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Your favorite pastors, apologists, televangelists, etc.?

 
 
 
To the OP: I have no patience for such people at all, though I listen in on Family Radio from time to time.

Brian63 said:
Oh my non-existent god. I watched a little bit of him speaking in tongues, and that is actually something I had never watched anyone do before, but is so ridiculous. How is that supposed to work? God speaks to that person in a language that only that person is able to truly comprehend, and the others are just supposed to make educated guesses about what those noises translate into in their own fluent languages?
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The translation of tongues is also a spiritual gift that some are said to have. But a much less common one. The spirit simply seizes whomever it wills as far as the speaking, only some congregations have an interpreter.
 
Politesse said:
To the OP: I have no patience for such people at all, though I listen in on Family Radio from time to time.

Brian63 said:
Oh my non-existent god. I watched a little bit of him speaking in tongues, and that is actually something I had never watched anyone do before, but is so ridiculous. How is that supposed to work? God speaks to that person in a language that only that person is able to truly comprehend, and the others are just supposed to make educated guesses about what those noises translate into in their own fluent languages?
Click to expand...
The translation of tongues is also a spiritual gift that some are said to have. But a much less common one. The spirit simply seizes whomever it wills as far as the speaking, only some congregations have an interpreter.
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That is the usual understanding of those in evangelical churches. However, my understanding was that those passages in Acts were simply saying that those people from different nationalities, when they "accepted the teachings" spoke in their various languages in praise of god (maybe this was to stress the idea that Christianity was a world religion, not just a Jewish sect). The King James Bible is written in Early Modern English where the word 'tongues' was more commonly used to mean 'languages' than it is today although it still is today.

Evangelicals tend to like the idea of miracles so apparently assume the bestowal of some miraculous godly language on the believer.
 
skepticalbip said:
Politesse said:
To the OP: I have no patience for such people at all, though I listen in on Family Radio from time to time.

Brian63 said:
Oh my non-existent god. I watched a little bit of him speaking in tongues, and that is actually something I had never watched anyone do before, but is so ridiculous. How is that supposed to work? God speaks to that person in a language that only that person is able to truly comprehend, and the others are just supposed to make educated guesses about what those noises translate into in their own fluent languages?
Click to expand...
The translation of tongues is also a spiritual gift that some are said to have. But a much less common one. The spirit simply seizes whomever it wills as far as the speaking, only some congregations have an interpreter.
Click to expand...
That is the usual understanding of those in evangelical churches. However, my understanding was that those passages in Acts were simply saying that those people from different nationalities, when they "accepted the teachings" spoke in their various languages in praise of god (maybe this was to stress the idea that Christianity was a world religion, not just a Jewish sect). The King James Bible is written in Early Modern English where the word 'tongues' was more commonly used to mean 'languages' than it is today although it still is today.

Evangelicals tend to like the idea of miracles so apparently assume the bestowal of some miraculous godly language on the believer.
Click to expand...

I tend to agree with your scriptural interpretation, but I don't think the practice of speaking in tongues is going anywhere any time soon. The same folks who speak in tongues, also believe that the Spirit helps them to interpret Scripture correctly, and trust the consensus of their fellows over the word of any scholar or religious authority. It does lead to a more interesting style of worship. I enjoy worshiping with Pentecostals despite having little in common with them theologically; they are among the most overtly magickal and theatrical of the Christian sects, whether or not they would appreciate a liberal Pagan Christian with too many degrees pointing this out!
 
Another radio evangelist I sometimes listened to was Marlin Maddoux. Marlin was in FM radio, nit AM. His show had excellent production values, far above the usual AM evangelists. He was extremely right winged, he fit right in with the rising Reagan revolution.

What set him apart was his extreme paranoia about atheists conservationists, and neo-pagans. he was sure there was a conservationist plot to take over the world and execute millions of Christians. Sometimes he world devote and entire week to this subject. This involved an amazing torrent of guests touting cassettes, pamphlets and books peddling like minded tripe. These guests could always force fit their particular hobby horses into his narrative. I have no idea how he came up with this flood of idiots, fools and goons peddling fear, conspiracy theories and out right brain damage. Marlon also had a special dislike of Benamin Creme, and English woo peddler whom claimed to be the Maiytrea, the reincarnation of Buddha. Another evil plot to take over the world and kill all the Christians. There were only occasional mentions of Satan, mostly it was about evil atheist-pagan-scientist, secular society plotting to take over the world.

He was truly crazed.
 
That reminds me of a radio evangelist I listened to on two car trips through Texas in the mid-90s. This guy went on and on about Hillary leading a secret coven of Lesbians in the White House and using some New Age sorcery in the bargain. On the second trip, when I found him again on the radio and he was still going on about gay Hillary, I just couldn't believe it. Talk about staking out a narrow furrow in your field, and then going at it year after year -- a little crop rotation, please!!! I don't remember his name. He clearly had a fan base who kept him funded. (I think he also threw in some Gay Eleanor Roosevelt material, to show how nuanced he was.)
 
I used to watch Harold Camping quite a bit on his "Open Forum" program on TV. Always good for a laugh with his wacky theories, especially about how the world was gonna end in May 2011. Occasionally a troll or prankster made it past his screener, and he would take them seriously.
 
Tharmas said:
Years ago I would occasionally watch a TV preacher named Gene Scott, who supposedly held a PhD from Stanford, and seemed more intellectual that most in his profession. He would sit in front of the camera, sometimes smoking a cigar, and even occasionally sipping some whiskey, and go on about some obscure point of Greek grammar in the New Testament. Every now and then he would go off the deep end and get into full blown woo – Pyramidology and the like. He raked in the bucks too.

I read where he died in 2005, at age 75. Too many cigars and sips of whisky I guess.
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I used to watch him too sometimes. Always had a chalkboard filled with random unintelligible scribbles behind him. I couldn't grasp what the hell is was talking about half the time, though.
 
thebeave said:
I used to watch Harold Camping quite a bit on his "Open Forum" program on TV. Always good for a laugh with his wacky theories, especially about how the world was gonna end in May 2011. Occasionally a troll or prankster made it past his screener, and he would take them seriously.
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I listened to him on the radio from time to time. Seemed like a nice fellow, if a bit deluded.
 
Have been doing a bit of reading on some of these people, on Wikipedia anyhow. Jim Bakker admitted that he had never read the Bible in full until he was in prison. Wow.

Both Swaggart and Falwell apparently hated Bakker, or at least thought he was a stain on Christianity. Falwell has passed, but are Swaggart and Bakker buds now, does anybody know? Or at least on speaking terms?
 
More on fundamentalist Christian moral, political, and financial hypocrisy and double standards and other nonsense from the Religious Right on a good AM Joy interview this morning:

https://frankschaefferblog.com/2019/06/pete-buttigieg-has-nothing-to-repent-for-donald-trump-does/

Does anyone know anything about this Frank Schaeffer fellow? He apparently wrote a book entitled "Why I am an Atheist Who Believes in God." He is clearly harshly critical of religious fundamentalist clowns, but I am otherwise unfamiliar with his views. Sounds like the book title was probably at least partly for sales purposes, or perhaps he believes in some kind of ethereal spirit deity.

ETA: A fuller version of the Kenneth Copeland interview:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9LtF34MrsfI&feature=youtu.be
 
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