Billionaire Pastor Farris Wilks and Brother Throw Fortune Behind Getting Bible Back in Schools and Other Conservative Causes
A few years ago pastor Farris Wilks of Cisco, Texas, and his brother, Dan, became billionaires from the sale of their hydraulic fracturing business called Frac Tech. Now they are "using the riches that the Lord has blessed" them with, according to CBN, to bring back the Bible in schools and other conservative causes.
Farris Wilks is pastor of his family church in Rising Star, called Assembly of Yahweh 7th Day Church which believes:
"That the Bible, as originally given, was true and correct in every scientific and historical detail. Every translation of the Bible is not necessarily one hundred percent correct, however."
Like many conservative Christians, the brothers are opposed homosexuality and abortion, and are candid about their position.
"I just think we have to make people aware and bring the Bible back in school and start teaching our kids at a younger age," said Dan Wilks in an interview with CBN at a Pastors and Pews event in Iowa last year.
"They are being taught the other ideas — the gay agenda every day out in the world. So we have to stand up and explain to them that it's not real and it's not proper; it's not right," added Farris Wilks.
The brothers, however, aren't just talking about the need to stand against cultural liberalism, they are working together with conservative Christian interest groups to promote and preserve the conservative Christian worldview without fear or shame to the tune of some $200 million.
And according to a recent AlterNet report, the actions of the Wilks brothers are just an example of a merger between the Tea Party and the religious right that Televangelist James Robison believes can help persuade America to get back on the right track again.
"We are creating a communications stream, a faith and freedom communications stream that the enemy will not be able to hinder," said Robison of the merger in a Right Wing Watch report. "Freedom is in the process of perishing, so this communication stream will bring together the leaders of the free market and the faith community and we will create a stream hopefully that will get more traffic than Drudge [Report] does."
The merger, explains Robison, is essential because without it the Tea Party will never win.
"They cannot win — the whole Tea Party has got to understand this — they cannot win, they cannot change legislation, they cannot correct our nation's perilous course without the numerical support of the faith community," said Robison.
"I believe we're going to see the miracle," he added," and I have seen enough in the leadership areas in both the faith community and the free market community to believe we can witness this miracle."