"This is Dr. Gene Scott live from his television studio in Glendale, near Los Angeles." ""When I yell," he says, "I want to be heard."" "God's honor is at stake every night." "This is not a show, it's a feast." "A feast of a fading experience." "His program, one of many religious TV broadcasts in the USA, is basically a one-man-show, interrupted by an occasional slot by the studio singers." "The singer is Jay Cass;" "the younger man is his son." "Dr. Scott is a controversial figure - he is constantly in conflict with believers, officials and law courts." "As a rule, he is facing up to 70 ongoing lawsuits." "The charges range from financial embezzlement, to slander, blackmail, and tax evasion." "Scott runs 3 TV channels - in Los Angeles, San Francisco and Hartford, Connecticut." "He appears live on screen for up to 8 or 10 hours every single day." "The channel's phone numbers are often inserted on screen for his audience." ""Four and a half years", he says, "in front of these cameras, have taught me a lot of lessons." "But one of them is that every time we have a great, exciting victory at our religious festivals, it's always much tougher the next time we do one." "That must not happen tonight." "I turn to you, and some of you have not missed a single show in four and a half years."" "Most of the media in the USA..." "I sometimes joke, saying that people worship the great god "Twosides"." "When someone reports from the beach that the sun is rising, they always add that it hasn't yet risen." "I don't have an indifferent audience." "It seems that they're either with me or against me." "At the start, people thought I was crazy, but I always have a firm opinion concerning any subject under discussion." "I polarize people - I take a stand." "There are people who say they've been waiting to hear exactly the words I say." "There are others who want to go through the television screen and pound me on the nose." "For many people, I can give a guaranteed prediction on how they will react." "Have you ever been threatened?" " Lots of times." "Could you describe one of these incidents?" "In New England they decided they would seize our property and taxes on the grounds thatwe were not a church but a television channel." "I barricaded myself in the studio for 48 hours - itwas raining and slush lay in the street outside, but itwas blocked because young people were lying on the pavement when the sheriff arrived to confiscate our property." "I had a supper table set up and said:" ""If they want to come in, they'll have to climb over the supper table."" "Well, the Sheriff didn't come through the crowd, but to save face, he took the cowardly option:" "They went 10 miles down the road to another town and occupied our broadcasting offices." "There was just a poor diabetic man inside." "Sure, I've had doors kicked in," "I've been threatened, I had to be traveling around with a bodyguard..." "During those tax battles it got really tough and people were only half listening to me, without grasping the principle of the thing." "They thought I was against the unions or homosexuals, against this or that..." "I became a target." "My shows are broadcast late at night, and some late-night viewers are pretty flipped-out." "That's why I'm never alone." "We are here today to give our friends an idea of what our son was like when he was really young." "I'd first like to say that he has been a wonderful son to his father and I - as parents, we couldn't have wished for a better son." "One of the fellows on the staff here said to me:" ""We want you to tell us something really nasty that he did." I'm going to." "He was about 2 years old, and I was making some icing for a chocolate cake, and he was always excited when I made chocolate cake." "He reached up to the cake on his tip-toes, then he stuck his finger in to get the chocolate cake." "So I slapped his hand, and he fell to the floor and started to scream." "He wanted to hold his breath until his face got blue." "His face turned completely blue, so I grabbed him up and whirled the cold water faucet open." "It didn't take long before he started breathing again." "You know, while he was getting his PhD in Stanford University, he'd come home atweekends to help me with church work." "He was struggling with something, he'd somehow lost his faith, and then he was reborn - as you've heard when he speaks about his faith and the resurrection." "I think he's proud of his dad, as his dad is of his son." "May I say one more thing?" "Our son is the kind of a person that the ordinary people can understand." "Sometimes people study and then talk right over the folk's heads." "But our son has got his feet on the ground." "When he was in the 7th grade," "I remember his teacher sent me a little note with the report card, and his report card was all As." "And she sent me a little note saying, while he was still in the seventh grade:" ""Do you know you have a genius for a son?"" "So we are very proud of our son." "Scott turns to his regular evening theme:" "Money." "He wants to be supported as the Philippians supported Paul the apostle." "As long as I can walk face to face with the Lord I don't mind putting my faith in you." "But I'd keep the government out of this church." "I'm asking again for that vote of confidence tonight." "I think I'm the only pastor in the world who gets his vote in the form of weekly checks." "We are under fire, the papers are spreading lies." "I told thatwe'll be here until Jesus comes, and we will." "15 minutes went by now and I have here a message like many others:" ""Darling, because Dr. Scott asked us to," "I've been trying to get through on the telephone for 5 minutes."" "We don't have enough telephones tonight, so I'm gonna extend it into the next hour." "I'm gonna give you another ten, 15 minutes to decide what you'll do for the next year." "And there's more coming in." "Here's 360." "Pledges for a year:" "2400, 1200, 240... 