Christ-like, or not?

7:37 AM

The other day I watched a youtube video recently posted by a preacher in Tempe, Arizona.

The preacher spent almost eight minutes criticizing a church he's never attended, and mocking and insulting people he's never met.

His ridicule was based on hearsay and upon his selective interpretation of cherry-picked video clips from the church's web site.

Stunned to learn that he defines a "liberal church" as one that has a "rock band" and uses the New International Version translation (instead of the KJV translation), I watched several other videos posted by the same pastor.

Some of the titles include "Joel Osteen Exposed," "The Old Fashioned Way," "The Truth and Sodomites" ... and "Why Billy Graham is Going to Hell."

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Whatever happened to "church" anyway?

The Apostle Paul never wore a suit n' tie, heard organ music, read from an Elizabethan or any other English translation of The Bible, went to Sunday School, attended Wednesday Night Prayer Meetings, sang all seven stanzas from a Victorian hymnal, formed a Steering Committee or visited a church with stained glass windows n' a steeple a single time in his life.

Not one time, ever.

But those traditions are what "church" is supposed to mean (never mind that stained glass windows and steeples were "borrowed" from Muslim architects, and that Modern English didn't even exist until the 16th century).

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This preacher continues, "When I was a teenager we went to these liberal churches where they have like a a rock band on stage and they have the NIV. Nobody ever got baptized. Nobody ever got saved."

After I finished watching his videos I went to this preacher's blog ... and read that as of November 2007, his church had baptized eleven people for the year.

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The only times I find Christ mentioned with either "mock," "insult" or "ridicule" is when the texts describe how the elders, Gentiles, chief priests, teachers of the law and Roman soldiers treated Christ during his trial and crucifixion.

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Rodomontade.

I'm not a Bible scholar or historian ... but it's hard to miss noticing pride and arrogance in the pulpit. Especially when a preacher steps back from the Gospel of Jesus Christ to inflate his own ego through mockery, insult and ridicule.

Or when a preacher's words glorify self-righteousness and embrace man-made rules and traditions ... instead of the Holy Spirit.