#275 - Poop Showers and Prison Beds

Editor's Note: Glen Post!

A little ditty to brighten your day...

I can only base the following on one facility in one state, my home state, so bare with my narrow scope.

Growing up in the Michigan District UPCI one of the highlights of my adolescence was the two hour drive across the state to the middle of East Jabip somewhere, to the ‘Ol Campground.

A glorious beaut’ she was, settled just between Mayberry and Nowhere. I can’t be downwind of an outhouse today without being taken aback to summers getting shocked by the showerheads, sleeping on rusty beds, and the sweet aroma of Right Guard, Aussie and sweat.

That’s just the beginning of the painting. I’m ‘bout to go Rembrandt in this mother...

Our camp was a little bit Heavens Gate and a lotta bit Auschwitz. It sat on roughly 100 acres in a clearing between some railroad tracks and an old creek. It was built sometime between the invention of indoor plumbing and the founding of the Department of Health, which would explain why they've probably never seen the place.

The dorms are two buildings that are built like X’s with a bathroom at the center. Each arm of the X is its own dorm, with North, South, East and West dorms each housing about 50 kids. The boys and girls are next to each other, though separated by a high tech invention called a Rickety Fence.

Sounds fine right?

No.

These things were built over 50 years ago and I’m pretty sure they filmed Shawshank Redemption in them. The beds were donated by Jackson Prison, which is a hop, skip and belly crawl away. Yeah you read that right, the prison there donates to the church because having rapists sleep on those sharp, rusty, chlamydia soaked beds is just inhumane.

However that’s not the worst. The bathrooms. After years of countless conversations about them, I'm almost at a loss for what to say. Almost. 

Fact: The bathrooms are like a Mexican jail, with less luxuries. 
Fact: Enjoy el Prision de Mexico. 

The pipes and septic tank were installed when the place was built (60 years ago). They’re installed in a part of the country that sits below freezing for seven months out of the year, with routinely record snowfalls, torrential storms, all hitting this facility while it sits vacant. Then, it goes from vacant to overrun for about 2-3 months with constant use, if not abuse. The plumbing has become so corroded that after just a few days of use, the toilets literally can’t flush. This means the clogging of the century in the the dorms as well as the tabernacle. The showers in the dorms are lined up with one community drain which would routinely clog when one of the little prick campers thought it would be hilarious to defecate IN the shower (true story, imagine being the camp counselor when a shaking 14 year old tries to figure out the best way to tell you someone just took a deuce in the shower). And the pooping in showers happened annually. No Joke.

One year so many toilets clogged that our youth president had to go into the stalls with a trash can and a plastic bag on his hand and literally dig crap out of the toilets while simultaneously throwing up in the trash can. And the people running the place think this is acceptable.

I could go pages with disgusting stories of the condition of the grounds but I think that little tidbit gives you the idea.

So, if this is the case and the campers sleep and bathe in squalor where does the bourgeoisie…sorry, Freudian…preachers…where do they sleep? Oh they have renovated, clean, pretty cabins that the campers aren’t allowed to go to. (Seriously, if they do an old guy on a 4 wheeler runs them down and drags them back to Skid Row)

But they’re still on the grounds right? Don’t they ever go in and see the conditions?

My first time at camp was when I was 11 years old and it wasn’t until I was 25 and my student pastor basically forced the board to do a walk through that I’d ever seen any of them near the dorms and bathrooms, much less in them.

A few years ago we went from a five-day camp to a three-day camp following the supposed death of some mystery girl in another state somewhere. The reason cited was that she had stayed up all week and had to drive home tired, fell asleep and crashed. I hope this isn’t true and if it is it’s terrible. So after the tragedy we changed the schedule, sending kids home on Friday morning so they wouldn't fall asleep driving. That same year I was told that the real reason for the switch was that five-day camps require a health inspection and three-day camps can somehow circumvent this rule, or at least require a less thorough one.

The implications: It's like cleaning up your room by sweeping everything under your bed in hopes that when your parents walk by with an inspection, they won't bother to actually walk in the room since they don't have reason for concern.

I may be wrong, but I doubt it. So I encourage any readers to comment with how many days your Senior High Camps are just so we can see if there’s consistency. Either way it was mentioned either as the reason or a fringe benefit. Ew.

We hoped that change would come. We hoped that at the end of the yearly camp season the grandiose fundraising effort that took place for camp improvements would actually accomplish what it set out every time to do. The “who will pledge $____” for a generator, a new septic tank, new dorms, dorm renovations, an overflow tent, etc were regular. So we hoped...

However, despite the seemingly successful offerings every year we never saw any money raised actually come to fruition. I was present for the septic tank offering, the new bathrooms, the tent and the generator, but none of this ever came. Even though all the money was pledged.

We did see $25K spent on a glorified jungle gym under the guise of some kind of exercise equipment, because kids go to camp to get ripped apparently. We saw another $50K spent on a ‘Hall of Faith’, aka foyer because what good is a church if there isn’t a big room to socialize and sell ostentatious crap during the preaching?

