136 thoughts on “A Good Dose of Pastoral Ranting”

  6. “And I’ll be……………………and I’ll be………somethin’……if I’m gonna let the devil come in here.”

    Wow, the preacher almost said “I’ll be damned” from the pulpit! My poor little ears, I don’t know what to with this information! 😳

    By the way, has anyone actually heard any preachers cuss from the pulpit? I have heard 2. The first one was Bro. Jimmy Hood out of Ohio when he came and preached at our tent meeting and said “that damn devil” when he was trying to say “that damnedable devil.” The second was my dad, who busted out “B*chin’ pissin’ and moanin'” from the pulpit when ranting (preaching?) against loosed-lipped women in the church. Funny how it’s never the men who are loose-lipped to hear the preachers tell it.

      1. Yes, it’s considered bad language in America; not so much in the UK, as I understand it.

    4. My former pastor used to say “f—-t from the pulpit. No one ever said anything about it. I consider that cussing, but not everyone does. Funny, I have no problem with “traditional” cuss words like f—- or s—-, but I cannot stomach n—-r or f—-t. Makes me want to puke.

      1. what? “fart” is a cuss word too now?
        Bloody Hell!… are there any words left that haven’t been sectioned off as cuss words?

        1. good point. I can understand being nervous about the use of “faggot” which is usually intended to be derogatory. But “fart”.. meh?

    5. Oh, Jimmy Hood. I like that guy…he just is what he is.

      Bob Nogalski was giving a testimony at our campmeeting once and got all wound up and said “I’m so glad God saved me out of all that shit!” We teens thought it was hilarious.

      And once an evangelist in our church switched consonants on “fasten” and “buckle” when he was talking about seat belts. Lolz ensued.

    6. My pastor has sworn from the pulpit several times, and he defended it each time. He said he used the word damned in the proper way and not a vulgar way. And he said So and So can go to hell. No one really questioned that one.

    7. When my brother was “preacher for a night” as a teen he was preaching away a out something and next thing you know he said “that crap just sucks!” Pretty funny to see his face when he realized it. Luckily our church wasn’t so crazy that they ran him out of town on a rail – in fact most people chuckled. If he’d said it in our Christian school, he’d have been in “Demerit City”!

    8. A college guy in was preaching for the first time at a church plant I was going to. Talking about Samson and the Philistines, he said that Samson “opened a can of kick-ass” on the Philistines.

  8. So according to his Biblical views, women that wear makeup are whores? Got it.

    I wonder if he has a staff handbook?

  10. How strong of a congregation must this be if “boys wearing make-up” (I am assuing in some kind of a skit) is about to cause a church split? I thought that only discussions about Calvinism could do that to fundamental churches…

    1. We’re talking IFB here – discussions about whether or not to capitalize the word Calvinism can cause church splits.
      Discussions about who is bringing what to the fellowship that will enable us to debate whether or not Calvinism should be capitalized can cause church splits. Etc, etc, etc 😮

      1. formerHACgirl – I humbly bow before your superior knowledge of all things fundy :mrgreen: . I’ve been out for 30 years and admit that I’ve lost touch. I did, however, do the necessary pilgrimage to Hammond for their youth conference in 1982 so I do have some fundy pedigree, though not to the degree of your own (according to your moniker) 😀

        1. How nice to know that you made it to Mecca before the various and sundry grand meltdowns of recent decades. I should have read the history books and run away! 😕
          On another note, it has always amused me how easy it is to cause a church split in an IFB church. They all deserve terminal degrees in Separation, and not the honorary kind!

      2. I remember there being a rant at my old Fundy church about how you should spell Savior as Saviour because the latter had 7 letters and was therefore more spiritual.

        Oh the things Fundies fight about. 🙂

    2. Well, Calvinism didn’t split my decidedly non-fundy church. Nope. It killed it graveyard dead. In five short years, we went from a vibrant, growing church to nothing. Once they pushed us all away, they couldn’t make a go of it anymore, and so they gave away or threw away all the stuff we had bought, and shut it all down.

