I considered clipping excerpts from this “sermon” preached at Immanuel Baptist Church about the evils of technology but it’s just so perfect in its entirety that I didn’t want to ruin it.
I especially appreciate his keen use of Scripture to back up his points and the way that Christ permeates his outlook.
Notice in a fundamentalist separatist the devil always takes things God makes and one ups him by turning it into evil.
Notice in the Bible God always one ups the devil by taking things Satan corrupts and redeems them.
In fundamentalism-separatism you are taught that victorious Christian living is achieved by doing right for the fear of reprisal.
In scripture we are transformed when our hearts learn to love virtue and righteousness for what they are.
Thank God for preachers like this, it has helped me clearly see the dysfunction and out wright spiritual sickness that lies within IFB. Freedoooooooooooooooooom
–Notice in a fundamentalist separatist the devil always takes things God makes and one ups him by turning it into evil.
Notice in the Bible God always one ups the devil by taking things Satan corrupts and redeems them.–
Wow. Just wow. This is why I come to SFL – the commentary is so uplifting.
Aleluia!
KKP,
Wow is right. That was possibly the most accurate on the subject I have read so far. Great response!
Had it not been for the “curse of modern technology” amen, I’d have never, amen or not, been able to watch this. I was going to make a negative comment, amen, until I heard him say “God gave me this.” Amenornot? Not!
Did he say, “Thank God for Clinton” at 21:30? I’m sure his fellow fundy buddies would love to hear that!
He reads several verses at the beginning, then goes onto a rant that has nothing to do with what was read. -_- I know its par for the course, but it always bugs me.
It seems to be only “kids” who are screwing up with technology (he makes one or two references to older people).
“My phone never goes off at church because I never bring it!” *pulls phone out of pocket to show the cover falling off*
“Amen” as vocal clutter.
Telling someone that he hopes someone breaks into their house and steals everything they own just because they posted on the internet that they were going on vacation for 2 weeks. How Christ-like 👿
Apparently the Holy Spirit is too weak to over-power a ringing cell phone. Or maybe its just weak preaching.
“How do you know who the preacher is at the church? He’s carrying a Bible!” LOL, clearly didn’t think that statement through. 😆
Talks a lot about how technology = carnality, and that those who who don’t have a lot of technology are more godly, content, etc. And he also talks a lot about how HE doesn’t have a lot of technology. 🙄
It bothers him that other people actually want to have private phone conversations (they get a call and walk away instead of talking right in front of him). Obviously they must be adulterers/fornicators. It’s the only explanation.
WHO WILL COME FORWARD AND REPENT OF THE SIN OF TECHNOLOGY 😆
““How do you know who the preacher is at the church? He’s carrying a Bible!” LOL, clearly didn’t think that statement through. :lol:”
If I could think fast enough and still carried a paper Bible, I would love to respond to this, as a woman, by waving my Bible in the air and loudly shouting, “Preach it, Brother.” I’d like to see the look on his face 😯 😈
Anyone notice the only time he mentioned Jesus was that he “already paid the bill”… he’s so concerned about lost people going to hell because someone’s sail phone rang but not once did he even hint at the gospel or what it really means during his tirade..hay men! hey hey hayymennn
I’ve not been able to listen but could some one tell me, was Jesus ever mentioned? Was the Gospel ever given? Or was this another topical Prechertainment lecture?
someone (one word)
Preachertainment (george you are letting the left hand get away with entirely too much now it’s missing “a.”
Jesus was mentioned in context of other peoples houses being broken into and all their stuff stolen because they posted to de-facebook. Jesus was praised for that action.
Ridiculous.
And I am sure all the posts on SFL will be construed as persecution because he preached so hard against the curse of technology.
Was that a rhetorical question, Don? Me thinks ye knewest the answer before ye asked, haymen??! 😉
Let’s say my “suspicions” were validated.
😆 thats “preacher-tainment”!!
The stage/platform is HIDEOUS. Who designed that? A blind guy? Awful. Just awful. But what do you expect from a guy preaching against technology? Geez… 😥
yeah, those green chairs…ewww!
