Healing services at Columbus Revival Center feature W.V. Grant of Dallas
Evangelist W.V. Grant of Dallas is leading healing services at 7 nightly at the Columbus Revival Center, 2517 Second Ave.
Walter Vinson Grant, Jr. was born in May 1945. He's an American televangelist whose ministry has been based in the Dallas area. Known as a faith healer, in 1996 Grant was convicted of tax evasion, but has restarted his ministry.
Grant began his pastoral career in Cincinnati, Ohio in the mid-1970s with the "Cathedral of Compassion" in the poor Over-the-Rhine area of town.
He then relocated to the suburbs of St Bernard until the early 1980s.
The son of minister Walter Vinson Grant, Sr., in 1983 Grant took over Soul's Harbor Church, in the Oak Cliff section of Dallas. He later renamed it "Eagles Nest Cathedral".
In 1987, Grant purchased 28 acres in the southwest section of Dallas near Dallas Baptist University and built the "Eagle's Nest Family Church."
He is married to Brenda Gayle Hayes, and has three adult children: Misty, Barry and Mark. Brenda is the daughter of faith healer Alton Hayes (1929–2002) and his wife Maxine who were ministers of The Voice of Healing.
Scientific skeptic and professional stage magician James Randi reports that Grant had notes of ailments of audience members before the show, that he used a "sleight of hand" trick to make a leg appear to grow, and that he put members of the audience who walked into the event in wheelchairs before the event (then asking them to stand and walk) hot reading and cold reading techniques, according to his book, "The Faith Healers."
Randi also claims that Grant's wife had gathered information about members of the audience, and the information as relayed to W.V. via slips of paper in a Bible he read during his presentations. Grant contends that Randi is an agnostic who makes his living from attacking ministers, according to his "Frequently Asked Questions."
Grant was investigated by ABC News and Trinity Foundation for an exposé report on Primetime Live.
In 1996, an Internal Revenue Service investigation into Grant's ministry resulted in Grant's imprisonment for tax evasion. He was found guilty of failing to report $375,000 in taxable income in the purchase of two homes, including his $1 million residence.
In an undercover video tape, Grant admitted using $100,000 in 1988 from church members as a down payment on a $1.2 million home overlooking a Desoto country club and not reporting it as income, according to the Fort Worth Star-Telegram.
Grant was found guilty and the judge sentenced him to 16 months in prison, a $30,000 fine and given one year probation.
Grant was released from prison on Sept. 18, 1997 and has since restarted his ministry, again under the name Eagles Nest Cathedral, in the eastern part of Dallas. In addition to the Eagles Nest, he currently travels as a guest preacher and has broadcasts are on BET, Word Network, and local affiliates in Alabama, Georgia, Texas, Florida, Missouri, North Carolina, Tennessee and Virginia.
This story was originally published January 12, 2011 at 10:39 AM with the headline "Healing services at Columbus Revival Center feature W.V. Grant of Dallas."