      They invaded quietly, with a mask of friendliness. Once they knew they had a numbers advantage, the mask came off. We were completely blind-sided. Their hatred and scorn for us were palpable. And so our church died.

      1. May I suggest that it was not Calvinism that destroyed your church. It was rotten Calvinists. There are many systems of theology that have given rise to vibrant, long-lasting communities of faith; Calvinism is one of them. It is when the few come in among us claiming to bear The Truth ™ with a little discord here and a little arrogant grandstanding there, that the people begin to feel that they’re not practicing what they teach. And then they decide to go do something else.

        4. Maybe so. But I have done enough research (and had enough insiders confirm what I was researching) to learn that there is a wink-wink, nod-nod plan in some seminaries to infiltrate churches, take them over, change the name to Grace something something Community church, push out the people who were there before, and turn it into a full-bore Calvinist church. The Southern Baptist Convention has even had articles in some of their papers and magazines in recent years, talking about this phenomenon in their ranks: the parasite taking over the host and destroying it in the process.

          I choose not to test the hypothesis that this is simply a case of “bad” Calvinists, for the same reason that I have a hard time believing that we are all witnessing the few “bad apple” IFB types while missing all the Good Ones that are hiding out all across the Fruited Plain. The theory could be true, but I have seen precious little evidence of it. And the “good” Calvinists who saw what happened here at our former church simply say to me, “Oh, well, I guess it must have been God’s will! (insert simpering sigh here)”

          Bah humbug. Along the lines of what one of Agatha Christie’s characters once said (remember her? That noted British theologian?), few things make my blood boil more than people blaming on God that evil which they did of their own free will.

          I live just a few hours from where Calvin ruled. He was a control freak of the worst sort, to the point of consenting to the death at the stake of one of his theological opponents. While much of his theory is quite sound, “the proof of the pudding is in the eating,” and I have gotten a belly full of that pudding, in my own life and in my study of history. All the good theory in the world doesn’t count for much when your disciples take on your control freak persona and rampage around the countryside like Cromwell did in England and the Huguenots did in France – destroying cathedrals, attempting to kidnap the King of France – and igniting a wider religious war. The Calvinist preoccupation with Sovereignty even to this day is a vestige of this unsavory control-freak history.

          As a result of these wars, my wife’s Huguenot ancestors had to flee for their lives to Germany. Somewhere along the line, after they made their way to America in 1730, they became ultra-Arminian (go figure) and I had to bring my wife back to balance from THAT whole bubbling pot of Crazy.

          Anyhoo, these Calvinists who destroyed our church in recent years aren’t really all that different from the control freaks in the Indie Fundie world. I think those two groups despise each other because they are so similar, like the Bloods and the Crips. Either way, you’re just following after a man: either a live foaming-at-the-mouth IFB loon who is still alive today, or a man who died long ago, but whose oh-so-sober-and-intellectual descendents still destroy bodies of believers today just as their forefathers destroyed church buildings in France and England way back when(and started a fistfight in the middle of a church service here in Heidelberg, where I live).

          Come to think of it, I think I detect a little foam at the corners of Mark Driscoll’s mouth, too.

        6. Wait…did you just say you “had to bring my wife back to balance from THAT whole bubbling pot of Crazy”? 😯

        7. Yep. Have you heard of Pilgrim Holiness?

          She wasn’t buying what they were selling, but she had heard it her whole life, and she wasn’t sure what the Bible really had to say about quite a lot of stuff…mostly based on outward appearances. I had lots of ‘splainin’ to do. It was good for me, because it made me really STUDY the Bible in a way that I had never done before.

        8. I didn’t bother commenting on the terrible logic in your rant above but the idea that your wife was “oh so lucky” to have you because you were the only one able to enlighten her to your truth was disturbing enough where I did feel the need to comment.