Introducing FundieFone! hay-men! The safe and only way Fundies should talk on the phone. This service will allow you to make safe phone calls that will be monitored by the self proclaimed holiest woman in the church, hereafter referred to as the church lady hay-men.
You see, hay-men, every time your place a phone call, you will automatically be placed on a 3-way call with the church lady and your called party. The church lady will be sure to take detailed notes on your phone call and give a daily report to your man of God.
Brother Bob raise your hand, everyone see brother Bob? Brother Bob will be at the back table ready to sign you up for this service. I think this will be a great help to you and your Pastor as I will be able to provide you with relevant sermons to address your issues.
Also while your at the back table be sure to check out my latest 8-Track tape titled “Growing In Life Through the Chasing Rod of God”. hay-men and hey-men!
The Chasing Rod of God, now there’s a name either for an obscure comic-book villain or somebody’s garage band.
“You keep using that word…I do not think it means what you think it means….”
My spiritual life was revitalized when I stopped assuming I was holy because of my obedience to arbitrary, man-made standards and started instead focusing on the fruit of the Spirit.
What of the fruit of the Spirit could be seen in this sermon?
Was it loving?
Did he show joy? (Well, maybe when he hoped your house would be broken into.)
Was he peaceful?
Was he patient?
Was he gentle?
Scriptures also list other attributes that ought to mark our lives. Was he gracious? Thankful? Humble?
God save us from the empty charade of selfishness and self-righteousness and bring us back to the glorious Gospel.
Pastor’s Wife…Eloquoently, gracefully spoken truth. Thank you.
Love In Christ,
Linda
Last week at our IFB, the preacher was talking about those who don’t use a paper Bible anymore, they preach from an iPad. He said, “there’s no power in that.” I was thinking, really? It’s the same words, is it only the ink and paper God inspired, or His Word?
Maybe he was referring to what happens if their battery runs down? 🙄
😆
Hmmm, shouldn’t it be papyrus? Or vellum?
Gimme that Old-Time Religion! Amen!
Man, it’s parchment or nothing! Just ask that sofer! 😎
Speaking of the power of a copy of the Bible reveals yet another defining error of fundamentalism: assigning the Divine Power to a book, rather than to the Godhead.
That’s silly. What about people who have it memorized?
At my church, one day they had an older lady give her testimony, which really turned into a good sermon. Anyway, she said she would start by reading a chapter, I forget which one it was, but then instead of reading it, she quoted the whole thing by memory! That same lady, a few years ago, quoted the whole book of Phillippians from memory. I was impressed.
Actually, I agree with that. No bible on ipad here. In fact, I don’t even have a paper bible. There is no power behind that either. That’s why my KJV is set in stone. Sure, it’s heavy, sometimes it breaks and I have to chisel a new one, and I get lousy gas mileage when I take it with me to church three times a week, but at least I can sleep at night knowing I got the real deal. haaaayyyyy-men? 🙂
Haymen, brother! 😆
Many IFB pastors are so used to equating their personal preferences with Bible doctrine that they don’t even notice how foolish they’ve become.
So this is just another lecture on moralism.
As I have read the comments it looks like he is assigning morality to technology. I remember believing such junk. You know, God is honored when we use those wondeful minds he has given us. In fact the whole of the law is this: “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind, and your neighbor as yourself.”
All technology, computer, entertainment modes and devices, guns, modes of transportation, or whatever it may be all are amoral. Just as all inanimate objects have no moral chacteristics; technology is neither good nor evil. The only morality anything has is given to it by the one who is wielding it.
Like Dr Fundystan stated up thread, this sermon is fataly flawed. It is not the technology that corrupts the “good” person, it it the “good” person which morally corrupts the technology.
Such preaching stands in stark contrast to biblical teaching and is the inverse of one of the conclusions of Lord Acton’s Axiom: There is no worse heresy than the fact that the office sanctifies the holder of it. Here we find this pastor claiming that it IS the office that sancitfies the holder and it IS the technology that corrupts the holder. Two sides of the same moralistic coin.
This is more of Finney/Sunday heresy that sin is an external something which we fight against. That is direct conflict with Scripture which states: The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure. Who can understand it?
