Christian networks across the world historically his ministry has put on six day-long conferences multiple times per year all around the United States now those conferences are less common but the ministry still holds its annual believers convention on the week of July 4th in Fort Worth Texas which is where I live and before you ask no I've never gone because I'm afraid that if I go I might see Kenneth Copeland walking toward me at some point and I feel like that's just exactly the kind of thing that the people in Byrd box saw before they died I'm just I can't I can't do it Copeland's reach is pretty moderate he's very well known in the evangelical community probably drawing as much negative attention as positive at this point he has a fairly popular show has published a few books and has even released a few albums from my research it seems that he was a bit more popular and a lot more well-liked in the his money stat is absurdly high as his net worth is estimated to be around 760 million so he's by far the richest on this list it's hard to tell exactly how he made so much more than other televangelist but there are a few facts about his ministry that do stand out in this regard for decades Copelan has basically sold God's blessings for cash although he's recently apologized for doing so he's told his audience countless times that if they donate to him God will bless them for it many times over basically he said that if you give him your money God will pay you back with interest he also uses a special ability to buff his money stat tax evasion this is using one's non profit entities to acquire assets then giving or selling them to individuals or for-profit entities in order to make personal profit without being taxed Copeland has purchased a six point three million dollar home a twenty million dollar jet and several other multi-million dollar aircraft while paying taxes on none of it since it technically belongs to his ministry he's even been known to use those planes to take his friends and family on vacations to Hawaii and Fiji writing them off as necessary stops for pilot rest on the way to a speaking engagement he has a moderate doctrinal extremism stat Koplin promotes healing through faith although he doesn't tour the world two faiths heal people Gloria Copeland Kenneth's wife has spoken on their ministry show asking the audience if they really want to go to the doctor for their health problems where they'll probably be given poison that makes you sicker when they could instead come to church and hear the Word of God and let faith come into your heart and be healed they've also been known to promote anti vaccination sentiment although when there was a measles outbreak near their Fort Worth headquarters in 2013 they publicly say that they weren't totally against vaccines only that they had concerns about vaccine schedules and additives causing complications like autism in young children those concerns are still obviously pseudo-scientific and ill-informed but I guess they're not a hundred percent anti-vaxxer our stat is low as he only occasionally makes political statements and has few public political ties controversy surrounded Copeland Show in 2007 when he then presidential candidate Mike Huckabee on-air to promote his book and campaign constitutionally tax-exempt religious institutions are not allowed to promote specific politicians but this is America where the separation of church and state is diligently enforced except in the case of Christianity with fairly balanced stats and one special ability which maxes out his money stat Kenneth Copeland makes it to be tear in a tear I actually placed two televangelists the first I'll cover is a man that I've long referred to as my favorite dinosaur Pat Robertson this guy has been hustling in the evangelical scene for like 60 years now he founded the huge Christian Broadcasting Network International Family Entertainment Inc which is now ABC Family a huge network Regent University and several other entities that I'll just put on the screen because they would just take way too long to list this guy knows how to get things done he's also a best-selling author and the host of one of the most recognizable Christian shows ever the 700 club you know I do get confused about the name of that show because I mean Pat Robertson is on there every day but I've never seen them invite another 700 year old on the show before his Reach is obviously huge he's unique and that he doesn't just reach people through his show and books but also through the networks he influences the university he runs and the incessant coverage of his political commentary that he receives from both his supporters and detractors his huge audience of viewers and readers would be enough to earn him a spot on this list but his reach and influence and other domains make him hide here his money stat by net worth is the second highest on this list as it's estimated to be over 200 million Robertson has been a successful businessman for so long that he doesn't even need to dodge taxes like Kenneth Copeland in order to be crazy rich with his fame ownership and sales of multiple networks and incredible book sales it's easy to see where his money comes from for doctrinal extremism his stat is moderate while he takes it relatively easy on faith hilling claims compared to some others on this list he still promotes some pretty wacky and harmful ideas Pat seems to think that everything he doesn't like is caused by other things he doesn't like he doesn't like hurricanes obviously and he doesn't like gay people so he's posited that hurricanes are just God's wrath on America for legalizing gay marriage not like we had hurricanes before that he's blamed terrorism crime and natural disasters on things like liberalism abortions and atheists these ideas ironically though promote bigotry and can motivate hate crimes and political extremism if it were the late 80s or early 90s Robertson's political power stat would be much higher he's always been involved in conservative politics having founded political groups like the Christian Coalition of America in 1989 and the American Center for Law and Justice in 1990 the former being a Christian advocacy and voting group and the latter being a legal organization which fights for Christian privilege I mean protections in the legal system he also ran for president in 1988 as a Republican kind of riding on Ronald Reagan's hyper-religious coattails from all of his political involvement he still has quite a few connections in the GOP even though he isn't as influential as he used to be with moderate to high stats all around Pat Robertson lands in a tier the other televangelist I'm putting an 8 here gives me so much material to make jokes out of that I just don't even know what to say it's Muslim apologist and media mogul zakir naik the guy is almost beyond parody and I say that only because when my friend Vito vids and I tried to parody him in a video I kind of just ended up ruining parts of the video by laughing uncontrollably [Laughter] [Music] [Laughter] Zakir Naik is an Islamic televangelist who founded the Islamic Research Foundation as well as the popular Islamic media network Peace TV honestly everything you should know about him is relevant to his stats Zakir Naik's Reach is pretty