"The beginning of the words of his mouth is foolishness: and the end of his talk is mischievous madness." Ecclesiastes 10:13 My home church (St. Mark's United Church) is a five minute walk from my front door but a couple of times a month I like to mix it up and venture further to attend other church services and experience the worship of other denominations. Variety is the spice of life, right? I love the ambience of grand old churches, little, quaint churches and I enjoy a good choir and in particular, I love to hear a good sermon preached by someone with a real gift for public speaking. If I can find all three of those things in one church, well, I consider that the trifecta of worship facilities. During my expeditions to experience worship in new and bigger ways, I have seen and heard some deeply inspiring, motivating things. On the flip side, I have also experienced some very troubling, dumbfounding events that cause me to question what is going on in our churches today. Here is a bit of what I mean.... Click the "Read More" link to continue. I attended a Pentecostal service at a church in Durham Region, Ontario. It is a beautiful, modern church with a very large sanctuary and a huge stage that held a black grand piano, amplifiers for the guitarists, a horn section, an organ and a twenty four member choir all decked out in beautifully flowing, colorful robes. The music had just begun and in no time the entire room was filled with over five hundred members to the congregation all standing on their feet, clapping, singing and cheering to the music. It was loud and infectious. I am not much of a clapper but even I got into the rhythms.
Soon, after all the music and the announcements and readings of scripture, it was time for the sermon. The lights dimmed low, a single spotlight shined on a podium center stage and from the darkness Pastor Bob stepped up to the microphone. He started talking about faith, the commitment we must have toward it, our belief systems and how we must encourage everyone we know to adopt Christianity as their religion. And then he spoke about the souls of those who did not believe and their state of mind. Yes, their state of mind. Two large jumbo screens flanking the stage lit up with a quote from the dictionary explaining the meaning of insanity. It basically defined insanity, or someone being insane as a person out of touch with reality, incapable of believing in the realities and truths of human life. (I don't doubt that such phrases depict an insane person's mental condition, but I have looked up the words insanity and insane in a number of dictionaries and have been unable to find this interpretation. I am left to assume that the pastor or someone at the church simply made it up to support the context of the sermon.) Pastor Bob jumped straight into his sermon and for the next fifteen or twenty minutes he rambled on about faith and sanity and I listened as best I could because he really wasn't living up to his reputation as an excellent orator. And then I heard it. "Did he? No, wait, he couldn’t have said that. Yup, I really think he did just say that, " I was astounded. I kept asking myself how this could be. I looked around, puzzled, hoping to find another puzzled face in the crowd but all I could see were wide eyes and people leaning forward like something had just dripped out of their mouths. Everyone was hanging off Pastor Bob’s every single word and gesture. I asked myself, “Am I the only one who just heard that?” It was so outrageous I found it hard to trust my own ears and I decided to stick it out and enjoy the service and listen to the recorded version of the sermon that would be online later in the day to clarify things. I really wanted to get up in protest and walk out. But I didn’t. Because in my mind those words could not have come from his mouth. Not a Pastor of the Pentecostal Church. Sure enough, later that day I went online to the church’s web site, clicked on the audio link and listened to Pastor Bob connect his definition of insanity to, here it comes: the fact that since God, Jesus and the Bible were reality in our world, if you did not believe in all three of them for whatever reason, then you met the legal definition of insane: out of touch with reality. And, you were, are, indeed, insane. Crazy. Nuts. Whatever you want to call it. He did say it! It was right there echoing in cyberspace! Children heard this nonsense. I was flabbergasted. Did he just call some of my family members, friends, some Jewish associates that I have known for years – insane? Since they don’t believe or have trouble committing to belief in God, the bible and Christ, according to Pastor Bob, they are out of touch with reality. How could he say such a thing? How could he twist words that way and feed them to hundreds of spiritually hungry people who trust in him to always tell the truth, to guide them and in some ways to speak for God on this earth? And we condemn Muslims for a segment of their faith that twists the meanings of the Quran? How could he say stuff like this and get away with it? I saw how simple it is to take from a book of love and distort its purpose by altering its meaning and preaching it and thereby altering the minds of the people who have trust in their faith. I believe that Al Qaeda has mastered this technique. Pastors have a lot of power in our society. And as we all know, with power comes great responsibility. Obviously, the pastor abused his power in that sermon. And the people in that audience were soaking in his words like the gospel (pun intended). And likely nothing will ever be said to him. He will go unchallenged which only feeds his thoughts and validates his distorted paradigms and builds narcissism. This is not the first time I’ve heard things like this out of the mouths of ministers, pastors, priests. I have heard a minister preach on a Sunday during the Gay Pride weekend, pounding his fists into the air and yelling at the top of his lungs stepping off the stage and into the pews with the people that gays were "demons" and were "diseased" and "should be cast out at all costs." He cautioned the congregation to do whatever they could to keep their children away from them. That is when I turned, shaking my head in disgust, and walked out of the church. I had just witnessed a hate crime, plain and simple. That minister actually could have been arrested for such hateful rhetoric. I have attended sermons where each week the minister prays for Pre Authorized Payments during the sermon. An actual prayer for electronic tithing is delivered from the minister's mouth to God's ear in a world where there are so many other more worthy words for God to hear in our prayers. I could mention many more nutty pastor talks but my point is that these people represent God on this earth and they are revered as leaders in our community, people of solid morality and goodness and conviction beyond reproach. They have significant influence. They yield serious power. As I said, I like to visit other communities and church services. It's a thing of mine. Perhaps I am looking for nutty pastor talk. It simply astounds me what is being said in churches everywhere. I like to think I appreciate a little variety in my worshiping experience; I get a great deal from my Sunday travels. But if I get nothing else in the future, I will always have the fact that I believe in God, the bible and in Jesus Christ so I am not insane and I guess that's a good thing to know. Thanks Pastor Bob. "The words of a wise man's mouth are gracious; but the lips of a fool will swallow up himself. Ecclesiastes 10:12
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