Sunday Morning Preacher

[kittynh]

God works in mysterious ways.

At times I'm ashamed to be a Christian.

A young "good looking" slick male preacher on Sunday morning tv, with one of those major audiences (all with the Bible open and highlighter in hand), was talking about how "God WANTs to be in your life making a difference everyday!"

Then he went on to explain what a difference having
God in your life everyday can make. He says he was in the mall and had found a tie he really liked, but somehow he couldn't bring himself to buy it. Something stopped him. Then as he was leaving the mall he saw the SAME tie in a different store on sale for HALF the price!"

God is a savvy shopper?

God is too busy helping you save money to stop a tsunami?

No one in the congregation even blinked. They seemed to think that this was certainly a good way God can help you everyday!

I would have walked out right then and then. To belittle God to a shopper with knowledge of all the prices in the mall! It's an insult!

No one even cared.

I was so mad I almost kicked the tv set. BUt then again, it would be so expensive to buy a new one without God helping me. And even though I 'm a Xian, God really doesn't need to help me with my SHOPPING!!!!

 

[wahrheit]

As you might know, or not, I'm an atheist. But in another thread I said something like "If I was a believer, I would be even more upset than an atheist, watching how some of these folks abuse my deity for such worldly stuff".

 

[Brown]

I was raised in the Lutheran version of the Christian faith. But I no longer consider myself a member of any church.

I was not persuaded to leave the church due to the arguments of atheists or humanists or agnostics. Quite the contrary. I was principally persuaded to leave by Christians.

As I became more mature, I became less deferential to my elders, and began to make up my own mind about things. I became more sensitive to things like double-talk, illogic, nonsense, meaningless phrases, ducking the issue, tautology, inconsistency and plain old bull****. And I saw a lot of this sort of thing coming from Christians, mostly televangelists.

Some of it was the kind of crap that Kitty mentioned. According to some televangelists, the Creator of the Universe was concerned with the most petty of trivialities, and was interfering in the most minute aspects of daily life. And yet he seemed unwilling or unable to stop wars, murders, terrorism, genocide....

My Christian sense was also offended in the extreme by televangelists' pleas for money, and the shameless tactics they would use in fundraising. The irony was that they were almost universally Protestants, but they seemed to be unaware that it was the Catholic Church's employment of disgraceful fundraising tactics like this that infuriated Martin Luther and led to the Reformation.

I was also turned off by some televangelists' emphasis on prophesy, and their dishonest representations that biblical prophesy had merit. For that matter, many of these fellows told lies upon lies, perhaps in the belief that any lie that brings a soul to Christ or that helps perpetuate the ministry cannot be bad.

I was further infuriated by the growing judgmentalism among many Christians (not just televangelists) that claimed to know with full precision what the Almighty thought about various issues. These opinions were not merely their opinions; they were God's opinions, and therefore these views were not open to debate or explanation. This pompous piety reached a point where I found myself saying, "If heaven is going to be full of pig-headed people like this, then I'd rather go to hell!!"

Regrettably, I have seen things get worse on the whole, not better. Televangelists still say incredibly stupid things and still use disgraceful fundraising techniques. The so-called Religious Right has become more strident, more judgmental, more bullying, more vindictive, and less "Christian" over the years.

That said, I still have respect for some Christian leaders. I respect the Christian speakers who do not insult their listeners' intelligence (Pastor Stuart Briscoe being a good example). I respect the pastors who are "in the trenches," so to speak: counseling the troubled, visiting the hurting, marrying the loving, burying the dead, listening to a variety of points of view.... all of the things that televangelists don't do.

 

[kittynh]

It's hard, there are a few of us Christians here on JREF. We get very little flack from the atheists here. In fact, they are quite welcoming.

What is hard is the flack we get from "real" Christians.

Somedays I wonder where in the heck these Christians got their own personal idea of Christianity.

I grew up in a very happy sedate Episcopalian/Quaker faith.

The first time I saw a faith healer on tv (I was about 12) I was in shock. I at first questioned my own faith, what kind of Christians were we that we couldn't CURE people. It did not occur to me that someone calling himself a Christian would LIE and CHEAT to PRETEND to heal people.

Trust me, I dare not even call myself a Christian to most of the people here where I live. I'm so glad on JREF I've got Xian buddies that just shake their heads with me over the mess the religion is in...

I try to keep this in mind when people start to complain about "Muslims" and "Jews" and even "atheists".

 

[Brown]

It's hard, there are a few of us Christians here on JREF. We get very little flack from the atheists here. In fact, they are quite welcoming.
...
Trust me, I dare not even call myself a Christian to most of the people here where I live. I'm so glad on JREF I've got Xian buddies that just shake their heads with me over the mess the religion is in...

I try to keep this in mind when people start to complain about "Muslims" and "Jews" and even "atheists".

As I've said before, I see no reason why a Christian cannot be skeptic. The late Steve Allen was both.

It has been my pleasure to meet some Christians who are intellectuals and critical thinkers. And it has been my embarrassment to meet Christians who equate faith with flushing their intellect and reasoning ability down the toilet.

 

[The idea]

Then he went on to explain what a difference having
God in your life everyday can make. He says he was in the mall and had found a tie he really liked, but somehow he couldn't bring himself to buy it. Something stopped him. Then as he was leaving the mall he saw the SAME tie in a different store on sale for HALF the price!"

God is a savvy shopper?

God is too busy helping you save money to stop a tsunami?

Who said God was too busy? The point is that God didn't stop the tsunami. Now, the least He can do is help a preacher save some money at the mall. If He can't even do that, then what good is He?