Would a Church Survive the Scandals in The Righteous Gemstones?

A review of the many scandals weathered by the fictional megachurch.

SPOILER ALERT: this is a review of the already aired first three seasons of HBO series The Righteous Gemstones. If you have not had a chance to see all three seasons, you may not want to read this.

The Gemstone Salvation Center has survived a lot of scandals.

Almost all of them would probably bring down a real church of similar stature. Or then again, in the shameless age of Trumpism wedded with Evangelical Christianity, maybe not.

Here’s a review of the scandals, a rating on how likely they would be to bring down a church like the Gemstone Salvation Center in real life.

Pre-Series Scandal: Y2K Survival Buckets

Season 3, Episode 5: “Interlude III”

Nearly 20 years before the series takes place, the Gemstones market and sell Y2K Survival Buckets. Playing on the fear and uncertainty surrounding the turn of the millennium, especially among the religious, they apparently made a significant amount of money selling them.

This is a plot device to explain why Eli Gemstone’s brother-in-law Peter Montgomery harbors so much resentment…