The Great Red Spot of Jupiter. NASA
“If you’re going to sin, sin against God, not the bureaucracy; God will forgive you, but the bureaucracy won’t.” Hyman Rickover
A dear friend and former President of a Lutheran seminary(of the conservative variety) told me how the school trained pastors when it comes to calling out “things that are sinful/wrong” and “things that are exemplary/right.” When the pastor wants to point out a particular sin, he should refer to himself and his struggles as a sinner. When the pastor seeks to draw attention to the good things people do, he should not point to himself but point to those in the congregation. I am fortunate to be in a church in which the pastors practice this advice.
When the pastor discusses his struggles with sin, I, along with others I know, empathize since we, too, struggle. When he points to the congregation, complimenting them on things they have done well, I immediately look at the pastor and think of the many things he has done well. I take the opportunity to thank him for his thoughtful sermon or his participation in an outreach situation.
In my church, a few people come in late, and some leave a few minutes early.
This weekend I enjoyed attending Park Street Church in Boston (where I met my husband) with my daughter. I heard an excellent sermon on a Psalm in which the pastor pointed out how women and children have been marginalized throughout the centuries. He contrasted this with the ministry of Jesus in which He welcomed the little children, spoke with prostitutes, and gave women the privilege of being the first to proclaim the Gospel after Jesus’ resurrection.
Some people came in late in this historic church with filled pews and were graciously escorted to open seats. A few people left after communion and skipped the closing hymn and dismissal. No one seemed upset that they did so. The pastor also heartily welcomed those listening online.
Did the ones who left early have to catch a train or a bus? Maybe little ones were acting up and just needed to run on Boston Commons across the street. Perhaps a nurse woke up late after a rough night caring for a dying child and could barely muster the strength to turn over in bed to watch the service. Then there is the single mother working two jobs to support her three children.
I have been guilty of coming late and was already displeased with myself. I left early because some churches have bad parking and long lines while trying to get home out after church.
Recently, JD Great decided to fuss at people who come late, listen online, and leave early, saying they treated the worship service like an entertainment venue. However, the guy on the camera pulled back, and observers could look at JD’s big stage, which looked a lot like an entertainment venue to me!
Watch it yourself, and then I will offer additional thoughts on what he said. It appears that all the clips of the statement keep getting removed from Twitter, so I had to do a workaround. Here I present the entire service. To hear his relatively short rant, go to mark 42:20-43.09. If you want to listen to him telling about all those wonderful churches that he has planted to reach the disenfranchised, listen for about 10 minutes before his rant.
To a different way of presenting sin and righteousness
- Instead of saying that people need to reach out to disenfranchised or lonely people who come into the church, how about calling out the names of some who have done so? In a megachurch, the names of those who work hard as volunteers are seldom mentioned.
- Instead of pointing out the lateness of a few people, why not point out the punctuality of many people in the church? For example, I bet the band gets there early to practice. They are on time. The poor people who get car duty during a hot Raleigh August get out to park early. Call out their names. Thank them.
- Instead of emphasizing how many churches have been started by the proverbial “us”(most people will assume he is talking about himself, of course), he should point out people who reach out to the poor and hurting. I know some people in his church who do so, but maybe that is ‘expected’ by Greear.
- Instead of whaling on the people watching online without knowing their circumstances, emphasize how wonderful that so many people came to church. Thank the people who came to the service. Maybe even point out some faithful attendees. I know many cases that force people to watch online. He should look into those circumstances. Were they sexually abused in the church and are afraid to come back? Were they spiritually abused by authoritarian pastors and are not in a position to trust the leaders? Did a nurse who covered the 12-hour night shift have to care for a small child who died? Did she not have the strength to go to church that day? Maybe others, rightly or wrongly, perceive hostility in the preaching.
- Those who left early may have done it to get to a job on time. Many people, just like JD, have to work on a Sunday. Maybe their kids were cranky? Perhaps they are trying out church and just needed to get out? Could it be the traffic line is just awful, and they want to get a jump on it?
