At this point in my life, it becomes more difficult to become interested in things going on around the world, and in our nation. My world is distilled down to my house, my church, as well as stores, and restaurants that I frequent. I stopped using Facebook about five years ago not long after my mother died. I've trained my news feed to give me the news sources I trust, and I have become fairly good at spotting 'click bait.' I get thrilled when new discoveries in physics and nature are made, but it won't be long until I am going to be face to face with the creator of everything and I'll know how it all works anyway. I really don't desire to know the latest gossip concerning musicians, actors, or other 'artist' types. I don't care about their opinions, because in the end, they are just people like me.
However, there are times like yesterday when I hear distressing news within the 'Christian' community from two separate men, and I sense the question of 'how does this kind of thing happen?' I won't go into the accusation, but from what I can tell it wasn't sexual misconduct as is often the case. Instead it was a blatant misrepresentation of a gift of the Spirit. In other words, the same thing that has happened since the Church was first born. The book of Acts, and the letters to the churches, all document how easy it is for false teachers to slip in unaware and lead people astray. THIS IS NOTHING NEW!! Like everything else in today's modern age, the little 3" x 5" hunk of metal and plastic we carry in our hands amplifies a story beyond it's depth. In this case, an individual is accused of using people's social media posts to make it appear as if the person was using a gift of knowledge, or a gift of discernment to reveal personal things about people. Nothing new here, it happened in the early church, and I saw it in the churches where I grew up. Its just a variation of the old carnival mentalist act.
I've seen a long line of carnival acts that were paraded through Pentecostal, and Charismatic circles during my many long years as a believer. Mentalist acts prey upon the human tendency to reveal intimate details of our lives to, and around total strangers. Mentalists observe things that we brush off, or ignore so that they can perform their carnival act and 'wow' you with their mind games. During my childhood I experienced my share of one eyed drivers license readers, with lovely 'assistants' now wives. I've also seen evangelists come in claiming to operate in the gift of knowledge, revealing intimate details of a congregants life. It always resulted in 'love' offerings at the end of the service and then they'd go on to the next church. After I left home, I had the privilege to work with a wise old man of God who taught me a great deal about how to navigate the waves of fakes who preyed upon those seeking a supernatural move of God's Spirit. His advice seems relevant in the light of what I heard happened, and the knee jerk reaction of those standing on the outside looking in.
His rules for people coming to speak in the church were simple, and concise.
First of all, he never met with an evangelist, nor had conversations with them before they spoke. He'd learned long ago that hucksters depend on this to make their 'manifestations' more believable. It's easy to share the illnesses, battles, and marital struggles of a church with someone who is outside the fray. Then when the evangelists speak to those situations, everyone thinks Holy Spirit revealed it to them. I've watched my own mother fall prey to this. We used to call it 'reading someone's mail.' When someone comes in and that is their primary 'ministry' I immediately turn them off. It doesn't matter whether they're a man or a woman, hucksterism is hucksterism. Like Pastor W, I refused to be the source of their 'material.'
When an evangelist called, or sent a letter seeking an opportunity to speak, Pastor W would inform them that there would be no 'love' offering taken at the end of a service. He would then inform them that the church had agreed that they would pay $100 dollars to speakers. In the 1970's that was good money, but nowhere near what a love offering could bring in especially if the speaker was good at making their spiritual routine look bonafide. You'd be surprised how many of these so called evangelists would instantly back down.
Another rule Pastor W followed was totally biblical. He wanted letters of recommendation with the names and numbers of the pastors where the evangelist had been over the past year. Just the demand for recommendations would deter many hucksters.
You see, we all fall prey to hucksters in every aspect of life. When I was told about the incident yesterday, both people were upset by the reaction of other churches to the way the host church handled it. Being as I don't have social media, I don't have access to these reactions, and I really don't care. I am only responsible for my own reaction. I can't represent nor make excuses, only the pastor of the host church. That pastor is going to have to stick to his guns, or he's going to have to deal with the individual and apologize for allowing someone to hurt the body of Christ. One of the more distressing things I heard was the reaction of other denominations demanding that all Pentecostal churches, and Charismatic churches must close their doors. WHAT? Every religion has its hucksters. Even the First Church of the Internet has scammers that steal far more money than has ever been taken by false prophets and teachers. Wolves prey on the weak, and the old, no matter if they believe in God or not. The fact that they can slip into a church and wreak havoc is not exclusive to Pentecostal or Charismatic churches. Every denomination has had to deal with acts of lust, and greed.
Personally, I refuse to dump my faith in God, or my Pentecostal beliefs simply because someone decided to run a 'mentalist' game on people who should have had spiritual discernment. If the church caught up in the scandal refuses to deal with the issue, they deserve to be closed down. The problem is in us, the members of the church. We love to be titillated, thrilled, and experience the sensational. Too many people believe that our everyday humdrum life can be made more bearable if we can occasionally witness a supernatural act. This is true for Christians and non-Christians alike. It is part of human nature to seek miracles, or see the supernatural. From the dawn of time, we've created monsters in the dark, giants in the woods, and mysteries in the seas to thrill our need for the sensational. To prove my point, just go through the TV listings of the Discovery Channel or the History channel. We love movies about super heroes, and we surround ourselves with video games where the hero can respawn over and over. We use ghost stories, and fairy tales to get that momentary thrill that makes our hearts beat faster. Sadly, we are setting our children up for disappointment when we don't give them the truth about the world outside of their Christian bubble. We send our boys and girls to seminaries, and Christian colleges hoping they will come out better people, but we haven't spent the time when they were 'kids' in our churches telling them the pitfalls of 'freedom.' We don't explain how to navigate the hucksters, pedophiles, abusers, and degenerate of this age. With modern AI, who needs social media, you can just create your own lies and make them look real.
We need to practice grace, by allowing the person caught in sin the opportunity to confess, and then offer them a road to redemption. The Apostle Paul called this 'restoring' the soul of the person. It is an act of grace, that we rarely offer to one another, but desperately crave for ourselves when we fall into the trap of sin. The betrayal of trust is hard to forgive. Trust is the only thing we can give to another person that expresses our desire for intimacy. Usually, moral failure isn't done over a lifetime, but is usually a trap that is set for us after a trial. Mercy, or forgiveness is the one superpower that God gave us. We can either hold onto our offense and use it to crush those who hurt us, OR we can forgive them which sets them free from God's wrath. What we forgive, God forgives. Once I laid hold of that truth it changed my life. It is such a powerful force Jesus used it to prevent God from destroying mankind. He had to cry out on the cross, "Father forgive them, they don't know what they are doing." Without Christ's forgiveness the world would have ceased to be. Through His forgiveness, we could enter into the presence of God, and be like Jesus when we too forgive. Jesus faced the ultimate betrayal, and yet opened the door of mercy to us.
So what are we to do with this young man? I've seen worse things done than what I heard was done by this young minister. I believe he should confess his sin, and submit himself to the leadership for discipline willingly and of himself. The leadership in turn should explain what they are doing to restore him, and make paths of forgiveness possible. The fellowship in question needs to be more discerning of what is said and done in front of them. Their services may be less sensational, but, then again...they could be more spiritual. Which do you want?
