"The Bible says that
Jesus rode on a borrowed ass. But I would rather ride in a
Rolls Royce than to ride somebody's ass!"
-Rev. Ike
Now, I know many of you would call Reverend Ike a con artist, but that's only because you don't believe in the power he has to make money. Well, he has that power and it can work for you. . . all you need is faith and $20.
We first became aware of Reverend Frederick "Ike" Eikerenkootter when we stopped a videotape we were watching and he appeared on the channel the VCR was tuned to. He was raving like a lunatic, throwing around these cheap, nylon bracelets, and blessing them. A message on the screen said you could call a toll free number and get one of these "Prayer Bracelets" absolutely free. I'm always one for free stuff, so I called and tried to find out more about Rev. Ike. The lady answering the phone couldn't give me any information and asked for my address, which I gave her, as
GIVING is the door through which you RECEIVE so, do not send back this Prayer Bracelet without enclosing the Faith, Love and Obedience Donation.
A few weeks later, an envelope arrived with the prayer bracelet. According to the form letter, "The Spirit" had told Reverend Ike to send me the bracelet, and there were several pages urging me to wear it that very night and return it before sundown the next day. Apparently "The Spirit" is not infallible as the letter repeatedly referred to me as "Sister Miller." It was very slick, with pseudo-hand written messages urging me to do this immediately. It said I "MUST put a FAITH, LOVE and OBEDIENCE DONATION of $15 or MORE in it for the Church Ministry" when I sent back the bracelet. "GIVING is the door through which you RECEIVE so, do not send back this Prayer Bracelet without enclosing the Faith, Love and Obedience Donation. -- That would SHUT the DOOR on your Blessings."
The testimonial page had letters from people who had received the prayer bracelet, returned it with "BIG DONATIONS" (one lady borrowing $50 to send to Ike) and had won the lottery, banished their health problems, settled court cases for big bucks, had court cases against them dropped and had cured them and their children of drug addiction. Hallelujah!
There's even a section where you can check off what you want to be blessed with, from "Closer walk with God" to "Food on the Table." Under "Special Help With," one can select from Alcoholism, Mental Oppression, Bad Luck, Bad Habits, Witchcraft or Past Due Bills. In the "Healing From" section, you can choose from Alzheimer's, Crying Spells, Paralysis, Cancer, Deafness, Diabetes and the all-purpose "Being Crippled." Is there no problem Reverend Ike can't solve? If you feel that you have asked for too many blessings for only $15, there's a box you can check that says "I AM SENDING MORE for MORE BLESSINGS."
And this was all sent in an envelope with "non-profit organization" postage of 13¢. Even the Business Reply Envelope urged you to use a stamp to save Reverend Ike the cost of postage.
Needless to say, I was a bit skeptical and didn't send any money.
A few weeks later, another envelope arrived. This one proclaimed "I am loaning you this POWERFUL thing - - - Overnight Only!
Opening the envelope reveals that this "thing" is a small glow-in-the-dark cross. This isn't just any glow-in-the-dark cross, though, it's the POWER OF GOD CROSS! The letter begins, "Dear Brother Miller [apparently The Spirit told Reverend Ike about his gender mistake], I am holding this POWER OF GOD CROSS in my left hand while writing you this letter. Somebody will type this letter to you for me when I finish writing it." To prove that this assertion is true, the picture below appears three times in the six-page
In order to solve problems that The Spirit told Ike I was having, I was supposed to take this cross and put it on wood near where I sleep "OVERNIGHT ONLY" because "This CROSS OF POWER belongs to God's Church Ministry. Do not keep it and rob God." My not sending it back was not only holding up my blessings, but holding up other people's blessings too. "In the morning, wrap a $20.00 or more Faith and Love Donation around the Cross and send it back to me in the morning [kind of redundant--you ought to get The Spirit to do some proofreading, Ike], but no later than 3:59 PM tomorrow for the Church Ministry.
