Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

The preachers getting rich from poor Americans

bbc.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

51–58 of 58 posts

Re: The preachers getting rich from poor Americans

#51

Post by hackerpacker »

sonnyblarney wrote: post #47
hackerpacker wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

but everything included, so that is basically 35k, tax free, or in a lower tax bracket since so much of the compensation is non monetary, purely disposable. edit, this says the median is 45k https://work.chron.com/much-catholic-priests-paid-12915.html

Clergy pay income tax. Also, even if they didn't - they are not making a lot of money. On average, it's peanuts. This notion of 'rich minister' is not 'a thing' - it's exceedingly less common than in any other line of business.

It can be a very rich club, and its members are all expenses paid tax free, with a lower tax bracket for 10s of thousands of disposable income.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_wealthiest_organizatio...

LDS net worth 67 billion, vatican, 30 billion etc. etc.

Obviously there are extremes on the other end, but for those with 45k disposable income, who can make investments and own land, no "vow of poverty" should be assumed either.

the bureau of labor statistics lists the mean salary for clergy as $50k, with a range of $25k to $80k as well.

https://www.bls.gov/oes/2017/may/oes212011.htm

Re: The preachers getting rich from poor Americans

#54

Post by rajeshp1986 »

geowwy wrote: post #35
rajeshp1986 wrote: post #22

It is not just limited to US. You will be surprised how much of that money goes back to forced conversions in countries like India, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka etc. In India, the state of Nagaland has 90% christian population. They destroyed the local cultures and traditions.

Local traditions like headhunting? The Naga were headhunters before converting to Christianity, National Geographic has a clip about it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oLs-UoqzLlU

Nagaland has more than 16 major tribes and there are 20 minor tribes. Not all them practice this.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naga_people#Encounter_with_oth...

Also, the headhunting was a resistance by the tribals to christian missionaries.

Re: The preachers getting rich from poor Americans

#55

Post by sonnyblarney »

hackerpacker wrote: post #51
sonnyblarney wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Clergy pay income tax. Also, even if they didn't - they are not making a lot of money. On average, it's peanuts. This notion of 'rich minister' is not 'a thing' - it's exceedingly less common than in any other line of business.

It can be a very rich club, and its members are all expenses paid tax free, with a lower tax bracket for 10s of thousands of disposable income. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_wealthiest_organizatio... LDS net worth 67 billion, vatican, 30 billion etc. etc. Obviously there are extremes on the other end, but for those with 45k disposable income, who can make investments and own land, no "vow of poverty" should b…

The LDS and Catholic Church asset values aren't really helpful, the clergy don't have a piece of that. There are a small number of admins, surely, who get to live in some nice buildings, but that's about it.

Again, $45K is not 'tax free'.

A 25-80K salary range is fairly meagre for the United States.

You're making my point for me: this is not a career for those who're aspiring to make a ton of money.

Re: The preachers getting rich from poor Americans

#56

Post by talonx »

rajeshp1986 wrote: post #54
geowwy wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Local traditions like headhunting? The Naga were headhunters before converting to Christianity, National Geographic has a clip about it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oLs-UoqzLlU

Nagaland has more than 16 major tribes and there are 20 minor tribes. Not all them practice this. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naga_people#Encounter_with_oth... Also, the headhunting was a resistance by the tribals to christian missionaries.

>>Also, the headhunting was a resistance by the tribals to christian missionaries.

Source please? (The Wikipedia article does not say this).

Re: The preachers getting rich from poor Americans

#57

Post by mdhen »

ultrarunner wrote: post #37
wahern wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's an issue with the Charismatic Movement, which is particularly strong among Evangelicalism but hardly limited to it. It promotes a cult of personality, or rather numerous cults of personality. Both Catholicism (even with the pope) and traditional Protestantism have mechanisms to resist this. Catholicism resists it because clericalism pushes back against cults of the person of the pope specifically (notice the inc…

I found this comment very interesting. Can you give an example of a cult of personality within the anabaptist movement?

Check out the hardcore history episode "prophets of doom". It takes place shortly after the Reformation, when anabaptism was a new thing. It's crazy.

Re: The preachers getting rich from poor Americans

#58

Post by onyva »

osullivj wrote: post #49
onyva wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Currently taking a course about charisma in Islam and part of it discusses the so called “new preachers” - inward looking evangelism that’s a booming industry. One prominent example is Amru Khaled عمرو خالد‎. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amr_Khaled

Can you provide some references or biblio from the charisma in Islam course? Thanks...

You mean specifically about Amru Khaled?
Post reply on HN