72 thoughts on “Preaching To The Converted Redux”

  1. I wonder how long of an investigation it took him to find out the cultural teaching of the amorality about pre-marital sex. I’m guessing 17 magazine took quite a hit in their subscriptions after this sermon. That’ll teach them.

  2. I like how he played to the camera. He’s a natural. Maybe if this whole fundy preacher thing doesn’t work out, he can move to Hollywood and become an actor.

  3. Many, many times I’ve heard deacons, sunday school teachers, homeschool moms, etc. stand up during testimony time at church and praise the ministry of Seventeen in their daughters’ lives. I’m sick of it. Good for this man’s courage – bless his heart!

  4. How many families in the average fundamentalist church do you think would have kids with subscriptions to 17 magazine?

    Sounds like a good poll.

  5. That starting scene frozen on my screen shows the preacher with his arms outstretched and his eyes closed. A concerned brother ought to remind him of the importance of avoiding all appearance of evil. Anyone glancing at that might think he was going pentecostal or singing “Here I Am to Worship”! 🙂

  6. “It’s always so much fun to rail on other people’s sin.”

    Isn’t that one of the fundy rules? If not, it needs to be.

  7. I wonder how long of an investigation it took him to find out the cultural teaching of the amorality about pre-marital sex. I’m guessing 17 magazine took quite a hit in their subscriptions after this sermon. That’ll teach them.

    ::pushes glasses up:: When I read the local papers from the 1910s and 20s to find sermons from the BJ Tabernacle/Revivals, more often than not right across the page is an article about how well the dance halls are doing at the same time. I am convinced there’s a reciprocal relationship. Like a McDonald’s next to Jenny Craig.

    One creates a desire and the other meets it. . . .

  8. Seriously though, can’t you just smell the urinal cakes in that sanctuary? I can. Remember that smell? It permeated the whole church. . . .

  9. The younger the preacher is, the more artificial the shouting seems. It seems right that old men get worked up and scream. When a guy who looks like he just stepped down from Dorm Counselor a few months ago does it, he looks like a tool.

  10. The Sermon was 23:39 and he cut it up into seven parts. Thats just weird. To him are parents that stupid or do they always let their daughters check their mail all the time so they’re oblivious to what the daughters get as mail?

  11. This guy is like the cheating husband who is always accusing the wife of cheating. I bet somewhere in the parsonage is a nice stack of SI Swimsuit issues, and maybe even a few Victorias Secret catalogues with the pages stuck together.

  12. Camille: LOL! Somehow the smell of a church is distinct and funky. I hope I never smell it again except when I am dead, and hopefully not even then!

    (I work for a company that sells among millions of other things, different scented urinal cakes. We have some that smell really fricking good! I think they are the apple ones.)

  13. [Warning: tangential rant] I hate Seventeen magazine. It’s an instruction manual that grooms young women for life as a man’s trophy and an insatiable consumer. They throw in some articles about college for “balance.” But really, their tag line should be “Look hot. Please men. Buy stuff. What else are you good for?”

  14. @ Pita – you said “But really, their tag line should be “Look hot. Please men. Buy stuff. What else are you good for?””

    Isn’t this the cultural norm for women 16-30 right now? It’s not unique to 17 magazine. Look at any number of TV shows, other magazines, etc. This is what society wants for our girls.

  15. @Loren, you’re right. But just because it’s not unique doesn’t mean I can’t hate it. 🙂

  16. Thank you, Camille, I just went searching all the bath rooms in the new church in Miami. Not a urinal cake to be found. They say smell memories are the most powerful.

  17. I’m waiting for the little vein in the side of his head to explode. Small question–how did he get the quote from 17 without first reading the magazine for himself? How did he obtain said magazine and avoid the appearance of evil? Did he read it at the local public library to keep from giving his money to the publishers? And how did he avoid the public appearance of evil? Maybe he read it online? We all know the internet will steal your soul…

  18. @ Beth: didn’t you know that it’s A-okay for fundy pastors to read nasty magazines and watch everything currently on TV so that they would know what to warn their innocent, likely-to-stumble congregation against?? They are the only ones spiritually mature enough to guard their hearts and minds against the filth!

    My ex-pastor was constantly “guarding us” against the horrible evil of the outside world. He generally included a statement such as, “While I was flipping through the channels to get a weather forecast, I happened to catch a few minutes of….” in order to make it okay. Incidentally he was also the only one allowed to have cable.

  19. Yeah, it’s like when Jerry Falwell sued Penthouse. How did he know what they said about him?

  20. Older preachers shouted because they “trained” to preach without microphones. It’s a cultural legacy which is three or four generations out of date.

  21. Judging from what little is seen of the pews, it appears this service was sparsely attended. Either that, or everyone that attended was bunched up in the back rows!