It was decided one year that enough money had been raised for some bathroom improvements. The improvements? Well, the church handymen got together and decided that putting new toilets on ancient plumbing would help. Guess what? It didn't.

The next genius improvement was decided because there was a 3 foot opening between the bathrooms and dorms. In lieu of this campers could see each other going between the dorms and bathrooms after showering. Since the decision-makers believe we still live in the 40's and horny teenagers don't know what shoulders and knees look like from 50 yards off, a decision was made to build changing rooms in the bathrooms. So, wisely, in the hottest and most humid rooms in Southwest Michigan were built wooden changing rooms. Wood. In a hot, continually wet, place. Brilliant.

The most obvious answer to why the fundraised money was never spent on it's intended purpose is that not enough money was collected. People go pledge all happy-pants when there's an organ thumping a G-Major (apo's love key changes), but forget to check their balance before pledging half their liquid worth. That's not the camp leadership's fault, but waiting for Pastor Billy-Jo's check to arrive, much less clear, is a bad long term economic strategy.

I don’t believe anyone embezzled or stole money from these fundraising efforts. I spent a lot of time at camp and I can tell you the people who run it love campe. They bleed for it. They spend as much time as they possibly can there. They're some of the most diligent, kindest, most dedicated men you'll ever meet. They're full of integrity, they're consistent and they love the kids they work for. They have good intentions and do their best.

But their best isn't good enough.

About eight years ago my church built a new building. They wanted to be smart about their money and the management of the facilities so they formed a committee of a few business owners in the church. Not preachers, pastors or ministers, but business owners. One is a very successful owner of a company who started entry level and advanced to the point that he bought his company. Another owns a successful insurance company. The other one owns malls. Plural. The ministry opened their books and let men who are already successful and experienced with facilities, money and staff management serve as advisors. Instead of thinking “God will tell us what to do with the money,” they humbled themselves and allowed other men with God given talents advise them. And guess what? The place is doing great.

Being a pastor does not mean you know money or facilities management. It doesn't mean you’re a bad person or a bad pastor. What makes a bad person and bad pastor is not allowing more qualified people than you to advise your spending decisions regarding a million dollar facility that you’re ill-equipped to manage. Let the preachers preach and the managers manage.

Waiting for the next retiree who knows how to mow a lawn and change a light bulb to move onto the grounds and ‘maintain it’ isn't enough. Camp gets exponentially worse every summer. When is someone going to be granted control who knows what they’re doing? Hiring the bored old guys and the mentally handicapped to come in and paint and patch the dry wall cracks every spring isn't good management. Hire a contractor  Not the guy from your church who used to do construction part time. (I once went to a camp work day and was literally told to go rake in the woods. If that doesn't tell you everything you need to know about the decision making in the place I don't know what would)

For years now I’ve tossed around the idea of waiting for the end of camp season to roll around and calling the Department of Health and Human Services or Child Welfare and sending them over, but my conscience won’t let me. However, anyone who reads this should feel free. Blame me, I don’t care.

The bottom line is that adolescent kids are sent to church camp every summer and they spend their days begging a PK friend to let them use their shower so they won’t be ankle deep in crap and that’s absolutely unacceptable. It’s time for the leaders to realize they’ll still be leading, even if they’re leading in someone more qualified to audit the grounds.


::END NOTE::
If you are, or you know, a parent sending a child to the Michigan District Campgrounds this summer you and/or they need to make some serious inquiries as to the conditions your children will be subjected to. Go there and see it for yourself, when dropping off and picking up. Take pictures. Have them take pictures. These conditions have somehow come to be accepted as normal. The kids don't speak up because they assume it's supposed to be the way it is. The adults that see it have gotten used to it. Parents end up unaware of the squalor their kids spend a week or two in. Start asking some questions.

#274-The Pray Cry

ApoPento's excel at many fine activities in comparison to other Christians. One of them is crying. We love crying. We need it. It's an addiction. There are five times as many criers per capita within the UPC as there are in other denominations. Some call this the work of the Holy Ghost that other denominations do not experience because they don't have the Holy Ghost. Other, more optimistic people, call the excessive crying "catharsis." Others call this "being a cry baby."

I call it: Being a cry baby with a Purpose!

Feeling bad? How about an altar cry?
Feeling good? Dance, and then cry after excessive energy use.
Have you heard a song that says God wants to kiss you? Have a cry.
Minor chords in the worship song? Close your eyes, look up to the ceiling and have a cry.
Did you touch someone else inappropriately? Have an altar cry.
Did someone touch you inappropriately? Have an altar cry and then blame the dude.
Did you get caught doing something that gets you kicked off the platform? Have an altar cry.
Are you a pastor? Then Don't cry. Be a man!
Are you an evangelist? Passionately cry during the sermon to get others to have a good altar cry.
Are you a woman? Have a cry.
Are you thrice divorced and possibly crazy? Here's an altar cry for you. Once a week, for three straight months.

I remember being a pentecostal youth. I'd go up to those jungle altar calls scared as heck as what I would encounter. But I also knew that if I didn't up to the Jungle-Call, people would like at me as rebellious, which was the last thing I needed.....

