Jan Crouch
Co-founder of a Christian broadcasting empire who preached, and lived by, the ‘Prosperity Gospel’
JAN CROUCH, who has died aged 78, co-founded, with her husband Paul, the Trinity Broadcast Network, the world’s largest Christian broadcasting empire. The Crouches founded TBN in 1973. Based on the “Prosperity Gospel” – the promise that if people make sacrifices (and donations) God will reward them with material wealth – it beams Christian-inspired programming to every continent but Antarctica, 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
For 40 years, the silver-haired “Papa” Crouch and the extravagantly coiffed “Mamma” Crouch were the public face of the network on TBN’s nightly talk show, Praise the Lord.
Wearing enormous pink or platinum bouffant wigs that framed a face laden with heavy make-up, Jan preached the Crouches’ curious take on the Christian message in a sing-song voice, letting the tears flow freely, whether moved by a viewer’s letter or recalling how God resurrected her pet chicken when she was a child.
The couple portrayed themselves as humble folk giving themselves to God as they hoped their viewers would give by sending in donations. Their twice-yearly “Praise-a-Thons” generated some $90 million, mainly, it was claimed, from people on low incomes. Those reluctant to open their wallets were warned that if they failed to contribute they would lose their reward in Heaven.
The Crouches gave generously to charities, but there was a mismatch between their folksy image and the glitz of the TBN studio, with its chandeliers, gilded imitation antiques, plush seats and regal crest based on the British lion and unicorn.
Paul Crouch once told a journalist that the sets reflected Jan’s “good little decorator’s eye”. One columnist, however, described her taste as “Tammy Faye Antoinette”, partly a reference to the equally elaborately coiffed Tammy Faye Bakker who, with her husband (and later convicted felon) Jim, had been early collaborators of the Crouches.
The Crouches’ lifestyle also fell somewhat short of what is normally considered appropriate for Christian evangelists. The couple frequently travelled in a private jet and luxury cars, staying at more than two dozen homes in California, Texas, Tennessee and Ohio that were owned by TBN – including a pair of his-’n’-hers mansions in a gated development at Newport Beach, California. Jan Crouch, for a time, was paid $361,000 a year, a bit less than her husband, to serve as the network’s vice president and director of programming.
The Crouches claimed that their lavish lifestyle was proof of the rewards bestowed on them by the Almighty for all their good works. But some sceptics remained unconvinced. In the 1990s they had several run-ins with the Federal Communications Commission over allegations of illegal licences and were nearly taken off the air.
In 2004 it was revealed that, in 1998, Paul Crouch had secretly paid a former TBN employee $425,000 for his silence after the man claimed they had enjoyed a homosexual tryst in 1996 during a weekend spent at a TBN-owned cabin. Crouch, who denied the allegations, explained that he had settled out of court only to avoid a costly and embarrassing trial.
But perhaps the most damaging attacks on the Crouches came from within their own family.
In 2012 their granddaughter, Brittany Koper, and her husband’s uncle Michael Koper, both former TBN employees, filed lawsuits alleging financial improprieties at the network, including allegations that it had spent millions in tax-exempt “charitable assets” on personal expenses for the Crouch family.
As well as the private jet and numerous houses, these included a $100,000 air-conditioned mobile home for Jan Crouch’s pink and white poodles. Her grandmother, Bettany claimed, had told her “that I must either do as I was told without asking questions or find myself ‘out on your ass’.”
The case, which has yet to be resolved, took a bizarre turn when a photograph was entered into the court record of Jan Crouch holding a hand-written will allegedly written by her husband, giving her favourite son, Matthew, control over TBN instead of her oldest son Paul.
“The photo was taken by Matthew Crouch in mid-September 2011 while Paul Crouch Sr was in hospital suffering from congestive heart failure,” declared Michael Koper. “Apparently, Matthew Crouch and Jan Crouch were celebrating what they believed was Paul Crouch Sr’s impending death and Matthew Crouch’s promotion to president of TBN that would subsequently occur.” In fact Crouch Sr survived a further year.
Also in 2012, another granddaughter, Carra Crouch, sued the company, claiming that she had been raped by a TBN employee when she was 13 and that her family had covered up the incident to avoid embarrassment to TBN. That case, too, remains unresolved.
Janice Wendell Bethany was born in New Brockton, Alabama on March 14 1938, the daughter of a prominent minister in the Pentecostal Assemblies of God, and grew up in Columbus, Georgia.
As she liked to tell TBN followers, she discovered the power of prayer aged four when her pet chicken wandered out into the street and was hit by a car, but later brought back to life after she “laid him on the kitchen table” and “prayed in the name of Jesus Christ”.
Janice attended a Christian school in Springfield, Missouri, where she met Paul Crouch, a student at a nearby Bible college. They married in 1957 and moved to Rapid City, South Dakota, where he became associate pastor of a small church while moonlighting as a DJ.
In 1962 Crouch was appointed head of the Assemblies of God’s new motion picture and television division. In 1973 he and Jan struck out on their own.
The turning point in their fortunes came in 1975, when Paul Crouch had a vision of a map of the United States, across which light was slowly spreading. “I cried out to God to show me what all this meant,” Crouch recalled. “As I waited upon the Lord, He spoke a ringing, resounding word to my spirit – ‘Satellite!’ ”
Jan and Paul Crouch projected the image of a happily married couple, but by 2004 they were reported to be leading separate lives. In the last few years of her life Jan Crouch had focused on a side project: the Holy Land Experience theme park in Orlando, a reimagining of the city of Jerusalem during the time of Jesus.
Jan Crouch is survived by her two sons.