incredible he's probably the most popular Islamic televangelist in the world as my ex Muslim friends have told me he's pretty much a household name in a lot of Muslim communities he regularly preaches to packed out auditoriums participates in highly attended debates sells DVDs of those lectures and talks throughout the Muslim world and broadcasts his shows on peace TV to any country that hasn't banned him yet his reach is somewhat hurt by the fact that his preaching is banned in India and Bangladesh and the fact that he isn't allowed entry into the UK or Canada probably the u.s. at some point I know it's coming due to his controversial messages his level of wealth is honestly very difficult to discern for me I was able to find out that he gained residency in Malaysia at one point by depositing over two million dollars in a Malaysian bank I also found an Indian news article saying that the Indian national investigation agency was investigating his 78 different bank accounts and the 14 million dollars worth of real estate which Naik and his business associates owned around Mumbai he's undoubtedly wealthy but my research didn't turn up enough to suggest that he's anywhere near as wealthy as the other guys on this list if you know more than I do about necks wealth do feel free to let me know about that in the comments doctrinal extremism is easily his strongest stat zakir naik is salah fee and for those of you who are unfamiliar with that it's essentially fundamentalist literalist islam as such he preaches that LGBT people and apostates from islam should face capital punishment he's in favor of an Islamic state enforcing literalist Sharia law and has accurately been described as an Islamic supremacists several terrorist attacks have actually been linked back to next followers including the largest attack in Bangladesh's history which killed 29 people in 2016 while it doesn't seem like Mike directly advocates this kind of violence he does support a political ideology that kind of necessitates a violent attempts an Islamic Revolution like this this is why he's banned in several countries including his home country of India from what I understand he's kind of on the run from the law right now he's still preaching but he has recently moved around quite a bit in order to avoid arrest and questioning regarding his connection to the type of violence I mentioned I've classified his political power stat as moderate again I had trouble discerning some of this information as there's so many articles about criminal investigations and terror attacks that all gave me incomplete pictures of his activity and influence he's received high praise from the Salafi community across the world including the government of Saudi Arabia and he obviously has enough ideological influence to motivate some radicals to act this is where his special ability comes in its voicing a movement naik provides an accessible voice for a growing Islamic movement Soloff ISM the movement is already popular so when he talks about it he gains an audience his advocacy for the movement in turn makes it even more popular and a vicious cycle is formed he profits off the movement and the movement then profits off him this ability boost his doctrinal extremism and his political power stats with moderate to strong stats and a special ability which maxes out his doctrinal extremism stat Zakir Naik belongs in a tear finally we're at s tier where my pick for the most powerful televangelist is a man who's known to teach people the true power of Jesus pro-trump propaganda homophobia and nepotism that's right its famed evangelist Billy Graham's son and successor Franklin Graham born into Billy Graham celebrity Empire of evangelism Franklin has been familiar with televangelism his entire life while he served as president of the Christian charity Samaritan's Purse since 1979 his career in evangelism really only seemed to get started in 1989 that's when he began preaching sermons of his own and running events for the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association which controls all of Billy Graham's intellectual property including his countless famous sermons Franklin Graham has been a recognizable name since before he did much to earn any fame on his own merit I mean Billy Graham is probably the most internationally famous evangelist in modern history so being related to him actually gets your reach pretty are on top of that Franklin Graham controls the circulation of his father's and his own sermons on so many networks and radio stations that I won't even try to list them you can just go see them on their website this allows Franklin Graham's reach to extend incredibly far his net worth is estimated to be lower than most of the others on this list at 10 million however through Samaritan's Purse and the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association Franklin directs hundreds of millions of dollars per year he likely has access to more capital than Kenneth Copeland even though much less of that capital is strictly his own when the lesser organization you run Samaritan's Purse as a gross income of over 400 million dollars annually you have a lot of power to throw around monetarily I think this justifies his high money stat even though his net worth is lower like several others on this list his doctrinal extremism stat is moderate because what a surprise he blindly supports even conflicting GOP policy proposals and advocates for gay people to be sent to conversion therapy he could easily be considered Donald Trump's Christian Bulldog as he's had a hand in creating the narrative that Trump is God's anointed leader for America this guy is such a Republican Christian that he says Trump's impeachment was led by demonic forces and he's gone on record praising of all people Vladimir Putin for being anti-gay on top of all of that he supported proposals for basically every military action in the Middle East that the Republican Party has ever put forward his political power stat is what puts him above all others in my mind he has the same connections with world leaders that his father did and if you haven't noticed his message is just as political in nature as it is religious he's not and has never been a politician but he's a de facto adviser to conservative politicians just because of his heritage Franklin Graham needs no special abilities to boost his power in order to be top tier some people are born as tear some people achieve the S tier and some just inherit the S tier from their dad you might have noticed that I was a bit uncharacteristically mocking in this video I typically don't engage in mockery much as I find that it can many cases be extremely detrimental to the furthering of humanistic values the discussion of ideologues with inflated egos followings and bank accounts though is not one of those cases in my mind so please remember to keep your mockery situationally appropriate and whatever you do please don't tell Kenneth Copeland that I live 30 minutes from him because that's a terrifying reality I can't deal with thanks for watching I've been drew of genetically modified skeptic as always go ahead and subscribe check out my patreon follow me on Twitter and Facebook and geom skeptic join my discord and until next time stay skeptical you