- Do the people treat the service like a religious show or “big production” do so because it is easy to perceive the worship service as just that? Take a look at the venue from which Greear is speaking. Doesn’t it look like a stage for a musical production?
JD GREEAR: “YOU TREAT CHURCH LIKE A RELIGIOUS SHOW!!”
Also JD Greear: pic.twitter.com/VTXCQOuvh2
— Eɾιɳ Hαɾԃιɳɠ (@ErinMHarding) August 4, 2023
Final thought:
JD Greear is and was trained to be a Southern Baptist pastor. Baptist pastors are good at, rightly or wrongly, calling out sin in their members. Been there, seen that, and am glad to be in a different type of church. I guess this approach is in his DNA and is just who he is. I would assume his people enjoy being called out in this fashion, or why would they still be there?
PS What happened to the elder, Bruce Ashford?
I love that quote from Hyman Rickover…. especially because I know all about him….
> calling out sin in their members
I recall reading somewhere that the fear of YHWH is the beginning of wisdom. I suppose that if one’s church culture does not inculcate a reverent sense that one’s life is lived before the gaze of the Searcher of Hearts, at least one can train people to be gun-shy of the pastor’s disapproval. If the visible fruits are satisfactory, who cares what the motives are?
I always think about what AA says, “ you’re never too late to attend a meeting.” Why, because the person who shows up late may have been struggling to go to the bar but in the end their desire for sobriety won out and for that moment in time they’re winning the battle.
Chuckp,
Loved that comment!
Jeffrey J Chalmers,
What do you know about him?
However did Jesus make it without “immersive visual elements and colored lights?”
dee,
I think the healings, exorcisms, resuscitations and mass feedings had something to do with it.
Modern day preachers, who are not able to consistently get YHWH to hearken unto their requests, even when they pray in Jesus’ name, need to resort to other means of establishing that they are “sent from the Father.”
—
I seem to be kind of cranky today.
As I wrote on X when someone posted Greear’s rant:
*foot
dee,
He is, basically, responsible for the US Nuclear Navy….and his “behavior” is legendary
One must question why Greear chose his rant to upload to Twitter/X. His sermon was about not showing partiality and mercy triumphing over judgment. His clip seems to display the opposite.
The one character trait that has “left early” in many pastors is empathy. Jesus felt compassion, and so should pastors. Unfortunately, clergy is high on the list of professions that attract those with sociopathic tendencies.
What an a$$|-|ole.
“To a different way of presenting sin and righteousness”
Good suggestions, that apply to a variety of situations. Another great post, Dee.
Question for the guy with the rant: is the rant on behalf of Jesus or on behalf of the speaker, the pastor?
Did Jesus give such talk in the NT? Or, John the Baptist? the disciples? the OT prophets? Did the OT Temple have these protocols? The Law of Moses (which can be very detailed)? Where is this concern in the Bible?
Listened to the sermon. Greear was prophetic in his story about he himself arriving late to preach because of a flat tire and being struck by a truck going 75 mph. His posted rebuke toward his congregation is like that flat tire. The truck is the viral response on Twitter calling him to account. His lie for being late is like his failure to own up to his very public mistake.
Muff Potter,
The Bible has a term for THAT GUY:
Proverbs 18:2 “A fool does not delight in understanding,
But only in revealing his own mind.”
Proverbs 29:11 “A fool always loses his temper,
But a wise man holds it back.”
Ecclesiastes 9:17 “The words of the wise heard in quietness are better than the shouting of a ruler among fools.”
Ecclesiastes 10:12 “Words from the mouth of a wise man are gracious, while the lips of a fool consume him;”
Psalm 92:6 “A senseless man has no knowledge,
Nor does a stupid man understand this;”
The last verse brings to mind all of the circumstances that people are dealing with in their lives, that Dee mentioned in the post. Apparently the preacher on the video doesn’t get it – how people actually live their lives, beyond what is happening on the stage on Sunday morning.
Finally, from Galatians 5: The fruit of the Holy Spirit are: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, faithfulness, self-control.
He probably would have approved of Mrs Proudie (character in a 19th century novel)
“Mrs. Proudie always went to church on Sunday evenings, making a point of hearing three services and three sermons every Sunday of her life.”
