Christian rocker and worship group leader Sean Feucht has raised eyebrows for his alleged sketchy handling of his ministry’s millions, drawing scrutiny from former employees and volunteers, and Christian funding watchdog groups among others.
The Christian nationalist became popular during the COVID-19 pandemic among those outraged by public health measures designed to keep the virus from spreading. His packed protest concerts defying social distancing, masking and lockdown directives shot him to stardom — and raked in revenue. Income rose from $243,000 in 2019 to $5 million in 2020, the last year Feucht disclosed his organization’s financial workings by filing IRS form 990, The Associated Press reported this week.
Former ministry staff and volunteers now suspect Feucht mismanaged those funds, AP found, questioning why Sean Feucht Ministries has bought as much as $7 million in property in Washington, D.C., California, Montana and a scenic region known as the “Swiss Alps of Texas.” They also want to know why Feucht and his wife personally own $4.5 million in real estate in Pennsylvania, California and Montana, and how much any of it is being used for ministry initiatives.
Last year the nonprofit watchdog group MinistryWatch gave Sean Feucht Ministries an F in the “transparency, accountability and credibility” criteria it uses to gauge donor-worthiness. The organization cited both Feucht’s exorbitant real estate collection and his decision to opt out of form 990 the same year his ministry’s revenue skyrocketed, and recommended that donors hold onto their money.
Feucht has not responded to MinistryWatch’s requests for information or AP’s requests for comment. In June he called his detractors “embittered, upset, angered former volunteers” who “had to be dismissed because of moral issues” in a social media video, AP reported.
Internally, Feucht allegedly cultivated an atmosphere of “urgency and crisis” to get employees to work burnout hours, often without overtime pay, and to solicit donations, said a bookkeeper who noticed “financial dodginess” and blurred lines between personal and professional expenses.
Some Christians oppose Feucht’s messaging, contending it “thrives on outrage, builds financial empires on grievance, and cloaks political ambition in sacred language,” Christian musician Elias Dummer wrote in the UK magazine Premier Christianity last month. “This isn’t faithful Christianity. It’s a modern political project known as Christian Nationalism.”
With News Wire Services
Originally Published:
