Because nothing says “welcome” to visitors or “we love you” to members like the threat of being towed if you park in the pastor’s spot.
Quit Your Meanness
This is quite possibly the best hymn ever written.
No, seriously. You just have to marvel that somebody took the time to not only do this but to do it in four part harmony being sure to stop before the last word for a “striking effect.” It certainly struck me.
Spiritual Probation
What crime prompted these epistles? What shortcoming was so deserving of the attention of the administraton? The recipient of these letters reports:
“I was a good little freshmen (only 11 demerits), but they found out that I liked CCM because they heard me discussing it with some other students. Even though I didn’t listen to CCM while school was in session, they felt my attitude and views were grounds for spiritual probation.”
Egads. I think probation was lenient given the circumstances.
Letting Evil Triumph
Original video is the property of Harold Snure. Used by permission.)
While watching the video above keep in mind that Bill Wininger, the man being loudly defended by Hyles and Gibbs in 1993, resigned from his church twenty years later after his accusers finally gained enough attention to prompt a new investigation.
What’s really mind-blowing in this video is the way that David Gibbs, Jr. of the Christian Law Association stands in front of this group of people and blatantly acknowledges that there are abuse allegations against Hyles-camp churches all over THE ENTIRE COUNTRY. But then he takes that information and spins a conspiracy theory that the real reason that these allegations are surfacing is that Christ-hating liberals hate bus ministries.
Twenty years of abuse. Twenty years of lives ruined. Twenty years of pain and suffering. Twenty years — and they knew the entire time. These men are nothing short of evil.
Billy Sunday: Theatrics
It’s interesting to note a couple things about Billy Sunday’s approach to “preaching.” He uses no text. He doesn’t even open a Bible. What he has instead are certain memorized phrases and word pictures that he gives out in rapid-fire succession to keep the audience engaged. It’s not about Jesus, it’s all about getting people to sign on the dotted line.
If we wonder why preachers in the IFB movement these days have such strange ideas about what it means to “preach the whole counsel of God” we need look no further than these early days of performance preaching by a pantheon of pandering populists.