Benny and the jets?

A World magazine report detailed a number of jets owned by Christian ministries.

(RNS) — Rusty Leonard and Warren Cole Smith have written a story for World magazine investigating corporate jet ownership by more than two dozen Christian ministries.

The writers, who are affiliated with the watchdog group MinistryWatch.com, have been covering Sen. Chuck Grassley’s investigation of six of those ministries.

They took their work a step further and determined how much televangelists and others can spend for those planes-from $2 million for a used model to $50 million for a new high-end jet. Costs for using them can range from $2,000 to $10,000 an hour.


The writers quote the leader of another watchdog organization, Ole Anthony of the Trinity Foundation, who is critical of the use of luxury jets: “There are incredible abuses of these corporate jets for personal use. Mind-bending abuse that they do with impunity.”

Michael Wright, marketing director for Jesse Duplantis Ministries, counters that flying commercially “can’t get us from point A to B to C to D at the times we need to be there. For us, the plane is a necessity.”

The story includes a sidebar with a list of the kinds of jets used by different ministries. If you follow its instructions, you can type a plane’s tail number into a search engine and learn more about the planes and travel of some of these jet-setters.

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