So I'd get real pissy that I didn't know how to play instruments to excuse me from the jungle altar call and then slide, all slowly up to the altar, waiting & knowing exactly what was going to come next....

And Boom! The masses were upon, little, confused me. Praying for my breakthrough.

And in my heart of hearts, I would wonder, what can I do to get these weirdo's off me?

True story.

And so like, what can you do when you're surrounded by the Holy Roman Empire of Altar Calls Heroes? How to get these vampires off you....

You could...

Option A) Dance
Option B) Cry
Option C) Speak in Tongues

The weird thing is all three are not equal.

In fact.... If you were to settle on speaking in tongues, it was expected that you add something else into the mix. Some kind of emotion. Because speaking in tongues without emotion made you seem autistic and psychopathic. So you had to speak in tongues and do something else.

The same goes for dancing. Unless you can dance for like 15 minutes straight. If not, prepare to be bombarded again.

Yet, having a good Pray Cry at the altar was sufficient all in it's own. No need to dance. No need to speak in tongues. Just have yourself a cry there and you'll be good... The altar vampires won't deal with you too long after....

But here's where it gets weird...

I remember being at Youth Congress some years back.... and I was a confused, hurt dude. I had just gotten out of a break-up. And I also remember that being all of 21 years old that I knew needed to grow-up and stop caring so much about break-ups. Yet, I had grown up in a religion that coddled emotions and having emotional outbursts....

She broke up with me on the phone just before the night service.

I was hurt. Didn't tell anyone though. Went through the motions during the service. I don't even remember the sermon or who preached it. But I do remember the altar call.....

And I remember just sitting down in my seat and praying real nice and kinda choking up to God about whatever it was that I thought the service was about......

And badda-bing-badda-boom, five minutes later, I'm having a Pray-Cry.

And by now, a pray-cry thing was not to be expected out of me. Since I was 21 and supposed to be all grown up. And yet there I was having a pray-cry and then these peeps starting surrounding me and I'm all embarrassed because I know deep down that I'm just crying because my heart's overly-reacting to a stupid break-up and yet now all my friends are gathered around me using me as their excuse why they don't have to pray since they're so focused on my pray-cry going on....

And thinking about the whole scene made me cry even more.... In fact, I started bawling... partially out of embarrassment. Partially out of break-up.... and partially just because it felt really really satisfying to have a pray-cry right there at that particular service at Youth Congress.....

And like I'm just bawling...rivers, floods, tsunami's... whatever it was falling out of my eyes, it wasn't healthy.

And I keep going. My shoulders trembling... eyes are a wreck...scary red eyes by now.  Hair's messed up somehow. I was a sight to behold that's for sure.... And by now, that creepy youth pastor I had at the time is even gathered above me using me as his excuse to not worry about his own soul, which at the time, was busy trying to collect all the local apo-pretty girls into his hot-tub back home....

Okay, I'm getting carried away....

I guess my point is: I cried a lot and prayed very little that night. It was probably a good half hour's worth of Cry and it was unacceptable. And the thing was, I was doing it for a myriad of reasons... but if I'm being sincere about that moment, it wasn't just "All about God." In fact God and the sad music were the excuse to "let it all out" from everything that I considered stressful in my life.... Sure it was relieving. But I would be dumb to call that a "life-changing moment where I realized God was calling me...."

Except ....

That's what I did:

Afterwards, I told people that "I felt like God definitely had a strong pull on my life now" as a result of that prayer....

(whatever that means)

And when I got back home after congress, that pervert of a youth pastor bragged to my pastor that I had a real time spent with God deep in prayer.....

And my pastor congratulated me on that time where I bawled my eyes out at Youth Congress during a later altar-call pray-time, which caused me to all of a sudden cry again...

But this time was not because he was right to congratulate me.

Rather it was then, with my pastor congratulating me during that last altar-cry that I realized how insincere this whole pray-cry business was....

I realized our pastors were getting reports on how good or bad we were at youth congress based on whether or not someone cried at the altar, even if that youth congress pray-cry was actually due to stupid immaturity  after a minor break-up.

.

#273- Matt Maddix (And how to sell souls for money)

Editor's Note- When you search Apostolic in Google, this site is the fifth page that pops up. So thank you for continually visiting, even when I'm off in some netherworld totally neglecting my duty to the Truth of the Oneness Pentecostal message. That said, I'm hoping to move up on the list. Not because this site needs publicity or money (since the ads are gone). But because there's some real damaging things going on within Oneness Pentecostalism. Unacceptable behavior and beliefs for sure. The homophobia I've seen on Facebook is shocking. The silliness of this girl has provided me months worth of material to write about:


And then there's the following guest post that I was sent a couple months back which addresses ludicrous behavior of one of the most loved preachers within the movement...

As James Joyce via the Bible said "I'LL PAY YOUR DUES, FATHER, WHEN YOU CEASE TURNING THE HOUSE OF GOD INTO A POLLING-BOOTH."

