137 thoughts on “Tongues”

  2. Wow. I thought you were exaggerating. On first listening I have no idea what he said. I did wondeer on the crowd pan wonder what the people & families that weren’t standing & cheering were thinking about him standing on the pulpit (if that’s what it was he was standing on). You’d think that kind of crazed behavior would be a major warning signal something is wrong for normal humans.

  3. Well and let’s not forget the fact that “tongues” as translated in your favorite translation and mine, 😉 the King James, means *known languages.* It does NOT mean…gibberish. 😆

    1. I think what the Bible means by “the gift of tongues” is the ability to learn and use foreign languages (with study and practice). I seem to have this gift, but some of my best friends don’t.

      1. That is not how the gift was used in Acts. Uneducated men either spoke in languages foreign to them and/or the listeners understood what they were saying/hearing in their native language. This happened w/o study & practice on the part of the speakers.

        1. OK, but the point is that they were speaking real languages that others understood as their native languages. Not gibberish or something that it would take another miracle to understand.

    2. It’s funny how whatever angel or demon is speaking through Bro. Dorsey there seems to have an Alabama accent.

      Some years ago, a linguist did a study of the “words” people use when they “speak in tongues” during moments of religious ecstasy. She found that they never use speech sounds that don’t occur in their own native languages (so they aren’t speaking another human language), and there is a lot of repetition of the same syllables over and over (much more than in normal speech). I interpret this to mean that the “speech in tongues” doesn’t mean anything, except that the speaker is excited. Are they faking it? They aren’t faking the ecstatic feeling, but, again, they aren’t saying anything meaningful, either.

        1. You sure it wasn’t “watermelon”? The joke in my college chorale was that anytime you forgot the words, you could just sing “watermelon” and nobody would know. Doesn’t work when you’re singing solo, though.

        3. That advice would have helped Christina Aguilera on Sunday.
          http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uGmX2d-mO1s&feature=related
          She could have sung:
          Oh say, can you see by the watermelon,
          What so watermelon at watermelon reaming,
          Whose watermelon thru the watermelon,
          O’er the watermelon were so gallantly gleaming?
          Watermelon’s red glare, the bombs watermelon,
          Gave a watermelon that our flag was still there.
          Oh say, does that watermelon yet wave,
          O’er the land of the free cold watermelons?

        4. Big Gary, that “Breakfast Song” brought a tear to my eye – then I realized that he was saying that we won’t NEED those things, not that we won’t be able to have them. After all, what would the “marriage supper of the Lamb” be without beefsteak, light bread, poke chops [sic], chicken, and such?

        1. Here’s a link to a survey of studies, with a bibliography and some links to articles.
          The two studies by Felicitas Goodman were the ones I was thinking of. But since she did that work in the late 1960s and early 1970s, it may not be online.

  4. I tried to say [soapbox off] right before that last smiley above…used brackets tho and dumb browser 😉 interpreted it as an HTML attempt. Anyway…we now return you to your regularly scheduled blog comment stream.

  5. You can tell if he’s really annointed if he can do a somersault without the aid of a trampoline. They get the benefit of a jump start when the rapture occurs.

  7. Now there’s a double dose of Spirituality!
    “BLESSGAWDWHENILANDONYOURTOESFROMUPHEREYOU’LLGETRIGHTWITHGAWD1”

    1. I was always told that it was okay if it was a camp meeting because emotionalism only worked if you limited it to once or twice a year.

  11. Wow.

    Does one go to school to learn that? Do schools have classes, say “Crowd Manipulation 301”?

  12. Well, I don’t know about you but I feel fed. His exegesis of that text was so clear. I don’t know who could honestly say that they don’t know God’s will for their life after that clear presentation of the text. Seriously though, I must have missed the passage that said a preacher’s primary responsibility was to get his flock whipped up into a frenzy.

    1. That’s exactly what I was thinking! He must have had a little supernatural help, and I’m not talking about heavenly . . .

    2. lol…

      the thing had to be built well to hold him up. I’m willing to bet he’s never preached on gluttony in his life either.

