Grifters for Christ

A grifter is a con artist: someone who swindles people out of money through fraud (from www.vocabulary.com/dictionary/grifte).

It’s a dreary Tuesday morning, rain, etc., which is actually not a bad thing. I thought today was Monday. So. Like. Whew! Dodged that bullet (dreary Monday mornings - ick). And I can’t even remember the day (Sunday) before I thought it was Monday. So, if I don’t stop myself now I will drift into a Tim Conway monologue.

It’s all good. Well, mostly.

Someone sent me a youtube link to a guy on HBO. It was about televangelists. And it bowled me over. Knocked my socks off (figuratively because despite the pleadings of my podiatrist and my internist, I resist wearing socks except outside and things like funerals and weddings, swearing in of the President of the United States and HRM Queen Elizabeth II’s Trooping of the Colour, etc.).

Due to the subject matter, I need to kinda sidle up to this youtube video I want you to watch. Hang with me. I may have to go ‘round Robin Hood’s barn.

I have a Moleskine (pronounced by the cognoscenti as mole-a-SKEEN-ah) but to my wife and most Americans it’s just a plain old mole-skin. Anyway, I have this Moleskine. It’s a notebook where I write down stuff. Some original. Some not. And when I go home to the Kingdom, someone is gonna get at least 30 Moleskine, if not more. I will entrust this receiver, my literary executor, with what to do with these 30 some odd Moleskine. As opposed to my late night pastoral letters, my rambles and now these blog posts, the Moleskines will paint a very different portrait of me.

The gloves are off. I express my anger, my extreme frustration, my despair, the blackness and depth of my depression, my near constant unrelieved pain, my fury at having been put in this place in time and space and expected to do His bidding, by writing it all my Moleskine. A good deal of my carping, in one way or another, is directed to the tetragrammaton. (Except all the quotes from The Penguins of Madagascar. “I just want to slap a hippie and instead all I get is multiple Kowalskis!)

God’s (the tetragrammaton) a funny guy you know. Most people point to the platypus as the primary example that God has a sense of humor. Never having seen an extant platypi, the tetragrammaton allows me to hear Him laugh when I get my tightie whities in a bunch.

I use words and phrases to shorten other words and phrases, that when spoken in irritation, annoyance, vast vexation, hostility, etc., give the declaration or question I pose more of a kick in the seat of the pants. For instance, excrement from a male bovine gets shortened to one word (according to the Oxford English Dictionary of the English Language).

Saying someone is a idiot, moron or imbecile and is so full of excrement of a male bovine can be reduced to one word: blivet. The OED defines blivet, in part: “...anything unnecessary, confused, or annoying. Lit. defined as ‘10 pounds of shit in a 5-pound bag.’” My list of blivets grows daily and when watching the 5:30 ABC Evening News with David Muir and then the ABC affiliate’s 6:00PM “newscast” it sometimes grows minute to minute.

There may be some political theorems of use to society in the depths of my Moleskine.

Definitely a plan for a star empire, reborn on earth. I was “created” and styled, by the Padishah Emperor, Kaitan of the Khitai & Bhotani, fidei defensor, etc., Flag Captain Sir John Scott Zielsdorf von Terra zum Mars, StarFleet, Knight Commander Red Banner, His Grace the Imperial Count Palatine of Mars, His Grace the Metropolitan of All Mars, His Grace the Master of the New Joplin School, Mars, Earl of New Kansas City, Mars and His Grace the Earl Marshal of Sol-Jupiter.

Perhaps there may be plans to jump start (or as they say in this day and age, reboot) the Kansas City Mafia, which back in the day had some serious influence with the five families. Naturally I would be the Capo di tutti capi. My new mafia name will either be Giovanni Scott “The Priest” Tortomasi or Marcus Aurelius Zen, “The Venetian.” And my family would rule commerce and crime from Minneapolis to St.Louis, to KC to Baton Rouge to New Orleans. And when the family is established then...then we go to Little Odessa on Long Island and send the Russian/Ukrainian mob back to the U.S.S.R.

