The 300 plus-pound TV preacher railed against gluttony. Gluttony of all things!
Who did he think he was kidding? Well, apparently tens of thousands of people who keep his legalistic efforts and many others like it, awash in money.
He then moved on to list just about every possible “sin” that we human beings are guilty of. He went off on the “evil” of body piercing, quoting some biblical dictate against it. While listing off the body parts that were an “abomination” in God’s sight to pierce (eyebrows, tongues, belly buttons), he conveniently left out ears. Apparently he wasn’t desirous of totally offending nearly 100% of the female givers in his audience (not to mention a growing number of men). Thus, he demonstrated the picking and choosing fundamentalist speakers engage in in order to make their point. (By the way, we at www.gospelrevolution.com do the same thing. It’s just we’re among the only ones who admit it.)
The rotund peddler of legalism is apparently guilty of at least one of the things he was coming against. But the bottom line is that at some level someone is guilty for every one of the legalistic doctrines that come down the pike. NO ONE measures up.
Then they teach that God does not expect perfection, He just wants the right attitude, that we repent perfectly. We don’t know about you, but repenting perfectly (or having a perfect attitude) is about as hard as any work one could ever do. Repenting for not repenting became a full time effort for many of us.
What evangelicals really encourage is a guilt-ridden existence for just being the way God made us–human.
Well, praise be to the Lord Jesus Christ, the Lord of ALL. He redeemed all of us from bad attitudes and all of our humanity (or what separated us from God). Now we embrace our humanity–all those who make it up–because God made it all good through Christ.
More good news from those communicating love at Mike Williams Media.