Anyways, to the post:


Not sure if this hits too close to home for "naming people" - but I was incensed to read a recent Facebook post by Matt Maddix. (I am not his "fan" on FB or in life, but it happened to be shared by someone I'm connected to who is.) The post:




Oh, what "vision map" would that be? Could it somehow be related to the ~$10,000 worth of services and products you sell under your “persona”? We’re talking everything from $1,000 worth of Outreach training sessions to $4.95 to simply hear an MP3 of you with Joy Haney. And while you’re at it, pick up “The Healing Power of Juicing” for the low, low price of $15.00.

You know, back in 1890, some joker used to drive through towns claiming to be 100% convinced that if you drank his snake oil solution, you'd be cured of arthritis, baldness and headaches, too. But he wasn't around for more than a week or two to sit by your bedside. These costly "revival solutions" amount to as much as that. Then the home missions pastor is left behind to wonder why his church is still languishing.

I'm convinced that pastors who are struggling with growth are struggling with relevance. The more I see here on the east coast, the more I find the only growth in traditional Pentecostal churches seems to be found in undereducated communities. Or those who are educated are in a position of rapidly degrading health and desperate for answers from any source. (Note: I’m not talking about those who “grew up in the church”. This is specific to “new converts”.) I challenge you to look around at all your new converts over the last 5-10 years. How many of them had college degrees or successful business ventures before “getting in church”?

You know the old clichés we all heard growing up: those with formal education are relying upon the wisdom of man instead of the wisdom of God. But it's difficult to convince someone with critical thinking skills that much of what defines us as Pentecostals has anything to do with true Christianity when they read their Bibles. The clothing, the scare tactics, the emphasis on speaking in tongues instead of the emphasis on the fruit of the Spirit...it all falls short of the whole picture that is the Gospel. Just like the snake oil salesman preyed upon the ignorant, so our traditional Apostolic churches find success in those who aren't educated enough to ask the right questions.

And since the stance of many Apostolic/Pentecostal churches has been to scorn “secular college” (instead, begrudgingly allowing their kids to attend unaccredited Bible colleges, as if there’s even an comparison between the quality of education of the two), is it a wonder that someone has come along to successfully build a business off the backs of our undereducated pastorate?

So, yes, if I could profit like Mr. Maddix, I’d be “100% convinced” of the success of my revival solutions, too. Because if you can’t sell it to yourself, you certainly can’t sell it to the rubes.

#272-Becoming a Postmodern Relativist when it's Convenient.

Okay: Wednesday, we'll have a gorgeous and scandalous guest post.... A post where SAL sells it's soul and name's names. Tell all your friends.

After that, some posts by Glen. One of them properly scandalous in it's own regard.

 After that, this blog will officially become a TMZ Jezabel and it will tell you outright about a UPC scandalous "rumor" first reported here on the blog...which I was told was not true by the very person it was about. And lo and behold, it's true.... so we get fun times "look at how silly UPCers can be" type blog. Names will be named because, you just stop caring about political standing when you care about truth against insincere rhetoric. Until then... you'll get this post which is more of a rebuttal:

One lovely thing about the UPC is they try their hardest making their belief system as rational and logical as possible. Everything can allegedly be proven. This is obviously a delusional way to go about things, especially when Christianity demands us not to have reason to believe in God but rather a simple thing called faith. But whatever....

Anyways, as much as the UPC means well about the certainty of beliefs, they certainly do a bad job proving themselves when the right questions are asked: You question and they quote scriptures. You show them a verse outside of the scripture they were quoting and they repeat the same verse they just told you but now they are screaming and upset and preaching passive aggressively against you over the pulpit. This is a incompetence 101 but whatever. Basically you realize how flimsy a lot of the logic is that seeks to "Prove" the Oneness Doctrine according to the UPC is absolutely correct. You can choose to focus on the verses they tell you and ignore the rest....

Or you can stop believing their "Full Truth"....

Or you can do what many of the feeble  in my generation have done who wanted to inherit their daddy's church:

Relativise the questions you have. By this, I mean that when you ask the right questions relentlessly without backing down to silly, irrational answers, you'll find this response in the end: "Who can know the mind of God?" or "God's ways are above our ways" or "Great is the mystery of the godhead" or something dumb....

Which basically surmounts to: "I will be logical until you point out how illogical I am being. Then I will excuse my illogical arguments by citing God and his mystery." Which, if God is mysterious in any way, why are we so sure about our arguments in the first place? Shouldn't we then start with God's mystery and then then walk towards answers in sincere humility and uncertainty?

But should you question our beliefs further, you will get this kind of argument:

"Hey Pastor Jim, I just read that women aren't supposed to have elaborate hairstyles in I Timothy 2. Yet I see these chicas all around putting all bunch of stuff in their hair and have elaborate hairstyles."

"Well the key is it's all about modesty. I timothy 2 mentions elaborate hairstyles as being against modesty. And I think our ladies have modest hairstyles"

"But they wear shiny broaches that imitate jewelry and put things in their hair that look like gold or are in fact feathers, which 100 years ago was a sign of economic affluence. All these girls are showing off dude. But they get away with it because it's not around their neck or wrist and that's messed up."

