The Unethical Life? #21: Build Me a House!

A televangelist wants his followers to pay for a $54 million private jet. It’s his fourth plane.

By Cleve R. Wootson Jr. Washington Post Online -- May 29 (URL: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/acts-of-faith/wp/2018/05/29/a-televangelist-wants-his-followers-to-pay-for-a-54-million-private-jet-its-his-fourth-plane/?utm_term=.9bdc736475b1)

(Reuters)

If Jesus were to descend from heaven and physically set foot on 21st-century Earth, prosperity gospel televangelist Jesse Duplantis told his followers, the Redeemer would probably take a pass on riding on the back of a donkey: “He’d be on an airplane preaching the gospel all over the world.”

And Duplantis thinks the Light of the World wouldn’t exactly settle for 30 inches of legroom or getting patted down by TSA.

Why would He choose anything less than the Falcon 7X, a private jet that nears the sound barrier but also has noise-limiting acoustic technology, a Bluetooth-enabled entertainment center and an optional in-flight shower?

Duplantis, saying he needs about $54 million to help him efficiently spread the gospel to as many people as possible, has asked the Lord — and hundreds of thousands of hopefully deep-pocketed followers across the world — for just such a plane.

He is the latest aircraft-seeking preacher to draw raised eyebrows and outright condemnation from critics who say asking for a multimillion-dollar luxury jet is not exactly what Jesus meant when he said “store up for yourself treasures in heaven.”

But this is not the first time Duplantis has been enmeshed in the preacher private plane debate. The Falcon 7X would be his ministry’s fourth jet — all paid for with cash drummed up from followers.

And before anyone asks, he already has an answer for nonbelievers and critics who want to know why, exactly, his ministry requires a luxury jet that would make his fleet the same size as Donald Trump’s.

“We believe in God for a brand new Falcon 7X so we can go anywhere in the world, one stop,” he told people on “This Week With Jesse,” a regular video broadcast on his website. The video on May 21 carefully mixed the gospel with a few insights into the economics of international aviation.

“Now people say … can’t you go with this one?” he said, pointing to a picture of the plane he uses. “Yes, but I can’t go it one stop. And if I can do it one stop, I can fly it for a lot cheaper, because I have my own fuel farm. And that’s what’s been a blessing of the Lord.”

Duplantis didn’t immediately return calls from The Washington Post seeking comment.

In the video, Duplantis didn’t specify which ministry-furthering missions the plane would be used for, although he has indicated in the past that he has an extensive travel schedule.

Duplantis is the founder of Jesse Duplantis Ministries, which includes a weekly television program that reaches 106 million U.S. households, according to his Amazon author biography. In 1997, he and his wife founded Covenant Church in Destrehan, La., just outside New Orleans.

“It is his mission to reach every soul of the 7 billion people that now inhabit the earth, making sure that each one has an opportunity to know the real Jesus — approachable, personable, compassionate, and full of joy-the way that he knows Jesus,” the biography says.

He preaches the prosperity gospel, which says God shows favor by rewarding the faithful with earthly riches. Giving money to pastors and their ministries, leaders say, is a sort of investment.

And prosperity gospel preachers have encouraged their flocks to invest heavily in aviation.

In 2015, televangelist Creflo Dollar was widely mocked for starting “Project G650,” a means of getting a state-of-the-art Gulfstream G650 plane of his own, financed by his 200,000 followers. According to The Post’s Abby Ohlheiser, Dollar said he “needs one of the most luxurious private jets made today in order to share the Gospel of Jesus Christ.”

The campaign was widely ridiculed online, and Dollar never made it to the waiting list, which consisted mostly of billionaires.

Kenneth Copeland, another prosperity gospel adherent who has appeared on-screen with Duplantis, announced his ministry had purchased a Gulfstream V jet that probably cost millions. The announcement on Copeland’s website showed him wearing a bomber jacket in front of a gleaming white plane.

“Glory to God! It’s Ours!” the website said. “The Gulfstream V is in our hands!”

But the ministry needed more, it told followers. The plane was “an exceptional value” but needed another $2.5 million in upgrades. The ministry also needed to build a new hangar, buy special maintenance equipment and lengthen its runway to accommodate the new plane.

After making the ask, Copeland prayed on camera for God to bless contributors.

He and Duplantis defended their use of private jets in a widely shared — and mocked — YouTube video.

“The world is in such a shape, we can’t get there without this,” Copeland said of private aircraft. “We’ve got to have this. The mess that the airlines are in today I would have to stop, I’m being very conservative, at least 75 to 80, more like 90 percent of what we’re doing because you can’t get there from here.”

“That’s why we’re on that airplane,” he said. “We can talk to God.”

Copeland said he used to travel with faith-healing prosperity preacher Oral Roberts, who flew commercial, and it “got to the place where it was agitating his spirit. People coming up to him. He had become famous. And they wanting him to pray for them and all that.