  22. Aaahh preacherboys. Their sole purpose it to please everyone by preaching against sins that the crowd hates.

  23. I think since the quoted passage is from 2003 that it is okay for him to have in his desk as a pastor.

    It would be all “appearance of evil” if he were to be found out with a current edition. That would be unseemly, but having an old copy is just “research” purposes.

    or was this really a seven year old preaching video?

  24. RE:
    Here’s the church’s website: http://www.opendoorchurchfoley.com/

    That’s sure a young “barn” style church, it sure has the feel of the type of church that goes into a community that has “no bible/christ/kjv-honoring ministry”.

    Even the website is barely finished with most pages under construction.

    Although I find that hard to believe since it has an address in Alabama.

    I just realized if this were seven years old then he would still have to be in school being screamed at by his preacher, so this can’t be a seven year old video.

  25. @MrsSarahN

    I had a pastor do the same thing! He wasn’t exactly speaking out against shows, but he would always use current television as sermon illustrations, and it was always cushioned with “I don’t watch this show, but while I was flipping through I caught an episode…” With enough times of him making that kind of claim, I often wondered if he really did religious watch all these shows and just didn’t want to admit it.

  26. Dangit, beth stole my comment. The real question is not, “How many people in his church subscribe to Seventeen?” The real question is, “Why does HE read Seventeen?” He had to have gotten that quote from somewhere.

  27. I happen to agree with him about both 17 and the swimsuit edition of Sports Illustrated. But it does seem like he is about to give himself a cornonary. He can’t give many other people a coronary, though, because there don’t appear to be that many people actually in the pews listening to him.

  28. @Camille I just laughed out loud and could swear I could physically smell the urinal cakes once you mentioned it.

  29. Does anything actually truly “come from the pit of hell”??? I heard this all the time, but I am pretty sure it’s just a catchphrase in fundieism.

  30. “The younger the preacher is, the more artificial the shouting seems. It seems right that old men get worked up and scream. When a guy who looks like he just stepped down from Dorm Counselor a few months ago does it, he looks like a tool.”

    LOL, yeah, I feel the same way. When they’re that young, why so “angry” already? I’ve always wanted to laugh at them, instead of take what they’re saying seriously. It’s like a little kid imitating the pastor.

    “@ Beth: didn’t you know that it’s A-okay for fundy pastors to read nasty magazines and watch everything currently on TV so that they would know what to warn their innocent, likely-to-stumble congregation against?? They are the only ones spiritually mature enough to guard their hearts and minds against the filth!
    My ex-pastor was constantly “guarding us” against the horrible evil of the outside world. He generally included a statement such as, “While I was flipping through the channels to get a weather forecast, I happened to catch a few minutes of….” in order to make it okay. Incidentally he was also the only one allowed to have cable.”

    Yes! That’s so true, and I used to wonder about that myself growing up. The pastor had an awful lot of cultural references, and was able to keep eerily up to date…I guess when you’re the big boss man, you can do as you please and nobody better question you…until you’re caught with the church secretary and the spin control isn’t working…

  31. This kind of preaching got me kicked out of a camp retreat once. The youth pastor (you know the type – chunky, always saying teen buzzwords like ‘rad’ and ‘pizza in the fellowship hall’, graduated from BJU) was preaching against all manner of temptations very loudly to a bunch of really well-behaved kids, and I stood up in the middle of his sermon and interrupted him. “What about all of us teens who aren’t into all those things, like sex and drugs and stuff?” I was sent home on the big church bus early. I wish I was offered sex and drugs at my IFB school. It would have made things a lot more interesting. Oh well, it meant I didn’t have to spend another night in unheated cabins in September. It was COLD.

  32. James…Get your facts straight..Jerry Falwell did NOT sue Penthouse…it was Hustler

  33. James…Get your facts straight..Jerry Falwell did NOT sue Penthouse…it was Hustler

    It think that’s actually worse.

  34. Tyler, if he’s a BJU grad, he automatically assumes you’re up to something – that’s the MO at BJU.

  35. 2 Questions for you:
    1. Why was he ready a teenage girl magazine? If he spent some time in the youth ministry and actually talk to the kids he wouldn’t be so angry and surprised…
    2. What’s with the huge as pulpit?

  36. Also, why is this guy yelling? Someone needs some anger management classes. I wonder if he knows “I feel pretty”

  37. @Mike yelling is a classic domination behavior. Police yell to intimidate suspects. Drill sergeant types yell at recruits as part of the process of de-individualizing people. It goes a long way to establishing the speaker as the authority and you as vastly inferior. Sadly this kind of behavior is reassuring to many (lots of reasons for poeple to want to be in that position). The combination works out disasterously as we all know if most IFB circles (even the ones — in this screaming mode — that aren’t abusive, are still are tragic, and IMO disgraces to the church Christ wants us to be. Just my opinion as to why the authoritarian types love to do all the screaming.

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