"Well every other Christian denomination fails to uphold these verses... And what we consider "immodesty" is up to each pastor to figure out. The UPC is not supposed to be a policeman over the churches. "

"Yet you say jewelry is wrong? And won't allow it on your platform"

"Because the Bible says it's wrong."

"No. YOU, the human being, just decided what was jewelry and what is not jewelry. This has nothing to do with the bible. You even said your mother-in-law, whose pentecostal, wears broaches and that's why you can't say broaches are a sin...."

"Ahhh.... Well, other people do it to. What we think is a sin is relative. And we presume God will honor what the pastor decides."

"Stop it. You're embarrassing yourself. Hone up or shut up. You claim you're a man of God. I doubt it. But if you are, I'm praying for God to do a little bit better on who he anoints to be pastor. Because you sir, are a mean mean man who likes what he likes and preaches against whoever doesn't live up to your  expectations. "

Basically when your logic and behavior fails.... A UPC pastor will point out that every other denomination fails in their own beliefs. As if that alleviates a pastor's dedication to upholding God's truth and what is written in scripture.

You'll see the most idiotic version of this logic below in all it's reality-

This post is a response to a comment I received several weeks ago when I made a post about how silly some UPCers are when they buy thousand dollar shoes and brag about it over facebook....The replying comment was so mindless and indicative of what's wrong with the Southern contingent of the UPC that I felt obligated to reply...

The commenter name "Apologetics" said:

Your complaints are becoming more weak by the post. Your entire premise could have some merit when it comes to materialism. You are pointing out about how obsessed and wrong someone is for their shoes and how great someone else is for wearing the same ones purchased on the cheap, for the last however many years. All the while, posting from a computer, probably from your parents bedroom, probably making less than 30,000 a year. You most likely own a decent vehicle, are not using public WIFI, and have cable. Costly and material goods do at some point have to be taken in context. Say this man has been saving his change, while you may have been spending frivolously on a latte or sandwich every other day. He most likely has a much greater income than you so your 30 dollar shoes could be the equivalent of her 1,000 dollar shoes. If you walked to the library, used their free wifi, and watched the NCAA tourney from Mcdonalds, and sent all the excess funds to a homeless shelter then you may have ground to stand on. If not, quit whining about someone having something you can not afford when your lifestyle by comparison is just as unbalanced most likely

He replied later to a few well reasoned arguments by other posters but his argument was much of the same solipsistic, vanity-ridden nonsense.

Which, I really do have a sincere, godly conviction against dumb arguments from oafs. These "apologists" tend to act rational and yet, somehow in their weird domain of a mind, justify their irrationality by relativising anything inconvenient to their own Oneness Pentecostalism-so called...

 Here's my response being posted for the first time....

To the sycophant above,

If you are a Christian, and God understands you as a Christian, I renounce my own Christianity at once.

More disconcerting is your inability to interpret my blog post correctly and your lack of intellect such a misreading implies. I am highly concerned about whatever future offspring you may produce in the future.

Your worldview is exactly all that is wrong with American Christianity today. Your beliefs are nothing but a poor, irrational justification for your silly lifestyle. If, you are from Texas or any of the other Southern states that are always fifty years behind history, this makes all that much more sense.

Like the good postmodern you are, you have no conviction. You are willing to make anything relative, including selling Christianity out for a shadow of what it was meant to be.

Because, let’s get this straight: You find any argument that justifies your behavior based on your sense of entitled Christianity.

You based your whole argument of justifying materialism and wealth by questioning the very perception of wealth. What may be excessive to me is not excessive to another. And if I’m following your pathetic attempt at logic correctly: My own lifestyle may be considered excessive to a homeless man (I may be giving you too much credit here because you failed to even follow your own logic to its ends).

Nevertheless your logic fails:

Your essential failure is the fact that you suggest the only people who have the right to condemn your friend for his materialist excessiveness is the man who owns nothing as you say “If you walked to the library, used their free wifi, and watched the NCAA tourney from Mcdonalds, and sent all the excess funds to a homeless shelter then you may have ground to stand on. If not, quit whining about someone having something you can not afford when your lifestyle by comparison is just as unbalanced most likely.”

As if no one else but the lowest has the ground to point out social injustice or religious buffoonery.

As if the only person who can charge a rapist for rape is the rape victim.

As if Jesus can’t help sinners since he also has the benefit of being God and thus isn't as lowly as depraved helpless humanity.

As if no one has any right to say the Nazi’s were wrong unless you were a holocaust victim.

As if the fight against slavery must be fought by the slaves?

Do you understand how stupid and idiotic your argument sounds? And yet you bad people who claim to be Christians use this kind of nonsense all the time to justify whatever it is you guys do in your weird materialist throne-rooms.

And let’s say, your ad hominem fallacy of trying to debase my argument by insulting who I am as a person is correct (which it isn’t), your accusations don’t change my argument one bit. Because unlike you, who has the inane concept of relative wealth all while calling himself Christian, I actually have the Bible as a source of my polemics.

