Last week, I told you that prominent televangelist Kenneth Copeland crassly declared that he can’t be bothered to fly with the rest of us because he would have to “get in a long tube with a bunch of demons.” For that reason, Copeland claims that he needs a private plane to properly fulfill the calling God has placed on his life. Well, it turns out that the grand poobah of “name it and claim it” is of the mind that he doesn’t just need a private plane. He seems to think that he needs his own airport as well.
While researching my piece about Copeland’s private plane, I moseyed over to Wikipedia–and when I typed Copeland’s name in the search box, I discovered there was an article about a “Kenneth Copeland Airport.” That piqued my interest. I initially thought that Copeland’s hometown in Texas decided to name an airport after a local boy who made good.
Well, it turns out that Copeland was actually born in Lubbock. More importantly, Kenneth Copeland Airport is owned by Copeland himself. It’s part of a 1,500-acre tract of land halfway between Fort Worth and Newark that Copeland bought in the 1980s from the estate of oil baron Paul Pewitt. The airport is located just west of the Copelands’ 18,000-square foot lakefront mansion. Also on the complex are the headquarters of Kenneth Copeland Ministries, as well as Eagle Mountain International Church, which is pastored by his daughter Terri and son-in-law George Pearsons. The airport is the home base for Copeland’s pride and joy–a $20 million Cessna Citation X, the fastest private plane on the market. It’s one of five private jets owned by the ministry.
As obscene as it is that Copeland thinks he can’t fulfill his calling without a private plane, it’s even more obscene that he thinks he needs a private airport as well. Indeed, even by televangelist standards, this is patently outrageous. Unless I’m very wrong, no other televangelist of Copeland’s standing has his or her own airport. Not even Creflo Dollar (whom, it should be noted, is a Copeland disciple), who famously tried to get his flock to help him buy a new private plane last year. Oh, that’s right–if “Brother Copeland” has his own airport, he doesn’t have to worry about his “anointing” being tampered with. Nor does he have to worry about having to be around “a bunch of demons.”
Can you imagine the outrage that would ensue if Copeland were a secular CEO? He would be rightly denounced as just another over-entitled one-percenter. Indeed, when I first saw this, I immediately thought about Martin “Pharma Bro” Shkreli. Just like Shkreli, Copeland seems to think that he can act this way just because he’s rich. Apparently Copeland missed what the Bible says about love of money–it’s the root of all evil.