  16. I once attended a pentecostal church with a relative. Considering I was raised a baptist, the yelling in “tongues” scared the crap out of me. I can’t remember the last time I felt so uncomfortable while watching everyone getting “slain in the ghost” and praying that I’d get spared. 😯

  17. The Holy Spirit was present…I know this because the sacred desk didn’t collapse.

    Ok, something about satan trying to kill our virgin teen age girls. That is all I could make out. The gentleman sitting behind him looks a little embarrassed by the show this clown is putting on. (I also noticed that this same gentleman was not wearing a tie.)

  18. “The foolishness of preaching!” That’s how otherwise normal people justify acting completely ridiculous. Tragic…..

  20. In the beginning he says: “stinkin queers, taking over our country!”

    Later he references virgin girls and boys.

    Nowhere in this clip did I hear the name of Jesus Christ, so I am not sure if this is a Christian church, mormon church, neo nazi gathering, or some wacky cult. I am assuming it is the latter.

  21. Obviously he skipped 1 Corinthians chapter 13 all together. (probably superstitious and believes Satan put in all the chapter 13’s)

    Skipped 14 as well.

    The title for this clip should be,
    “There’s a Barbarian on the Pulpit”

    1 Cor. 14:10-11,There are, it may be, so many kinds of voices in the world, and none of them is without signification. Therefore if I know not the meaning of the voice, I shall be unto him that speaketh a barbarian, and he that speaketh shall be a barbarian unto me.“

  23. I love that in fundie churches it’s sinful for women to wear pants, but annointed for the preacher to stand on the pulpit.

    1. I feel sorry for the little girl at the end of the video with the skirt and the hair bun.

  25. I always wondered why these guys didn’t wear something more comfortable if they’re going to get so aerobic.

  26. Having grown up in meetings like this I can honestly say that was the norm for us when we were young. The service “got real good” whenever people would start taking laps around the place. Looks like they were not too far from that here. Now can you honestly say that the Lord was within 10 miles of that meeting? I can’t say honestly if He was or not but I seriously have my doubts.

      1. Not even if he attempts to shrink the head for easier removal?

        It won’t hurt the guy, trust me.

      2. To borrow (and tweek) that immortal phrase from Jack Nicholson’s Joker in Batman, “This clown needs an enema!

  30. Well, he looked as though he had control over his actions well enough, since he paused to calculate how to jump off the pulpit without breaking his neck, and some of you claim that at least some of the yelling was composed of actual words in English, but I found the whole thing incomprehensible. WHAT was THAT?

    1. It finally happened to me. A reply that didn’t go where it should have. My smiley was in reply to Natalie 3 comments above.

    2. Some churches, yes. I remember one service where a guest preacher got down ON HIS BACK and flailed as an attempt to show how the Prodigal Son must have reacted to his father’s outpouring of love on his return. Supposed to be a parallel to how we should react to God’s love. I say he looked like someone trying to fend off a rapist.

    3. Almost every service at a the KJVO on White Horse Rd. Sunday morning, Sunday night, Wednesday night…
      And they would look around to see who was watching them.

  33. My blood pressure just rose through the roof and I am shaking uncontrollably…how in God’s name do you pass that off as something that edifies? How? It is utterly disgusting. I don’t get mad on here often but that burns me up…1. that I was subjected that that kind of preeeeeching for years and 2 that it is even considered to be what Jesus would be pleased with…I need to go take a shower and get all that condemnation, the devil is going to get you garbage off me now..

      2. You did? What did he say?
        I can speak several languages, including English, and I really have no idea.

    1. NO, let’s ALL go there. Oh yeah, the whole SFL clan.

      I’ll even bring my butt cushion and floral/lace Bible cover and have sticks of gum for everyone.

      1. Now this is a field trip I might sign up for.
        In addition to the butt cushion, though, I think we’ll need pads and helmets for protection from all that thrashing around that’s going on in there.

        1. Oooh, and we should bring pom-poms and those big no. 1 hand thingys that you get at baseball games.

        2. And midway through the message, some will get up to use the restroom. Fundies HATE that. “YOU MUST SUSPEND BODILY FUNCTIONS WHILE THE ANOINTED SPEAKETH!”

        3. Oh, and lets bring as many children as possible. They don’t have to be yours. Just offer to baby sit for the whole neighborhood, and we’ll just say they’re all ours and we believe they should all be in the congregation with us. And, we’ll give them all espressos and pixie sticks on the way there and LOTS of water so they have to go to the bathroom.

