On the statements concerning taxes: Ministers don't get a tax-free salary. They have to pay income taxes on whatever they make (assuming they report it). One loophole would be to let the church own the cars and the million dollar home as a parsonage, making it tax-free and keeping the pastor from having to pay income taxes on the one million dollars needed to buy it. However, this would leave the church owning the house if they ever wised up and fired him.

Corruption among those who attain positions of power seems to be hard-coded into the human race. It must require great dicipline for the pastor of a large congregation (or even a politician) to remember that he is supposed to be a servant of the people and not the other way around.

The saddest part of this story is not the church members who are being misled by a corrupt pastor, but the far greater number of people who refuse to be associated with any church due to stories such as this one.