        9. Hey, Ronnie, I see your point. If I was going to make such a statement, I should have given a bit more information.

          My wife was in constant fear of losing her salvation. All her life, she “got saved” every single church service. She was taught that if a female ever cut her hair (or even trimmed the split ends), she was going to hell. If she wore sleeves above the elbow…straight to hell. Pants, jewelry, makeup…forget about it. She was not allowed to read the comics as a kid. When they drove past a drive-in movie theater, the kids were instructed to avert their eyes. After we were married, she asked me whether dinosaurs ever really existed. She had been taught that the fossils were fakes, intended to convert the world to Darwinism. And because she had been taught how hard she had to work to keep her salvation, she couldn’t believe that King David could be in heaven. Add to this that she went to high school and college at Bob Jones University.

          So. When I say I was bringing a little balance, I don’t mean to say that I was teaching her “my truth.” At least, I never tried to do that. Her questions forced me to open the Bible to see what it REALLY said, rather than what we had been TOLD that it said. Does this help?

          Cheers!

  11. Well I’ll be damned! There I said it.

    What is it with pastors and their power trips? Where I am the youth director, people never come to me about a concern or a question. They will go to the pastor, who then comes to me and days, “someone called…..”. When I ask who I always get, “I’m can’t tell you.” Recently read an article about being told, “someone said…” It doesn’t allow you to do your ministry.

    Regarding boys and make up, the youth have always led the sunrise service. A couple of years ago, several kids were going to be gone – so we decided to make a movie. Had done it a few years prior, about aliens discovering Easter, and it was a great success. I found a script, on the Skit Guys site, that was used in a childrens church – so had some humerus moments. There was one part that was to be similar to “The Coffee Clutch” skits on Saturday Night Live, with guys acting like older Jewish woman with thick Brooklyn accents. I only had one youth who could pull it off, so I played the other role. After the service, got lots of positive comments.

    A couple if months later, I was told at the worship team meeting someone mentioned that they thought it was disrespectful to have guys acting like women, when taking about the resurrection of our lord. The youth are no longer in charge of planning the service, the pastor is, but they are the ones who are expected to lead it.

    This is not a IFB church, we are mainline Protestant.

    1. Your first paragraph…don’t get me started on that. I HATE it when that happens – and have seen it in business, not just ministry. How does that help anyone get their job done or do it better? Since when is action based on rumors a good thing? Someone pulling the “someone told me, but I can’t tell you who” crap is a detestable leader.

    2. I know your denomination, and I’m guessing folks were probably more offended by the use of a humorous sketch in an Easter Sunday worship service than by the cross-dressing involved.
      I’m not saying I agree, but I know what pushes their buttons.

    4. I belong to a historical reenactment group, and in our local branch (about 300 people), a few years ago the leadership issued an edict, banishing the Clan of Some. I’m sure you know this clan too. “Some people say-“, “Someone told me-“, etc. Members were instructed to follow the conflict resolution rules as laid out in the incorporating documents: Have a problem with someone? You talk to _them_. If you must do so via letter or email, you *must* sign it. (Something sent anonymously is considered from Some.) If the matter is not resolved, you talk to them again, with a witness, preferably a neutral party. Only if things are not settled then may you go to a superior officer or the local leadership.

      Does this sound familiar?

      I’ve been kicked upstairs to one of the highest in the leadership chain (a position that is permanent and not local but ranks throughout the organization), and I have to hear a fair amount of gossip and complaints. My first reply is always “Have you spoken to them about it?” Oddly enough, that usually shuts down that conversation.

      Sometimes the things Paul had to say about working with others in the church are simply the best way to handle conflict among humans, period. So why is this so frequently ignored within the churches? 🙄

    5. I don’t know your pastor, but statements like that ONLY come from antagonistic people.

      Antagonists are not unique to the fundy world, although the ratio is probably a bit higher in it.

      And they are definitely not my dream leader-type.

  12. Around the 1:06 mark:

    “I can take you to the Bible and probably prove to you pretty strongly why no one should wear makeup.”

    Real strong conviction (or is it a preference) there if you can only “probably prove” something.

