Discussion for article #228221
I see…so he’s essentially promising them that they’ll all be resurrected as Ring Wraiths to rule at the right hand of Sauron?
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IHOP. Perfect.
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Wow, nothing that could possibly go wrong here.
But I think I see a nub of what’s going on:
Bickle’s wife, Diane, runs a real estate firm, Glad Heart Realty,
with offices in the same former shopping complex as the prayer room,
which rents and sells homes to people relocating to Grandview for IHOP."
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This is a cult. A dangerous cult. Having grown up in Chattanooga, home to Tennessee Temple which at the time was a very similar evangelical institution, I can vouch first hand how these leaders use mind control and fear to keep these people in line. It was also home to “The International Board of Jewish Missions”, a messianic jewish organization which we all called Jews for Jesus…which in and of its self is a rather stupid association. These people would go door to door trying to convert people. If you take the most stereotypical thought about door to door Mormons…thats what these people looked like.
I might also throw in that their students had the highest levels of VD in the county…so something was not quite right.
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I was raised Roman Catholic, and not a Christmas and Easter Catholic, my family went to mass every Sunday, and I attended a Catholic High School. So I think my religious education gave me a pretty good understanding of the bible in general and the Gospels in particular.
I have never understood where the “Prosperity Gospel” Evangelicals, or the sects/cults like this one get their theological basis. I just don’t see anything remotely connected with what I studied, and was taught about the basic tenets of Christianity and what these “folks” preach.
Despite the rigidity and theological discipline the Catholic church is often associated with, one the most important things the Priests taught me was to follow my conscience. Even if it meant conflict with recognized and authorized leaders of my religion.
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I’ve been saying that IHOP was a scary, dangerous institution
–and a threat to the fabric of America–
long before THIS group got started!
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Anderson, who is gay, said “one of the reasons I was so insistent on needing that genuine miracle” was because homosexuality was considered wicked. “There was no little boy who cried and prayed more hours than me” to “get rid of it and be changed.”
Had IHOP leaders known he was gay, he said, “That would have been immediate reason for exorcism.”
In reality this is not about religion but power and money, that will come out and the organization will fall apart only for another antichrist type to arise and take up the banner.
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What a cobbled together pile of B.S. (the cult, not the article). This stuff is so incredibly boring and predictable and just endlessly recycled crapola.
The disciples of this obnoxious charlatan must have no lives at all, and the real world must be a pretty scary place, if they find this shallow, manipulative theo-rhetoricical boilerplate compelling. Religious scamming is endlessly profitable with fools like these waiting… begging to take the hook.
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“…and rule the world from His throne in Jerusalem…”
While we make a ton of money.
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They cherry pick passages from the bible and weave them into a narrative, bolstering whatever story they are trying to sell.
I grew up in a Catholic house too, was an altar boy for years, went to CCD for years, though I left religion long ago (perhaps it never took hold). One thing that I noticed even then is that while the same cycle of passages are read every year, and a few more will be brought up in the homily, Catholics by and large don’t spend a lot of time reading the bible, and memorizing chapter and verse. My conclusion has been that the church intellectuals long ago figured out that biblical literalism was untenable, so instead they opted to rely more on revealed knowledge, and have no problem simply ignoring the parts of the bible that don’t jibe with the RCC story.
So, in short, the cults cherry pick what they want to emphasize, just like the big boys.
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Yes, I think, like many here, that we’ve seen this movie before. (Elmer Gantry etc). But what’s different are the times we live in. As the ecological bad news continues to seep down into the lives of young people whose future had already been pre-shrunk by the economy one can see the appeal of a pitch that makes them players in the Prophetic Drama. And why limit ourselves to Americans here. Young people the world over are facing the same narrative. Here’s a guy that basically assigns them comic book hero status and gives them their assignment: to save the world, not physically (that’s over and done with) but to save it spiritually. To a person made small by nature and fate this could be their only chance at the brass ring. Then there’s the whole nature of prophesy itself which is a potent form of storytelling. “This is what will be.” It’s something we all want to know but especially people in limbo. Most of us who have lived through a few news cycles know that these ministries collapse because of human frailty (or problems with the IRS). But I think there’s a danger that this particular message might transcend the individual charismatic leader delivering it and become A THING UNTO ITSELF. A narrative that transcends reason and language itself.
Of course, I could be thinking this way because it appeals to MY need for grandiosity which we are learning is a potent motivator.
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“Butler cited a Palin speech to a church group, made while she was governor, casting Alaska as a “refuge in the last days,” and recalling how a Kenyan preacher, Thomas Muthee, had laid hands on her and prayed for the Lord to “make a way and let her do this next step,” referring to her run for governor.”
A Kenyan laid hands on Sister Sarah? Oh the horror!!!
I thought she didn’t like Kenyans.
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I went into an IHOP once. And left before ordering anything. Now I know why. I don’t generally want to criticize what other folk believe but born again types like these folks mostly end up being coercive about spreading their beliefs, Belief (or non belief) should be a private affair I think.
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“Assigns them comic book hero status”
You beat me to it. I was going to do
Shoter Bicke: You too can be a comic book Hero.
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I’m pretty sure it’s a 3 year cycle on the homilies.
Yea, the official RCC position is that the bible is written on several levels, and that people can accept a literal interpretation of the bible, or you can accept that is metaphorical and allegorical.
As an example, you don’t need to accept that Moses parted the Red Sea. you can accept that during certain periods, it was possible to wade across the Red Sea in certain parts. And a person, like Moses, who was probably intimately knowledgeable about tides, and the local geography, may have been able to navigate across it.
Or the fact that evolution and a 4 billion year old earth are accepted as settled science and taught in Catholic schools.
I started attending Mass again after a 20 year hiatus, mostly related to marrying a practicing Catholic, as well as tradition, culture, and a strong belief in the Catholic message on Social Justice.
I always looked at most Catholics lack of religious fervor as a feature, not a bug.
To be Catholic is as much cultural, as it is religious. Not quite like, but somewhat similar what it means to be Jewish.
We’ve gotten a great response to this latest Prime longform. Thanks for all the comments. I’m glad you read it, hopefully enjoyed it.
As a kind of an outsider to Christianity (my ancestors were Catholics and Protestants, but both lines lapsed from faith several generations ago at least), it seems to me like there are some important differences between those two hemispheres – Catholicism’s worldview is generally more communitarian, while the Protestants place a little more emphasis on the individual’s direct relationship with Jesus or whatever, for obvious historical reasons.
But both branches are generally pretty authoritarian and martial, which is hilariously contrary to the militant pacifism and anti-imperialism of the historical Jesus. Emperor Constantine clearly knew what he was doing when he assimilated the hippies that had bleeding the armies of Rome and Byzantium for decades, converting soldiers and prompting them to desert. Through that strange transubstantiation, the faith of peace became that of war and empire (excepting the dwindling number of Quakers and Unitarians and liberation theologists that still inhabit it, of course).
Here’s what I don’t get: why the peculiar rightwing American (/and) Christian fetishism of end-times theories centered on the UN and one-world government as proxies for the Antichrist? Is there any scriptural basis for it? Tower of Babel? Or is it just Bircherism and/or 20th Century anti-Semitic conspiracy theories mingling with the liturgies of the GI Jesus crowd?
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Excellent reporting, good subject, and glad to be a Prime member to help support this.
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