Admittedly also
“…The church which Mrs. Proudie attended in the evening was nearly half a mile from [her house], and the coachman and groom never got a holiday on Sunday night.”
Sone pf those people leaving early may be serving in other areas of the church. I sneak out at 10:30 every Sunday because I have an important date with some 4 year-olds in the children’s wing.
Jesus isn’t J. D. Greear.
Jesus didn’t (and doesn’t) need theatrical lighting systems and a 360 audio systems to point the attendees attention to “the message of the Gospel”.
Sheeesh…… What percentage of the paying customers go to hear JD, and what percentage of them go for the light and sound show???? Maybe JD should take a poll.
Jeffrey J Chalmers,
I met Admiral Rickover when I was a child. I remember that he was short, and I shook his hand and said, “Nice to meet you, Admiral.”
“All of these things work together to create a transparent audio visual experience for those that attend, pointing their focus to the message of the Gospel.”
I don’t see the connection between “audio visual experience” and “message of the Gospel.” Also, what is “transparent audio,” anyway?
“Could it be the traffic line is just awful, and they want to get a jump on it?”
If that’s an issue for a person, the person might want to continue attending a different church. There are lots of modestly-sized congregations where the attendees don’t have to spend an hour getting out of the parking lot.
CynthiaW.,
Wow..
You a child of submariner?
Ava Aaronson,
All that
Jeffrey Chalmers,
Pilot. I think Admiral Rickover made an appearance at Naval War College when my father was there.
Burwell Stark,
That is awful. Do you remember the date that happened. i would love to find the video of it.
Jeffrey Chalmers,
Now you’ve got me going. I will need to read about him.
Good comment.
I agree. I would leave a church if a pastor ranted as he did. I went out of my way to find a modestly sized church in which I can get out of the parking lot quickly.
Sermons on “the type of people who ought to be in church and who are REAL Christians” are an interesting and growing phenomena in SB life. My sister in law goes to such a church in Murfreesboro, TN that she “loves” so I watched worship online. The pastor outlined all those church members who were not “right for their church”: don’t tithe, don’t volunteer, don’t come to enough worship services per month, etc. and like Greaar, the delivery was this bombastic (not pastoral) “it’s my way or the highway” view of the church.
Hard for me to believe why anyone would sit through something like that or even take it seriously . . .
#metoo
Ava Aaronson,
Amen Ava.
So very, very true.
The words of the Proverbs and Ecclesiastes will cast much of life into stark relief, and expose fools for what they are.
There isn’t another book of writings on the Planet that can do this.
It really is that quick and powerful.
dee,
Given the “structure” of the US military (or any serious miltary), he was quite a character….
Do you think anyone was even paying attention by 42 minutes in?
Trees grow from the top up and rot from the top down. Jesus said it’s what comes out of a man that defiles him. Listen to what came out of his mouth. Our brother is guilty of the very thing he complains about. This is not “leadership”. It’s THE FLESH!
The typical clergy/lay people model of church is bankrupt. Do we really think being shouted at from a stage is life in Christ with Jesus as our Head? Do we really believe God is pleased with His people being publicly shamed?
The problem with our church meetings Dee isn’t doctrinal, or behavioral, it’s relational. A relational problem that is the ROOT of ALL the sexual abuse that you so often document. If we don’t know how to be the church, could it be that we are not seeing the church operate as He intended?
I told Greear on the bird site that his griping reminds me why I’m outside the charmed circle of the ecclesia. Far too many churches are noisy these days, and all that noise is hard on my nerves. Surprise noise makes me jump. (My brother is amused when my mom shouts out DEANA! because I will JUMP.)
Churches seem to be made for extroverts and not for introverts.
Running what is recognisably a religious show program a few times a week and then complaining that people treat it as such shows a remarkable lack of self-awareness on Mr Greear’s part.
At least, he’s not calling those people “narcissistic zeros” – one must not be too demanding in one’s expectations. 😉
I did not listen to the whole sermon, but he seems to start off warning people about not pre-judging and thinking ill of people, and then in the clip above he pre-judges people and thinks ill of them because they don’t “do church” the way he wants.