You based your argument in postmodern relativity. I based my polemics in the Word of God. Matthew 25 for instance and much of James concur with my judgments against your friend. These verses do not indict my lifestyle whatsoever. I am innocent according to who the New Testament describes as materially wealthy and therefore sinful.

Further my point was not the pathetic nature of the shoe purchase. Even though, yes, it is pathetic and grotesque in and of itself. My argument. which was beyond your ability to interpret since it wasn't in a coloring book, was that the lady in question was so comfortable with the gift that she broadcasted her excesses through an instagram filter. Instagram being something that I cannot afford since it’s only available on smart phones. Hence my point being not just, "who are we to buy $1000 shoes?" Which is an obvious abomination itself. Rather "How corrupt are we to be okay with buying $1000 shoes and also be proud  enough to broadcast that over the internet?" 

AKA "I'm not only vain and immodest. But I promote everyone else to be envious of my own sinful vanity!!!! #LOL!VALENTINE'S DAY 2013!!!! WHAT'STHEHUSBANDGOINGTODONEXT YEARTOOUTSPENDEXPECTATIONS?!?:-)"

Normally I would recommend a little old encouragement of virtue and advise you to educate yourself by reading or something. Perhaps some Foucault or Althusser would do the trick for you. However, I am readily aware of your limited cognitive capacity to grasp what they are saying. Not to mention that your own argument infers that you are too lost in your own delusional fantasy of a religion to bother about self-education and self-improvement.

But this is all to be expected when the cross is foolishness to the world.

Instead I will proceed with a parade of insults upon you in hopes to busty up your gullies just enough to do something right with yourself for a change:

I must commend you for remaining anonymous. Had you admitted to being a parasite, I would never have bothered to read you comment.

And if by some incomprehensible logic, you are actually human, I must say your cowardice in concealing yourself helped you all the more: Had you revealed your name, we’d quickly have had you locked away in an asylum on account of your undeniable pompous, psychopathic tendencies.

Had you lived before Christ died on the cross, your very existence alone would have been enough to merit God sending a second Flood to annihilate the world all over again.

Your propensity for baroque logic that allows you to do whatever you please, adorned in all its excessive aimlessness & vanity condemns you for the most inner-ring of hell.

You are a caveman. The kind of man-boy who acquires the biggest and most expensive of everything: Colognes, Plasma TVs, toothpicks, etc….Knowing full well that you enjoy the symbol of these things beyond their actual use-value.  For this we’re all laughing at you, your impotence, and your inability to see what’s obvious to everyone (even if you haven’t read Freud):

You are a child in a man’s body, desperate to conceal what isn’t there. You are guilty of overcompensation in the worst way.

With pity,

Joel

P.S. Consider the folly of the 18^th century French aristocrats and maybe you'll be saved yet.

#271-CSI (Christian Salvation Investigators): Speaking in Tongues Edition

Fellow Pentecostals, boys, girls, ghouls, and goblins,

I have written to you today with a pang of conviction inside me. I am urgent. I will not be dissuaded from my mission that will be proposed in full below. Open your ears then and give me a fair listen.

It has recently come to my attention that the decision of where we will spend eternity, be it heaven or hell, is not just based on the decision of God, nor Acts 2:38 itself, nor your own weird desire to be certain about your salvation. No. There is another in our church alters whose very existence is a byway we must all pass if we are deemed worthy of inheriting the Oneness Pentecostal truth. We need this man if we are to be certified within the company of the chosen Apostolic remnant. Because of this man, we will forever be exalted in Heaven for "Getting it Right" as opposed to those other, lesser Christians who have made minor, but grievous errors in their interpretation of the Bible and how to go to heaven.

And while Acts 2:38 doesn't mention speaking in tongues, we know darn well that speaking in tongues is implied in the verse for how else are we to gather "evidence" of the receiving of the Holy Ghost.

With that said, the man I am speaking of, is the Speaking in Tongues Certifier who, gracefully throws his ear towards any mouth that may spew weird mouth noises from their mouth because, only he can verify when tongues are spoken. If the tongues aren't weird enough, who cares? If they sound like a cheap phonetic imitation  of Brother or Sister so-and-so's own brand of speaking in tongues, pay no mind.

Whether tongues sounds "authentic" or gobbely-goo or an off-brand of pig-latin, the point is not the language. The point is that any thing other than english is passing out of our mouths. That's the Holy Ghost, and if it chooses to show-up as an endless, monotonous, one syllable repetitive lip-stammer, so be it. Because the Holy Ghost does whatever it darn well pleases. (Side-Note: Since God and the Holy Ghost are the same thing, can we just call it The God Ghost? Seems way more intimidating).

So that's the preface, man. Don't think for one second that I'm questioning the Holy Ghost here.

What I am questioning is how do we know that the tongues certifiers themselves are so trustworthy in the deciding who did and didn't speak in tongues? Especially when it looks real good to announce someone spoke in tongues, like say, one million Ethiopians, even if  a tongue-certifier didn't hear each Ethiopian speak in tongues, since when you're an english speaking evangelist, any one speaking Ethiopian sounds like speaking in tongues. And there were a million Ethiopians, way too many to hear from, duh!

