Churches Need Proctors

March 30th, 2010

Cheating for Jesus

Okay, I have to file a complaint. I am tired of preachers stealing jokes and passing on dubious stories.

A while back, a very successful pastor spoke at my church. He talked about his youth. He said his family was so poor, they went to KFC and licked other people’s fingers.

Unfortunately, a week earlier, another pastor had told us the same joke.

Now the same man has tweeted this: “I don’t want buns of steel. I want buns of cinnamon.” Remembering the other joke, I Googled. Sure enough, he’s about the zillionth person to use this line.

His wife does it, too.

Most people aren’t going to come up with great original material. It’s natural to repeat jokes. It’s a necessity for some speakers. But when you consistently fail to note that your stuff isn’t homegrown, and people know better, it looks bad. Especially for a Christian. “Thou shalt not steal,” and so on.

I think it’s also important to let people know when you’re telling a story you don’t know to be true. Pastors tend to recycle old stories. Sometimes the stories are true. Sometimes they are more like parables. People who hear the stories will generally assume they’re true. Then they repeat them as true. What if they’re not? Then you end up with well-meaning Christians, parroting untruths. And people catch them at it.

Let’s see. I remember a story. A railroad worker in Africa takes his son to work. I don’t know why it was Africa. I guess it sounds more spiritual. It may have been Mexico. The man’s job is to move a bridge into place when the train comes. He tells his son not to play near the machinery. The train comes, and his son is down in the gears, playing. The man moves the bridge, crushing his son, because he knows the alternative is to let hundreds die. And the idea is that this is how God behaved when he sent Jesus to be crucified.

True? I don’t know. No one who tells this story ever tells the man’s name, as far as I know. And who ever heard of a bridge that has to be raised into place minutes before a crowded train arrives? If the guy who pulls the switch has a heart attack, instant catastrophe. Not very plausible.

I just Googled. It turns out this story appears on the web in various flavors.

It never happened. Surely not. It makes no sense.

It’s wonderful to be witty, or to have a compelling true story for your flock, but God didn’t make every preacher witty, and there are only so many great true stories. I think it’s much better to teach what you know and bring the power of the Holy Spirit to back you up. The Holy Spirit gives people revelation when they read the Bible and prepare for sermons. He works miracles in their lives, leaving them with stories to tell. That’s better than stolen jokes. I don’t go to church to hear comedians. I want to hear from God.

Give your testimony, if that’s all you have. Nothing is more powerful than a good testimony.

If you can’t speak honestly and powerfully without cribbing, what gave you the idea that you were called? Something to think about.

When a preacher relies on stolen material, it makes me wonder if I can trust anything he says. If you steal jokes, maybe you’re lying when you talk about the miraculous things God has done in your church.

God doesn’t need a booster seat. He doesn’t need elevator shoes. He doesn’t need hair plugs or a girdle. If you can’t present him effectively just as he is, what are you doing in the pulpit? You’re selling people a product you don’t believe in. You’re asking them to put their lives in the hands of a deity you don’t trust. “Give me a seed gift of one thousand dollars! The God I just lied about will pay it back a hundredfold!” Does that sound wholesome to you?

One of the reasons I like Perry Stone is that he always has something to say, and it’s never canned, as far as I can tell. He can’t shut up. God reveals so much to him, he doesn’t have time to say it all.

I can’t recall him ever telling a great original (or uncredited) joke. He and his father relate a lot of compelling stories, but they’re generally firsthand or secondhand. Not, “There was a guy in Africa.” They name names and places.

If God gave us Perry Stone, surely he gave us other people who can stand up and deliver a message that came from heaven, not from theft.

A few weeks back, my pastor brought us a great story. A woman in a GAP group (God Answers Prayer–this is our name for prayer groups) saw an angel in the church. He was taller than a human being, and he wore a white robe and a golden turban. He told her he had come to strengthen her and her friends. For days, she was beside herself.

That’s better than an imaginary guy running a badly designed bridge that never existed. I can locate this woman and talk to her. I can see her face and touch her hand. She was in the congregation when our pastor told the story. I believe this type of person is called a “witness.” Does that sound familiar?

We get in all sorts of trouble when we try to help God do his job. I don’t need to pad his resume. I am content to wait to see him act.

15 Responses to “Churches Need Proctors”

  1. Jeff the Baptist Says:

    And who ever heard of a bridge that has to be raised into place minutes before a crowded train arrives? If the guy who pulls the switch has a heart attack, instant catastrophe. Not very plausible.

    Yet it is exactly how every drawbridge in the world used to work.

    They name names and places.

    My pastor refuses to do this, largely because these stories are told to him in confidence. He will ask the people’s permission before using them, but even so he never names names. They’re examples. They’re illustrations. You don’t need to know if it was the person in the pew next to you. If they want you to know, let them tell you that.

