John Oliver Started His Own Church: Donate Now! No, Don't!

Television shows and journalists have been exposing money-grubbing TV evangelists for many years now, but John Oliver took it to a new level on Sunday’s Last Week Tonight. In what looked, initially, like an easy target for a lazy summer Sunday, Oliver played snippets from ministers with TV shows asking their viewing flock to send them money, which some of them used to buy themselves things such as multimillion-dollar private jets.

But Oliver has been working on this piece for months. He struck up a correspondence with Robert Tilton, best known as the host of a religio-financial show called Success-N-Life, on which he preaches what’s known as a “prosperity gospel.” Here’s the kind of thing Tilton is famous for, and hold onto your hat (and wallet):

Oliver became so irritated on behalf of innocent people who fall prey to hucksters like Tilton, some of whom send them money they actually need for medical treatment, that he started sending letters to Tilton, just to see how he’d react. Tilton began asking Oliver for money — excuse me, the polite televangelist term is “sowing seed” — for which he would send Oliver more letters, enclosing a dollar bill that had been blessed, and which Oliver was instructed to return, with more money.

Intrigued by this scam, Oliver looked up the IRS definition of a tax-exempt church and established his own, which he has dubbed Our Lady of Perpetual Exemption: You can check out John’s new church here.

With the aid of Rachel Dratch, Oliver concluded his segment with a plea for funds.

Dratch has been on a roll lately — she was terrific on the new Billy Eichner-Julie Klausner Hulu show Difficult People — and this entire segment was an impeccably savage attack on the exploitation of the innocent. You can even call 1-800-THIS-IS-LEGAL to hear Oliver’s phone pitch.

The frightening thing is, all this truly is legal.

Last Week Tonight airs Sundays at 11 p.m. on HBO.