    1. “probably prove pretty strongly”

      Being generous to the guy:
      Pretty strong = 70% convincing
      Probably Prove = 80% chance of confirmation

      So, an 80% chance of confirming something that will be 70% convincing. Hmmm….. 😕

    2. Does This Church Make Me Look Phat?

      Dear Pastor Dennis:

      If your cosmetic-whore analogy holds, most women at least hanker to be whores. Yet you can’t name three women in the Bible who fit that analogy.

      The correlation is 100%; but causality is entirely different. What if cosmetics are incidental to whoredom? Rahab whored, but nothing suggests she used cosmetics. Esther certainly used cosmetics. Did she whore?

      I know very little about women, but I am sure that presentation matters to them. Perhaps anti-beautification practices may have less to do with Biblical law than depressing women to nurture their psychological compliance. Viewed in that light, a church that makes women feel fat and ugly may be a good thing. Why any women [or men] attend such churches is another matter.

      What I see is this: several Bible-mentioned whores used cosmetics. But you, Pastor Dennis, want to deduce from that a universal principle and hold all of God’s people answerable to it in the Name of the Lord.

      Why should we agree?

      Christian Socialist

  13. It’s good to see that this church is focused on the important issues of makeup and pants.

    1. but this one doesn’t include the problem of men wearing makeup. I think it needs to be longer.
      While we’re at it, let’s add a page about whether it’s ok to use those temporary tattoos that come in cereal boxes. And how about one detailing the degree to which women’s underwear can resemble pants? I mean Trieber does (very graciously) concede that womens’ pajamas can have legs, as long as they aren’t fit to be worn outside the house, but he never mentions whether it’s ok to wear “boyshorts” as a form of underwear when you’re outside the house.
      If we’re going to achieve unity in the body of Christ, we’re going to need a bigger handbook. And soon. We need to know whether my husband is allowed to use chapstick, or if that’s too close to makeup and thus would be an “appearance of evil.” Help!

  16. It appears as though Pastor Morello started out intending to address the subject of how to respond when we’re concerned about things that occur in the church.

    It would have been a great opportunity to discuss the responsibility that believers have to seek to maintain the unity of the Spirit, evidence Christ’s love, and approach one another with our concerns when appropriate in a spirit of grace, patience and humility with an eye toward reconciliation. This is a sermon I would have been interested in hearing.

    One of the best ways to address the subject, and particularly those in the congregation who he felt had been divisive and had given way to the devil would have been to model Paul’s words and “not strive; but be gentle unto all men, apt to teach, patient, in meekness instructing those that oppose themselves; if God peradventure will give them repentance to the acknowledging of the truth; and that they may recover themselves out of the snare of the devil, who are taken captive by him at his will” (2 Tim. 2:24-26).

    Instead, with Bible closed, we quickly deteriorate into this rant that at points proceeds with such break-neck speed that we get such lines as “Oholiab, and Hola-a-a-a-uh-uh-um-Ahola-Holibaba-however you pronounce her- a whore is what she was” and “I’ll be a-a-a- I’ll be something if I let the devil come in here.”

    It should not surprise him or ourselves that his people do not respond to issues biblically when their pastor does not model the right response before them, and does not take the time to patiently teach them with meekness and gentleness.

    1. +10, RBF. I commend to all that passage in The Screwtape Letters where the entire topic of divisiveness, weaker brethren,and the like is handled.

  17. 20 seconds in and this old boy has got Jack Schaap preaching style painted all over him. And, with that, I turned it off.

  18. He plays the two highest Fundy Trump Cards:

    1. Say that Satan is behind the other person. This will end the debate, or at least change the subject to who is or is not demon-possessed.
    2. Come up with some obscure Bible verse that, while not on the same subject, at least has a word or phrase in common with your argument.

    Repeat as many times as necessary.

    1. Dear Big Gary:

      How ‘come this guy knows so much about the devil?

      Christian Socialist

  19. All this video does is shove me back into my childhood to witness how a “gawdly man” wants me to be raised…I instantly was 12 again, in the front pew of my fundy church (of course), praying desperately that my Dad wouldn’t take what he was saying as the truth so that when I was 16, I could wear mascara.

