He could easily believe that he (or hopefully he believes that God) is making the difference. He certainly has a gift for riling the people up, and that doesn't come along every day. To say that he's feeding on something, you'd have to know how his stuff is set up--whether he charges, etc. If we don't know anything about how he runs these things, it's premature to sit back and assume that just because he wears a nice coat that he's a charlaitan that needs to feed. I don't think these people are desperate and needy. I just think they're an isolated subpopulation of Christianity. Subpopulations are prone to whipping up strange beliefs and practices amongst themselves if they get cut off from the rest of the group. Kennedy ordered the Bay of Pigs invasion based on too few people's input. 3 people thought it was a good idea. I forget that phenomenon when a small group encourages itself to an extreme degree, but you see it in all groups. It's not specific to religious groups.
Christians are given some guidelines to test whether or not signs and miracles are benign or intended to fool, and that's why it's important to know this guy's establishment, methods, and background before concluding anything. We don't even know if he charges. He has endorsements and commercials. That could be more than enough income. You can't hold it against someone for wearing a nice coat, especially if you think Jesus was a charlaitan. His lack of worldly wealth should thus mean little to you if he meant little to you. To bring up flashy suits is to let people know that you are acutely aware of the potential for hypocrisy in religion, and that you're actively looking for it as a means of criticism. That's fair, but not if you're so busy looking for it that you miss huge pieces of the spectrum. Religion from a bitter standpoint is about controlling the masses. It means a lot of different things to a lot of different people on the inside. Of course people on the outside are going to claim it's about wildly different things.
You hear and see what you want to hear and see from a religion. If you see a tool for doing good and making the world better, that's what you'll see. If you see it as a charade, then you're going to focus on the stereotypical condemning preacher in a flashy suit with a donation number up on the screen. That's not the religion, and you have to be careful not to focus on the things you want to see while ignoring things that go against your general opinion that religion is a crock. There are a lot of good things that could come about from this guy. We don't really know, because we're all outsiders looking in on this odd performance.
