Christianity: From Bad to Worse (And My Personal Dilemma)

The area roughly considered to be part of the Bible Belt (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Mick Turner

The first part of this article appeared on this site in August, 2011. Part Two, which is an expansion and describes what has happened in the intervening months, immediately follows Part One.

Author Ann Rice renounced her association with Christianity a while back, citing that she could no longer in good conscience, associate herself with a religion the was filled with hatred and other related vices. I can’t say that I blame Ms. Rice for doing what she did. Believe me, on more than one occasion I have seriously considered doing exactly what she did.

In fact, I still do and to be gut-level honest, this occurs on a near weekly basis. Let’s face it, the Christian faith has a major image problem – no, it is beyond that – at this point it is safe to say that Christianity has an image crisis. This reality is sad enough; what makes it more so is the fact that it is not getting any better. It is getting worse.

In January of last year, I ran across sermon tapes where pastors, one a former Vice President of the Southern Baptist Convention, said the he prayed for the death of President Obama and another where a Phoenix, Arizona pastor said he “hated” Obama and then tried to launch a biblical explanation in support of his position. Somewhere along the line these folks missed the gospel and found something else. What these guys are preaching sounds a lot more like the Republican platform than anything Jesus had to say.

When Paul talked about Christians being a “pleasant aroma” rising up to heaven, I don’t think he had these jokers in mind.

If this sort of thing isn’t enough to drive folks away from the church, Christian broadcasting can take up the slack. It seems every program on these “faith-based” channels have a hand out, asking for money to “do God’s work.” What they really mean is “give us your cash so we can stay on the air.” Whether or not a particular program staying on the air constitutes God’s work is debatable.

These stations also hold frequent telethons, aimed at fleecing even more money out of viewers whether they can afford it or not. There are several “evangelists” that appear to be nothing more than professional hucksters, hired by the networks to raise funds by “preaching the gospel.” The gospel these folks preach basically boils down to “plant a seed and reap a harvest,” which is the Prosperity Gospels lingo for “send me some money and God will bless you.”

One particular huckster makes the rounds on these telethons and he is truly shameless in the things that he says in order to dupe the faithful out of their cash. I won’t mention his name, but I will share with you a transcription of an appeal he made on a recent telethon. The transcript, published in the fall 2010 edition of Plain Truth magazine, also omits his name, but if you are at all familiar with these telethons, you will immediately recognize his spiel:

Delayed obedience becomes disobedience…the delivery date of your financial harvest is today. If you hesitate, if you doubt, if you stop to think before you call and sow your uncommon seed right now, the delivery date on your harvest will be moved back. If you delay, heaven will delay. Call now. Don’t think. Don’t hesitate. Just simply obey the man of God, and reap your harvest of uncommon prosperity.

Don’t let this hour close with your hands closed. Quickly, go to the phone now. God never opens his hands until you open your hands. Call quickly. Call now.

 

When God wants you to have a harvest, he asks for a seed that authorizes it. When God has a future for you, he talks to you about a seed. The instruction you follow determines the future you create. When I open my hands, God opens his hands. My seed talks to God. My seed is a picture of my covenant to God. When God sees my seed, it is the way he remembers me.

When God wants to bless you, he talks to you about a seed. Quickly go to the telephone. Call the number that’s on the screen. Do it now.

Nothing leaves heaven until something leaves earth. A swift response of faith releases a swift response from God. Your seed has never had so much power. If you have ever decided to obey the Holy Spirit, do it today. If you are ever watching a program ordained by the Holy Spirit, this is the one.

There is an anointing on the $1,000 seed right now. God will always give you something illogical to do. God will never give you something logical to do. You can do the logical stuff yourself. God doesn’t talk to your mind; he talks to your heart. God doesn’t talk to your logic; he talks to your faith. Call now.

For those unfamiliar with the jargon these hucksters use, the term “seed” means a monetary donation to whatever organization, ministry, or program that is hosting the telethon or, as they so often call these gatherings, “praise-a-thons.”

A short time later, the “evangelist” mentioned above added this little gem to his fundraising plea:

“Nothing leaves heaven until something leaves earth first. It is a divine law, so you had best get up off that couch and go to the phone right now.” In other words, don’t expect God to bless you financially until you “demonstrate your faith” by sending in your money.

The fact that this sort of con game bilks decent, hard working folks out of their money is tragic enough. But there is yet another aspect of this kind of spectacle that is equally disturbing. For many, many people, this is the only face of the Christian faith they may ever see. After listening to a sickening diatribe like the one just quoted, I doubt a late night channel surfer seeking answers to life’s difficulties would give the Christian faith a second thought.

Think about it.

