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Luxury calling
Thursday May 18 2006 17:40 IST

G Babu Jayakumar

The foxes have holes, and the birds of the air nests;
but the Son of man hath nowhere to lay head
— Matthew 8:20

Heeding the message in the above verse could have helped the
pastor’s family in Chennai avert the trauma it underwent about a
month back. When Pastor David Mohan of the New Life Assemblies of
God Church was out of the country, his son, also a pastor, was
abducted by a gang. The gang called him out of his home on the
pretext of a prayer and caught hold of him, demanding a few lakhs
as ransom. He managed to wriggle out of their clutches after paying
some money drawn from an ATM.
So far you had heard of extortionists abducting scions of affluent
families and celebrities — people who lead a luxurious life and are
seen to have the potential to pay up. Now they seem to have found a
new target in those who are supposed to be humble spiritual leaders.
It is a pointer to the increasingly opulent lifestyles of some Christian
preachers, who splurge in a manner that can make even the manor-
born industrialist look like a spartan.

When David Mohan’s son was called for prayers, he drove down in a
Honda City. His father, a charismatic spiritual leader, drives around in
a Benz. The porch in their sprawling church premises on the arterial
Anna Salai Road has seen many of the swish models of cars in India,
heralding their roll-out. And the senior pastor’s wardrobe can give
aristocratic dandies an inferiority complex.

Such unabashed extravagance has become a trend among high-

flying preachers in India as much as it is abroad. This reporter, while
covering the aftermath of tsunami at Thazhanguda, a coastal hamlet
in Cuddalore, bumped into one such preacher, whose indulgences
can be the envy of, well, even a Hollywood star. K A Paul, who was
born in Andhra Pradesh but who bloomed in the US, had flown down
in his personal Boeing 747, leading a group of people under the
banner Global Peace Initiative. Among them were boxing legend
Evander Holyfield, a Miss World runner up from Canada called
Nazinin Afshin-Jam, and a Fox-TV crew.

What came of his visit to Cuddalore in a luxury bus from Chennai is

not known. But on that evening at the deserted beach, amidst the
devastation, he grumbled about the journey — “a drudgery, the
longest by road he had taken for a long time.” He bragged about his
Boeing 747, saying only two people in the world have the aircraft at
their disposal for personal use — the other is the President of
America.

Israel-born, US evangelist Benny Hinn, who was in Bangalore some

time back, is known for his diamond-studded jewellery. His World
Healing Center Church rakes in more than a million dollars a year
and he lives in an ocean-front mansion worth about $10 million in
Dana Point, California, near the Ritz Carlton Hotel. He loves driving in
Merc SUVs and BMWs and used to travel to Europe in the Concorde,
paying $8000 a trip. He stays only in luxurious presidential suites of
top star hotels, which he did even when he was in Bangalore.

Put up at Leela Palace, the most expensive hotel in Bangalore, Hinn

had booked two floors of the hotel for himself and his entourage. Of
course, he flew into the city in a chartered flight. Back home, his
6000 square feet parsonage itself has seven bedrooms, eight baths
and space for parking 10 cars.

Hinn’s close friend Oral Granville Roberts has also lived an ultra
luxurious life as an evangelist, creating several controversies like the
one in 1987 when he threatened his followers that God will call him
home if he failed to raise $8 million to start the City of Faith Medical
Center. The money, needless to say, was mobilised even though the
Center was closed down after eight years. As far as his lifestyle went,
he and his son, who took over from him, were members of the elite
Country Club, Southern Hills, in Tulsa, where the membership fee
itself was $18,000, and the posh Thunderbird Country Club in
Rancho Mirage, California.

Besides having a liking for diamond rings, Roberts changed his

automobiles every six months and owned an eight-seater Fanjet
plane. He had two houses, one in Spring Fields and the other in
Beverly Hills, which was then worth $2,400,000.

Drawing inspiration from Oral Roberts, Chennai-based preacher D G

S Dinakaran built his Jesus Calls spiritual empire over the decades.
Like Roberts, he too groomed his son to succeed him, built a
‘university’ and also suffered personal tragedies. Dinakaran was
recently in the news, hitting, rather rightly, the business columns,
when he bought TIAM House, a landmark building in upmarket
Parry’s Corner from the Murugappa Group for an amount speculated
to run close to Rs 100 crore but officially declared as Rs 35 crore.
That, however, is just his latest property acquisition.

He already owns hectares of land near Coimbatore, where he has

built his Karunya Institute, and has also bought up tracts of land in
front of his headquarters on Greenways Road in Chennai. The
manner in which he expanded the premises, which was once tucked
away from the main road and was connected to it by a narrow
passage, is proof of his exemplary skills as a realtor.

For decades, his expensive suits (that are said to include Armanis),
imported posh cars, ritzy mansions and overall aristocratic lifestyle
have raised many eyebrows in the Christian fraternity. Not one to be
bogged down by criticism, he continues to live like a king. When in
London, the Dinakarans prefer to shop at Harrods. When he is out of
town, he insists on commuting only in limousines. And the former
bank officer hailing from a small village called Surandai, in Tamil
Nadu’s Tirunelveli district, never misses an opportunity to rub
shoulders with powerful politicians.

One of his admirers, Mohan C Lazarus, who runs Jesus Redeems

Ministries at Nalumavadi village in Tuticorin, is also not averse to
having politicians as special guests at his weekly prayer meetings
which are attended by thousands of faithful from the southern
districts of Tamil Nadu. Apart from MDMK’s Vaiko, who addressed the
congregation after election fever gripped the state, a few other
political leaders like DMK’s M K Stalin were called on to the stage by
the evangelist on different occasions.

Not too far from Nalumavadi and Surandai is Pannavillai, the native
village of Ezra Sargunam of the Ecumenical Church of India.
Sargunam, a regular fixture at DMK meetings, was canvassing for
the party by traversing the state in his own custom-made van.
Nalumavadi, Pannavillai and Surandai come under the Christian belt
in southern Tamil Nadu where the early missionaries like Robert
Caldwell set up churches in the 19th century. History, however, is
replete with anecdotes about the frugality of those missionaries.
Caldwell is said to have taken 33 years to construct the Holy Trinity
Church in Idayankudi and lived in a hovel whose walls he could touch
by stretching his hands. The early missions and student hostels
subsisted on income earned through pounding of rice and selling of
eggs.

Today's evangelists, having come a long way, may take a cue from
Benny Hinn and engage personal armed bodyguards and bouncers.
Perhaps that will keep the extortionists at bay.