I can appreciate that he wants to encourage those in his congregation who are strong in the faith to spend time reaching out to others at church rather than treating church as a private program, but there is a difference between encouragement and scolding.
Scolding is a big turn off, especially for those who are not strong in the faith. Those who already do what he wants get an infusion of pride knowing he’s not talking about them. Those who have good reasons for leaving early/coming late/remote worship feel guilty because now they know others are judging them, especially those who don’t know their circumstances. Non-Christians and people barely holding on to faith who come to the church to learn about Christ will feel they can’t properly participate in this church and just not come back.
A lot of what happens in churches is seen in its true light when you look on it as grooming, and yes I do mean the process of breaking down boundaries so that people can be abused.
If you can get people to pay 10% of their income
And you can get them to work for free, sorry for the church or for God
And you can get them not to question the leaders’ decisions
And you can get them to listen to sermons haranguing them
And you can get them to change their will in your favour
And you can get them to only seek friends like us
Well then you have done the exact same grooming of people that abusers do by isolating them, getting their trust, making them question themselves and unable to leave even if they wanted to…
And then you have them ready not to go to the police or leave if their child is abused or the minister has a slip with an adult.
This sort of ‘this is the sort of person who belongs in this church’ is calculated to manipulate people into group think and not being able to leave.
To me personally it is now blindingly obvious that when a church covers up prolific abuse on an international level it is a criminal enterprise not a church and you stop going to it.
But then even as a child I had a habit of pointing out what the emperor was wearing lol.
This made me laugh.
This.
Children are honest, unjaded, outspoken, unfiltered. The emperor was wearing nothing … no clothes. Duh.
They’re caught in the rat race of “spiritual brownie points” comparison. Hearing how much “better” they are at “being Christian” makes them feel better about themselves, because they’re not secure in their relationship with God. So they keep on the hamster wheel of doing and doing and doing for the church, not realizing that the only thing that hamster wheel is fueling is the pastor’s ego as he brags about how much “his” members are tithing and serving and attending.
Those who do feel secure and not like they have to keep measuring up eventually tire of it and leave. Others burn out and leave. And others just keep on that hamster wheel, running their poor little selves ragged, because they can’t hear the one who says “It is finished” and “Come to me, all who are weary.”
It’s sad, really.
When churchgoers are infantilized, then, yes, go to church to get a scolding.
Jesus did no such thing, except maybe to the Scribes and the Pharisees, the religious leaders of his day.
We’ve started attending a church where the sermon is 20 minutes, 25 tops. After spending YEARS in churches where the sermon was regularly 45-60 minutes, it has been such a breath of fresh air.
The stage is for extroverts. The pew is for introverts.
Interesting how churches transitioned from raised platforms, to pulpits, to stages, to big screens, to jumbotrons a la the Wizard of Oz.
“…pointing their focus to the message of the Gospel.”
Hahahahahahahaha!!!!!!
Smack-dab.
Makes sense. Who says church has to be miserable and inconvenient? Entertaining? Not necessary. But miserable? Absolutely not.
When a hole bursts through the floor of a boat, one observant passenger on board sounds the alarm, and tries to helpfully warn the other passengers: “People, we have a hole in our boat!”
Others on board react:
“Aren’t you ashamed to say something like that about our ship? There are plenty of other boats in worse shape than ours.”
“Are you an expert in shipbuilding? If there’s a hole, then it’s there for a reason. It means something is working.”
“Everyone, let’s mind our own business.”
“I’m so proud of our boat.”
“I like it with that hole even better.”
“Guys, let’s not be negative.”
“I’m not listening until you communicate calmly and rationally. You should learn to consider other points of view.”
“Don’t we have bigger things to worry about?”
“Are you going to fix it? Sit down and be quiet, smart-a$$. No one is forcing you to stay in the boat.”
“Are you holophobic? My friend’s boat has one and it is fine. If you don’t like this ship, you should just build your own.”
(—– as seen on Albert Foo’s twitter w/o attribution.)