© L.D. Turner 2011/All Rights Reserved

Part Two

I penned Part One of this essay, which was originally published as a standalone piece back in August, 2011. In the months since that time, rather than improving, the church’s image has been tarnished even further, now perhaps beyond redemption. It seems almost every week some bonehead pastor, most often a Southern Baptist somewhere in the Bible Belt, makes inflammatory remarks about some current issue and in the process, reveals his ignorance and exudes hatred, bigotry, and an obvious lack of Christian decency.

These people are the very antithesis of everything Christ taught and stood for and furthermore, do more to drive people away from the Christian faith than the most verbose and spiteful atheist ever did.

I won’t go through a litany of these comments as they are not deserving of further mention. I will say, however, that most recently these wing nuts have focused on the Gay/Lesbian marriage issue in general and now, President Obama’s open support of Gay rights. Rather than addressing this issue with even a modicum of civility and rationality, these “shepherds” stand before their flock and scream things like “I ain’t going to vote for no baby killing homo lover.” This same pastor, and I use that term loosely, suggested building a 100-150 mile electric fence to imprison lesbians, homosexuals, and “queers.”

Doesn’t the love of Christ just leap from every word coming out of the mouth of this man?

Please allow me to be a bit personal here. These folks have pretty much done what Satan, however you might want to define that term, never could directly do – and that is to drive me out of the Christian faith. Every day I vacillate between leaving the faith altogether and, at other times, feel I should stay and do battle with these heretics, because they have virtually destroyed the Bride of Christ. Sometimes I feel that is my duty as a follower of Jesus to, at least in some small way, do whatever I can to recapture his church from the hands of these buffoons. Yet I am just as often convinced that such a battle is far too great. With my rather severe heart problems, I wonder if I am up to it.

On a side note, many years ago, at a very critical time in my life, I gained much inner healing from my intense practice of Zen. I often feel the call to go back to this and let the church implode. Or perhaps there are others more able to fight this battle than I am.

As for now, I am in limbo…….

© L.D. Turner 2012/All Rights Reserved

Believers’ Buffoonery and Other Shenanigans

Mick Turner

Believers’ Buffoonery and Other Shenanigans

 

When I employ a bit of rigorous honesty with myself I am very much aware of the fact that faithfulness to the Christian path has not been my strong suit. Sometimes I am not even sure it qualifies as any kind of suit. The fact is, like Jonah of old, I can get bent out of shape and hit the bricks with the best of them. Nineveh be damned; I’m taking the next boat West. I don’t exaggerate a smidgen when I say that the crusty old guy in the belly of the whale “ain’t got nuthin’ on me.”

 

Discussions with many other Christians and former believers have revealed that I am not exactly in a minority here. It seems quite a few people entertain notions of leaving the faith from time to time. I was a bit surprised at this but I guess I shouldn’t have been. For quite awhile I thought I was the only guy who wanted to run off and become a Buddhist. Lo and behold, there are quite a few more of me it seems.

 

What I have discovered is that my reasons for being more than a little unfaithful over the years are somewhat unique. Whereas many people leave the faith or at least consider it often stems from some conflict they have had with members of their church or with their pastor. Others have left because they found other things they wanted more than their spiritual life, like drugs, alcohol, junkets to Vegas or another person’s spouse.

 

In my case, it was not these things that tempted me to flee behind cloistered walls where no one could find me and start chanting sutras in a cloud of smoky incense. More often than not, it was either something a Conservative, Evangelical, or Fundamentalist did or said that sent me reeling. I not only would become frustrated with what they might have said or did, but more to the point, I would become upset over the fact that these folks have hijacked the religion of Jesus and turned it into something worse than the stinking corpse faith of the Pharisees that the Master railed against some 2,000 years ago.

 

In the past, these events often centered on the Religious Right’s illegitimate marriage to the Republican Party, which eventually devolved to the point that a Baptist pastor in North Carolina threatened to excommunicate anyone in his congregation that had the audacity to vote for a Democrat. After successfully choking off an almost uncontrollable urge to regurgitate, I considered either leaving the faith or something even more drastic in nature.

 

You see, I am a bit of a loner. Worse still, I am a contemplative loner and in the best of circumstances that left me only two options: I could become either an English teacher or an assassin. Gun shy, I went to China and taught English.

 

Just last night I experienced another one of these episodes, but with God’s help I only briefly considered moving on down the spiritual pike. I was watching a video clip on You Tube that showed a group of shouting, screaming fundamentalists accosting people on the street. At first I thought they must have been outside an abortion clinic but I was mistaken. These folks were standing outside Lakewood Church on Sunday morning, preaching at the throng gathering to hear their pastor Joel Osteen.

