Adam Smith was right (sometimes)

DECATUR, Ga. (Nov. 19. 2007) - The 80-year-old leader of a suburban Atlanta megachurch is at the center of a sex scandal of biblical dimensions: He slept with his brother's wife and fathered a child by her. Members of Archbishop Earl Paulk's family stood at the pulpit of the Cathedral of the Holy Spirit at Chapel Hill Harvester Church a few Sundays ago and revealed the secret exposed by a recent court-ordered paternity test. In truth, this is not the first — or even the second — sex scandal to engulf Paulk and the independent, charismatic church. But this time, he could be in trouble with the law for lying under oath about the affair.—AOL News

Adam Smith, WEALTH OF NATIONS (1776): The clergy of an established and well-endowed religion frequently become men of learning and elegance … but they are apt gradually to lose the qualities, both good and bad, which gave them authority and influence with the inferior ranks of people … Such a clergy, when attacked by a set of popular and bold, though perhaps stupid and ignorant enthusiasts, feel themselves perfectly defenceless… Upon such occasions the advantage in point of learning and good writing may sometimes be on the side of the established church. But the arts of popularity, all the arts of gaining proselytes, are constantly on the side of its adversaries ...the methodists, without half the learning of the dissenters, are much more in vogue. … It is with [clergy who depend upon voluntary oblations from the people] as with the hussars and light infantry of some armies: no plunder, no pay. ... [Quoting Hume:] ... “in every religion except the true, it is highly pernicious, and it has even a natural tendency to pervert the true, by infusing into it a strong mixture of superstition, folly and delusion. Each ghostly practitioner, in order to render himself more precious and sacred in the eyes of his retainers, will inspire them with the most violence abhorrence of all other sects, and continually endeavour, by some novelty, to excite the languid devotion of his audience. No regard will be paid to truth, morals, or decency in the doctrines inculcated. Every tenet will be adopted that best suits the disorderly affections of the human frame. Customers will be drawn to each conventicle by new industry and address in practicing on the passions and credulity of the populace.”