Earlier this week, I received a hand-written (and then photocopied) letter from a local woman asking me to try the Jehovah’s Witnesses. Based on the handwriting, I’d guess a grandmotherly woman hand-wrote a letter, photocopied it, and sent it to people in the phone book. (Which is very sweet gesture, although not ultimately not very useful since their God doesn’t exist, IMO.)
Then, I started to think: have I dropped-off the St. Matthew’s Churches mailing list? (I talked about them last May, and their scam.) Well, I’m still on it because today I received another letter from them. I guess I’m on their May mailing list. I’ve attached a few pictures of their material.
Predictably, they use phrases like “As you remain faithful in your seed sowing into my kingdom, surely you shall be blessed.” “Seed sowing” is, of course, code for “send us money”. Then they also claim testimonies from people who received financial windfalls or healing after ’sowing a seed’. They use a few other psychological techniques to increase the likelihood of people sending them money. Seems like a popular money-extraction technique because you can see other evangelists doing it:
have you gotten the holy bookmark yet….
I received the Saint Mathews church letter this week. I filled the return envelope with paper soaked in fish sauce and some flat bits of scrap metal. The envelope weighed almost 8 oz. and smelled of rotting fish when i sent it back to them.
cheers
Weird. I never heard of these prosperity handkerchiefs (or Jesus booger wipes, as I will now call them) until this blog post. Then just tonight I saw an infomercial that featured them! It must be a sign!
[...] scam brings in millions 2008 May 31, Saturday, 12:00 — monado Blogger Tiny Frog gets begging letters from St. Matthew’s Church asking for money and referring to the contribution as a “prosperity seed.” They send a [...]