And Get Those Poor People Out of the VIP Seats

I am beginning to believe there is no such thing as a healthy church.

I belong to a denomination called the Assemblies of God, but the oversight in this denomination is so weak it amounts to almost nothing, so an AG pastor can do just about anything he wants. For this reason, churches vary tremendously, and the denomination is not well defined, and it makes more sense to talk about a broader movement to which the Assemblies of God belongs. I use the term “charismatic” churches. The main thing that unites them is a belief in the baptism with the Holy Spirit, followed by outward manifestations.

This movement seems like the only hope for Christianity at the moment. The older churches tell us Jesus isn’t God, or that he’s one of many gods, or that he’s God, but he won’t do anything for you, or that he’s god, but now he thinks there is no such thing as sin…they are useless. They have no idea who God is or what he wants. I’m not sure why they exist. Everything they teach can be found in the secular world, and the secular people are more professional and effective. You don’t need to spend three hours a week at the Crystal Cathedral when you can get a better version of the same thing cheaper, in less time, from Tony Robbins or even Richard Simmons.

The problem with this movement is that it is full of greed and heresy. As I understand it, apostasy means believing too little (God is just an idea, tongues are not real), and heresy means believing too much (Joseph Smith read the Book of Mormon off of magical gold plates in a dirty old hat). Many popular charismatic preachers teach stuff that is found nowhere in the Bible or even the Talmud. They make this nonsense up in order to sell books or motivate people to give them money.

There is a guy named Larry Huch. He wrote a book called The Torah Blessing. It’s about our Jewish origins. I thought that might be interesting, so I bought a copy. It turned out to be full of legalism. He wants us to wear prayer shawls and have Jewish-style sabbath dinners. I threw that out. Come on. Paul made it very clear that we are not Jews, and we are not under the law. He said really nasty things about people who tried to bring back the law. I believe Paul more than Larry.

Some pastors are telling their flocks to command the angels. That’s just crazy. The Bible makes it clear that Jehovah is the supreme commander of the armies of heaven. There are no Biblical examples of righteous men commanding the angels. In fact, on one occasion when a man spoke to the Angel of the Lord, asking him whether he was on the man’s side or the side of the man’s enemies, the angel said he was on neither side. He was working for the Lord. Jesus himself did not command angels in the Bible. He said he could ask his father to send them, but we never see Jesus in the flesh, telling angels what to do.

The Bible is highly critical of people who worship angels, and it also condemns fallen angels who got together with women and bred abominations. I believe commanding angels is idolatry. It’s what voodoo priests do every day.

Lately we have been hearing a lot about the Seven Blessings of this Jewish holiday or that Jewish holiday. I believe Steve Munsey came up with this, and Paula White teaches it, too. So far, we’re up to Passover, Pentecost, and the Atonement (Yom Kippur). I think I can safely predict that another holiday will be added eventually, because the three we already have generate a good deal of money.

Here is the pitch: three times a year, all of Israel’s males went to Jerusalem and gave “their best offerings,” and in return, God gave them various blessings found scattered in the Old Testament. So now we’re supposed to give three really big cash offerings per year.

There are problems with this doctrine. Ask any Jew, including Messianics who generally agree with what we believe.

1. There were no big cash offerings in the Old Testament, except for freewill offerings unrelated to holidays. Old Testament offerings were scaled, like a progressive tax. If you were poor, you gave less. The idea that Jews were supposed to strain their budgets to give offerings is antithetical to this principle.

2. The blessings mentioned in these holiday drives have nothing to do with Passover, Pentecost, or Yom Kippur. You will never find a Biblical passage that says God will give you seven enumerated blessings for giving him money on these holidays. The blessings mentioned are in the Bible, but they are not mentioned in relation to holiday cash offerings.

3. The rules about holidays and the offerings that accompanied them only applied to Jews. They were never applied to Gentiles. And as Paul said, we are not under the law anyway. So when the law was in effect, it did not apply to us, and it’s not in effect now, at least with regard to Christians.

It’s extremely obvious that this doctrine is wrong. I actually fell for it once or twice; I don’t know if I wasn’t paying attention, or whether I was blinded somehow, or what. Maybe I didn’t buy it but still felt like giving something. I don’t remember. But it should have been very clear that the Seven Blessings stuff is imaginary.

What I’m learning is that some churches have no faith, and others have so much faith that they get used to believing remarkable things, so when a lie pops up, the first instinct of the people who hear it is to believe it. Hence the Seven Blessings craze.

Unfortunately, there will always be people who have testimonies supporting bad doctrine. I saw someone testify about the Seven Blessings. This person gave a certain amount, and later on, this person received an unexpected amount of money. Problem (which no one but me seemed to notice): the amount received was less than the amount given. Is God skimming now? I don’t think so. If I donate a thousand dollars, and God rewards me with eight hundred, something is clearly wrong. I can do better than that at the track.