Question: How can Borat show up to an altar at a camp meeting and be certified as a tongue-speaker by a big-time evangelist? Even when Borat was totally being completely insincere and fake.

I can even remember meeting someone who said they "faked" speaking in tongues because they liked a girl who belonged to the church.

So the issue here, and what I aim to resolve, is proper certification of those who "certify" the speaking in tongues of a possible convert.

Someone who has the audacity to tell a crowd of hopeful apostolics, that, that, just right there, that language that "sounds like speaking in tongues" is not really speaking in tongues. And if they question how the tongue certifier "knows" the person doesn't really have the Holy Ghost, tell them "Because the certifier's Holy Ghost is telling him that the possible convert has a "fake-Holy Ghost" causing them to speak in "fake tongues." And that's sound logic ma'am.

What we need is a team of men, bold enough, to be the gateway to heaven for all who may potentially be speaking in tongues. Someone who can divide a demon tongue from Holy tongues. Someone who ain't scared of having to go through the books of a Church's converts  and be willing to say "No, pastor, you didn't really convert 15 people that year since 6 of them were fakes who never came back to church."

Real certified, tongue-certifying men here. A team or a legion, that's what we need.

And they, the chosen one's will have a prophetic enough spirit to do some Christian Salvation Investigations. A CSI investigation to determine, based on disparate, sketchy pieces of abstract spiritual evidence, whether or not someone has really received the Holy Ghost for all the years they have been going to church, or whether they are deluding the whole church just because they like playing the drums on the platform.

This may cost us some cash, but if we're willing to sacrifice in order to hash out the Truth, it's the least we can do.

Because if speaking in tongues is "The evidence" of the Holy Ghost...then we're going to need confirmed witness testimony that the evidence wasn't fake evidence, since speaking in tongues is so inconsistent in the way it gets spoken from church to church and member to member.

I know you'll do the right thing.

For God & Country,

Joel

#270-Materialism... Because you sold God for a pair of $1,000 shoes

I remember when I used to worry about being politically correct about this blog. The sad part is that I still care enough not to use names...

But at this rate, it won't be long...

In the mean time... the picture above was posted on Instagram.

Normally, a picture of shoes wouldn't matter that much to me. Because, girls like shoes and they like really weird, materialist things that do no matter one iota in the kingdom of God. Apostolic girls are weird. They actually think absurd clothing matters. The rest of the world realizes how dumb this idea is, and chooses to apply make-up to just make themselves look better. Yet, Apostolic girls try compensating (horribly) for their inability to use make-up to look pretty by wearing RIDICULOUS CLOTHING AT RIDICULOUS PRICES hoping to look important....

Case in point: The above picture.

This picture from Instagram is a Valentine's treat from hubby to wife...

Isn't that cute?

Except the shoes in question cost over $1,000. 

This is not a joke. I wouldn't have noticed this at all. Normally I wouldn't even know this since I don't have an Instagram. Yet I have considerate friends who know enough to e-mail me about the crisis of shoes and say "Dude, people are doing stupid things and I think you should know..."

Plus, without even biblical insight, my own girlfriend, who is not "Saved" wears shoes from 10 years ago that cost thirty dollars.... and wait for it: She has graduated from Juliard, Yale, and is getting her doctorate at the University of Michigan (all of which are on a full-ride.. but hey, I'm not bragging about things that actually matter)....

And the minister and his wife who were generous enough to provide us with the above picture are both UPC.

And not only did the pastor's wife appreciate the gift (because it's romantic).....but she thought it was completely acceptable to brag to the entire world how shallow and empty she was....

Which is a weird world...

Because if someone gave me a $1,000 pair of shoes, even if it was my wife, I'd disown the giftgiver immediately. If it was my girlfriend, I'd break up with her. No one should ever, ever care about the things of this world so much as to brag about owning a $1,000 pair of shoes that may or may not look fancy and/or hideous when the rest of the third world is in misery and trying to figure out how to install a working water-well in their own town....

 Because, shoes can be bought on the cheap... and Jesus preached opposite of any message that would promote materialistic gifts (because, simply put, it's not biblical at all).....

And yet, the some young ministers in the UPC are so empty of heart and giving and unselfishness  that it finds it right proper to allow a minister's wife to promote her own valentine's gift of receiving a pair of shoes that will be worn on 3-4 occasions completely appropriate for the kind of minister that they want to have within their ranks....

Usually I go in depth about how abhorred behavior like this is, but I won't. Because, if you're reading this post, and thinking it's cool to own a pair of one-thousand dollar shoes, and still consider yourself loving and Christian in relation to the rest of mankind, then I have nothing else to say to you. Because you are a bad person who deserves nothing but the kind of role you play in the story you tell yourself about how God loves you and everything is right and well with the world and no one needs anything outside of a 1,000 dollar pair of shoes to show off to your friends on facebook, so happy to call yourself "saved" with possession of the full truth....