Sin resides inside the individual and manifests itself externally not vice-versa, yet how many moralistic pulpiteers get up week-in and week-out preaching, “Revival through moral living” sermons? They would do well to remember: “A person may think their own ways are right, but the Lord weighs the heart. The ways can be changed all you want and the heart still not be right.
Hay-men!
After listening to the entire thing, I had two thoughts. 1. His kids do not pay their bills. 2. He wants someone to buy him a new phone because his is old and held together with tape.
Cell phones replaced,
Computers replaced,
Video rental stores replaced,
Roller Skating rinks replaced,
Television replaced,
Movie Theatres replaced,
Dance Halls replaced,
Carnivals, etc, ad nauseum.
When does the wickedness of man’s heart get blamed for sin committed instead of devices that manifest the heart’s condition?
The moralists will never recognize that it is an internal problem of the heart, that would imply that they too, are infected. This would render their moral superiority moot and their pedestals would crumble under the weight of their egos. Real humility would have to replace their feigned humility and that just will not do to have their office dragged down to pew level. I mean how in the world will a M-O-g retain control over his sheep if they realize he is not morally and spiritually superior to them? 😯
Rolling Skating Rinks? Didn’t realize they were such hotbeds of iniquity. Shocking! 😯
Late 70’s. By late 80’s skating rinks were acceptable only when rented out by the church and the music pre approved by pastoral staff to filter out Kool and the Gang.
Next up…couple’s skate but leave room for the Holy Spirit.
I think that technology and the internet in particular have hurt secretive organizations hard. The collapse of the sexual abuse system in the Catholic church is due in large part to better communication to the press and among victims themselves, facilitated by the internet(the same is true for Jehovah Witnesses who are up to their eyebrows in sexual abuse accusations). The Mormons are also suffering as their membership is experiencing a large turnover since it is fairly easy to debunk the Book of Mormon with two or three mouse clicks. The IFB was once insulated from scandals by its lack of central organization but the internet is putting all its dirty laundry on display (and man, there is lots of it). Ultimately, for all their railing about outside sources destroying the cause of Christ, the IFB is pretty much self destructing with its own series of nonstop and primarily sexual scandals. The IFB should hate technology, it has brought to light the corruption that the IFB has gotten away with for decades.
Not only does it bring their sexual and other criminal scandals to a much more public light, but it also brings their bad theology and bad preaching to a wider audience. This video is a great example of it. Before youtube and the days when you could easily video someone, sermons like this stayed in the confines of the small congregations who just agreed because they wouldn’t think for themselves. Now many pastors who give such sloppy “sermons” are faced with them being picked apart by people with real knowledge of Bible doctrines once they are posted to the internet.
the internet bringing things to light, such as SFL.
What I don’t understand (well, I do understand it) is why “christians” are so nervous about protecting the skeletons in their closets.
I think it comes from an overemphasis on preserving one’s testimony. They become so focused on the outside that they lose perspective and start to think that that’s the most important thing, despite the Bible saying 1) it’s more important to be honest and humble and repentant if you sin and 2)sometimes God calls us to lose our reputation. (Think of Mary, pregnant outside wedlock, or Jesus called a drunkard and a glutton.)
What she said. 😉 I think that the assumptions that drive this sort of secrecy are driven by fears – fear that the reputation of the Church (and for some, Christ Himself) will be damaged by the failures of the servants. The other overriding fear is that of being found out – for even the best of us, Redeemed or not, has not vanquished the sin nature utterly. What they don’t see is that both fears point to a lack of faith and a complete misunderstanding of what the Christian life is all about.
If it wasn’t for the Internet, Stuff Fundies Like, and Facebook. I would probably still be a Fundie.
My eyes were opened as I reconnected to people I knew from my past (jobs, school, etc) who I knew attended one of those “entertainment only” churches as the fundies called them. I saw they had a real walk with God, and were actually happy and enjoying their worship services and had a level of freedom that was not possible outside the fold of your MOG.
So yes, to Fundies, technology is dangerous, very dangerous.
For goodness sake, tell him to stop throwing the word Amen in there after every sentence.
And he’s using modern technology by using a camcorder, putting it online, dimmable lighting, heating, cooling…
sigh.
In most Fundie churches recording cameras are OK, as long as they are out of focus, don’t move, and don’t zoom in on the target.
