Now you too can have a large home, luxury cars, gold, diamonds, travel to Europe and many other perks. Let the rules that many mega-pastors use to help you gain money and a following.
Check out Pulpit Pimping for Dummies.
You will learn to:
Take your ministry to the next level. Walk in divine prosperity. Get the break through you keep promising the sheeple. Drive the best cars, live in the biggest house, fly the best planes and patronize the best restaurants.
The Dummies guide tells you how to convince people to give you more money than they can afford to give you. But not only that, it teaches you how to make those people to think you are doing them a favor by taking the money. We give you the secrets for convincing people to pay you their tithes BEFORE they pay their rent or electric bill. Do you want to make people financially dependent on you? We’ll tell you how.
You want to be worshiped as if you are the Christ? The Dummies guide teaches you how to walk, talk, and threaten so that even the most stubborn (though stupid) sheeple will be willing to quote you rather than the Bible.
Are there people in your congregation who regularly disagree with you and base that disagreement on an accurate understanding of Scripture? The Dummies guide gives you foolproof instructions on how get them out of your congregation and how to make the sheeple believe they are being obedient to God when they turn their backs on the rebel.
There is even a section on how the Church of God operates:
There’s even a special Scumbag section that has tons of information on how the best of the scumbags get away with sexual harassment and abuse, spanking, raping, incest and just plain fooling around with some of the Gospel groupies. We tell you how to intimidate folks to keep silent, what Scriptures to use to keep the sheeple thinking they should feel bad about doubting whatever you tell them, and how to make sure you are repeating “touch not God’s anointed” often enough to be effective but not often enough to lessen the impact.
Pretty soon you too will be able to build a college, build the world's largest and best web site, and own a large home on a lake in a private gated compound. Know the perks that your COG leader used to get where he is today!
11 comments:
Unfortunately, this looms as a huge and offensive stereotype. It's part of what turns some people off, and contributes to the suspicions and prejudices of people immersed in non-Christian religions.
It also blinds people to those who are Christian evangelists and pastors, but who do not fit the stereotype. You have to understand what goes on in the teaching profession to really get what is going on here. We've all encountered teachers who have a career, and who do an acceptable job in that career. And, then there are those whose very nature causes them to excel and be exceptional. For that small group, teaching is their calling. However, if you listen to Rush, you'll hear the majority of teachers totally trashed out, and will probably be driven to homeschool if you've got kids.
BB
BB-
I don't find comparing the situation of sincere vs. disingenuous preachers to average (sincere) teachers vs. the exceptional (sincere) teachers, both of whom are viewed by a disingenuous narrator, a particularly illuminating analogy.
Is it your point that people who cast aspersion upon preachers are the disingenuous ones here, and that preachers who do fit the "offensive stereotype" mold (such as Uncle Herbie?) are merely nonexceptional, but still competent and acceptable at their chosen career?
I admit my gloss of your post is rather a forced fit, but that's rather by virtue of the fact that the analogy itself doesn't fit.
It's all about the opportunity of where a total lack of integrity intersects with a total lack of accountability.
This is not restricted to religions, since religion is simply a special restricted subset of politics.
Creating a totally dysfunctional environment is the province of psychopaths and we have our share of those in the ACoGs, don't we?
BB, in fairness to the author of the book, the title "Pulpit Pimping for Dummies" limits consideration to spiritual prostitutes. It's true that unwary readers, or people predisposed to disparage Christianity in general, will probably generalize to all ministers, so your caution is worthwhile.
Let me ease your mind a little, though. Some of us unbelievers see the psychological and social value of a church led by a minister who truly intends to serve the best interests of congregation members. I recognize several in my own circle of acquaintance and see that they are very different from the predators satirized in the book. There are many other secular people like me.
#offensivestereotype
"It's now very common to hear people say, 'I'm rather offended by that.' As if that gives them certain rights ... It has no meaning; it has no purpose; it has no reason to be respected as a phrase. 'I am offended by that.' Well, so fucking what?" – Stephen Fry
"Announcing 'I'm offended' is basically telling the world that you can't control your own emotions so everyone else should do it for you." – Anonymous
"Being offended is the consequence of leaving one's house." – Fran Lebowitz
People have always and always will be duped by smooth talking con-men. Obama comes to mind!
Psychopaths leading a religious group has an evolutionary advantage of cleaning out the shallow end of the gene pool.
A personal comment:
In checking out the original source of this posting I see that it is the recognition of reality in the world of religion today. The originator believes he is promoting the biblical true religion by using the marketing techniques to encourage those responding to the explosion of interest in religion to reward those who are instrumental in promoting this interest.
To me this is reveals that the truth of the bible has been exploited in a way that destroys the real purpose of the bible and gives an unrealistic view of its value to our human existence. Human life needs to focus on things that a profitable and necessary and avoid the uncontrolled desires for things that are irrelevant and harmful.
I believe that when the focus is on the material things of this world; human life will suffer a loss in morality and character. Of course I could be wrong.
I repudiate false teachers. I also repudiate incompetent ones.
And, it's difficult to find a 100% accurate parallel between false religious teachers and any other stereotypical people who could be used as an example. The Hitler and SS mold is sometimes used as a parallel to HWA and his myrmidons, but even that falls inadequate. HWA was worse!
BB
IMHO, a perfect analogy of the evangelistic landscape would be people selling a bogus product such as maybe a panacea miracle cure or a bogus water purification system door-to-door. Some salesmen are not sufficiently intelligent to be able to discern what is and is not believable, so they sincerely believe in their product. Other salesman are smarter, and they know it's a bogus product, but they don't care. They know that they make money based upon their ability to connect with and persuade other people, not based upon the product.
In fact it's kind of a thrill and an ego boost to sell a bogus product. Because they know it's a bogus product, they also know the product didn't sell itself, so it's pure proof of prowess. Every sale is a confirmation that they've still got "it".
Obama? You sound like the "WILLIE LYNCH" Negro we were warned about a century ago.Or either the raging,racist hybrid albino jealous White who's DNA is not from this planet!
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