A mass homily is about 15 minutes, one central point, with Scripture. Moreover, what the priest shares is NOT the focus of mass.
… so the people can be subjects, not of Jesus, but of the church leader(s).
God created man and woman with agency, NOT to be subjects (as adults) of a church leader. After the Fall, man and woman were NOT to lose their agency, but through redemption they still are to exercise righteous agency. The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, faithfulness, self-control. The Holy Spirit is our indwelling presence of God, for our righteous agency. A church leader middleman doesn’t do this, doesn’t get us to righteous agency. Moreover, God created us for righteous agency, NOT to be subjects of a human (even a male) church leader.
20 minutes is a long homily in my church. We have some Nicaraguan priests – political exiles – right now. They started at about 35 minutes of preaching but are gradually creeping down towards 20. I asked a Nicaraguan parishioner if there was anything else to do in Nicaragua, and he said, “Only baseball.”
Perhaps Mark 9:19/Matthew 17:17 is an example of a rare instance of Jesus seeming to “lose his cool” with people not in the then religious hierarchy.
Me thinks that similar expressions of frustration in present day church leaders would be more compelling if there were stronger evidence (perhaps along the lines of Jn 14:13-14) that they actually do have authority from God.
You asked the question of what would be a better way and (while it would obviously have its own drawbacks) I’m finding it hard to see why leadership, ministry, responsibility roles etc, wouldn’t be decided by lot.
Even leading services on a weekly basis.
Interpret it as chance or the hand of God as you will, I just think this would automatically create a less passive community and make the church less attractive to sociopaths.
The trouble with people wanting roles is that they think they can do them: the thought of these things being offered to you by lot may make other people realise they actually can and bring out confidence and gifts they didn’t know they had.
dee,
Lol, I’m sure he was being filmed at the time (to catch any stay pearls of wisdom before they hit the floor and roll under the chair of a random youth swine), but I cannot remember what year it was, 2013 or 2014.
Burwell Stark,
*stray
Sarah (aka Wild Honey),
This is true, Sarah. It is also true that the benefits of low-commitment churches – i.e., show up for an entertainment/service 1x peers week and stack a few chairs/ serve coffee/ park cars – outweighs any heavy handed guilt passed out by their “celebrity” pastor. Show up, sign a commitment card, and feel good about belonging to the right club.
A little chiding is the cross cool Christians have to bear in order to live their lives in relative freedom, anonymity, and without too many asks that aren’t financial in nature.
I volunteer in the nursery. Sometimes we have babies to watch, sometimes we don’t. (The moms will choose to stay with their child in the over-flow room.) After 20 minutes, I will leave the other person to wait for anyone coming very late and will sneak into the service. I wonder if that is what is happening too and he has no idea what the volunteers at his church do? And as a teen (sorry if this is too much TMI) who had very heavy periods: more than once I left a youth group meeting right in the middle of it to get to the bathroom. So thankful no one every said a thing to me. I would have never come back.
Been there, done that, bought the T-shirt. And combine that with abdominal cramps so bad that if I didn’t sit or lie down, I’d pass out. And I had to work VERY hard not to scream aloud in pain….painkillers didn’t work.
John Berry,
100%
My understanding is that “fear” in this context means something more like awe at God’s might, rather than quake-in-boots terror that God is out to punish.
I’d welcome other TWW thoughts about this.
Friend,
I feel confident that that’s part of it, but I think it’s probably a larger and multifaceted concept. Proverbs doesn’t give us a concise definition, but there are other texts that may be speaking of the same thing. My sense from the wider wisdom/folly commentary in that book is that it may, for example, have something to do with what in our day might be phrased along the lines of “what audience are you playing to?”. The fool imagines in his heart that “God does not see”; God is not part of the “audience” of his life. There is no fear of God before the fool’s eyes.
This idea of “what audience?” was in the forefront of my cranky remark about training congregations to conform to pastoral expectations. That might be thought of as “fear of man”, as opposed to “fear of God.”
I guess I’m one of the “people that don’t belong in [JD Greear’s version of] church.” I’m not gonna lose a wink of sleep over that.
