Pulpit Horrors: Phony Doctorates, Comical Antics, Cultural Pandering, Etc.

 

“Turn to yuh neighbor and say, ‘I look fine’; Tell somebody, ‘My business is going to make huge profits this year’; Shout out, ‘I can never be sick’”. Have you heard these statements or similar ones from the pulpit? Have you been told to turn around, or turn next to you, to tell folk things to such an extent that it becomes annoying? Now let me be “straight up” with you – there is no text in the Bible that states this is wrong. But I will also tell you that it is sickening hearing this type of psychological oratory in the pulpit when the sermon itself is banal and inane, and merely consists of the rantings of a pastor trying to be funny or captivating in order to hide the superficiality of his content. When we go to Church, we go to worship the Lord and not to be titillated by histrionics, or entertained by the ridiculous antics of pastors, who instead of really going deep into the Word of God, spend most of their time trying to find, or think up catchy phrases that would pull a laugh out of their congregation. Be mindful that a bit of tasteful humor can be effective in illustrating a Biblical point, but it is totally inappropriate when the point itself becomes the humor. And it is overdoing it to have folk go through a 45 minute sermon constantly having to repeat words and phrases of a pulpit comedian. A Church service is a worship service and not Comedy Central Entertainment. It is unfortunate that in contemporary culture there is so much consumption of the television menu that church goers have a short attention span if the pastor is not a “comical preaching gymnast” encouraging the congregation to follow him in his hilarious religious antics. Now singing and praising God is absolutely wonderful, and a mandated aspect of worship (Psalm 47:7), but the church does not have to become transformed into a dance hall with worshipers dancing indiscriminately between pews and everywhere else, or into a quasi-religious gymnasium with ridiculous bodily contortions and gesticulations being performed in the name of praise. The carnality in us is so prone to extremes that unless the Holy Spirit truly guides us through Sacred Scriptures, worship services will be reduced to mere carnival shows giving vent to the sinful depravity of human nature. And don’t be simplistic and think that this is an indictment of wonderfully worshipful praise dancing at all, because it’s certainly not. I think a well-executed praise dance (not Carnival or Labor Day gyrations) is a wonder to behold. Don’t you?

 

The sons of Aaron, Nadab and Abihu, offered “strange fire” in worship to the Lord (Leviticus 10:1-3) and He did not hesitate to strike them down dead for trivializing that which is sacred and holy. Today there is so much “strange fire” in worship services that it’s the mercy and goodness of the Lord why there has not been dire consequences. The patience and goodness of God is to lead us to repentance from our worldly ways (Romans 2:4) and not to indulge us in presumptuously outlandish behaviors which are falsely called praise and worship. Some women, for instance, gyrate so ferociously and fall to the ground with such vigorous convulsions when they supposedly “catch the power” that their apparel swings in all directions revealing their unmentionables. Additionally, the sermons of some pastors might consist of nothing more than a few rhyming and catchy phrases which they repeat over and over with amazing voice distortions, while they demonstrate their dancing adroitness and ability to be “ghetto” in the pulpit. All this sometimes trigger some congregations into an emotional frenzy misconstrued to be the moving of the Holy Spirit. Pulpit horrors seem to be the order of the day in so many places! Lord help us.

 

Another pulpit horror is that tendency to twist the Scriptures to substantiate some of the views of popular culture. There is such an obsession with being culturally relevant and upbeat in order to attract the public to the Church, that Biblical truths are distorted and falsified through blatantly erroneous textual and contextual analysis. In other words, many ministers engage in eisegesis instead of exegesis. “Eisegesis is the reading into a text of a meaning that is not supported by the grammar, syntax, lexical meanings, and over-all context, of the original document”. Exegesis, on the other hand, is “reading out of a text its original meaning by careful attention to grammar, syntax, lexical meanings of words used by the author in his day and area, and the overall context” of the document (Dr. J.R. White’s Pulpit Crimes). It is no wonder that the abominable use of Biblical texts through eisegesis has caused some preachers to believe and teach that a person with a deadly sickness must be healed by God right away and thus will not die if he or she has enough faith. The asininity about this is that the pretentious faith-healing preacher always gets off the hook if the person is not healed, because it’s always the sick person who does not have enough faith, while nothing is ever wrong with the charlatan posing as a healer. Of course, it must be noted that some pulpiteers are not intentional frauds, but are just Biblically ignorant and need help from godly teachers to correct their erroneous theology. It is quite true, nevertheless, that God is omnipotent and can heal right away if it’s his will to do so, and he has miraculously done so many times, but even though it’s his ultimate intent to heal his children of all diseases, in his sovereign wisdom he might allow a child of his to die from a sickness or a terrible injustice. For all the good that the apostle Paul did, he was eventually beheaded. Was his head chopped off because he did not have enough faith to be set free? Nonsense!  Bad things happen to “good” people, but we know that although not all things are good, nevertheless, “all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are called according to his purpose” (Romans 8:28). Things may work for good immediately, in the not-too-distant future, or not until glorification. But the Lord will always be with his children, even in the midst of the most intense adversity. And his grace will always be sufficient for us (2 Corinthians 12:9). 

