For 85 years Karl Koppel was a dream come true for the Adventist church. During his 105 years of life, the low-keyed East Coast industrialist donated more than $13 million to the Adventist church. But that dream is becoming a nightmare for the church. Koppel's son, Al, now a spry 86 and retired, has written a book that meticulously lays out how Seventh-day Adventist Church Trust Services took advantage of his father's failing mental powers during the final years of his life and mismanaged his family's multi-million-dollar bequest of land.

Sour grapes? An heir slighted? Apparently not, for the author, the sole surviving son of the Hungarian-born Karl Koppel, has in his turn contributed millions of family money to the very church whose Trust employees he so roundly criticizes.

"It's nothing personal," Dr. Koppel says. He's writing out of concern for the credibility of his beloved church which has been significantly ill-served by its Trust Services program for the past 50-or-so years.

"My goal in publishing this book, titled 'Truth Decay,' is not to get even or pay back anybody or any church organization," says Dr. Koppel. "My goal is to bring change within the church. We can do better than we have for our older members who want to leave substantial gifts and estates to their church."

Dr. Koppel spent his entire career as a dentist in an office just a few blocks from the Adventist church's former general headquarters in Takoma Park, Md., hence the title of his book, a play on "tooth decay." During his forty years of practice (1945-1985) Koppel says he found the vast majority of Adventist leadership to be decent, reputable people who paid their bills and kept their appointments.

But the church's Trust Services program has hurt the reputation of the church immeasurably in North America, through its manipulation of the elderly and its mishandling of vast sums of money, because its officers were lacking in business savvy or were loaded down with too many other responsibilities. Though apparently there has been some improvement since the 1990s, Koppel says much more needs to be done.

"Many or most of these men are either pastors or attorneys before they become trust officers and often come to the job with little experience in business," Koppel says.

Koppel believes that while the Trust Services has indeed funneled millions of dollars into church coffers, it may well have alienated scores, hundreds, or even thousands of family members who might otherwise be in the church today.

Koppel is well aware of a pervasive public relations campaign by the Trust Services program to improve its image. He quotes liberally from articles published in denominational journals, then shows how the church's performance falls woefully short of what is promised in its public relations pieces. For example, Koppel shares at least two firsthand accounts of recent situations where administrators unambiguously counseled him and his family not to give substantial sums to local congregations. Yet, at that very time, a director of the General Conference Trust Services published a lengthy article in Ministry magazine, promising that the Trust Services program was now the "friend" of local pastors and was encouraging donors to remember local churches in their wills. Koppel says that from his personal perspective of 50 years, the Ministry article totally misrepresents the truth. Trust officers continue to set as their primary goal the funneling of cash and assets to conferences and unions.

According to Koppel, "The best possible outcome would be for this book to become required reading for every person in, or contemplating entering, Trust Services. If these men and women could truly understand the heartbreak that comes as a son or daughter, who are the church of tomorrow, watches their aged parent being manipulated to give more and more money to the 'unrestricted' coffers of the church, change could come overnight. If they could feel the anger that comes as vast estates are liquidated for a fraction of their real value, so the church can get its money quickly and trust officers can get their promotions, they'd think twice.

"I don't think these men and women lack empathy for the aged or are devoid of a sense of perspective. What has happened is that a lot of pressure is placed on them to produce money, lots of it, fast. Until this changes and Trust Services becomes an empathetic 'service' to the physical, spiritual, and financial needs of members, it will continue to alienate members and create strife and scandal. I hope this book will help move the program in the right direction."