Samuel Conner,
Thank you. I agree with your insights.
Can it be a little of both?
To be clear, I have no settled thoughts about this. But fear happens on a spectrum, and a little fear of consequences can be healthy. I don’t blithely walk into traffic because I “fear” the consequence of being hit by a car. My kids are leaning not to use their fists to resolve differences because they “fear“ the consequences I will enforce. (Not corporal punishment, to be clear. But the way my 5-year-old reacted to being told she should draw her sister an “I’m soree [sic]” note certainly suggested her world was ending.)
Feedback/pushback welcome.
“17 Jesus answered, ‘Faithless and perverse generation! How long will I be with you? How long will I bear with you? Bring him here to me.’ 18 Jesus rebuked the demon, and it went out of him, and the boy was cured from that hour.”
First, Jesus scolds the crowd, then he rebukes a demon. Jesus was no chump. Nothing to do with not being on time to listen to a religious leader; everything to do with not being of faith – settling for too little with regard to what God can do, where the rubber meets the road, the real work begins, where following Jesus really matters.
That.
Sarah (aka Wild Honey),
Thank you for your thoughtful comments. It can be a little of both, certainly.
As a Christian since early childhood, I know how to live a Christian life. God’s potential punishment after I die is just not a motivator. I don’t cheat on my spouse, but is that a God-wrath thing? Not for me. Cheating would hurt both of us, even if I repented and my husband never found out. I also happen to love and cherish my husband, so I have a happy reason for fidelity, on top of the vows.
Too often, God is presented as the one who will get you when earthly retribution doesn’t happen; or as the wrathful dad who saw two teens holding hands one day, and who will punish them eternally, no matter what. For me, this was never a healthy fear, but it was fear.
Over time, I find myself reaching more and more toward God’s love. That keeps me going in the worst times, and it strengthens me in ways that fear cannot.
Just my take. 🙂
Everything except SCRIPTURE, Worship, SCRIPTURE, Witnessing, and SCRIPTURE is a God-Wrath Thing.
Just ask Jack Chick – remember the Great White Throne scene in most of his tracts?
You can only take God’s Hell-gun pressed to the back of your head – one up the spout, hammer back, safety off, 3 1/2 oz of pull on a 4 oz hair trigger, 24/7/365 – for so long before you go crazy, kill yourself, or run far far away and never ever look back.
Sarah (aka Wild Honey),
Yes, fear can be reverence or “quake in boots”. The meaning is usually derived from the context in which it is used. This is from the New International Dictionary of Old Testament Theology and Exegesis – “ Only by context can the particular sense of each occurrence be determined. An intriguing example of how יָרֵא can express both terror and worship is found in the opening narrative of the book of Jonah. Jonah, attempting to flee from Yahweh, sets sail for Tarshish and is caught in the midst of a terrible storm. “All the sailors were afraid” (וַיִּיראוּ; Jon 1:5). After casting lots and identifying Jonah as the reason for this storm, Jonah identifies himself as one who “worships the Lord” (יָרֵא; 1:9). Determining that their precarious situation was the result of Jonah’s rebellion and Yahweh’s wrath, the men of the boat once again “feared with great fear” (וַיִּירְא֤וּ יִרְאָה גְדוֹלָה; 1:10, lit.). The subsequent calming of the raging sea turned the fear of the sailors into the worship of Yahweh. The NIV translates the crew’s response in 1:16 as “the men greatly feared the Lord” (וַיִּירְאוּ יִרְאָה גְדוֹלָה). A better translation, however, would replace “fear” with “worship.” This makes better sense of the subsequent epexegetical expression “and they offered a sacrifice to the Lord and made vows to him.”
And from the same book, the following addresses the comments made by Samuel Conner – “ . The fear of God (Yahweh) in Wisdom literature. A central theme of the Wisdom literature of the OT is the fear of Yahweh (both יִראַת יהוה and יְרֵאֵי יהוה).