"Borrow the money to give if you have to. DON'T TELL ANYBODY WHAT YOU ARE DOING" (in case some relatively sane person in your family tries to stop you). "A lady had a hundred dollars she was hiding. The spirit told her to wrap it around this cross and send it back to me the next day. She did, and before sundown on Friday, she had TWENTY HUNDRED-DOLLAR BILLS in her hand."
This goes on for six pages--people who borrowed money to send to Ike and were rewarded with thousands of dollars, as well as people the cross is supposed to go to after I'm done with it and the terrible things they are enduring, including "a mother of three little children in the hospital needs it for healing, so she can go home to her family. A lady in Florida needs it for healing--the doctor just told her she has cancer."
Heaven help us all! So much responsibility resting on one plastic cross! "THE CROSS IS THE POWER OF GOD," Rev. Ike quotes from the Bible. It's very sad that the all-powerful Spirit would give Reverend Ike information about all this suffering, but only one cross to save all these people. As it turns out, Ike must have more than a couple of these crosses because he sent me the same mailing the next week--with another plastic cross.
I was still skeptical about Reverend Ike at this point, I mean, how could one not be? Then the money seeds came.
"Before you read any further, look at the MONEYSHEET with the holes in it for your fingers," the letter says. "Take that sheet and put your fingers through the holes, all around that money. Stand in front of the mirror and see how it looks to hold all that money in your hand right there in Yardley [you gotta love direct mail marketing]. Doesn't that feel good?"
I shuffled through the many sheets of paper and found the MONEYSHEET...
Well, I put my fingers through those holes and looked at that big wad of bills in the mirror, and LORD! I was seized up by The Spirit and knew that I could have that big wad of bills for real! AMEN!
"You can have that much money, and much, much more! You can have whatever you want. How? By Faith in the God-in-you. . . By 'planting MONEY SEEDS.'"
The last sheet in the package was made of three of these "Money Seeds" (above). You only have to think about what you want, write it on the seed, sign on the line that states, "I am EXCITED!" and send it to Ike with a real $20 bill once a week for three weeks, and you'll get what you want! Salvation on the installment plan. Of course, you had to send money because "When you give you prove God." Otherwise, how would God know that you really wanted His gifts?
Before planting money with Reverend Ike, I did a little research about him. Turns out he's been at this sort of thing for 30 years. Ike's generally credited with changing the face of T.V. evangelism to what it is today. Far from being evasive about how much money he makes, he openly brags about having sixteen Rolls Royces, wears $1000 suits and diamond rings on both hands and enjoys luxury homes on each coast. His income is estimated at $6 to $15 million a year (that's an estimate because he asks for all of his donations in cash, and this figure probably doesn't include his relatively recent forays into direct mail.)
Well, a guy with that much money has to know something about making it, right?
Just to make sure, I gave his most recent mailing to the lady at my post office. I told her that maybe the Postal Inspector needs to get some of that old time religion.
"Be proud of the way I
look, because you spend $1,000 a week to buy my
clothes."NEW YORK: Rev. Frederick "Ike" Eikerenkootter, whose flourish and elan forever changed religion and television, has been served with a suit for sexual harassment by Andrew Brown, his former personal assistant. Brown, a 25-year-old light-skinned black man, worked for Rev. Ike from January, 1994, until he was fired several months later in July. He said the former sales clerk, who was living in Miami Beach when they met, was dismissed after damaging one of the minister's Rolls Royces. Brown went on trial in Long Beach, N.Y., this summer for the burglary of one of the flamboyant minister's homes. After his acquittal on charges that he stole cash, credit cards and airline tickets, Brown filed a $100 million lawsuit charging Rev. Ike with "offensively touching and caressing" him, tickling him, forcing him to model for him, and on one occasion, even obtaining a male hustler from Times Square for him. Brown says co-workers later told him that Rev. Ike prefers young, light- skinned, trimly-built black men. Rev. Ike has also filed a civil suit against his former employee. (10-11-95)
"The LACK of money is the root of all evil."
"Forget about the pie in the sky, get yours here and now."
"Everything is a condition of the mind."
"If it's that difficult for a rich man to get into heaven, think how terrible it must be for a poor man to get in. He doesn't even have a bribe for the gatekeeper."