Yeah, scary. I have thought about these things - and more and in some detail. And this and more are in my collection of Moleskine.

My point of all this nonsense is that between me and God, in my prayers, in my thoughts in my Moleskine I am without restraint. To take liberties with a quote from Eric Liddell’s character in the movie “Chariots of Fire” : I believe God made me for a purpose, but he also made me to hear, to see, to feel, to think and to write about those things and when I write I feel His pleasure.

But, in the public “privacy” of this blog, not knowing who may read it and what their spiritual maturity may be, I am constrained to seek that which leads to peace and mutual edification (Romans 14 - specifically v 19). Repeatedly calling someone a blivet, even if they deserve it, does not lead to peace and building up. So...

So I have avoided naming names of people who, on That Day, if not sooner, their sins and their ruin and all the souls they have destroyed will stand without advocate, without excuse, naked before the Throne of the tetragrammaton and they will know unspeakable, horrific, fear.

Secondly, in several of my Moleskine are titles of books I would like the opportunity to write. One in particular may sound...um, harsh. “Tony Campolo Must Die! I want my Lincoln Town Car!”

Tony Campolo will die when God wants him home and not a moment sooner. I do not wish him dead or even bad health. But he said something in a meeting I attended and I’ve never forgotten it and I knew right then and there, well, that was that. No Lincoln Town Car (the last body style before they produced that rounded monstrosity and then killed it or a 60’s model - convertible with suicide doors), no Dodge Hemi ‘Cuda (Convertible), no Cadillac CTS, no Shelby Ford Mustang Convertible and no Ferrari F360 Spyder.

Campolo, a sociologist by training, an itinerant preacher of the Gospel by calling, was talking about giving to the church. And as Dr. Campolo is wont to do, I am certain he was poking a very sharp stick in some eyes in sore need of such poking.

In brief: Whaddaya need a car for? (Campolo is from the Philadelphia. Those Easterners always have accents.) To get from point A to point B, right? Does it really matter whether you get from point A to point B in a Cadillac or a Yugo? NO! So, the Church needs money. Sell that Caddie that you’re making $500 a month payments on, buy a second hand used car, something reliable. Pay cash for it. Use the $500 a month that you are now in possession of to give to God! That’s $6,000 a year you could give to the Church that you’ve been holding back on.

Oh, I think was the general reaction of the crowd.

I don’t remember any ambulances being called due to cardiac arrests but I KNOW, as Campolo did me, he stuck the stick in and twisted it in a lot of eyes in the audience.

The issue at hand here: is it okay for a Christian, a disciple of Christ, to be wealthy? And I’m not talking about the husband having the latest in luxury transportation and the little woman having some luxurious women’s car and they have a membership at the fifth most expensive country club in town. No, no, no. I’m talking his and hers C Class Mercedes, in a gated community, membership in the most exclusive and richest country club in town, naming rights to colleges and hospitals. A Gulfstream G650 or better yet, a Brazilian Embraer 1000E Ultra-Large Business Jet sitting in a hanger just waiting to take you and the little woman to Vale, or Cabo, or Cancun, or London or, with proper flight planning and a wing and a prayer, Hong Kong or Johannesburg.

I say, “Yes, it’s okay for a disciple of Christ to be dirty, filthy, roll around in it, stinking rich.”

With a caveat.

It’s okay provided the disciple is always aware of who their Master is and behaves accordingly. Maybe, your Master got you on the Forbes’ Billionaires List so that you could save schools, feed starving children, provide scholarships...Get the picture? Of course there’s still the danger of a massive amount of hubris and you forget whom you belong to but then, He’ll resolve that issue for you. Southwest Airlines rather than your custom appointed Embraer may be in your travel future.

Now.

The YouTube clip that I hope you will watch is about a particular set of demons who, like zombie squirrels have infested your attic and have eaten the last three exterminators sent to rid you of them, have infested the Church.

