A reference project
Documented scandals across the Christian church.
A sourced index of financial fraud, sexual abuse, institutional cover-up, doctrinal suppression, and historical violence — across denominations and across centuries. The record is the record; every claim is anchored in court documents, official inquiries, peer-reviewed scholarship, or recognised news of record.
Filed
View all 31 →The Grassley Senate Finance Committee Televangelist Investigation
A four-year inquiry by the United States Senate Finance Committee under Senator Charles Grassley examined the finances of six major American televangelism ministries, concluding that the federal tax-exemption framework as applied to large religious broadcasters was insufficient to ensure ordinary nonprofit accountability.
FILED · 2002 · CATHOLIC · SEXUALThe Boston Globe Spotlight Investigation
A six-month investigative project exposed systematic sexual abuse by Catholic clergy in the Archdiocese of Boston and the institutional cover-up that protected the abusers for decades.
FILED · 2000–2019 · BAPTIST · SEXUALThe Southern Baptist Convention Abuse Crisis
A 2022 independent investigation commissioned by the Southern Baptist Convention itself established that senior denominational leaders had for two decades systematically ignored, belittled, and intimidated survivors of sexual abuse while maintaining a secret internal list of credibly accused ministers.
FILED · 1997–2023 · LDS · FINANCIALEnsign Peak Advisors — SEC Sanction of the LDS Investment Arm
In February 2023, the United States Securities and Exchange Commission settled administrative proceedings against Ensign Peak Advisors and the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints over a 22-year scheme using thirteen shell LLCs to obscure the Church's investment portfolio, which had grown to approximately $32 billion by 2018.
FILED · 1989 · CATHOLIC · INSTITUTIONALMount Cashel Orphanage
A 1989 Newfoundland royal commission established that the Christian Brothers of Ireland had subjected boys at the Mount Cashel Orphanage in St. John's to systematic physical and sexual abuse over decades, and that two previous criminal investigations had been suppressed.
FILED · 1988 · PENTECOSTAL · FINANCIALThe Jimmy Swaggart Scandals
The Pentecostal televangelist Jimmy Swaggart was defrocked by the Assemblies of God in 1988 after the public disclosure of his use of prostitutes; subsequent IRS proceedings and a second 1991 disclosure further established the institutional record of one of the highest-revenue televangelism operations of the 1980s.
