Paul Crouch

Flamboyant televangelist Paul Crouch first gained notoriety as the founder of the "Trinity Broadcasting Network" (TBN), an evangelical/charismatic Christian television network, on which he and his wife, Jan Crouch, had their own religious (but very controversial among conservative evangelicals) talk show called Praise the Lord (1973).

Crouch and his organization, the Trinity Broadcasting Network (TBN), have been dogged by scandal and controversy for many years. During a televised appeal for funds in 1997, Crouch said that viewers who had not contributed money to the station were "robbing God and will lose your reward in heaven". That same year, in response to charges by other Christian ministers that he was "spreading blasphemy", Crouch went on the air and said, "God, we proclaim death to anything or anyone that will lift a hand against this network". In 1991 he answered other evangelists' criticisms of his organization by saying on the air, "Quit blocking God's bridges or God's going to shoot you - if I don't." When criticisms were leveled about the Crouches' purchase of a $7.5-million mansion in the super-wealthy enclave of Newport Beach, CA, they claimed that the estate actually belonged to their organization, TBN. When documents surfaced showing that the estate actually belonged to them, they said that it was a reward from God for their good works in spreading "the word". In 2004 the organization was rocked by accusations from a former church member who claimed that he and Paul Crouch had been having a sexual relationship for several years. The Crouches at first denied it, but it turned out that TBN had been paying off this man for several years and in fact had also paid him an out-of-court settlement of more than $425,000.