  2. Steve H. Says:

    “Yet it is exactly how every drawbridge in the world used to work.”
    .
    Generally, drawbridges stay down, not up. They are raised temporarily for boat traffic. Maybe one of the versions of this myth uses a type of bridge that somehow makes sense.
    .
    “My pastor refuses to do this, largely because these stories are told to him in confidence.”
    .
    The fictional train story is not that kind of story. Confidential stories don’t make up a big percentage of these fables.

  3. krm Says:

    You raise a valid point – but I don’t get all incensed because I sort of write it off as parable or allegory or whatever.

  4. Steve H. Says:

    I don’t think these guys understand the effect a stolen joke has on a crowd. When the KFC joke made its second uncredited appearance, the momentum of the sermon died, and the speaker had no idea why. He was not aware that we had heard it already, or that it was obvious that he was using cribbed material.
    .
    A lot of preachers rely very strongly on their standup skills, and if you choose to compete on that basis, you have to expect to be shot down under the same rules that apply to other comedians.

  5. Karen V. Says:

    I am so glad to hear the bridge story is not true. I heard it some 25 years ago from the leader of a woman’s Bible study group of about 400 women. I was shocked and horrified and it was so disturbing that it still comes to my mind regularly. It doesn’t even make any sense – the bridge story tells of a horrible accident. Jesus’ sacrifice was no accident.

  6. Andrea Harris Says:

    Also, Jesus didn’t disobey God. The little kid in the story disobeyed his father, who told him not to play in the gears. And how could the kid get access to “the gears” — whatever those are supposed to be — anyway? And where could he possibly play? And why wasn’t his father watching him? This story falls apart if you think about it for more than one second.

  7. rightisright Says:

    Heh. I heard the same tale as a teenager.
    .
    Snopes: http://www.snopes.com/glurge/drawbridge.asp
    .
    http://www.snopes.com/glurge/choice.asp

  8. pbird Says:

    I hate those too. It is a terrible lack of credibility.
    They are about as good as all those touching stories you get sent online.
    Gah.

  9. mcgruder Says:

    At the risk of sounding like poly-theist Joseph Campbell, we are forced to acknowledge that myth has a really strong pull, devastatingly so.

    Even in churches, or, more accurately, especially in churches.

  10. Bill Parks Says:

    Your point on stolen jokes is well taken. A simple “I heard a good one yesterday” would avoid any confusion.

    There was a railroad bridge across the Miami River that was left open most of the time but would be closed when a train was approaching. When the bridge was closed it blocked traffic on the river so it was left open most of the time.

  11. Sparrow Says:

    I, too, heard that bridge story almost 40 years ago, but it was related to us not as a true story but as a parable to help us to understand the sacrifice of Jesus. Andrea is right, the analogy does fall apart because of the disobedience factor, but it was still an effective image. However, I agree that it should not be passed off as a true story.

    We had a guest preacher who came to preach at our church three times over the space of about a year, and each time he came he told the same story, and it wasn’t even his story. I guess he a) didn’t have anything of his own to witness to and b) needed a better system to keep track of what he said where!

  12. greg zywicki Says:

    I think most jokes and Urban Legends are public domain, and can’t be considered stollen.

    Other things that make my eyes roll:
    Church Sign Slogans (Can’t think of any at the moment)
    Quoting hymns
    Speaking-rhythm Schtick
    “And All God’s People Said…”
    People griping about pastors.

  13. Steve H. Says:

    You are confusing theft with copyright infringement, not to mention missing the point.
    .
    “People griping about pastors.”
    .
    And yet you keep returning. Would you like me to refund your cover charge?
    .
    Would you undo the Protestant Reformation because it was “griping”?
    .
    Jesus and John the Baptist “griped” a great deal, unless “blind guide” and “viper” are terms of endearment. Molested altar boys who turn in pedophile priests gripe a lot, too.

  14. Vox Lex Says:

    What you write about here is one the primary reasons I left the charismatic church I attended 20 years ago. I heard so many apocryphal stories like these, told by leaders and guest speakers who were “Spirit-led”, that I came to the conclusion that much of the “leading of the Spirit” that takes place is simply emotion run amok, which raises the question whether even a completely sincere believer (and they surely were) can tell the difference. I don’t have anything against charismatism or charismatics, and I don’t discount the possibility that one can be “Spirit-led” in the way that charismatics believe they can. My mileage simply varied. I’m glad that most of my charismatic brothers and sisters and I at least agree on the essentials of the faith.

    There were other things, too. Like people sniffling and coughing their way through illnesses that they “refused to accept, in the name of Jesus!” – to great applause and cheering. So there was some name-it, claim-it thrown into the mix. I understand that “Pastor ****” has in recent years taken the title of “Apostle ****.” Because he believed the Spirit led him to do so, no doubt.

  15. suze Says:

    I notice this, too and I dislike it. These are anecdotes – and some of them are acquired through books that are supposed to be pastoral helps. I wouldn’t mind if the pastor would precede the story with a disclaimer, as you say. This has been driving me nuts for a long time – thank you for being the first person I’ve seen to mention it – I thought I was the only one….