    That….and it proves that in some matters, there is nothing better than a well-placed cuss word.

    Dang it.

    1. This is a Pittsburgh area phone #, however Dennis pastors Lighthouse Baptist Church in Huntington, WV. I’m pretty sure he is a HAC grad.

  21. I don’t get the yelling, screaming, and all the anger. I’m sure that I could prove from the Bible that “Make no friendship with an angry man” and “A fool gives full vent to his anger” (Proverbs) is a more provable point than make up + women= whores.

  22. “Come unto me all ye that have questions/concerns, and I will give you the answers.” What is it with all the “Follow me” declarations from the MOGs? It’s like they’re reinacting a Kurt Vonnegut novel when the biggest idiot somehow becomes the leader.

  23. “if you have trouble, I’m the person you need to talk to.”
    Right. So now that he’s said “shut it up” and talked down to me (“I’m the one. This person right here. I’ll fight tooth and nail. I’ll get two legs and a piece of a ear from our church”) . . .
    Right. Now I’m so convinced that he’s the one to talk to if I’m in a bind.
    This is not an invitation to talk, this is a thinly veiled threat. Maybe not even veiled. He’s going to rip your legs off if you have a problem?

    Sounds to me like the devil is straining to get out from between his teeth, but his chops are just moving too fast. The bit about “Ahoolabab” the Whore reminded me of Porky Pig.

  25. Laughed louder and harder over the video and comments than I ever have since coming to SFL!

    Thanks All! 😆

  26. I didn’t think this was much of a rant; I’ve heard much longer and louder rants.

    I’m guessing that what happens is that there was a skit where teen boys wore makeup and some people complained to the youth pastor.

    I found it very odd that he compared it to women wearing pants (trousers) and that if one were OK, so was the other — but the impression I received is that he is against women wearing pants (trousers), so the comparison made no sense.

    When I was part of an IFBx church, we went to another church and saw a skit; part of the skit involved a deacon dressed up as a woman. I was probably on my out at the time, because I was highly offended that they would preach against men wearing women’s clothing (and women wearing men’s clothing), but then give the green light to a skit doing exactly that. I didn’t know that there were loopholes in the commandments. I guess the excuse of “it’s just a skit” or “I was just joking” allows any violation of the rules. [Major dislike]

    Would they have allowed the women to wear trousers as part of a skit? I’m pretty certain that they would not.

    I’ve also seen IFBx churches take skits from Monty Python for entertainment — I THOUGHT THEY PREACHED AGAINST SUCH THINGS!!!?!?!?!?!?!? I find Monty Python a bit risque in some areas.

  27. My younger brother was in the youth department of an IFBx church and one of the lads there described one of the young ladies as “hot”; someone told the pastor, my, oh my, the next spanking time (Sun PM), he went on a pretty long rant about the foul-mouthed young people and how the parents were at fault, and how they could come forward at the invitation and get in right or else there would be punishment dispensed to both the parents and the lads… if parents didn’t know if their son had been involved, they should schedule time with the pastor and he would let them know, and on, and on, and on. You’d have thought someone blasphemed God Himself.

    It may not have been an appropriate comment for a teen to make, but than ranting was pretty intense.

    1. He blew a perfectly good chance to quietly (and privately) explain to the young man in question that there are better ways to express admiration for a woman.

      1. … but it was an impressive rant that had every family with teen boys nervous that it could have been their teenager.

      2. Of course there are better ways. Wait ten years, become the pastor of the church, then counsel them.

  28. Dear Pastor Dennis:

    Little people saying things? Does this mean that little people should rarely be seen and never heard.
    Don’t go to the board.

    Instead of talking to others, shut it, and come tell you. Can you tell you to ‘shut it?’

    Wouldn’t it be poetic justice if the following Sunday, every woman in your congregation wore pants!

    Proof isn’t strong. Proof either is or isn’t. You’re confusing evidence and proof.