They are “well” spoken of by the Holy Spirit: savage/ferocious wolves, blemishes/blights upon your love feasts, shepherds who feed only themselves, clouds without rain, boasters of themselves, flattering only for their own advantage, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, having a form of Godliness but denying its power, worms, seducers, teachers who oppose the truth, men of depraved minds, false prophets who will secretly introduce destructive heresies into the Church, springs without water - well, just read 2 Peter 2.

SO.

* * * * * DANGER, WILL ROBINSON! DANGER! * * * * *

The YouTube clip is 20 minutes long. It is presented by likely an atheist, from Britain. When the host, John Oliver gets worked up he tends to shorten the phrase dealing with sexual intercourse to one word which rhymes with Duck. Those instances are bleeped out. Mr. Oliver does use, at least twice, the short word for gender neutral, species neutral excrement and this is not bleeped.

The piece opens with Robert Tilton from his salad days in the early 80’s. I was in an orthopedic bed with a blown lumbar disc at Mercy Joplin (nee St. John’s Regional Medical Center). I just had a shot of either Demerol or Morphine and settled back to watch TV. At that point in history, Robert Tilton reminded me of a bipedal lizard and his hair was perfect. Well, I’m just getting a buzz on and the fire in my legs is starting to diminish when Tilton gets excited - and speaks in tongues. I rang for the nurse immediately, thinking I was having some sort of psychotic break. I’ve never actually seen or heard of someone speaking in other than a human understandable language.

I tend to think of Tilton as Dracula’s assistant Renfield only serving Satan and not Vlad the Impaler.

Mr. Oliver also skewers Kenneth and Gloria Copeland, Creflo Dollar and (I shall have to replace the keyboard after typing this demon’s name) Mike Murdock. In Oliver’s piece he had Murdock bragging over buying a small business jet for cash and then going back and buying another one that cost three times more and he paid in cash. I’ve caught his grift before: Murdock brags that people just give him so many suits, he can’t wear them all. Ditto for alleged genuine Rolex watches. I wonder what Tony Campolo would say…

Anyway, what this British atheist is skewering is the “Prosperity Gospel,” aka “Seed Faith.” Above the heresy of pre and post millennialism, in my time, I think the “prosperity gospel” is without a doubt THE MOST DESTRUCTIVE HERESY. If you’re in it, get out. If you’re not in it...at the cost of your soul, don’t go there.

And oh, lupus and midgets get a bit of a hit in Oliver’s piece. Fair warning.

DO NOT WATCH IF YOU THINK IT MIGHT OFFEND YOU!

Until next time, may the Peace of Christ be with you,

†Scott, VDM, ev

To Become What We Might Be

An Interlude


When I let go of what I am, I become what I might be.

• Lao Tzu

We don’t tend to think of ourselves as “what we are.” We usually think in terms of who we are; I think, therefore I am. We define who - not what - we are to the world in our Facebook and Twitter and other social media site profiles.

But there is an exception, an exception that annoys and irritates and screams at me in the Spirit whenever I think about it: we do so love to be sinners. And because we are so taken, so infatuated, so hopelessly in love with the idea of that “we’re only human” we just can’t help it! Sinners we are, sinners we will be and “we’re only human.”

So no matter how hard we try, we just can’t change so we don’t have to worry about changing. Oh well. And we can’t let go - or perhaps it’s not that we can’t but that we won’t.

Letting go of being a sinner is hard. We’ve been told hundreds - being somewhat overly dramatic, depending on our “age” in church, maybe thousands - of times by radio and TV preachers, possibly your own preacher that indeed, we are sinners. And we’ve bought into the lie. We’re quite comfortable in this state of being. It requires nothing of us except that which we want to do for our own selfish-ambitions.

Being sinners is so much easier than having to let go and thus be responsible for changing into what we are in Christ. Changing our lives, repenting of our lives, is, well, hard. And we don’t like hard things. Hard things are well, hard.

