Don’t fall for ‘prayer rug,’ watchdog group urges

The envelope comes addressed “To a Friend” and with the promise that “the letter you write today could change your tomorrow.”

Inside the envelope, said to be from St. Matthew’s Churches in Oklahoma, is an oversized sheet of paper bearing a lavender image of an eyes-closed Jesus. Identified as a “prayer rug,” it asks the recipient to kneel on the paper, meditate on a blessing and notice whether Jesus’ eyes have opened. The result seems less divine intervention than a skillfully rendered optical illusion.

Still, the mailing seems harmless. No pleas for money. It asks only that recipients return the rugs with their names, addresses and prayer requests so the church can pass on the rug’s good fortune to the next needy soul.

Not so fast, cautions Ole Anthony, founder of the Trinity Foundation, a Dallas nonprofit watchdog group working to expose religious scams.

St. Matthew’s Churches is led by James Eugene Ewing, a one-time traveling preacher of the tent-revival variety, says Anthony, whose organization gained national attention after helping ABC’s “Primetime” expose televangelist Robert Tilton as a fraud. Anthony says Tilton and Ewing were collaborators.

“We’ve been following (Ewing) since ‘91,” he said. That was when the group went by the name Church by Mail. “They just keep changing their name to keep ahead of anyone who’s looking into them. They’re one of the sleaziest. And one of the longest lasting.”

Ewing’s nonprofit organization was the subject of an investigation by the Tulsa World in 2003. The newspaper called it a “direct-mail empire” that “brings millions of dollars flowing into a Tulsa post office box.” The investigation detailed Ewing’s luxurious lifestyle, his fondness for fancy cars and tracked him to a Beverly Hills, Calif., address.

The group changed its named shortly after the Internal Revenue Service denied Church by Mail tax-exempt status in 1992 after concluding its fundraising was solely for the benefit of Ewing and his partner, Ray McElrath.

The Better Business Bureau’s Wise Giving Alliance has been looking into the new group’s practices since at least 2000. Bennett Weiner, head of the alliance, said he’s working on an updated report, corresponding with the church to get new information to determine if its practices meet bureau standards.

Weiner said the alliance began reporting on the church in response to public complaints. Some simply wanted off the mailing lists; others objected to the letter’s contents. Some complained they never received the financial or spiritual blessing the mailings promised.

Representatives of St. Matthew’s Churches could not be reached for comment.

Anthony says St. Matthew’s Churches preys on the vulnerable, using U.S. Census data to target senior citizens and low-income people with mailings containing the prayer rug or similarly “blessed” tokens. They claim the tokens will bring financial, physical and spiritual blessings. They urge recipients use them privately. To create the illusion that recipients are “chosen,” they direct them to different parts of a neighborhood at a time, he says.

Anthony’s Trinity Foundation reports that of the 1 million mailings sent per month, about 8.6 percent are filled out and returned. That’s when the flurry of mailings begins and residents get “constantly pounded for money,” Anthony said.

“They know exactly what they’re doing. Their whole claim is, ‘We’re just trying to reach them with the gospel.’ They don’t even know what the gospel is. They’re just con men with a collar,” said Anthony, whose foundation has ministered to the poor and homeless since the 1970s. “We got into this because so many … were giving their money to these (religious scams), betting on the heavenly lottery.”

Weiner, of the Wise Giving Alliance, recommends caution with any solicitation. He says to check out any organization asking for money by contacting a local Better Business Bureau or visiting the alliance’s Web site, www.give.org. If a charity is not listed, a caller can request the alliance begin a report on one.