Corboy,
I'm sorry. I read more of the article. Now I get it. The author claims he was ''pretending'' to be a Christian and went on one of their trips. He wasn't happy with all the smiling. I understand. Then when the Christians got into a discussion about past hurts the author lied...ur um...fabricated....I mean described an untrue story. Apparently the group of knucklehead Christians, according to the author.... didn't say anything. They just listened.
Oh wow..yeh...nauseating. I'd vomit too.
Now I get it.

The tone is snarky, yes. But the author was trying to convey the demographic--the social catagories of persons likely to participate in an event of this type...and empower pastors such as Hagee.

He was far more ocncerned about the effect that the entire weekend has on some very vulnerable people.

And the political implications if large numbers sacrifice critical thinking and buy into a belief system that advocates depriving certain groups of fellow US citizens of their full civil and human rights.

I found it interesting that at the very end, Tiaggi stated he was losing his own grip on any outside perspective.

Regarding paper plates...I've eaten off of those plenty of times.

And at home, I eat straight from the frying pan when no one is watching me.

Corboy I like your writing style very much. I do not like the writing style of the author of the article. The author's tone was not just snarky, it was juvenile. Someone who makes a living as a journalist should offer something....anything to the reader. He should be insightful and thought provoking.
Perhaps I missed something.
I agree totally with your post .
I think it is good to be concerned about vulnerable people.
In reading the article the author did not convey to me any sort of concern for vulnerable people. He sounded like he was looking down on them. Cult leaders look down on the masses. They are also good at deception. Didn't the author brag about how he lied to the group so succesfully and on-the-spot? OK I'll tell you honestly that he didn't seem concerned for the masses who were being tricked. I thought he sounded jealous. You know like he was thinking wow....look at these vulnerable idiots...I could fool them.....maybe he wants to take over Haggee's spot.

Corboy, One thing I DO agree with the author about. These leaders of these mega-churches DO use...what the author calls, "pop psych self examination New Age tools of Depok Chopre"(however spelled)....
I've said that myself many times....
I always say ''you've got to be a psych major to run a mega-church''
I do feel like vomiting(no sarcasm), when I hear them go on with what I call psychobabble....
I'm not a Haggee fan.....

Sigh. You are dead on. Years ago, a professor at one of the seminaries in Berkeley California, told us how we had to watch out for what she called 'Berkeley bias'--that knee jerk condescension in relation to persons who
did not happen share our liberal bias.

W.B Yeats wrote a lovely poem that ends with the refrain,'Walk softly, for you walk on my dreams.'

Ever the more so when people's hearts are concerned.

Peter Brown wrote a book on various theologies of body and sexuality that
existed in the late-classical world, entitled The Body and Society.

At the introduction, of the book, Professor Brown wrote:

"...it would be deeply inhumane to deny that, in these centuries, real men and women faced desperate choices; endured privation and physical pain, courted breakdown and bitter disillusionment, and frequenty experienced themselves and addressed others, with a searing violence of language....The very matter of fact manner in which monastic sources report bloody, botched attempts at self-castration by desperate monks shocks us by its lack of surprise...

'The texts bring us up against pains and sadnesses that lie as close to us as our own flesh. The historian's obligation to the truth forces us to strive to make these texs intelligible, with all the cunning and serenity that would would wish to associate with a living, modern culture.

'But the reader must remain aware that understanding is no substitute for compassion. This book will have failed in its deepest purpose if the elaborate, and strictly necessary, strategies involved in the recovery of a distant age were considered to have explained away, to have diminished or, worse still, to have stared through the brutal cost of commitment in any age, The Early Church included.'

(Peter Brown, Preface, page xvii, The Body and Society:Men, Women and Sexual Renunciation in Early Christianity, 1988)

We have to find a way to respect the risks taken by persons who want to pay the brutal cost of commitment.

At at the same time, we have obligations as citizens of a participatory democracy.

We must, while respecting the sincerity of those persons who have been taken onto a trajectory of commitment, protect our participatory democracy if that trajectory of commitment, however sincere, has as its penultimate goal the subversion of our democracy and demands that elected officials deny their oath of office and place a particular interpretation of Greek Scripture ahead of the US Constitution and the body of Anglo-American common law.

To have the respect I see modelled for us by Peter Brown, and to have it under the pressure of disagreeing with social agendas that are well funded and patronized by powerful persons...that is an achievement that will take a lifetime.

I am not there and have written too many snarky things in my time. I can only hope to remember and quote Professor Brown when, occasionally, I remember to try and become a better person in what time I still have left.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/24/2008 09:55PM by corboy.

So I'm going to assume that the snarky tone of the author may have had something to do with his being frustrated over the fact that Haggee's followers may be willing to commit themselves to causes which he feels are unconstitutional. Is that it?
Haggee is using the Bible to manipulate people to do wrong. That's how I see it. I also think the Catholic mega-church does that but, I hesitate to say it too often because I don't won't to insult people but would rather ''walk softly''.
I view these Haggee-types as I view the early Catholic leaders who started wars for political gain.
You know the idea of submitting one's life to a monotheistic Creator has a humanitarian value...
In other words if I believe and try to ''relate'' or have a ''relationship'' with the Creator of all humanity then my own view of 'others' will begin to grow more 'objective' and less 'subjective' over time.
I'm not preaching.
I'm just saying that when Haggee drones on with self...self...phsychobabble(psychology is introspection of MYSELF), Anyway....when these mega-churches do that....
they take a Creator-based ideology and twist it into a self-centered ideology...
Thus they remove the Bible's objective-thought to subjective-thought(narrow mindedness)...
I love the Bible because it is an objective book
Jesus never made me puke
Haggee does.
I do believe some of Haggee's followers may be more committed to Haggee then they are to the ultimate good of humanity. There is a passage in the NT which describes fake believers. It says that 'because of their pernicious ways, the way of Truth will be ill spoken of''....paraphrasing...
I think Haggee is one such phony. It disturbs me that he has political connections. It also disturbs me that the media(run by politicians) is pushing us into war....
OK I'll stop rambling....

I am not totally familiar with Hagee ministries. I did read a book of his quite some time ago called "A Dawn Over Jerusalem". That book in particular was very informative. I am more concerned about his connections to Hinn. I would not like to judge but I have to say I get the heeby jeebies whenever I see Hinn.

irritated you said somthing that is very good.
"but I have to say I get the heeby jeebies whenever I see Hinn." That would be the spirit of God telling you something is not right.

Quote
BraveHeart
irritated you said somthing that is very good.
"but I have to say I get the heeby jeebies whenever I see Hinn." That would be the spirit of God telling you something is not right.

maybe or maybe not. Kind of a generalized statement Braveheart.

I am not an advocate for Hagee. But generalized statements without substance weaken one's arguement.

Maybe the "heeby jeebies" are because Hagee looks like the uncle that was abusive way back when.

Anyway, you may be right too.

nunourbeswks:

Snide personal attacks through sarcastic remarks insulting members of the board is against the rules.