Abercrombie & Hellfire

Up until now I have railed on the backwards-ness of the Catholic Church as it applies to the teachings of Christ. Today I rail on Protestants, specifically, Fundamental Evangelical Pentecostals. I have read books with regards to their characteristics, "possessions", charismatic events as well as seen such documentaries as Jesus Camp and there is a distinct manipulative en masse psychology to their screaming and crying "snake handling" revival events. When God is a merchandising opportunity for megachurches, I take issue. T-shirts, bracelets, hats, earrings, metal Jesus fish, etc. all of this STUFF is just falsified testimony - it doesn't say to me: I believe in God...it says I'm hip in my church - see -look - I have a t-shirt that says so...I'm accepted and belong. For these people God is a brand like Pantene or Tommy Hilfiger. Not mentioning the hypocrisy of the charismatic preachers like Ted Haggard, who was the leader of the biggest evangelical megachurch in the U.S. - he spoke bigotry and hate towards homosexuals and then gets busted buying meth off the gay male transvestite he's been screwing. Nice. Real nice.

The revival events Pentecostals have are more in line with a circus act. The leader gets up in front of a group of people who are prone to emotional manipulation and they scream and yell about hellfire and judgement and then talk out of the other side of their mouths about how great and loving God is - except that's all they can say, they can't scratch the surface except to say over and over how God is great, God is good...as if by repeating it over and over they will actually believe it. They never get specific or go further to keep looking for themselves. They take the words of evangelical preachers as The Word and never look further. Void of logic, they unsuccessfully and embarrassingly try and argue against evolution and global warming. Evangelical Protestants view God like He's a genie: asking him to bless the PowerPoint presentation and the PC it runs on that it won't crash, asking Him to help get a strike when bowling, asking Him to bring the elevator here quickly. Useless, self-serving prayer. God has more to be concerned about than the temperature of your non-fat latte. The living Jesus is not a brand or a label or a scheme or concerned with powercords and microphones.

At these revivals, people start putting their hands in the sky (as if God is in the air above their heads) and they get each other all worked up (herd mentality) and they cry and talk in jib-jab (claiming they are speaking 'in tongues' which anyone can do if they try) and it is really one big sham. One big show without spiritual substance.

Matthew 6: 1-8 1 “Beware of practicing your righteousness before men to be noticed by them; otherwise you have no reward with your Father who is in heaven. 2 “So when you give to the poor, do not sound a trumpet before you, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, so that they may be honored by men. Truly I say to you, they have their reward in full. 3 “But when you give to the poor, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, 4 so that your giving will be in secret; and your Father who sees what is done in secret will reward you. 5 “When you pray, you are not to be like the hypocrites; for they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and on the street corners so that they may be seen by men. Truly I say to you, they have their reward in full. 6 “But you, when you pray, go into your inner room, close your door and pray to your Father who is in secret, and your Father who sees what is done in secret will reward you. 7 “And when you are praying, do not use meaningless repetition as the Gentiles do, for they suppose that they will be heard for their many words. 8 “So do not be like them; for your Father knows what you need before you ask Him."

I attended a wedding at a local megachurch and it had a bookstore, a coffee shop, a school and a huge auditorium equipped with state-of-the-art audio visual equipment, spotlights and tropical plants and velvet curtains and a stage for the preacher. The seats were movie theatre seats. The place just screamed "entertainment". There were no Bibles or stained glass windows or crosses or anything that I was used to seeing. Whereas Catholics kicked the True Christ out of church, Evangelicals go one step further and take the traditional church out of church and make their bipolar version of Jesus "hip" and "cool" and marketable in their glorified social club. Ugh. How is it that all these so-called Christians are so drastically missing the point.

They say that the devil is in the details and what better way for evil to subtley manifest itself than by walking amongst the congregation. You want to destroy something? Then you do it from the inside out. That is what seems to be happening in these churches, Catholic and Protestant alike. Spiritual cancer.