Preachers

I just saw the film Marjoe, it totally changed my life. This movie is a Academy Award winning documentary about faith healers, word of faith preachers, and generally the huckstering and thievery that thrives in the charismatic, pentecostal, Assemblies of God, and other types of churches. The dirty world of the tent revival.

I lived for a time in this world of fantasy, and Wizards of Oz who wear the giant curtain on their sleeves. These preachers practice a kind of manipulation the likes of which makes one wonder if the story The Emperor's New Clothes was based on a true story.

I was born again at the age of 19 in the year 1998 in the month of October. I was lead to Jesus by begging for food in a moment of extreme poverty at the heights of the infamous 17th street Punk rock house in Lubbock, Texas. If you've never heard of the 17th street house hear it now, no working plumbing, booze, drugs, skinheads, knives, guns, violence, robbery, it was awesome. I was Peter Pan surrounded by drunken Lost Boys. But instead of finding Wendy to make love to, I found Jesus. What a goddamn waste.

I became a fanatic very quickly. Before I knew it I was speaking in tounges, prophesying and healing my friends of their illnesses with my healing hands as promised in the New Testament of the Holy Bible.

It was fun.

I realize now that I have had a science education, and I realize that skepticism and reason are part of finding truth, that what I was doing was manipulating my own emotions and the emotions of those around me.

I also got to watch kids grow up, in youth ministry, and had a blast going to prayer retreats (where my friends and I would sneak off to smoke pot).  I felt loved like I hadn't felt in years because I had burned my family in my quest to be as punk rock as possible.

But it slowed me down, it made me make bad decisions, and it cost me a lot of fucking money.

Because like all the other suckers in the pews (or more likely, folding chairs) I was emptying out my wallet because I believed the preachers when they said the more money I gave the more I would get back from Jesus.

I was reading every christian book I could get my hands on, Schaffer, Lewis, and all the books by the hucksters and thieves too.

I believed the founding of the state of Israel was the coming apocalypse right on schedule, and I was honored that I would bleed with all the other martyrs as the rise of the antichrist and the second coming were upon us.

I did not believe in the rapture, I rejected it because of Jim Baker's book Prosperity and the Coming Apocalypse, if Jim Baker said it I believed it.

I went to a Benny Hinn crusade in my early 20s.

I went with my friend James and Mark, Mark and I are still friends. Jimmy is now a preacher. I'd be happy to talk to him, but we would probably agree on very little.

Benny Hinn has the big grey hair, and he "slays people in the spirit" which means people fall down and shake when he tells them too.

I did it once, but not for Benny Hinn, I did it for Mark's mom when she was praying for me.

It was pretty dumb, I felt like I should fall, and I was really emotional because all these people were touching me and praying for me. I was emotional, feeling loved and appreciated and valued, and all anyone wanted to do was for me to fall down. So I decided to believe that God was knocking me down, then I laid down. Voila! Slain in the spirit.

But at the Benny Hinn crusade I felt no pressure.

Apparently neither did Mark or James, because none of us fell. Every row in a giant Dallas colleseum fell down, until our row.

I guess we broke the spell.

Its ironic to me that it really is like a magical spell, even though nothing supernatural is going on, its a lot like a mass hypnosis show. This is assuming the common skeptical definition of hypnosis as a private agreement between the performer and the hypnotized to play pretend together.

This laid the seeds in my mind to eventually walk away from this movement. I walked away forever when I was 24, even though I still considered myself a Christian for couple of years, I was so damn liberal all it took was someone pointing out that I was a cunt hair away from atheism to finish the deed.

That someone was author Richard Dawkins in his book The God Delusion.

Now I have come back to my roots, but as a skeptical investigator, thanks to this fabulous movie Marjoe.

Seeing this amazing young man who began his conman career at the his mother's breast, becoming a preacher at the age of 3, debunk his whole lifestyle as a gesture of consumer protectionism has made me feel full of energy and power.

I have now subscribed to podcasts of the radio ministries of Kenneth Hagin, Kenneth Copeland, Creflo Dollar, John Hagee's church (John McCain's spiritual advisor) and Joyce Meyer and Jerry Savelle. I picked these people because of my own past experiences with them and also because so many of them have recently come under investigation for their unethical practices involving money.

It is interesting to me that Satanists, who all these people fear, believe that ritual and theatrics, without any supernatural elements can change your attitude and personality in powerful ways. This seems to be exactly what its at play with these conmen and conwomen.

I find myself strangely full of energy as I listen, even though, according to the evidence seen in Marjoe the tricks and scams have not changed at all in over 30 years.

I heard Hagee's son declare that the germ theory of disease is meaningless, because disease is from the sin of Adam. This is, again, from the church that has given John McCain all of his political muscle with the religious right.

These days I have nothing against the republican party in principle save their alliance to the religious right.

So I will continue to listen to these bastards and think about their tricks and posting here and on all my other blog locations to share my joy in hunting preachers.