So it is little wonder that we are resistant to the idea that as a son or daughter of God through adoption and by the blood of Jesus Christ, the lamb who takes away the sin of the world, that we are a new creation (as in different than we are now with a non-human frame of reference).

And we are resistant to the idea that as a new creation we have been called to be ambassadors for God in Christ Himself!

We are resistant to the idea that through Christ, we are righteous - in a right relationship with God.

We are resistant to the idea that we are to be, indeed even having the capability of being, perfect.

We are resistant to the idea that we are to be holy.

We are resistant to the idea that we are to not only be godly but that through His precious and great promises we are partakers of the divine nature.

Oh, and the really big thing that we absolutely can’t handle: the idea that we have the mind of Christ.* (Sinners, it was explained to me by a very upset Baptist preacher, cannot have the mind of Christ because “we’re sinners, dirty filthy sinners.” To which, minister to minister, I would say he blasphemes at the bare minimum. If he thinks of himself as a sinner then a) he is ignorant of the Scriptures, especially of the will of the Father and does not follow the leading of the Holy Spirit and b) he has a monstrous case of low spiritual self-esteem for which there is no medication for the soul.)

* The actual verse is 2:16 but you really need to read the whole of chapter 2 to get a proper understanding. And, if you are still a little fuzzy on having the mind of Christ, I suggest you check out this article with your Bible open to follow along.

So it’s no wonder that the idea of becoming all the things disciples of Christ are supposed to be is so anathema to so many Christians. Being a sinner: it’s easy. It’s far more comforting to be wretched sinners who can’t help themselves, can’t be anything else but sinners because “we’re only human.” Nice piece of circular logic.

Sinners have no real duties or responsibilities to shoulder except to go to church and try to be moral - a word and a set of relativistic ethics for men, for sinners or, as the writer Henry Miller put it, “Morality is for slaves, men without spirit and when I say spirit I mean the Holy Spirit.” Really, being a sinner is sort of like being a child with developmental disabilities. Stuck at spiritual age two or five or 12 and happier than a clam living it up on the clam flats. No responsibilities - you’re only human, you can’t aspire to anything else. You’re only human.

To be a new creation, to be an ambassador in residence in this temporal world for the Most High God, to think of ourselves as righteous, perfect, holy and godly, to be partakers of the divine nature - well, it’s hard. And being those things carries duties and responsibilities. And yet, being these things, gladly got all the apostles martyred except John (and John got exiled to Patmos to live out his life away from those who loved him and whom he loved).

It requires repentance, which is not a “repentance” of just sins but a repentance of our lives. A repentance that, until we get the hang of it, must be done daily. The Greek word is metanoeo. It requires a new way of looking at the world, of thinking and then acting accordingly.

And it requires that, in the words of Lao Tzu, we “let go” of what we are (sinners) to become what God has laid out for us. We were once sinners but we are no more. We are the sons and daughters of the Most High God. Will we stumble, will be fail, will we have relapses? Oh, you betcha! But we are no longer outside the royal House, the royal Family, like those who do not know God, who have not been adopted. Paul makes it abundantly clear to the Church at Ephesus that we have passed from death to life because of Christ, saying in vs 10 that it’s why God sent Christ - to “make us what we are.” John says that we know we have passed from death to life because we love one another. Death is the natural state of the sinner. But we who have given ourselves to Christ and been baptized have been washed in the blood - we are alive in Christ! We are no long dead in our sins!

Oh, I cannot claim innocence. I confessed Jesus Christ as my Lord and Savior and was baptized. But I was misinformed on the repentance bit for a long, long time. Upon adoption to the House of God on April 18, 1969, I stopped being a sinner; I was no longer dead. I am something so much more. Of course the thing is: while I have let go of being a sinner - at least in my head, I have not stepped up to become what I am supposed to be. But I’m working on it.

Perhaps if we worked on it together?

Until next time,

May the Peace of Christ be with you!

† Scott V.D.M. ev