17 thoughts on “War Stories”

  1. The sad thing is, this fellow would probably walk into our church service and say the exact same thing about our music.

    Very very sad.

  2. A couple of good fundy formulae:

    Feeling uncomfortable = demonic oppression (d). D increases in direct proportion to strangeness of surroundings (s), especially when multiplied by presence of rival “Christian” factions (f), so that:

    d = s x f

    Quaint legend about a particularly talented musician = blanket condemnation of all succeeding musicians within that genre and related genres

    A professor I had used to tell a well-rehearsed and dramatically performed story about how, as the principal of a Christian school, he once cast a demon named Deceiver out of a kindergartener. He always prefaced the story by saying that he hated to relive this memory and did retell it to glorify himself. That didn’t stop him from telling the story in precisely the same way to every class that ever sat under him.

  3. I’m not really sure what his point was in this clip. He just wandered around the wilderness awhile and then wrapped it up. Maybe it’s just me, I did get a little bored midway through the illustration.

  4. This guy would be run out of just about every Fundamentalist church I’ve ever been in. Have a look at his YouTube profile and you’ll see that he’s more Charismatic than Fundamentalist.

  5. Yet his tale is eerily familiar of the kinds of things I’ve heard from many, many fundamentalists.

  6. More Charismatic and Fundamentalist? Sadly so.
    Today’s Fundies inherit lots of doctrines and practices (esp. the legalistic ones) from the holiness movement which is why they resemble charismatics somehow. (How about shout “PREACH IT BROTHER!!!” in the middle of a sermon?)

  7. Today’s Fundies inherit lots of doctrines and practices (esp. the legalistic ones) from the holiness movement which is why they resemble charismatics somehow.

    Indeed. If you were to run into a group of conservative Pentecostals, you wouldn’t be able to tell them apart from a group of IFBers

  8. Vague “leading” of the Holy Spirit? Check.
    Regular Joe fighting Satan himself? Check.
    Deny a common term to catch folks off-guard with his intellectual discernment, a la “it’s not a religion”? Check.
    Confusing a business operation (closing down) with a removal of God’s blessing? Check. (“If it’d had God’s blessing it’d still be there, but it didn’t, so it’s gone.”)
    Confusing a conscience with the Holy Spirit? Check.

    This really does have it all. My only question is, if he knew a Christian rock group was going to be at this place, what on earth was he doing bringing in his youth group? And when they all walked in and “felt the demons” or some other nonsense, why didn’t they just walk right back out? Was his youth group filled with little Spurgeons that could actually resist “demonic powers?” Me, if I go someplace and I really feel like something dark and evil is going on, I’m not going to sit around looking for someone to “testify” to. I’m gonna bolt! And if my kid is in that youth group and comes home and says “we went to this coffee shop, and felt a demonic presence there, but pastor Joe said it would be a great opportunity to witness, so we stuck around for an hour,” I’m going to have words with Pastor Joe and the senior pastor immediately and see if I can’t get Pastor Joe’s resignation on the spot.

  9. aw, Jordan, don’t hate on Dr. H! I loved his class (though I did think it was odd to have a whole semester on Paul…). I think he only told the demon story to reinforce the idea that demons actually are real, not to say he was such a great, spiritual person…

  10. When I said “did retell it to glorify himself” I accidentally left out “not.” And I understood the point of his story–my point was that it was odd that he hated to tell the story so much but told it over and over again.

  11. Two issues that is just annoying to me . . . one why does the arguements regarding “Christian Rock” most often are born out of personal experience. . . . don’t these guys know that their credibility really is trashed since they don’t use the Bible?

    Second, my guess if there was “demon oppression” or “demonic influence”, the demons probably looked at this guy and his teens like the demons did in Acts 19 when “Christians” tried to root them out: “We know Jesus, we know Paul . . . but who are you?”

  12. blues singer sold their souls to the devil… lol. wow. because surely musicians that use alternative styles of music have received their talents from satan and not God.
    I don’t understand why it is so evil to use a culturually relevant style of music to praise God. If this man hasn’t heard it happen, then he’s obviously not listened to a lot of music.

    1. It is sad that their personal music preferences become so important to them that they decided that their kind of music must be the only kind that God likes. And of course, when they are trying to convince other people of that, they always use the absolute worst example they can find and then equate all music they don’t like to it.

      “See, this heavy-metal band has one song that uses the name of Jesus once, which means that they must consider themselves a Christian heavy-metal band. That is why Chris Tomlin’s music is of the devil.” 🙄

  13. Is it even freaking POSSIBLE to “sell ones soul”? How would one go about doing such a thing? Where does one start? Is there a conversation with satan, or does one just make an internal decision? Hmmm…lotsa questions.

    1. In my occult years, I attempted to sell my soul. And I did, so to speak. I ‘belonged’ to a couple demons I knew by pseudonyms. But the thing about the soul is that not only can it have different ‘owners’ at different times, but it regrows after partial destruction. The tongue envies the regenerative capabilities of the soul.

      And NO, you cannot actually sell your soul. If you can, just what the hell is Free Will?

  14. I lived on a Christian campus for 4.5 years. Just moved off campus for my final semester. Let me tell you, I’ve felt less demonic presence in secular metal concert and around people smoking weed than I’ve felt on that campus. I have several friends sensitive to spiritual activity, and we all agree that demons FLOCK to the campus and anywhere the Presence of God is strong. If you ask me, demonic presence is directly proportional to the amount of good being done. If I’m in a drug-fueled orgy, then I obviously agreed to be there. If I’m willing to be in a dangerous situation, why would demons NEED to be there?! This logic is … the nice word is flawed. The realistic words are all four letters.

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