A Post On Theatrical Preachers

York, England (1997 PhD tour)


Warwick Castle, England (1995 tour)

A Post On Theatrical Preachers

In the last post on the blog from March titled 'Megachurches (Five Largest in USA)' in comments Chucky, also known as Uncle Chuck due to his sacrificial, humanitarian, 'Father Teresa' family efforts, mentions Marjoe Gortner. I like Gortner as an actor on the A-Team etc. I had not made the connection. But when Saint Chuckles showed me the clips I did.

From:

Postitiveatheism

Marjoe Gortner was the first Evangelical preacher to blow the whistle on his profession. In his documentary film, Marjoe, made in the late sixties, he revealed age-old tricks of the trade and exposed some of the entertainment aspects of the popular movement that have made it big business.'

List of scandals involving evangelical Christians

'Gortner rose to fame in the late 1940s as a child preacher, but he had simply been trained to do this by his parents and he had no personal faith. He was able to perform "miracles" and received large amounts of money in donations. After suffering a crisis of conscience, he invited a film crew to accompany him on a final preaching tour. The resulting film, Marjoe, mixes footage of revival meetings with Gortner's explanations of how evangelists manipulate their audiences. It won the 1972 Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature, but was not shown widely in the Southern United States due to fears that it would cause outrage in the Bible Belt.[1]' Wikipedia states: 'References for this section can be found in the main article on Marjoe Gortner and the film Marjoe.'


A replacement video:

To me, since a young Christian I have found this type of preaching over theatrical, overproduced, and I doubt the overall sincerity. I cannot state of course for sure whether someone that preaches that way would be a Christian or not, but red flags would be raised in my mind. It was noted that he had no personal faith while doing ministry.



Aimee Semple McPherson was also likely in the minds of some, including me, overly theatrical and overproduced and if one looks up her life she had a quite controversial life of ministry. She is also on the Wikipedia list of scandals. She was the founder of the Foursquare Church but red flags would be raised in my mind. But I leave the judging of believers up to God (2 Corinthians 5: 10). The church is certainly Christian.

Foursquare

The first citation notes that the whistle was blown on the profession, but the New Testament itself understood and documented the concept of false teachers with both doctrine and motivation.

Browning describes those that would commit false doctrine and theological error, in the later stages of the early Church as committing, heresy. Browning (1997: 168). S. W. Sykes notes that heresy is when one denies a doctrine of the faith having been formally been given by the Church. Sykes (1999: 249). Sykes points out that a formal heresy would be a persistent and therefore consistent belief in incorrect teaching, relative to formal Church teaching. Sykes (1999: 249).

2 Timothy 3 is a Chapter in the New Testament where false teachers are presented from the NASB and in verse 7 certain men are described as those that are always learning and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth. The men promised deeper knowledge. Nute (1986: 1489). Alan G. Nute states ' They are men of depraved minds and counterfeit faith'. Nute (1986: 1489). In Nute's opinion the text appears to be describing not only teachers of heresy but also teachers of bad motives that were non-Christians.

Verse 7:

7 πάντοτε μανθάνοντα καὶ μηδέποτε εἰς ἐπίγνωσιν ἀληθείας ἐλθεῖν δυνάμενα.
always learning and never to full knowledge of truth to come being able.

ἀληθείας (of truth)

Greek scholar Bauer notes in 3: 7 the word is in the context of Christianity as an absolute truth. Bauer (1979: 35). So, the knowledge of Christianity would not be grasped by such men it appears.

Thoughts

False teachers existed in the New Testament and were exposed as heretical and with evil motives. They would of course exist today within the Church, and outside of the Church and where some may not be sure which is which, like the cults and with religions that are similar to Christianity. It is also possible some Christians may teach the gospel message but with less than admirable motives. However, even with the various theological differences within the Church, and the many differences I would have with many Christian Reverends of other denominations, I have not seen any conclusive evidence that would indicate that the majority of Christian Reverends would have questionable motives in serving Christ.

Certainly not in the context of the 'phony preacher', but there is the issue of the radical liberal church today which many Christian conservatives will rightly mention. I would state that those that deny the Biblical gospel are outside of Christ. But, even with my fairly dogmatic Reformed views I still hold to basic Biblical doctrines such as Romans 10: 9 NASB

^{9 [a]}that if you confess with your mouth Jesus as Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved; ¹⁰ for with the heart a person believes, ^[b]resulting in righteousness, and with the mouth he confesses, ^[c]resulting in salvation.

Basically, I do not think that a Christian has to have near perfect theology (be Reformed or like) to be saved.

BAUER, WALTER. (1979) A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament, Translated by Eric H. Wahlstrom, Chicago, The University of Chicago Press.

BROWNING, W.R.F. (1997) Dictionary of the Bible, Oxford, Oxford University Press.

MARSHALL, ALFRED (1975)(1996) The Interlinear KJV-NIV, Grand Rapids, Zondervan.

NUTE, Alan G. (1986) '2 Timothy' in The International Bible Commentary, Grand Rapids, Zondervan.

SYKES, S. W. (1999) ‘Heresy’, in Alan Richardson and John Bowden (eds.), New Dictionary of Christian Theology, Kent, SCM Press Ltd.



Imagine That

Huffpost Celebrity Canada

'Alec Baldwin 54 engaged to girlfriend 28'

April 13, 2012

My cell phone rings: ‘Is this the owner of this cell phone?’ (Telus calling for the third straight day).

I answer ‘You know (within reason of course) the answer to that question.’ Telus: ‘Is this Russ Murray?’

My phone is with Telus. They want me to switch my internet as well. I am not interested.

Perhaps they will finally give up.


Lake Kenyir, Terengganu, Malaysia, (Google Images)