    Brother Dennis, God paints the face of creation every season. And eschatologically speaking, the body of Christ [that’s us] is presented to God as a bride adorned for her husband. Your problem with that would be …?

    Are you sure that you want to take all the criticism for every screwup at church?

    Who says that the termination of conversation means that we’re good about anything? What exactly makes that true? Does this mean that after we’ve stopped talking, that we’re free THEN to discuss things?

    Has it occurred to you that your courageous, principled stand against cosmetics [a great societal issue to be sure] might cause division?

    So — you’re not going to let the devil come in. Brother Dennis, how many exorcisms have you performed? Are you sure that this isn’t about disagreeing with you? In either case, does it not bother you that you come off as a pompous ass. Try reading the words of Luther’s hymn, ‘A Mighty Fortress Is Our God’ for a more biblical view of Satan’s powers in this age.

    That self-satisfied smirk at the end of your screed looks really goofy. But if you’re good with it, I suppose I can learn to live with it.

    Christian Socialist

    PS: If you happen to find this post, please don’t be upset. Instead, you should be grateful that you don’t have a half-dozen guys like me in your church.

  29. I’m sad to think that this type of preaching used to make me feel guilty and enslaved because I couldn’t see through the poorly constructed thought patterns and the illogical conclusions.

  32. I have to admit (as much as I love this site) that I don’t particularly care for the posts with clips of preaching. I just think that after 25 years of that crap being screamed at me from a pulpit at least 3x a week, I am all preached out. Maybe in few years when I have been away longer, I can truly appreciate these clips for how ridiculous they are, and better see the humor in it 🙂

    1. I usually don’t listen to them. I like that we have actual proof of our concerns from their own mouths, but I too don’t feel ready to subject myself to that again.

      I usually let someone else watch it and then comment on the points that THEY make about the content!

      1. Good idea 🙂 I may be able to handle it someday, but I think my wound is just too fresh still. 🙁

        1. I agree as well. I understand there is a place and need for this kind of thing on this wonderful, theraputic blog, but for me, it’s been 35 years of craziness I just recently escaped and I’d prefer not to listen. At all. I watched this particular one, but all it did was bring up bad memories and guilt I’m trying to forget (see my earlier comment).

    2. I don’t see how you’re under any obligation at all to watch the video preaching clips (no one is).

      I enjoy many of them, though, because they are examples of the “give them enough rope, and they’ll hang themselves” phenomenon.”
      No criticism or satire can match what some of these guys say with their own mouths. And later, when they deny having said it, it’s nice to be able to watch the words coming out of their own mouths in the old video.

    3. Another observation– These tirades are painful when the person making them has power over you. Then, it’s punishment to listen to them.
      I’m not currently in any remotely Fundy church, so they have no power at all over me. Therefore, I can afford to laugh. I understand why that might be a luxury that some people cannot afford, but I hope they will have the same freedom someday soon.

    4. I kind of agree with you. Except to me, it is mostly a waste of time to listen to them. I usually listen to a minute or two then stop, having gotten the gist.

    5. I am sort of in the same boat. I do listen to parts of some clips, and find them amusing now that I’m on the outside looking in. I still have enough connections in Fundystan, though, that I find it hard to listen to the manipulation and power trip of the typical fundy preacher.
      I wonder how so many intelligent people get sucked in and manipulated. When I hear a rant that makes no logical, and worse, no Biblical sense filled with HAY-MAN!s I wonder why these people cannot see from Scripture that the message is far from The Gospel, or any other part of God’s word.

  33. I think there’s value in hearing it coming directly from their own mouths; but I also agree that I sometimes feel excluded from the preaching video posts because I don’t want to subject myself to what I escaped from.

  35. Me. ME. MEEEEE!!! I am the unmovable rock! How dare you question my 13356000 seconds of SERVICE TO – MEEEE!!! – GAWD building this church with my own blood, sweat, and tears – MEEEEE!!!! – because I am so awesome and MEEEE!!!

