Salaries and Sanctification
By Don Wilkey, Pastor, First Baptist Church
Onaluska, TX
Using the analogy of baseball, I note with interest the salary difference between a weak hitter and a high dollar free agent. Great hitters hit in the range from an average of .290 to .300 and up. They bring many bidders for their services when their contracts expire. The weaker hitters hit around .240 to .250. I realize that the batting average is not the only credential used in judging baseball players, however the numbers speak for themselves. Hitters with the larger averages are now able to merit multi-year contracts guaranteeing them millions of dollars a year. Below average hitters usually make around $500,000 a year. Thus this difference between the pay scale of baseball players is that “better” hitters make about eight to ten times as much as the weaker hitters.
To put the numbers in perspective, this means a hitter who makes ten times what the weaker player makes is actually getting around 5% more hits per year than his competition. That is what the numbers seem to say. The same is true of pitchers who have multi-million dollar contract, but have won only a few more games than lesser paid hurlers.
To make a secular comparison, think of a backhoe operator. If his fellow employee, who was a better operator at the end of the week, dug a ditch only 5% further than his efforts and was rewarded with ten times the salary, there would be a discussion with the company over this issue. If a roofer was able to perform at the rate of laying 4% more shingles a week than his fellow laborer and received ten times the compensation, there would be an interesting meeting taking place with the financial secretary.
To continue the baseball analogy, I have a church member whose grandson plays Triple-A baseball, occasionally getting moved up to the “big show”. I was surprised to learn how low was his minor-league pay—not even $30,000 a season. We now live in a culture that justifies huge salaries that continue to grow for high-level performance, yet offers much less to employees who are not far below that production. We tend to believe that those who are able to achieve exorbitant salaries are deserving of such reward, and the surplus will somehow “trickle down” to the rest of us.
In 2004 the average salary for top CEOs was $11.8 million, 431 times that of the average worker. In 1980 it was 42 times more. In 2004 top executives got an average raise of 15%, while workers got 2.9%. The president of Morgan Stanley quit after five weeks making $32 million, which amounts to over $26,000 an hour, if he worked eighty work weeks. The CEOs of the struggling auto industry received increases up to 72% in a recent year.1
Bernie Ebbers, whom I knew personally, “earned” $475 million for his term as leader of his company. Ken Lay got only $325 million for his services. Both Ebbers and Lay were charged for fraud—Ebbers was convicted and Lay died before his day in court. The new CEO of Crispy Kreme Donuts cut a deal to earn $760 an hour to keep him interested in the job.2 The nation’s top 400 tax payers reported an income of nearly $70 billion in 2003. The accumulation of wealth in the U. S. seems to be solely in possession of those at the top of the pyramid, and not trickling down to the lower tiers of society.3
Not only have incomes increased, tax breaks have also been an added blessing to the more fortunate. Enron paid no income taxes for four of five years, finding tax havens in distant places. It was also eligible for $382 million in tax refunds from the Treasury Department.4 States like Alabama have defeated proposals to more equally share the tax burden, because a higher percent of income from the poor is going for taxes in that state.
Meanwhile, the top CEOs earn 1,000 times the salary of an average worker. Over the past 20 years, the income of the top 1% rose 157%.5 “From 1979 to 2001, the after-tax income of the top 1% of the U. S. households soared 139% while the income of the middle fifth rose only 17% and the income of the poorest fifth rose only 9%. Last year American CEOs earned 262 times the average wage of the worker—up tenfold from 1970.”6
Corporate welfare makes so-called welfare Cadillac queens insignificant by comparison. Archer Daniels of Midland, Texas received a $3.2 billion grant to help one year, while ship owners are offered outdated subsidies to the tune of $1.3 billion. Food companies like McDonalds, Tysons, and Pillsbury have received millions to advertise their products around the globe; all at tax payer expense to the tune of $6.2 billion a year. One estimate claimed that in a five year period, corporate welfare cost the nation $338 billion.7
Jobs have continued to be farmed out to third-world bidders. Immigration problems in the nation have caused union leaders to decry the cheap labor that has flooded the marketplace, much of it illegal. Toy companies, like Mattel, spend 30 times more on advertising than they do to pay workers in China to make their product.8 One of the most alarming comparisons is the price of goods produced in El Salvador in comparison to what corporations charge U. S. consumers. A Nike hockey jersey, that retails in the U. S. for $140, cost a mere 29 cents to produce. Meanwhile the head of Nike has amassed a personal fortune of over $5 billion.9
According to the Madison Capital Times, Wal-Mart packs its stores with Chinese-made goods and sells them at cut-rate prices to run mainstream stores out of business, a practice that has caused many cities in the nation to zone Wal-Mart out of the community. The Wal-Mart chain has the practice of hiring a large number of local employees and, by over-hiring part-time help, does not have to pay full-time benefits. According to a University of California Berkley study, Wal-Mart employees cost California tax payers over $86 million a year in public relief programs for their employees without benefits.10
Editor Frosty Troy claims that 82 of the top 275 companies paid no federal income taxes from 2001-2003. Not only did these organizations get tax breaks, they were due rebate checks from the U. S. Treasury of over $12.6 billion.11 Profit margins for Exxon were the largest ever by a corporation recorded in history. Of worthy note is the fact that the federal government still gives grants to Exxon to do business. It appears modern politicians are much more interested in going after families who are ripping-off the local state welfare coffers, than adjusting the tax-breaks of these corporations.