“You can’t manage that today. This dope-filled world. And get in a long tube with a bunch of demons. And it’s deadly.”

During his request for a new plane, Duplantis said he realized some people would remain skeptical.

He said there was no obligation, and there was only one surefire way to determine what exactly God wanted them to do: pray.

“So pray about becoming a partner toward it, if you like to and if you don’t, you don’t have to, but I wish you would,” he said. “Because let me tell you something about it, it’s going to touch people. It’s going to reach people. It’s going to save lives one soul at a time …

“If you pray about it, I believe God will speak to you.”

Orthodox Union Online

URL: https://www.ou.org/life/torah/how-much-would-the-mishkan-cost-today/

How Much Would the Mishkan Cost Today?

Rabbi Jon GrossFebruary 16, 2016

The tent itself was made up of 48 gold plated beams that were connected. 20 on each side plus 8 across one wall.

The beams were 10 x 1 x 1.5 amot. That comes to a surface area of 50 x 48 = 2,400 amot squared.

Although there are many opinions, let’s say an ammah is 18 inches. So the perimeter of the mishkan required 43,200 square inches of gold plating.

The beams were made of gold plated wood. With current technology gold can be hammered into extremely thin sheets called gold leaf. The price of gold leaf depends on the thickness. An ounce of gold hammered into a sheet of 100th the thickness of aluminum oil could cover 100 square inches.

So for 43,200 square inches of gold plate we would need 432 ounces of gold.

Today gold is about $1,235 an ounce. So the gold plating for the perimeter of the mishkan would cost $533,520.

That doesn’t seem so bad. But that is just the gold plating.

The silver adanim were the sockets that kept the beams together. There were 100 of them. Each one was a solid kikar. A kikar is 3,000 shekels. So they needed 300,000 shekels. They collected 1/2 shekel for the census. There were just over 600,000 people counted, bringing in just over 300,000 shekels of silver. Exactly enough for the adanim. (and some left over for the curtain hooks.)

A shekel is about 1/2 and ounce. 3,000 shekel is 1,500 ounces. An ounce of silver today costs about $15.75. 300,000 shekel of silver for the adanim would cost $2,362,500.

So we are at about $3 million. The beams were made of lumber, there were some other hooks, poles, and extensions made of precious metals, and then there’s the labor involved.

The Aron was made of gold plated wood. With dimensions of 2.5 x 1.5 x 1.5 the surface area needed comes out to 15.75 square amot, and it was plated inside and outside so double that is 31.5 square amot x 18 equals 567 square inches. Gold plating at 1 ounces per 100 square inches comes out 5.67 ounces. With gold at $1,235 per ounce = $7,002.45 That does not include the cover of the ark, the Kaporet.

It is not clear from the Torah if the kaporet was solid gold, or if it was gold plated wood like the rest of the Aron. We are also not told the height of the Kaporet, The Gemara assumes that it was 1 tefach (there are six tefachim in an amah, making a tefach 3 inches).

If it was a solid slab of gold 2 amot x 1 amah x 1 tefach.

That means that the kaporet was 36 inches x 18 inches x 3 inches = 1,944 inches cubed.

In gold mass 1 inch cubed = .7 pounds.

That means that the kaporet weighed 1,360.8 pounds.

At 16 ounces in a pound and gold at $1,235 an ounce that’s $26,889,408 And that does not include the keruvim, the twin statues on the Kaporet that were made of solid gold and stood 30 inches high. Assuming that they were only 1 inch thick they would cost $778,050 each. $1,556,100 in materials alone, before the artist’s costs.

(I think we can assume that the kaporet was either a thin sheet of gold or made of gold plated wood. It doesn’t seem practical otherwise. Can you imagine being called on to open the ark in shul and when you get up there the gabbai tells you that you have to lift something that weighed 1300 pounds? If I am right then the kaporet would have been closer to about $600 before the keruvim.)

The menorah was 1 kikar of gold.

At 3,000 shekel per kikar, and 1/5 an ounce per shekel, that’s 1,500 ounces of gold.

At $1,235 an ounce that comes to $1,852,500 in materials, before the artist’s fee.

Leaving out the kaporet, we see that the more expensive vessels of the mishkan cost upwards of $2 million at today’s prices. The price of gold plating, thanks to current technology, is considerably cheaper. The rest is lumber, fabrics, labor, and artistry.

Without doing a final tally, the mishkan would be expensive but not astronomical.

The Beis Hamikdash was much bigger and way more expensive.

God should bless us and bring about the day where we have to raise funds for projects like these soon!

The words of this author reflect his/her own opinions and do not necessarily represent the official position of the Orthodox Union.

From Chumash Etz Hayim p. 485

"After the life-altering experience of standing at Sinai, how does one keep the feeling of Sinai present?"

1. Sacred deeds, mitzvot (Sacred action)

2. Shabbat and holidays (Sacred time)

3. Mishkan (Sacred space)

Abravanel - Mishkan shows God is 'not remote from humanity' (Local address)