I am Not Optimistic

I don’t know if I’m crabby or what, but I am starting to feel like my mission in life is to go on Facebook every day and refute Steve Munsey’s highly inventive doctrine.

Shavuot (Pentecost) is coming up. Munsey claims that if you give God (okay, the church) a big cash offering you can’t afford, God will give you seven blessings. We are told the Jews did this three times a year, at Passover, Pentecost, and “the Atonement,” or what Munsey hilariously refers to as “Feast of Trumpets.”

The Jews didn’t do this stuff. They gave things other than money. They were not promised seven blessings. Gentiles were not involved. “The Atonement” is Yom Kippur, not the Feast of Trumpets, which is Rosh Hashanah. If you read this blog, you know Munsey is completely, utterly wrong, and so is every pastor who pushes his nonsense.

The other day I learned that the pastor of my old church went up on stage and told people they didn’t have to give in these fundraising drives, BUT if they didn’t, they would not be blessed.

Ooookay. Not sure where the Bible says that.

I am starting to think I’m writing the sermons for that church. It seems like every time I say something on Facebook, a sermon pops up, claiming I’m wrong. I feel like putting up a series of posts saying things like, “Pie is better than cake,” and “Def Leppard SUCKS!”, just to see if I get rebuttals.

It’s always hard to resist a Joe Dirt reference.

I’m joking about pie and bad rock and roll, but seriously, I plan to expose Munsey at least once a day until I die, Jesus returns, or the doctrine falls into the disrepute it deserves. So if I’m annoying people now, it will only get worse. I am going to make a point of hammering on it, over and over and over and over.

Is that wrong? No. Short answer. Easy question. When someone is in error, you go to him privately. If he won’t listen, you don’t have to spend the rest of your life in silence. When someone persists in spreading harmful nonsense publicly, how can God require you to keep your correction private?

I think about all the good people I know, sitting there believing this stuff. How many rent payments and car payments have been missed because of it? How many meals? How much muck is going to splatter back onto Christianity because of it?

Where are the people who are getting blessed? Yesterday someone asked me a good question. If this stuff is supposed to work, how come only the pastors are getting blessed?

Obviously, that’s not really right. If thousands of people go to a church (or a bar or the beach or any place else) regularly, a certain percentage will prosper. So it’s not just the pastors. But it’s a pretty small crowd, and there is no clear connection between Munsey’s doctrine and the good things that happen.

Today I read that Bono is becoming a billionaire. He bought Facebook stock a long time ago. How come we never read stories like that about people who give piles of money to prosperity preachers? Where are all the rich Christians that should exist by now? Far as I can tell, almost all of them are pastors and evangelists. There should be millions of Christian tycoons by now. This crap has been on the air, in various forms, since around 1980.

Here’s something funny. God really does promise blessings for giving money. To the POOR. In Psalm 41, he lists six blessings.

1. You will be delivered in time of trouble.
2. You will be preserved. Not sure what that means, but it’s probably good.
3. You will be kept alive.
4. You will be blessed, right here on earth.
5. You will not be delivered unto the will of your enemies.
6. God will strengthen you when you are ill.

On top of that, God promises to repay you. See Proverbs 19:17.

So there are seven blessings, right there. A legitimate list, straight from the Bible. It applies to Jews. It applies to Christians. It’s God’s law.

Where is Steve Munsey? Where are his friends? They can get their flocks blessed by teaching this. Why aren’t they yelling it from the rooftops?

I can’t read minds, so I don’t know the reason, but I do know that preaching this stuff won’t make them any money. I’m sure there is no connection.