Bishop Long’s reputation and sprawling enterprises stand threatened by a sex scandal.

Bishop Long cuts a flashy figure in Lithonia, the Atlanta suburb where he lives and has built his church. He is often seen in a Bentley attended by bodyguards. He tends to wear clothes that show off his muscular physique. He favors Gucci sunglasses, gold necklaces, diamond bracelets and Rolex watches. He lives in a 5,000-square-foot house with five bedrooms, which he bought for $1.1 million in 2005.

His lavish display of wealth is in keeping with his theology. In his sermons, he often tells his congregation that God wants them to be wealthy and asserts that Jesus was not a poor man. By all accounts, he has been well compensated for his leadership in building New Birth from a church with a few hundred members into the largest congregation in Georgia. His televised sermons reach 170 countries.

In 2005, for instance, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution published tax records showing that from 1997 to 2000 Bishop Long had accepted $3 million in salary, housing, a car and other perks from a charity he controlled.

“We’re not just a church, we’re an international corporation,” he told the newspaper in justifying his compensation. “We’re not just a bumbling bunch of preachers who can’t talk and all we’re doing is baptizing babies. I deal with the White House. I deal with Tony Blair. I deal with presidents around this world. I pastor a multimillion-dollar congregation.”

There have been allegations and attacks made on me. I have never in my life portrayed myself as a perfect man. But I am not the man that’s being portrayed on the television. That’s not me. That is not me.

By the counsel of my lawyers, they have advised me not to try this case in the media. I am not gon’ try this case in the media. It will be tried in the court of justice and dealt with in the court of justice and please understand because that’s the only place I think I’ll get justice, but being in the hands of God.

Please hear this. Please hear this: I’ve been accused. I’m under attack. I want you to know, as I said earlier, I am not a perfect man. But this thing I’m gon’ fight.

One of the young men accusing megachurch bishop Eddie Long of coercing him into a sexual relationship told a TV interviewer that he loved the pastor and considered him a father figure, but still called him a “predator” and a “monster.”

“I loved him and I’m always going to have love for the things he taught us, but how he left us hurt worse than anything I ever felt in my life,” Jamal Parris told Atlanta’s Fox TV affiliate WAGA in an interview broadcast Tuesday. “This man turned his back on us when he had no more need for us. That’s not a father, that’s a predator.”

Parris, 23, is one of four men suing the TV preacher in state court, claiming that he abused his “spiritual authority” and gave them cars, clothes, cash and trips to lure them into sexual relationships while they were teen members of New Birth Missionary Baptist Church in suburban Atlanta.