Comedian John Oliver Shuts Down Fake Church After Viewers Send Biblical 'Seed' in the Mail
British Comedian John Oliver has said he's been forced to shut down his satirical prosperity gospel church, Our Lady of Perpetual Exemption, after viewers mailed sperm as their "seed" donations.
The former "Daily Show" regular posted a message on the website of his now defunct church explaining the reasoning behind its closure.
"We have still, miraculously, not broken any laws by promising you untold riches in return for sending us money. We're also not closing down because you all kept sending us actual seeds, even though we explicitly told you not to," wrote Oliver.
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"We're closing because multiple people sent us sperm through the mail. And when someone sends you [semen] through the mail, it's time to stop whatever you're doing."
In August, on his HBO program "Last Week Tonight," Oliver devoted about 20 minutes to a critique of several televangelists.
While saying that the typical church in the United States is a "cornerstone of American life," which does good work, Oliver attacked "churches that exploit people's faith for monetary gain."
According to Oliver, preachers like Creflo Dollar and Kenneth Copeland promote the notions "that wealth is a sign of God's favor, and donations will result in wealth coming back to you. That idea takes the form of 'seed faith' — that donations are seeds that you will one day get to harvest."
A central complaint of the comedic lampooning was that the Internal Revenue Service has rules regarding the definition of a house of worship that are too vague.
As a result, Oliver announced that he was going to open his own church called Our Lady of Perpetual Exemption.
"When John Oliver found out that Robert Tilton, Kenneth Copeland and other pastors of their ilk have been taking advantage of the open-ended IRS definition of the word 'church' and procuring a litany of tax breaks, he founded the Our Lady of Perpetual Exemption Church, a tax-exempt organization that you certainly can't say is not a church," according the church's website.
"From that day forward, he has been dedicated to collecting copious donations and all manner of divine blessings, but mainly the donations."
By the end of August, Oliver's satirical church racked in thousands of dollars in donations, which as the comedian pointed out during another "Last Week Tonight" segment, he could legally keep.
"The more money you send in, the more blessings will be returned to you," he said. "And that is still something I'm — amazingly — legally allowed to say."
According to the closure message all monetary donations to Our Lady of Perpetual Exemption will go to the real charity of Doctors Without Borders.