Channel: Genetically Modified Skeptic

Views: 329,628

Rating: 4.8126984 out of 5

Keywords: atheism, atheist, agnostic, skeptic, skepticism, genetically modified skeptic, gm skeptic, televangelist, evangelist, televangelism, evangelism, Jerry Falwell, Kenneth Copeland, Creflo Dollar, Pat Robertson, Benny Hinn, Joyce Myer, Zakir Naik, Joel Osteen, Billy Graham, Franklin Graham, Tim Baker, faith healing, prosperity gospel, tier list, most powerful televangelist, richest televangelist, powerful cult tier list, arguments for god's existence tier list

Id: g17LMe8ONtY

Length: 22min 30sec (1350 seconds)

Published: Wed Jan 22 2020

Reddit Comments

[u/broksonic]

Behind all their showmanship is a far right message. Don't be fooled by their parlor tricks. It's not about god it's about gaining power and getting people to join the Conservative political parties.

[u/poggy39]

It’s all about paying for hope. Give them hope and take their money. Or as the Televangelist hope they get their money!!! Win - win!

[u/HippySol]

Pretty well done. Although Id argue the point that Franklin Graham being 'in control of' several hundred million a year for charitable works, doesn't make him manipulatively rich, not if he's following the standards set out by Billy Graham's ministry. Billy Graham was very careful NOT to take advantage of his very well known name and he took a moderate salary all his life, lived in a moderate home and never lived extravagantly. He knew that would bring criticism of his motivation in preaching evangelism so he made sure he was very careful NOT to profit from the ministry he led.

[u/ano414]

I’m kind of upset this wasn’t a real tier list

[u/DangerDetective]

At the five minute mark, he implies that the gospel accounts of Jesus were written generations after Jesus lived. This is incorrect by any metric.

[u/TheCheesy]

I didn't read the title I clicked the play box.