I read this morning that former presidential candidate and “700 Club” quack Pat Robertson has now endorsed Rudy Giuliani. Ouch. Personally I think Rudy should tell him, “Thanks, but no thanks. This is hard enough as it is.” I mean, I don’t think even the conservative Christian right claim Robertson as one of their own. He’s put his foot in his mouth too many times. Surely the 700 Club’s viewership is not substantial enough to make any real difference in Giuliani’s campaign?
There’s also a story on CNN.com about televangelists extravagant lifestyles being probed. Before the webpage with the story had even loaded I knew I’d be seeing Benny Hinn. Oh, yeah, that one was easy enough. Just as obvious as the five other TV preachers under investigation were just as obvious (including Creflo Dollar, Paula White & Kenneth Copeland). I really think the “prosperity doctrine” preachers are nothing more than the snake oil sellers of olden times. They take the gospel and they pervert it’s words to mean what they need them to mean in order to fleece the sheep.
It’s so obvious, I really don’t know how anyone can fail to see it. They’ve turned religion into a big, weird self-help seminar with greed at it’s core.
Sure there are people out there who believe this stuff and have become successful, and it’s cool to give the glory to God. But they believe that their blessing was a direct result of something THEY did (“planting that seed of faith”). I just don’t think that’s how it works.
Even if it IS, I don’t think a “seed of faith” means MONEY. You don’t have to listen to these ministers for long to realize that cash is exactly how they define it. And for every one of the successful seed-planters reaping a harvest...from their own hard work, btw... there have to be a hundred seed-faith believers who work every bit as hard but whose circumstances prevent them from rising so high on the “blessing ladder”. The hardcore seed planters will say, “Oh well, your faith isn’t strong enough. Your seed was not sown in faith. You held back that extra little bit of seed that would have won your blessing” (even if that “extra little bit of seed” was a car payment or food for the kids or something that you absolutely needed…it sounds impossible that anyone would think that way, but I have seen and heard these televangelists suggest exactly that).
For the most part the main people who are prospering with the “prosperity doctrine” seem to be the purveyors themselves. Jesus was homeless, but most of these charlatans have mansions…I’m not saying that God wants us to be homeless. But surely there must be a limit to the extravagance of "ministers" whose fortunes are made from the sincere offerings of people who could only dream of having such wealth. Not to mention that everything they own was purchased with tax-exempt money, taxes that have to be made up by the tax-payers in general.
Prosperity preachers twist the words of Scripture to mean what they want them to mean. If you can’t see that, then maybe you deserve to be scammed. If I tried hard enough I could probably twist the words of Scripture to the point where they seem to advocate Satanism. All you have to do is pick out a few verses and twist them out of context.
I guess I do have a strong opinion about something other than the arts. Ha.
I don’t know why, but I’m fascinated with these televangelists. I scan the religious channels and it almost scares me that I recognize and can usually name almost every one of the main ones. Steve Munsey, Benny Hinn, Jesse Duplantis (whose “preacher/stand-up comedian” routine is hilarious, but it’s not his jokes that are funny), Rod Parsley, Paula White, Paul Crouch, T.D. Jakes, Creflo Dollar, Marcus & Joni Lamb, it goes on and on.
Usually I hear these guys babble and it pisses me off to hear them speak truth one minute then dilute it with bullshit the next. And some folks say, “well, yeah, there are some quacks there, but there are a few legitimate ones, too”. I agree, but you can probably count the “legitimate” ones on the fingers of one hand. The preachers who can buy huge blocks of air-time on TBN have probably already worked the prosperity angle with their own congregations enough to afford it. And there’s so much of the bogus junk on the network that the legitimate ministers stay away. They rightly want to distance themselves from the con artist superstars.
But what can be done about it? It’s very hard to…errr…”deprogram” someone who has been convinced that these guys are not only on-the-level but actually speakers of the truth. Very likely the best you can hope for is that they eventually see the light when all the seed they’ve planted fails to yield the desired harvest. Then maybe someone will blame them for not having enough faith one too many times, and they'll say FUCK IT.
It’s just so much fucking bullshit, and I’m sorry if that offends anyone, but it does bother me a lot.
And now I must prepare for my required monthly trip to Oklahoma City.
Love and peace to all…
jac