  36. It started off well enough. I thought, “Wow. He’s going to take responsibility for church decisions.” That’s fair, since he probably made them all. But when he asked why people were not as upset with women wearing pants, I laughed and stopped the video. 🙄

    Instead of focusing on women wearing pants, why don’t we call out preachers who lie, cheat and steal. Matthew 23.

    1. I agree. He had a good point to make, but then it ran off the rails rather quickly.

      I do think that if people have a problem in the church, they should bring it to the pastor. If he doesn’t do anything about it. . .well, you go from there–but I grew up as the son of a pastor in a small, rural Baptist church. And I can personally testify of situations where a person had a problem with the ministry and everyone in the church knew about it for six months to a year before anyone breathed a word of it to my Dad. And the bad situation, in the intervening time period, only got worse.
      As for the rest of Morello’s rant. . .I’m calling BS.

      2. Depends on the pastor; sometimes, when problems are brought to the pastor, they are (a) ignored, or (b) the one bringing it is preached against in a message.

        Thus, I will tend to check with people, just to make sure that they think I have a point before bringing it up. I have brought several things up to the pastor… I normally was ignored, but I rather expected that.

  37. “Are we listening?” <— That statement brought back a ton of my fundy baggage from when I went a Fundy School. ***shudder***
    Nothing like talking to your adult congregation like they are 10 year olds.

  38. Once again we have the fundy preacher bending the pulpit mike out of the way. Why do fundies feel the need to do this? Is their sound booth incapable of shutting off the pulpit mike? Or does it give them a power trip to bend something out of the way?

  40. So Jezebel and some prostitute put on makeup. What is it that Fundies say? Oh yeah…if the barn needs painted. Paint it. Apparently their barns needed painting.

  41. I’ll be honest about the post. At first, I thought, “Well, he might actually spell out using scripture how we should approach a brother in Christ when we differ in opinion…”

    No such luck. 🙄

    I mean, gossip is never a good thing – causing divisions, not seeking restoration, etc. It is not nearly as damaging to a church body (or to Christ and the mission for which He came) as a man abusing the pulpit by bullying and spouting opinions for which he doesn’t even bother to reference the Bible.

    This is what makes IFB-ism dangerous – ok, not all, but most of it as we know it. What starts out as a nugget of truth gets warped, changed, and is used as a bullying stick to make people follow or leave. To me that is the definition of a cult.

    But that’s just me.

  42. That was mind boggling reasoning.

    Don’t get mad because we had boys wearing make-up in a promotion. What you should be mad about is women wearing pants.
    But if you want to be mad about make up nobody should be wearing it because the Bible only talks about whores wearing it.

    Wouldn’t that mean if it’s bad for women to wear it it’s bad for men too with that reasoning. And does the Bible talk about whores wearing pants too?

    And please come and talk to him directly because he’s pretty sure he can show you from the Bible to make you believe his opinion.

    He’s been there 10 years and 2 months- it’s HIS church you bleepin’ little minion!

    1. It’s not that he’s against women wearing makeup. I have a feeling there were one or two women that were the source of the discontent. So it’s basically a veiled threat to start preaching against makeup if they keep questioning his authority.

  44. Am I the only one who agrees with him on the issue he is discussing? I am a youth minister, and I have been accused of several things over Youth Outings I have had (which include a Halloween Party). None of these people came to me about it; rather I was bashed behind my back. It did cause discord and cost me a couple teens. Granted, my state has the highest forced dismissals of pastors.

    My main deal with this guy is he obviously doesn’t know his Scripture. Being an apparent dispensationalist, he should have gone New Testament with the women and used 1 Timothy 2:9. Also, Paul said to do everything in a decent and orderly fashion, which is not the case with his sermon if he is slipping up with some wordy-dirties (1 Corinthians 14:40). Someone help, because I feel like a total Fundy agreeing with him. Am I missing something?

    By the way, some of you were asking, and Mark Driscol uses profanity from the pulpit, but rarely.

