10 years ago: Good riddance to Rex Humbard

On September 21, 2007, Rex Humbard died of congestive heart failure at the age of 88. Mr. Humbard, born in Little Rock, Arkansas, but based in Akron, Ohio, made his first appearance on television in 1949, and became the first televangelist in the United States to have a weekly program, which ran from 1953-1982. His $4-million, 5,400-seat Cathedral of Tomorrow in Cuyahoga Falls, Ohio, which opened in 1958, was built to accommodate television.

Mr. Humbard's program was internationally broadcast and his ministry became a big business (helped in part by loans from Teamsters union President Jimmy Hoffa--see the article mentioned below), but in 1973 Mr. Humbard ran into problems with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission because bonds and promissory notes that he had sold since 1959 were sold by his own salesmen, and were not registered with the SEC or sold through licensed brokers. A planned revolving restaurant was never built, and a transmission tower was eventually sold to a local businessman.

Mr. Humbug Humbard, like so many televangelists, preached a prosperity gospel of "seed-faith," i.e., if you sow a financial seed with his ministry, God will give you a return on your investment of as much as tenfold or a hundredfold. It's a false gospel that enriched the likes of Rex Humbard and Oral Roberts, but never enriched their donors, as far as I know. I have to agree with Christian apologists John Ankerberg and John Weldon--why don't these prosperity preachers practice what they preach and give some of their money away? If what they preach is true, they'll receive so much back in return that they'll never again have to ask anyone for money.

Mr. Humbard eventually retired to Florida, and his son Rex, Jr. took over the ministry. What remained of the Cathedral of Tomorrow was sold to notorious fraud and fellow Akronite Ernest Angley in 1994.

For an excellent examination of Rex Humbard, his history and scandals, click on the link for the article Jesus for Sale by Denise Grollmus in Cleveland Scene, October 31, 2007.