Dim-able lighting is OK only if its mounted in the ceiling (can lights) or track lighting. The dimmer switch cannot be in the sound booth and must be located in a place where someone must get up and walk to the switch to turn it on or off as to not create a “theater” experience.
Thanks to guilt ridden for posting quotes. There is no way i would want to waste more time on a fundy jackass and his solipsistic ranting.
It reminds me of When i was still attending a fundy hyles “church”: i was one of the first, if not the first, person who started using my bible app on my new iphone 3g(when they first came out). One of the ushers was sitting behind me and kept telling me to put away my phone (i was an adult when this happened). I tried explaining to him i had the bible on my phone and i was trying to follow along (which is hard to do during a fundy preacher show). It pissed me off at first but i quickly had compassion for him and brushed it off as he just didnt understand technology. Looking back at it now it pisses me off at myself that i brushed all the red flags off and wasted so much time in fundystan.
Like ericbrindamour and mandy above; i suspect there may be an element of control these mogs feel they have lost. Before they could tell people only to read literature from the church book store and buy tapes of the mogs interpreting scripture. But now theycant control what people read, watch or listen to.
The only “excuse” I can think of for this usher is maybe he thought the phone would ring in the middle of the sermon.
right… like I said… He didnt understand the “new” technology. Even though the original iphone had been out for a while before the iphone 3gs came out… Its a matter of ignorance and personal preference being forced on others yet again. If you were to go to that same “church” today that dude and everyone else is using their mobile devices during the service. Will I ever get an apology for the jackassery I was subject to? Doubt it. Not that I really need an apology; its just another fundamental flaw in the mindset of fundystan. They claim they have “the truth” [tm] and they mistake “the fruit of the spirit” with how many people I can give a tract to and proseletize. There is a lack of patience and humility. 🙄
Totally a lack of patience and humility. Underneath the surface piety and the quoting of Bible verses, there is tremendous arrogance and a harshness towards others.
To be honest with you, I found this topic of interest not in a pure religious sense, but from another aspect. By nature, I find nothing appealing with technology. Regardless of your religious inclinations, you have to admit, this is now the new culture for many. Since I drive a lot with my job, I see the dangers of talking on a cell phone, and texting, everyday. You cannot deny, that technology, unlike any other combination of inventions, now controls the entire existence of many. What if some of these people would forsake the clutch for just awhile to go visit someone they know in a nursing home. How about cleaning up their neighborhood, or doing something to make it safer. Or perhaps, finding ways to be a better employee at work. Could we say that technology cultivates laziness? Impatience? Short attention spans? I must confess, i havent a clue of the difference between an android and an app. And i really don’t care to know.
“And i really don’t care to know.” found your problem.
“Could we say that technology cultivates laziness? Impatience? Short attention spans?” spoken like a true fundy or curmudgeon.(here is a clue, people abuse anything and everything. Its not the “technology” that is the problem. You could say the same thing about fishing.) Life is too short my friend. Get up and get out there. Learn something new! If gadgets dont interest you find something to add enjoyment to your life! Let the neighborhood kids run on your grass.
I agree, technology is great but like a lot of other things there needs to be some moderation. There are some people that are addicted to their phones like the phone was crack cocaine.
I also wonder if there might be negative results from kids being raised in front of video screens and the constant stimulation that comes along with that.
Teddy,
I can’t seem to find any kids that will run on my grass……………. They are all on their iphones
If someone has posted this forgive me…but isnt ironic that the messaged was taped, and either taped with a digital movie recorder or converted to digital? And that they used the internet to upload the video? And that there was the word “archive”, thus, leading us to believe, there are more messages “backed up” either on a flash drive, a disk drive, or a back up drive? Oh, what about his lapel mic? Or the monitors to the left and right of him so people can hear themselves? I gotta think that Bro. Dave or whatever his name was that volunteered his iPad gained some cool points with the kids tho….
Working on my iphone as I listen to this Amen!
This man is simply fighting something he fears because he doesn’t understand it. He is completely ignorant of technology, by his own admission. How then is he even qualified to talk about technology?
Just another ignorant fundy….
And if I hear another amen….