In the book of Job this theme appears about 7×. Job’s use of the expression includes the fear of God, אֱלֹהִים (Job 1:1, 8; 2:3), the Almighty, שַׁדַּי (6:14), and the Lord, אֲדֹנָי (28:28). Job, as one who fears God, is described as blameless, upright, and turning away from evil, i.e., a person characterized by a strict code of moral behavior (1:1, 8; 2:3). Such fear serves as his confidence in the midst of his despair (4:6; 6:14). The central equation of wisdom is expressed by the statement, “The fear of the Lord—that is wisdom” (28:28).
The book of Proverbs is the wisdom book most intimately connected with the concept of the fear of Yahweh. The book itself is framed by this axiomatic expression in Prov 1:7 and 31:30. The relationship between the fear of Yahweh and both wisdom and knowledge serves as the theme for the entire work: “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge, but fools despise wisdom and discipline” (Prov 1:7). The designation רֵאשִׁית, beginning, makes reference either to the origin of wisdom or to the primacy of the fear of Yahweh in the acquisition of wisdom. Such fear is often characteristic of the acquisition of true knowledge (1:7, 29; 2:5; 9:10) and the turning away from evil (3:7; 8:13; 16:17). This fear is also associated with long life (10:27; 14:27; 19:23), humility (22:4) and caution (14:16). Its rewards are riches, honor, and life (22:4).”
Pastor Big Brother’s face ten meters tall on all franchise campuses’ Telescreens.
Regarding Wizard of Oz, I’ve read L Frank Baum’s 1900(?) original. You know why The Wizard set himself up as he did – he was running a bluff to deter attack from the Wicked Witches of East and West. If he pretended to be a powerful Wizard, the two Witches would think twice about knocking him over.
At least he had a good reason.
These guys don’t, except for pure Egomania.
This. Hear, here.
It seems like the position is filled with a type, “I want to be someone, above and in the face of everyone, where I can get away with anything, and get paid mega shekels without oversite.”
By the way, the Jupiter pic up-top, looks like a great big fried egg.
That is my understanding too, and in those very terms. I got that from my (favorite) Old Testament professor Marv Wilson, who often quoted the rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel, and Heschel’s book God In Search Of Man: A Philosophy of Judaism. The book is buried in these piles next to me, and I won’t risk an avalanche just before supper, but I’m pretty sure you’ll find Heschel’s view of fear/awe in there.
Sarah, this is also a balanced view, and I agree that fear can be healthy, such as the examples you’ve given to protect children’s safety. And you’re right, fear can be on a spectrum. I think we’re in agreement that it should not be entirely a “quake-in-the-boots” fear that some use to exploit or dominate others. After all, perfect love casts out fear.
I could not be in a church where the pastor had such a critical spirit. Those who can, either have friendships and fellowship that fill their hearts, or perhaps they have found ways to serve. With so many choices for preaching topics, this guy needs wisdom. A true Pastor would “build up the body” as others here have said. It takes a huge budget to run these big churches, so maybe “pounding on the people – guilting them” might be one strategy to keep the money coming. However, nothing is hidden from God.
That’s my take also.
Except by the bureaucracy.
The “Father” whom the Archbishop of York so loathes, is the bureaucracy!
I once attended a Bible study at Park Street Church. The church’s ecclesiology wasn’t my cup of tea, but the people were wonderful — sincerely friendly, warm, and welcoming.
Friend,
“Too often, God is presented as the one who will get you when earthly retribution doesn’t happen”
++++++++++++++++++++
perhaps this is the motivating factor behind the obsession with ‘biblical’.
at this point, there are so many different competing versions of ‘biblical’ it’s utterly irrelevant.
unless, of course, the motivating factor simply to win and show how everyone else is a loser. and to build one’s brand in the evangelical marketplace.
@TGC & all its contributors are the worst offenders. Or is it @CBMW?
gawwd, i feel sick.
It’s enough to make a preacher cuss.
It would be interesting if the people who run this blog address Heath Lambert’s recent podcasts -https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/what-happened-at-first/id1695333370
“For in the Devil’s Theology, the most important thing is to be Absolutely Right and to prove everyone else to be Absolutely Wrong.”
— Thomas Merton, “Moral Theology of the Devil”