Frederick J. Eikerenkoetter II
From his last name, it is easy to see why he dubbed himself Reverend Ike. And in fairness to the prosperity theology preacher he became, he did not claim to be a Christian. “The only savior in this philosophy is you,” he would exhort his devoted followers, who would open their wallets and purses to shower him with cash. Reverend Ike was inordinately proud of his Rolls-Royce collection – eventually, he had 16 – and they shuttled him between luxury homes and the palaces of the rich and famous for decades.
He didn’t just ask for money, for donations small or large, he demanded them. And he got them. He would tell his congregation from the pulpit to donate only checks or paper money, but no coins. “…The sound of them makes me nervous.”
Reverend Ike kept his salary small, or at least relatively small, collecting only about $50,000 dollars annually for his services to better the spiritual life of his followers. But he also drew on an unlimited expense account, allowing those Rolls-Royces to be church transportation rather than personal automobiles. He stayed only in the best hotels, lived in opulent houses, dined at the most expensive restaurants, and wore the finest of fine clothes, not to mention jewelry, that were paid for by his church.
To his largely African American audience, Reverend Ike would shout, “I used to be black myself until I turned green,” a reference to the focus on money. Reverend Ike told his followers to forget about storing up riches in heaven and go for wealth on Earth. He restored a former Loews Theater building in New York and made it into his United Church Science of Living Institute, from the stage of which he would tell his audiences to “…close your eyes and see green…”
In the offices in the same building, his staff opened letters from other devotees of his message, up to two million a year, most of them containing cash in response to his message that money had to be spent to be made. To the critics who called his ministry a con allowing himself to enjoy untold luxury at the expense of his mostly poor followers, Reverend Ike had a ready reply. Arms spread wide he would exclaim, “My garages runneth over.”