Holy Moley! Blue America is working with some great evangelical pastors and laymen who are sick and tired of Trump debasing our country with his profane behavior. And they want to do something about it. We'll be rolling that out soon. Meanwhile there's another type of evangelical a 40 year old hustler out of Louisiana every bit as profane as Trump. Ever hear of Jesse Duplantis, the televangelist preaching some kind of "prosperity gospel" and getting rich in the process? No, neither had I. He's trying to sucker his followers into contributing the moolah he needs to buy himself his own private jet ($54 million), who had already bought 3 other private planes but who claims God told him "I want you to believe in me for a Falcon 7X." I'm not joking. You wonder how someone could be so naive as to vote for Trump? Meet Jesse Duplantis' congregants.
Duplantis is hoping to take the word of Jesus to new heights -- with help from a $54 million private jet, CBS News' Tony Dokoupil reports.Duplantis runs a ministry and a church in Destrehan, Louisiana, outside New Orleans. In a video posted to his website last week, he asked his followers for help funding the aircraft, noting that God told him he should have a jet-- but not pay for it.Duplantis says the three-engine plane would allow the ministry to fly "anywhere in the world in one stop," reducing fuel costs while maintaining a global reach."I really believe that if the Lord Jesus Christ was physically on the Earth today, he wouldn't be riding a donkey," Duplantis said in the video. "He'd be in an airplane flying all over the world."Duplantis not the first minister to preach the gospel of private flight.In 2015, Creflo Dollar asked followers for a $64 million Gulfstream G650, after a public outcry, his ministry settled for a used model. In January another televangelist, Kenneth Copeland, announced the blessing of a Gulfstream V. Both he and Duplantis defended their jets in 2015."The prosperity of gospel which many of these ministers are preaching is simply not the gospel of Jesus Christ-- it is false gospel," said Jim Wallis, the founder of Sojourners, a prominent Christian community. The gospel of prosperity is a biblical heresy and needs to be named as that.