Re: CAD arrests 5 City Harvest Church members
Author Describes Culture of Waste at Baptist Agency on EthicsDaily.com
One of the first things to go, she said, was full financial disclosure. A half-inch-thick budget that had been presented to HMB trustees was reduced at NAMB to a few pages. As a result, she said, trustees didn't know what questions to ask.
"We are finding that in a lot of mega-churches," Branson told Prescott. "People are standing up and saying, 'We want the information. We want to know what the salaries are.'"
"I've actually received e-mails from some people asking for advice on how to receive that information from their church," she said. Some have set up Web sites, because they feel too intimidated to ask their pastor for the information.
"We are not children," she said. "This is our money. If we are paying for it, we have a right to know how it's being spent."
Branson said her book's focus is not on individuals but on a system that promotes waste and rewards hubris.
"Most of us, if we were in a position of entitlement, and we had no checks and balances, would do the same thing," she said. "It's very difficult to spend that kind of money with humility."
Branson said she left NAMB under positive circumstances and had no intention of writing a book. She probably never would have, she admitted, if--like about 100 people let go during Reccord's administration--she had been offered a couple of thousand dollars of severance in exchange for never saying or writing anything negative about NAMB. Branson said she has long wondered about a Christian organization that would require former employees to sign such a statement.