    1. Also, as is common with people in power who say “come to me first” in this type of punitive, public, brow-beating sort of way, there’s no way in hell this man would handle it right. Generally, people who abuse power say things like this to sound “reasonable” when the reality is that they just want to find who is against them and beat them into submission. I’m not 100% sure that this is the case with this man because I don’t know him, but I’ve known many clever, abusive people in power in my day and he gets my radar going.

    2. I think that he’s right; people shouldn’t be bashing him behind his back. HOWEVER, he’s obviously set himself up as a threat to his congregation, so he’s not approachable enough for people to tell him anything to his face. I know if I were in his church and I had a complaint about the teen activity, I’d be afraid to go to him. Listen to him bellow and stutter with all his talk about “getting legs and ears.” So much anger. Nobody wants to give someone like that anything else to be angry about.

    3. It doesn’t seem to me that people are so much against the issue he’s discussing – that people go to the pastor if they have a problem with him – as the way he’s discussing it! Even you brought up the point of his lack of scripture knowledge. Why rant like this instead of saying we got a problem and calmly discussing it?

  45. I believe this is what some people call “pulpit administration” – using the pulpit to take care of an issue that should/could have been taken care of one on one. I have witnessed this many times and this was one of the reasons that we left our fundie church almost 7 years ago.

  46. Why do i love not going to church? Oh, let’s watch this video….Yes…Yes…That is why….Why do people sit under this?

    1. Who knows Red…who knows? Kinda like why do some ex-fundies still listen to the Cathedrals…Brian Free…ect ect ect. I will certainly never understand it.

    2. Programming
      It is easier to accept the programming than it is to think for oneself. BTDT and have the tee shirts to prove it. 🙄

    3. Big Red – I left fundystan about 6 months ago physically and finally. Mentally I left years ago but because of extraneous circumstances I was “trapped” so I had to slowly make my way out. I feel empathy for those whom are trapped.
      Don – you are right on the money! It is mental brainwashing: people buy into the notion that they must be at every “service” if they are a “christian”. There is rarely – never any critical thinking applied to these “services”. The man behind the pulpit spews whatever he wants and is never fact checked or challenged (this is the one way flow of information that gives the MOG power over his minions).

      In his ranting – Dennis demonstrates why I believe the IFB subculture is dying: “i’ve put ten years and two months into this church”. You see this is HIS empire that HE has built. He is too heavily invested in his business that makes him money to be able to admit that what he has been “preaching” all of these years is in-fact not truly “scriptural” and is contrived by the IFB hermeneutic.

      Why would someone from the congregation want to go bring up an error to Dennis when he is heavily invested in his opinions and has so much to lose and thinks that even if he doesn’t agree with you and does nothing to change anything you can walk away and be “OK”??

      Don – I grew up in this mess from an infant and was programmed from birth. I am glad I was able to shed the crazzy and error. I find it frustrating when grown adults with real world experience join and even aquiesce to the madness with nary a critical thought applied to what is happening or being said.

  47. It’s a shame he made such moronic statements such as women wearing pants is bad, etc. because I agree with his basic thought, in that, if someone has a problem with the church, go to the pastor instead of talking to everyone else. I see no problem with that point. The terrible way he delivered it is another story.

    1. “I agree with his basic thought, in that, if someone has a problem with the church, go to the pastor instead of talking to everyone else.”

      Why? Why should the church all be shouldered by one man? Where is that in the bible upon which this is all based?
      Why should someone with an issue be able to go to a board or call a meeting of members? Who is this one man who thinks he is the president CEO king? Sorry, I dont mean this directly towards you necessarily. I am just trying to throw some questions at you to get the discussion deeper.

      I think there are some deeper questions worth pursuing.

  48. All current swear words are just man made words someone (not God) decided you should not say. Those words did not even exist during Biblical times. I.E. it is a tradition of man.

  49. Am I the only one who would like to attend these guys services and actually go to them and fulfill their wishes, by telling them what a jackass he is to his face? These guys are mostly big cowards behind a hitlers podium.

  50. Well, I’ll be dipped in cheese if that pastor didn’t almost say the damnable “d” word.

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