2400 and so on." "Even up to 12,000 dollars in one go." "I want you to keep calling." "The lines may be busy, but don't stop calling." "Now we're gonna hear the "The Four Statesmen"." "The lyrics go: "Lord, oh Lord, I want to go to Heaven."" "...900, 3600," "1800 and so on." "Here's another check for over 12,000." ""Thank you, Lord, for saving my soul."" ""Thank you, Lord, for bringing me home."" "We are approaching a quarter of a million dollars in 36 minutes." "We'll go another 45 minutes and see if we can get over a quarter of a million!" "This could be a million-dollar-night." "3600 dollars, 1200..." "Wait a minute, Joe, bring those back." "We've already crossed the quarter of a million." "And now we want to try for 300,000." "In exactly 45 minutes..." "All it takes is another 50,000." "You've seen me on television." "That occupies about 30 hours a week live." "Like every other pastor, I preach to my parish on Sundays." "I am the elected president of a 2000-strong parish, and hold quarterly board meetings." "I go to the meetings, I'm responsible for the vice-presidents," "I'm a representative and pastor at a church in North California with 9400 members." "I have to deal with the mail load, I give spiritual guidance, make visits to the sick and so on..." "The people shouldn't feel neglected by the pastor." "And I'm fortunate that my dad, who's 74, is still active and can help me out." "I run a mausoleum in Berkley." "This limousine here is provided by the Mausoleum and also my salary." "The churches run a publishing house and own a lot of subsidiary businesses - a real estate firm which is responsible for handling the church properties, a travel agency..." "The travel agency is relatively inactive now, butwe used to run bible tours." "If you want joy, come to Jesus..." "If you want peace, come to him." "If you want joy, come to Jesus..." "For the last four and a half years, I've been doing a little less." "I stood in front of live cameras for between 3 and 10 hours a day." "During the last year I've been able to take Wednesday or Thursday off, but that's very recent." "So I'm anywhere from 3 to 5, even 10 hours a day atwork, except for on Sundays." "On Sundays I hold two separate live services, each lasting two and a half hours, plus sometimes a 3 to 5 hour television festival." "I'm in the celluloid world, Los Angeles." "I probably have the biggest audience of actors and people from the film industry." "They can't believe what they see." "For them, standing in front of a camera means you're acting." "I think one of the local magazine put it like this:" ""Scott's raw anger every night is quite refreshing." There people think," ""There's a poor son-of-a-bitch in front of the camera with the same problems as us, struggling for survival." "And they identify with that." "Everything else they see on television creates an artificial environment at home." "They see my life and death struggle for my organization, my struggle for survival against the same obstacles they are facing." "Pressure from the government, lack of understanding, ridicule and perceptual sets laid on you - you go through life and try to fend off the flak." "And I do it in front of the camera every night."" "I 'd like to be..." "Let me tell you what makes me happy." "Get me on a jet heading for a town 8000 miles away, where nobody knows me." "Yes, I'd like to go somewhere without having this constant life and death struggle." "I am too good to be really bad, and too bad to be really good." "Actually, I'd like to do some hellish things." "I can'twalk by a guy kicking a dog without going up to him and kicking him in the ass." "Things like that get me in constant trouble with the authorities - like I am now." "I can't just let the church down." "I don't like this struggle." "Many people think that I just go looking for confrontation, but the challenges come looking for me, and I spend my life like a surgeon who is always called out for the most hopeless cases." "My dream would be to lie on a beach, read books, and do exactly what I feel like." "I'm still running away from the experience of being a pastor's son, from what people expected of me." "Yes, I dream that the church's debt would be cleared." "And that they'd hold a vote of confidence in which I was voted out so that I could go to Australia with a clear conscience and teach at the Plato University and go out hunting rocks." "That's probably exaggerated, but it's actually what I'd like to do - to get away from this mess." "Would you like to have a private house?" " Yes, very much." "Would you like to have children?" " Yes, I'd like that very much." "That'd be the greatest joy in my life." "I never speak in public about such things." "I find religious organizations so disgusting - they show orphans to collect money." "Before I came here," "I spent some time fully supporting three orphanages as part of my church duties." "I cannot have children of my own " "I am sterile," "I had the mumps when I was 19 years old." "So I've adjusted to that." "I found a substitute in the orphans." "Once, In an orphanage in Brazil, I picked up a bread that a kid had dropped, and he looked at me and said in Portuguese "He's is my daddy."" "I really love kids." "And kids and dogs seem to like me." "And as long at that's the case, I feel safe." "Dr. Scott is again asking for financial donations, but the calls are coming in quite slowly