Where did all this inequity come from? How did we reach the point where we believe that the chosen few were much more deserving than the ones who labored below them?
In the Old Testament the economic life of the nation was based on religious principles revealed in Scripture and proclaimed by Israel’s religious leaders. When I was younger, I remember the disclosure of the enormous wealth of Oral Roberts and his family. It was a public scandal. Such vast fortunes no longer raise concern, even in the Christian community. Most mega-churches keep salaries and benefits a secret and allow little congregational participation in the budget process. Large financial compensations are often seen as just one of the perks for being a “good CEO.”
Robert Wuehnow in his book, The Restructuring of American Religion, claims that early in religious television, Jim Bakker, Pat Robertson, Jerry Falwell, Rex Humbard and Jimmy Swaggart raked in over $194 million a year for their budgets. Much of these receipts went toward keeping the programs on the air. This is no longer the case.
Rev. Ike, an early radio evangelist, used to tell his listeners that if they thought money was evil they should send it to him because he didn’t. He said it was the biblical idea that the “lack,” not the “love” of money was the root of all evil and money could solve their problems. He reminded his followers, “You’d be surprised at how well you could praise God in the back seat of a Rolls Royce!”
Trinity Broadcast Network leaders, Jan and Paul Crouch, purchased a $5 million home in California primarily because of the need the dogs had for a larger yard.12 The Lakewood church in Houston, run typically by one family, takes in over $54 million a year in revenues. Its pastor lives in a $2.3 million home. It projects its revenues to increase to $77 million.13 TV preacher Joyce Meyer is seeking to catch up with Lakewood church. Her home and furnishings certainly surpass the Lakewood version. Joyce employs her own hairdresser and her home is furnished with lavish collectables. Her family all receive nice expensive cars to go along with the $10 million jet Joyce keeps for travel as she shares her prosperity gospel.14 Reports claim that TBN, which frequently pleads for more sacrificial giving from it’s faithful, has assets of over $538 million.15
The apparent conclusion seems to be that the larger the church, the less it gives to outside causes and the more it hordes for its own. Most churches in Baptist life follow the ideal of giving at least 10% of their income to mission projects. An Arkansas version was recently highlighted because its pastor was nominated to serve as president of the Southern Baptist Convention. His church gave away only a small portion of one per cent to the mission causes of the convention. A recent president of the SBC was pastor of a church which took in over $29 million and gave away just over 1% to missions.16
The internet source Inplainsite claims the Crouch family of TBN own several homes and ranches across the land. Meyer has a $23,000 antique commode in her palace. Pat Robertson lives on the top of a Virginia mountain. Benny Hinn, the faith healer, generates by estimates, a billion dollars a year in his endeavors. The frequently divorced Robert Tilton, at one time took in over $80 million a year.17
I recall an interesting story about Tilton, who is still actively soliciting funds. The TV evangelist was found to contract a mail drop in Tulsa for collected gifts from his audience, in contrast to his claim that he prayed personally over each offering received.
Amos the prophet condemned pride and greed in the public life of Israel (8:4-6). The Hebrew prophet graphically noted his listeners literally swallowed up the needy. The poor could be purchased for a pair of shoes. The true prophets of Israel always demanded that the people of faith pay a fair and just wage. Lou Dobbs, the CNN journalist, claims a similar economic injustice is a growing problem in American society.
Where is Amos when you need him?
1. Frosty Troy, “Welcome to America, Inc.”, Oklahoma Observer, Nov. 10, 2005, 5.
2. “The New Way On CEO Pay”, Newsweek, Feb. 7, 2005 42.
3. Frosty Troy, “So Much Money, So Few Hands”, Oklahoma Observer, Nov. 10, 2004 7.
4. “EthixBytes,” Christian Ethics Today, October, 2002, 3.
5. “EthisBytes,” Christian Ethics Today, February, 2003, 3.
6. James Kurth, Dallas Morning News, November 15, 2006.
7. www.commoncause.org
8. Charles Kernaghan, “Foreign Sweat Shops Run by U. S. Firms,” Oklahoma Observer.
9. Mother Jones, July/August 2003, 70-73.
10. Christian Ethics Today, Summer, 2005, 18.
11. Frosty Troy, “No Tax Corporations”, Oklahoma Observer, November 25, 2004, 1.
12. ‘TV Preachers Jan and Paul Crouch”, Church and State, January, 2002, 20.
13. John Roper, “Big Budget Supports the Higher Calling”, Houston Chronical, July 24, 2005, D5.
14. “Christian Coalition Ally Meyer Lives Opulent Lifestyle, Newspaper Says”, Church and State, Janurary, 2004, 6.
15. “TV Preacher Uses Ministry Assets for High Living”, Church and State, November, 2004, 20.
16. David Currie, “Perspective”, Texas Baptist Committed, 5.
17. www.inplainesite.org 6/26/2005.