 

Calling Pastor Osteen everything from an apostate, end times false teacher to the Brother of Beelzebub, these folks were evidently upset that the smiling preacher didn’t froth at the mouth enough about sin, the cross, and their favorite topic, the Blood. Fixated on the Atonement, which is only half of the gospel message at best, these self-proclaimed “Watchmen on the Walls” seem to think that the whole idea of empowerment by the Spirit to live a higher quality life is heresy and Brother Joel is a messenger whose breath reeks of brimstone. Somehow, in their zeal for doctrinal goose stepping, these storm troopers seem to have overlooked Jesus’ message in John 10:10.

 

One thing stands out, for certain. You would be hard pressed to find an example of agape in this bunch.

 

Personally, I find the Gospel an amazing phenomenon. You see, the mission and message of Jesus is a seamless whole but, at the same time, it has a little something for everyone. The Gospel is like a giant prism. When you shine light through a prism, you see a different color, depending on where you happen to be standing. On one side you might see red and on another side, a different color. The problem comes in when you think the color that you see is the only valid color there is. Those folks who see yellow, for example, must be mistaken.

 

It’s the same with the Gospel message. Depending on your need and your character, you are going to be focused on one aspect of the message more than others. This is both fine and natural but please, don’t make the mistake of thinking that is the primary message of Jesus. To look at the cross, the blood, and forgiveness of sin as the most important aspect of what Jesus accomplished is to walk lockstep in line with the school of theology that has held sway in American Protestantism for three or four centuries. That does not mean, however, that it is the only aspect of the mission of the Master, not does it mean it is primary. All it means is that it is the aspect of the Gospel that you hear most often and thus, relieves you of the necessity of thinking very hard about the situation. A friend of mine calls it “The Lazy Man’s Guide to Salvation” and he is not far from correct.

 

I am not saying that the Atonement is heresy. All I am saying is that when you make any one aspect of the Gospel the “only truth” or the “preferred truth,” you are not only limiting yourself; you are also insulting Jesus and discounting all that he did. And what is equally disturbing, you end up creating disunity, animosity, and fissures in the Body of Christ.

 

I am convinced that when the Master sees the blatant buffoonery like what was taking place outside of Lakewood, he must feel much sadness. I know I do. When I witness such silliness, it makes me want to run from the Nineveh to which I have been called and head straight for the harbor. Even the belly of a whale is preferable to listening to babbling of these “Watchmen on the Walls.”

 

In the words of Archie Bunker: “Stifle!”

 

© L.D. Turner 2009/ All Rights Reserved

Strange Peas in a Pod: Sharon Stone and John Hagee

Mick Turner

The recent comments by Sharon Stone regarding the Dalai Lama, Karma, and the earthquake in China has got my dander up just a tad. If you are familiar with this blog, you know that I have a strong affection for and connection with the Chinese people. I served on the mission field over there for five-plus years; my wife is Chinese; and we have family and friends all over China.

In case you didn’t hear her brick-headed comments, actress Sharon Stone suggested that the suffering caused by the recent earthquake in Sichuan Province was the result of “karma”, gleaned from the fact that the Chinese government “has not been nice to my friend the Dalai Lama.” Good Grief!!!!

What Ms. Stone fails to understand is that, even if one subscribes to the notion of karma, it doesn’t work quite the way she states it. First of all, it is the Chinese government, not the Chinese people who have a problem with the Dalai Lama and the whole Tibetan issue. The central government didn’t suffer so much as a result of the disaster, but the Chinese people surely did. At last count, over 69,000 dead and the toll is still rising. Also, in her myopic vision, Ms. Stone also fails to realize that, outside of Tibet, the largest population of Tibetans in China is in the mountain areas of Sichuan, the very epicenter of the earthquake. I dare say that there were quite a few Tibetans in those 69,000.

In the wake of her comments, the people of China are in an uproar. Movie theaters in China now refuse to carry her movies, and she has I think three or four new releases coming out over the next two years. So now, Ms. Stone will not profit from the largest population of movie goers in the world. Now that, my friends, is karma!

Stone’s comments are similar to those made by John Hagee on the heels of Hurricane Katrina. Hagee said that the disaster was a result of God’s wrath over an upcoming parade celebrating homosexuality. I find it ironic that Jesus, who Hagee says is his Lord, stated that “if you have seen me you have seen the Father.” Hmmmm. Let’s see, I don’t recall Jesus unleashing a hurricane on the woman caught in adultry or the Samaritan woman at the well. No, he exhibited a God of grace, not a God of retribution.

Do you see the similarities between Stone and Hagee? Both are suggesting that these disasters came about as a result of some sort of cosmic retribution. In Hagee’s case, it was God who was miffed. In the case of Stone, it was an impersonal but equally nasty force at work.

In either case, I am saddened by these comments. It is a shame, really it is.