I won't argue scripture to you if you're one of those people (since, like we have Matthew 25 and a whole lot of Paul to argue against you), but I will say... "Get thee behind me Satan..."

Err... I mean... Just how out of touch with the rest of humanity do you have to be, in order to think the above picture is acceptable? And then add in that you're Christian... and it's just an Unacceptable performance.

#269-Making the UPC into our own Mini-Hollywood

You have spent, or are still spending way too much time making your church district and it's social circles into something way more important than you should have. You can do better....

God actually hates popularity.

I mean, you  really just have to read the Bible to get that picture. But it's pretty obvious. Moses, Paul, , David, etc.... God liked people who were not cool in any way whatsoever.

Moses was that dude at your church who stuttered a lot. The guy who you felt obligated to invite out to eat after church, even though you didn't want him there and he knew you didn't want him there. Real sad guy, that Moses.

Paul was that guy who was absolutely convinced that he was right but yet was hated by almost everyone else  because of how right he thought he was.  Paul was your classic insecure, ego-maniacal mama's boy. Acted entitled. Like killing Christians at one moment because he was "correct" and then like totally apologizing to all Christians a moment later because the Christian Truth was, get this, totally correct. No humility whatsoever. Just a lot of self-pity when he needed to make a point. Paul was really good at making you feel guilty.

David..... Complete and total Emo. If you read Psalms and I and II Samuel and still manage to like David, something is wrong with you. The "woe-is-me" kind of guy... overly dramatic... making a mountain out of an ant-hill kind of guy. People like David can only be dealt with in small doses.

Point being: God's favorites are the kind of people we hate to be around. They were the biggest dorks within the Dork Kingdom.

All of the above also means that God doesn't like the cool kids. Because he rarely, if ever chooses the really good looking, popular crowd to do his work. My guess is that people in the cool crowd believe in their own hype too much for God to be able to do anything with them.

And this is reason #1 of why you should never trust any pastor who openly professes that he is doing the work of God: He's the guy who confuses his popularity within the church as a naive validation of his own "feeling" or "intuition." So much so, that this pastor-guy loves himself so much that he never questions the voice of the all mighty God within his own head... since everyone else seems to believe in his own self-confidence. People cry during his altar-call and assumes God must really really love him...

Kind of like celebrities in Hollywood tend to confuse their own popularity within the movie-industry as proof that they are smart and funny and insightful. This is a lie most of the time. But because we care about celebrities, the celebrities tend to love themselves way more than any human ever should ever love themselves.....

Likewise, most pastors are the kids who were once losers growing up and sat around bitter and whiny and cranky, and by the time they became of age, they found that preaching with a sense of urgency and rage and bitterness could be easily confused as "the anointing" by all parties involved.

But the weird thing here is not the delusional pastors within the UPC. Nor is it weird than no one calls these wacko's out. But the weird thing is that we have somehow let the religion of celebrity obsession on gossip websites (e.g TMZ) infiltrate our own subconscious to the point that we treat the UPC itself like a celebrity ring.

Like hipsters with favorite music groups that no one else knows, we have our favorite preachers. This is natural. We look up to certain people. The better looking people in the youth group. The "bad" pastor's daughter. The pastor's son who plays ball, and secretly imagines inheriting his dad's church one day and making it a mega-church once he sells out with his devilish good looks, a little charisma, and a whole lot of compromising of UPC standards. All the better if they are unique and special and the kind of person we can call our own "kind of preacher."

But between looking up to a few preachers from a far, and actually creating a whole web of intricate "who's who" of UPC pastors, youth pastors, and good-looking-sharply-dressed-young-people, something has gone terribly wrong. The internet is to blame. (Cue the usual reference to facebook, tumblr, instragram, twitter here).

We care less about the content of what people are saying and care way more about who people are, as in fame, looks, reputation, and who-they-know within the preaching world. Just like we now pay attention to celebrities because of who they are and not what they have done as a human being.

Likewise, we've done this with the UPC. Especially as young people. We gossip like none other. And not necessarily in a bad way. Just mentioning a few rumors of who is politicking for a certain position within a certain district or section (I'm looking at you State of Michigan-Section 1-Up-And-Comers-Who-Have wonderful charisma- and may or may not look like McGee from the TV show McGee and Me). Sure their may be a few scandals involved, and yeah we may like the scandals we speak of, but the point is, what we truly in our heart of hearts love about the UPC, is that it gives us a sense of having our own mini-universe of preachers who are bold and important and sharply dressed and possibly having an affair.

And this culture is not good....

And oh by the way:  I have a list of preacher's names who may or may not be dabbling in scandalous activities. And by that I mean I have access to these said pastor's internet history and it could stir up trouble and cause a whole lot of chaotic nuisance and could or could not possibly really make this website into a UPC-celebrity-gossip-page but will refrain for the time being. It's not worth it..... but I'm just saying.... we could make this thing real fun...

And if I'm who I am and I refuse to make gods out men because of their reputation, I advise you to do the same.