this time." "I will not be defeated tonight." "Five telephones are at the ready..." "And one person has the key." "Not one more word tonight until that 1000 comes in." "Do you understand it?" "God's work hangs on a miserable 600 dollars!" "And you sit there glued to your chair!" "How long must I teach you the principles of spiritual warfare?" "30,000 means nothing now..." "Wow, 22,400 pours in... and 600 dollars kills us!" "It has nothing to do with money..." "One person, hanging on to a miserable 600 dollars." "But people who name the cause of Christ and sing "I surrender all"... will let God, for an hour, hang over peanuts!" "What is this but a festival of faith?" "What is faith but hanging on to the impossible?" "The network ought to be shut down." "What is Christianity?" "Games?" "Gimmicks?" "Words?" "Massage?" "Or life and death?" "As I said to you last night, to keep me calm you'd have to tie me down with ropes." "You carnal Christians!" "When it gets close to victory, you duck out!" "You husbands and wives out there are sitting glued to your chairs." "I should kick you both in the butt." "And if one of you has fallen asleep in front of the TV, someone should jump on your stomach with all their strength." "This is war!" "We ought never to bow down." "Come here, Joe, I'm not gonna hit you." "Bring me the notes." "400 to go?" "Why didn't you send it earlier?" "I don't care what Gene Scott looks like!" "God's honor's at stake." "There are people who grab the hymn book and promise a great crusade and say:" ""I'll go anywhere you want me to go as long as it doesn't cost me a few measly dollars."" "100!" "Well over!" "After I yell at you!" "Dr. Scott, do you have any personal wealth?" " No, nothing." "If you can find any property in the world I own, with one exception, you can keep it." "I don't have any real estate, no property, no stocks, no cash, no bank account, no house." "I own nothing." "Everything is owned by the church." "It pays all my expenses." "The church can vote me out, it's not some shady operation." "And I'm enough of a realist to know that they could do that." "My possessions consist of- to appease your curiosity - this black bag that I have with me today, and which no one except me can look into." "There are 4 zippers on it." "When my friends and relatives send me a birthday card, someone else looks at it first." "I'm never alone, I don't have any privacy." "This bag is mine." " Can we have a look atwhat's inside?" "No." "I hope somebody thinks there's 10 million dollars in gold bars in it." "It gives me dignity to have at least something that I don't have to expose to everyone." "Maybe there are dirty socks in it." "I hope when I die that the government bureaucrats get to me, and salivate when they try to look in this bag." "It's kind of a joke." "I have no privacy except this black bag." "It may contain my memoirs." "It's all I have." "I have life insurance won'th millions." "It's payable to the church." "In fact, I'm won'th more dead than alive to them right now." "I came with the unanimous vote to get this church out of debt." "But I'm the guy that goes to jail for it." "Last February, when I refused to give the authorities a list naming our private donors," "I was handed a jail sentence, like a journalistwho refuses to name his sources." "I'm 50 years old and in good health, but at night I want to quit sometimes." "If you ask if I'm 100% sure of my faith - no I'm not." "You know, as a philosopher, I can't even prove that I exist." "Do you ever cry?" "Are you a man who can cry?" "Yes, I almost cried a minute ago, when you asked me what I dream of." "You see, this misunderstanding makes me very sad." "Everybody thinks I'm a fighter - but man, I hate to fight." "But if you push me and tread on my principles, then I get pretty wild." "Deep down, I don't think any man should be a boss." "Those who want to tyrannize people abuse their own authority." "I don'twant to be anyone's boss;" "I have my own boss in heaven." "Yes, I often cry." "About once a week, I cry it all out - mostly when I'm alone." "I don't think I'm a cry-baby, but yeah, it bursts forth." "And I suppose the thing I cry the most about is misunderstanding." "I believe I am the most honest guy on TV." "I believe that I don't use Jesus to peddle lies," "I try to encourage Christians to be Christians." "Yet I'm the guy who gets attacked." "You seem to be very lonesome." " Yes, sure." "I mean..." "who can I have as a friend?" "Every friend is a potential enemy, until this work is finished." "I'm a loner." "I guess I'm lonesome sometimes." "But I think that I'm more of a loner than I am lonesome." "I have my staff all around me, who I like being around - but I don't have any really close friends." "Yeah, I am lonesome." "Almost every evening on Dr. Scott's show is a slot where he ridicules his lawsuit adversaries, judges or government representatives." "Here, it's the FCC being mocked, the authority thatwants to revoke Scott's broadcasting license." "He portrays them as apes, and explains how one should beat bureaucrats over the head." "Get the profile; he's good looking, watch his eyes protrude." "Look at that." "No matter how they land, the right end is always pointed at the camera." "Dr. Scott is giving the FCC a monkey-salute." "He's mocking them." "We can still do it and we'll win!" "Now give them their monkey-salute." "You should see this at home." "One bureaucrat is already talking to the press..." "That's our government for you!" "The song is about a rich man who refuses to give anything away on earth." "When he knocks on heavers door, he is given an old rusty halo, second-hand wings, and an old dirty robe."