Apparently God is broke, since in the news today Pastor Rick Warren called on his flock to donate an extra $900,000 to make up for a serious shortfall in the Church’s income. The recession hit everyone pretty hard according to Rick, which means regular tithers have opted to keep money for food rather than for the church. Warren has sent out a letter encouraging those who were not affected by the crisis to increase their regular donations to compensate, and to allow them to continue their programs.

The weird thing here is Warren wants to raise this money in two days, which seems sketchy. The Church doesn’t release their financials, so you have to take Rick at his word that the money is needed. Now before you start thinking he’s probably just using the money to buy himself new suits or golden Bibles, consider the fact the guy actually gives 90% of his income to the church since the success of his book. At least he puts his money where his mouth is. If it wasn’t for his raging homophobia, I might actually like the guy.

My problem lies in the fact he refuses to explain exactly WHY he needs the money so quickly, and where it will all go. Imagine a friend of yours called you up out of the blue and started pressuring you to give him thousands of dollars without specifying exactly how he would be using it. Odds are you might be a little suspicious, even if your friend was a “man of God”. Did Ricky have some crazy losses in the stock market? Maybe he borrowed a bunch of money from mobsters and needs to pay them back or something; my point is unless you tell people why the fuck you need so much money in a short amount of time, it’s pretty damn sketchy.