Robert Tilton
Robert Tilton created a ministry presented via a television show which was called Success-N-Life beginning in 1981. By 1991 the show was reaping a windfall of almost $80 million per year from presentations in all of the United States television markets, through which Tilton exhorted his followers to overcome all of life’s trials but especially financial needs – all caused by sin – by making vows.
To Tilton, a vow was a financial commitment to be sent into his church. Vows would be recognized as a commitment against sin, and financial rewards to those who vowed would quickly follow. Tilton accepted vows of varying denominations, but frequently recommended $1,000. Unsurprisingly, Success-N-Life was modeled after infomercials on how to quickly get rich through real estate practices which stressed the wealthy life to be acquired rather than the means of acquiring it.
Along with the vows prayer requests were solicited, with accompanying sums, for Tilton to pray over both during the show and privately. In 1991, the year Success-N-Life hit its peak, ABC News revealed that the prayer requests were routinely opened and thrown away after the enclosed funds were extracted. ABC’s investigation led to others, and Tilton soon found himself beset with a bevy of accusations which he strongly and repeatedly denied.
While ABC had shown trash bags of prayer requests in dumpsters, Tilton said the pictures had been staged by the network, and that he personally prayed over every request, to the point that chemicals in the ink had permeated his bloodstream as he lay upon them praying, causing among other issues, “…two small strokes in the brain.
By 1993 Tilton was dealing with several lawsuits over fraud by former donors, libel actions, and government investigations initiated by the state of Texas. Tilton’s marriage collapsed along with his financial golden goose.
Fraud cases by donors were eventually stopped by a ruling from the Texas Supreme Court which said, in essence, that fraud could not be proved because there was no way to establish whether the prayers would have been answered even if Tilton had, as he claimed, made them. In 1997 Tilton returned to the airwaves and continues to deliver his message today.