If I find three thousand people and tell them God will do x if they do y, a certain percentage of them will get the promised result, even if God does nothing. That’s just probability. In every church, a certain number of people will get unexpected money or jobs every week. That doesn’t mean God is blessing them for giving money. It just means that in the big lottery of existence, their numbers hit.

People don’t understand math, so they don’t think about these things. So you can tell Christians almost anything, and if they want to believe it, they will find corroborating evidence.

If the give-to-get teachings worked, good things would happen to people CONSISTENTLY. It wouldn’t be three people out of a thousand. It would be whatever percentage are giving their tithes and offerings. In a good-sized church, this would amount to dozens or hundreds of people driving around in new Mercedes-Benzes. We don’t see those people. They do not exist.

I do think God rewards giving, and I think financial prosperity is one of the things he uses to reward people. But you have to give at the urging of the Holy Spirit, not some TV preacher who has seven Bentleys and makes up doctrine on the fly.

Perry Stone believes his ministry’s lack of debt is partly due to his support of Israel and the Jews. I think he’s probably right. The Bible makes it clear that God will bless those who bless the Jews, and it implies God will bless those who love Jerusalem. It also says God will reward us for helping the poor. But that doesn’t mean God is contractually obligated to make me rich because I give my Social Security checks to Benny Hinn. God does not owe us anything. Not even air. We are the ones who owe.

If life worked the way the money-lovers say it does, God would be the servant of Satan. If we remain unchanged by the Holy Spirit, our flesh is dominated by Satan, so we want money and property way too much. If we give because we want our flesh to be satisfied, we are giving in order to satisfy the urges Satan inflames in it. If God rewards us, he is doing what Satan wants. Does that make sense? Of course not. The chain of command goes like this: God –> spirit –> mind –> flesh. Anything else is perverse and pathological.

So what do you do? You’re faithful to your church, but every so often, you hear something you’re sure is wrong and crazy. Do you leave? Do you picket on the sidewalk, with a sign saying, “ALL HERETICS BURN IN HELL”?

It’s very hard to know the answer. I know you don’t start fights with people, and you don’t stand up in church and start arguing with the pastor during a service. You can’t achieve spiritual goals by carnal means. Satan wants people who start spiritual living to end up doing using carnality. You see that praying for two hours a day helps you, so you kidnap ten people and put them in your garage and make them pray at gunpoint. That’s an exaggerated example.

Do you leave your church? I guess it depends on how bad the situation gets. You have to be in touch with the Holy Spirit. You have to get his guidance, and you have to listen to it. He will tell you where to go. My guess is that he is fairly slow about telling people to get out. The down side of playing musical churches may be greater than the down side of being in a sick church.

A friend of mine recently left church. He said he could not feel God there any more. I completely understand, but he also rejected a regular prayer meeting where God’s power was pretty obvious. I think he focused on the wrong thing.

You have to pray people who teach this stuff will come around, but don’t you also have to pray that the people will get the right teaching, regardless of who has to replaced? Isn’t it about the mission, not the man?

I know you can’t let yourself lose your soul. You can’t kiss rear ends and say, “What a wonderful teaching!” God never criticized any Biblical figure for telling off authority figures who were in rebellion. He rewarded them for it. But you have to show patience. No one is right every week.

I don’t give as much to my church as I used to. I ask God for a number, and that’s what I give. It has gotten lower. I think I was burdening myself too much in the past. I also know that a lot of what I give will be wasted, and I don’t want to spend God’s money stupidly. I have come to believe that if God approves of a ministry, it will do well, and that indicates that I should give more. If a ministry is in trouble, maybe it needs hard times in order to bring about repentance and change. One of the best ways to ruin someone is to give him everything he wants.

I think giving to people in need is extremely important. The Bible talks about it a great deal. We are here to express God’s love in the earth. Helping the poor does that better than building a giant megachurch with jet runways and bowling alleys. I also think it’s important to find ministries that do really wonderful work, and to support them generously. Generosity is extremely important. But it has to be guided, or it’s destructive. If God had given me everything I wanted, I would have ended up like Chris Farley or Elvis. We have a lot of Chris Farley churches today, and they will end much as he did: bloated, squandered, and cut short.

By the way, you really have to watch what ministers do. Sometimes the preachers who seem most wrapped up in helping the needy are actually ambitious and of little use. Never listen to what they say about their motives. Always ALWAYS look at what they do. I’ve seen preachers walk right by people in need, leaving ordinary churchgoers to fumble and scramble to get help. A person who does that has no authority in my eyes. If you can’t respect people on the bottom who are in real trouble, but you’re always there when someone influential needs a fresh bottle of water, as far as I’m concerned, you’re just another butt in a pew.

I am not going to be discouraged by what I see human beings do. God will steer me to the right places at the right times. I will keep my eyes open and call them as I see them, but I think leaving in haste would be the wrong move, because I will never find a church where everything makes sense.