        4. Oh, another thing: Make sure we look at our watches from time to time. Fundy preachers hate to stop and take offense to any sort of indication that they’ve gone from “Reverend” to “Never-end”.

          (Little Bible School humor there)

    2. This is Skyline Baptist Church in Adairsville, GA

      (at least, it lists “Bro John Dorsey” as pastor, just as the video is titled, and I thought I heard a Georgia accent somewhere in there).

    2. Hah, I was like, “Don is giving himself props??”
      And then I realized there are TWO Dons…lol. Nice.

      1. I know! That’s what I thought. I was like, “Well, go ahead and give yourself some snaps there, Donnie-poo.” 😉

  37. Oh, and lets bring as many children as possible. They don’t have to be yours. Just offer to baby sit for the whole neighborhood, and we’ll just say they’re all ours and we believe they should all be in the congregation with us. And, we’ll give them all espressos and pixie sticks on the way there and LOTS of water so they have to go to the bathroom.

  38. I try not to watch these types of videos on here. They make me physically ill. Not only the “preaching” but the people in the pews jumping up and down and thumping their bibles. Sadly, I broke down and watched this one. Where’s the vomiting smiley when you need it? 😯 But seriously, can you imagine if Jesus had preached like this? I doubt there would have been multitudes of people following him if he did! 😥

  40. I have to know something. I’m a southerner but is there something about the ‘south’ that makes people do this? Is this a problem in other parts of the country?

    1. It’s called religious inbreedin’. Young preacher boy from one fundy church finds himself a help-meat from the same or a closely related fundy church.

  41. Wow, that would never have happened in my fundy church. They were way too uptight to go beyond banging on the pulpit and yelling. And only a few of the men in the congregation would ever yell “Hay-men.” I guess my fundy church was more boring than most.

    1. My parents, staunch fundies, would never have stood for behavior like this at church. Maybe it’s a nothern/southern thing.

      Reading SFL has made me realize that I thought my parents were hard-core (no TV, no Christmas tree, etc.), but there are actually depths far, far beyond anything they ever espoused.

      1. PW – Yea that would have been a bit much for my ol fundy church as well, about the wildest guy that ever stopped by our church was Sammy Allen, he would walk on the tops of the pews, when the spirit moved him.

  43. This isn’t church, it’s a circus. No, that would be an insult to the circus. Circuses are more organized.

  45. The part where the camera paned over to the petrified child for a moment made me upset.

    This kind of man-centered fanaticism and fearmongering has a terrible effect upon those children who have to grow up in it. As many here know well enough. The adults obviously have made choices that have let them to this point, but seeing innocent kids exposed is a little disturbing. 🙁

    1. JohnRF,
      I was one of those kids. The fact that the parents don’t see the harm, the trauma, is hard evidence of the cult control that rips basic parental instincts away from families. The results, as I can tell you, are disastrous.

  46. I lived in FL for 14 years and remembered how that type of behavior was lauded as “spiritual” Never saw this in Southern California where I grew up or in MN where I now live…. this is disgusting. Yes, I saw the scared kid too…

  47. Wait, isn’t this what the Billy Sunday scene in BJU’s “Milltown Pride” should have looked like? Instead of the “congregation in a coma” scene it actually is?

    2. I think it was just a drive-by troll. When they slow down and park, that’s when you don’t feed.

        1. You are talking about that gassous windbag that was screaming incoherently in order to work the crowd into a frenzy, while standing on top of his lectern like a like a rooster desperately wanting to pass something that has been backed up for a week…. that is who you are referring to isn’t it? We may not know the individual but we definitely know his M-O-g: Hired-gun, pastor-superior type and his minipulation techniques. 🙄

        2. Sorry, but I read that we didn’t know anything about TOMMY Dorsey.

          I was really getting geared up to argue about that one.

  50. I can’t watch these videos anymore. They hit to close to home and feels as if I am still sitting in one of those awful green polyester covered chairs, staring at the ugly carpeting, listening to prideful angry men spew garbage into my ears all while surrounded by hypocrites with fake smiles judging my every move!!!!!!!!!!!!

    I think I just barfed in my mouth a little recalling the horrible memories…

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