So I'm digging this post out of the graveyard because I was just watching a documentary called "Maxed Out" about personal debt, credit cards and preditory lending practices.
It's pretty nasty what's going on out there.
Anyway, about two thirds of the way through, we get a clip of Falwell preaching and he says (paraphrasing) - "Sometimes I counciling couples about their financial troubles and I tell them to bring me a budget, and if I don't see tithing as the top of the list I know there's a problem. If you aren't giving up 10-20% of your money to the church, how do you expect God to help you. And those people come back to me later and say, I don't know how it works, but it worked"
So basically, people up to their eyeballs in debt come to this "religeous leader" for help and he takes up to 1/5 of their money.
Evil evil evil evil evil evil evil evil evil evil evil little bastard.