 

Another foolish teaching based on eisegesis of Biblical texts rather than on proper exegesis is that once a person becomes a Christian and has genuine faith, he or she will never be poor. This is nothing but theological crap even though some very popular preachers who drive expensive cars, wear luxury suits, and own airplanes teach it. Professed Christians are more obsessed with being materially rich in this world’s goods than in being holy and living pure clean simple lives. It is almost entirely forgotten that “godliness with contentment is great gain, for we brought nothing into the world, and we cannot take anything out of the world. But if we have food and clothing, with these we will be content” (1 Timothy 6:6-8). The problem with these pulpit horror mongers is that they present one side of the truth and totally disregard the other side, because it does not suit their depraved materialism which they cleverly disguised in a fake religious piety. God will make rich those whom he chooses to do so, and the rich must always be mindful that Jesus himself said that “It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God” (Matthew 19:24). When a genuine Christian is blessed with lots of money, the purpose of it is to help advance the spread of the gospel, bless brothers and sisters who don’t have much, and to take care of one’s needs. Let’s be Biblically wise. Material wealth and riches are not more important than Jesus himself. Do we truly love the Lord for the beauty He is in himself, or do we just love the things he can give to us? It’s no wonder that Paul says that “those who desire to be rich fall into temptation, into a snare, into many senseless and harmful desires that plunge people into ruin and destruction” (1 Timothy 6:9). Could you believe it, some pulpit frauds even use Sacred Scripture to justify homosexual marriages and the Gay Movement, and so today we have Gay Bishops and Pastors who flaunt their sexual aberrations. Lord protect us from men and women who use the pulpit to make money and propagate immorality and crass materialism, while avoiding genuinely holy living that involves suffering for the sake of Christ. Suffering is not merely an option for the Christian – It is Biblically true that all who will live for Christ will suffer (1 Peter 4:12-13; 2 Timothy 3:12), but such suffering is only temporary, and is working for us an eternal weight of glory (2 Corinthians 4:17).

 

Wow, wow, wow – well this horror is like wildfire and most predominant in the Black community. It is the abominable proliferation of fake doctorates among Black preachers. It is incomprehensible how a preacher can tell his congregation that the ninth commandment condemns lying and yet misrepresent his academic status. Some of these academic imposters attempt to “soften” their sin by getting their spurious degrees from unaccredited fly-by-night institutions that make pretentions to academic status simply because they claim to teach the Bible. The theologians (falsely so called) emerging from these money making gigs can be put to shame by a properly taught 12th grade student in a Christian school where the Bible is properly taught. Of course, there are a few reputable Christian institutions of proven and recognized academic status which have refused conventional accreditation for publicly declared valid reasons, but our focus is not on these, but on those that spring up everywhere with minimal academic scrutiny and for the mere undeclared purpose of making it possible for Black preachers to easily obtain academic credentials. There are some pulpit charlatans who have jumped straight from a high school diploma to a doctorate and thus have not even gone through the rigor of a Master of Arts or Master of Science Degree, but you dare not leave out their phony doctoral title when you introduce them publicly. Something really needs to be done to shut the mouths of these outrageous liars who make a laughing stock of the Black community with their shenanigans. Advanced education is very important, but it is no accident that none of the apostles were professional scholars. They were all taught, though, by the perfect educator, Jesus Christ himself. Is it not amazing that one of the requirements of getting a Doctor of Theology Degree is mastery in the original Greek of the writings of a man who was just a fisherman, the apostle Peter? The point is that one does not have to misrepresent himself or herself in order to gain the recognition with which to be heard or paid attention. There is no power greater than the anointing of the Holy Spirit to qualify the preacher. Engage in vigorous deep study of the Sacred Scriptures, pray without ceasing, live a humble and holy life by walking in the Spirit and not in the flesh, and the message you preach will go forth with power. You do not need to claim scholarly recognition when you do not have it, because you will become the laughing stock of the academic community, and congregants might eventually only pretend to listen to you because they merely want to be courteous or polite. 

 

There are many more pulpit horrors, but they all tend to have roots in the craving for self-aggrandizement and recognition. It is so sad that so many preachers are nothing more than competitive worldly performers bent on marketing their superficial products (CDs, DVDs, books, etc.) to make as much money as possible. It is time to stop using pop psychology and pious religious gimmicks to further personal causes. It is time to step out of the morass of religious self-delusion and into the sunshine of truth. Yes, ministers of God preaching the gospel are allowed to have their material needs taken care of  by the believers, but this is not justification for trying to become millionaires and billionaires by deceiving congregations with a false gospel concocted through horrendous eisegesis. Imposters need to stop advertising themselves with the doctoral title if they are not a genuine MD, or Ph.D., or Ed.D, or D.Min, or Psy.D, or Th.D. These are excellent to have, but they entail tremendous hard work over quite a number of years. But you don’t need them to be a disciple of Jesus Christ. 

 

Preachers are not called to be rock stars, rappers, or comedians, but they are anointed to preach the good news of salvation and to draw attention to Christ and not to themselves. Christians have a message for the people of the world, but trying to out-dance such people, out-talk them, out-dress them, out-joke them, or out-act them will not help us in our mission of evangelism. This mission will only be accomplished in the power of the Holy Spirit through following the counsels and message of Christ as found in Sacred Scripture, and not through following the Machiavellian dictates of secular culture. Let’s live in simplicity and in humility to the glory of our Lord and Savior. Let’s preach the gospel of Jesus Christ and not the vain philosophy and twisted doctrines of greedy men and women who know how to be pulpit predators. Let’s stop the pulpit horrors. Amen