THE OVERTHROW OF RELIGION
Cardboard Astronaut
Spiritually we all exist in one of three states, ignorant rebellion, passive acceptance, or informed resistance.
God has given us the gift of self-government. That means we as individuals create the internal laws that we use to control our own selves. (Self control is listed as one of the fruits of the Spirit, so rest assured, God is willing to help those who want to be helped.) For most of us our internal code is shaped by our environment.
If you grow up hungry in a home or neighborhood that is impoverished you can (to yourself) justify stealing to feed yourself or your family. If you grow up in a wealthy home with no lack you can justify (again, to yourself) a contempt for the poor and live in excess with no feeling at all for the hungry or the homeless.
When our internal code makes contact with an external one with which we are not familiar than we reach a crisis point. We are forced to choose one of the three above mentioned states in response.
Ignorance is the manger for poverty. Without knowledge the only perceptible savior is rebellion. Many impoverished nations have seen bloody uprisings with thousands of men, women and children dying brutally at the hands of a civil war that replaces the current government with a new one that is, for all practical purposes, the same or worse than the previous one. Those in power continue in corruption because the masses are not educated to a better way.
Ignorance creates a cycle of bondage. Ignorant people are in a continual internal spiritual and mental war. They are constantly threatened by new and unfamiliar codes and will usually respond out of fear. Of course, ignorance makes a poor base to fight from and the ignorant rebellion usually becomes overwhelmed by their inability to overthrow the machine. Most often they fall into bitterness about their perceived injustices and pull others down and out with them.
“Looking diligently lest any man fail of the grace of God; lest any root of bitterness springing up trouble you, and thereby many be defiled.” Hebrews 12:15
Ignorant rebellion chooses not to attempt to understand this external code and instead begins to rise up against it. Even though we are miserable (or perhaps because we are) we defend our internal code because our identity is so wrapped up in it. As obscure as this may seem, it does apply to our spirituality. True Christianity in many ways is diametrically opposed to the internal codes that we have carefully developed, especially for the affluent American who is bombarded with the idea that success is measured by wealth, possessions and/or social status.
Jesus Christ brought a new internal code to a people who were wrapped up in external legalities.
The religious scholars leading up to His time of ministry had taken an ancient external code and internalized it to their own advantage. The common person was completely at the mercy of the Temple and its elite. The fact that the common man was ignorant was not the violation, but that they were instructed into ignorance by their teachers.
The common man had been taught that they had no direct access to God and were therefore inferior to the religious class. Remember, ignorance is bondage. Though the entire nation was in bondage to Rome, the people of the nation were in bondage to the religion of the Temple. The key to their control was in keeping the people ignorant. This same pattern was used by the Universal Church of the dark ages with much the same result.
We aren’t able to see an entire panoramic of the culture of the day through the New Testament scriptures because they are focused on Jesus and then His followers and then on the churches they established. There were, no doubt, insurrections led by ignorant peasants bent on overthrowing the religious class as well as the Roman tyranny. When the disciples were brought into custody for resisting the established hierarchy one of the Pharisees named Gamaliel referred to two previous unsuccessful uprisings by Judas of Galilee and a man named Theudas. (Acts 5:34-39)
However, most people were content to be ignorant. This state will be referred to in this writing as passive acceptance.
Passive acceptance is as detrimental (if not more so) than ignorant rebellion. It is a place of death, where a person exists without a purpose to spur him into action. I would rather deal with one hundred zealots in the midst of ignorant rebellion than with one ignorant person placated by passive acceptance.
Passive acceptance allowed the death of thousands of babies on the whim of an insecure king, remember Herod? It allows children, six times the total amount that died in the Twin Towers on 9/11, to die everyday from hunger while wealthy religions and religious people content themselves with their piety and hide behind a façade of stained glass and “holy” living. It allows people to become commodities in the trade of human slavery called religion.
Let me interject this here, religion is as much about human trafficking as the hold of any slave ship. Religion looks at people for their economic worth, willing to place them in bondage to doctrines and rules for the sake of laying claim on the tithe and/or offerings that these people will be obligated to give.
I believe that tithing and giving of offerings are Biblical mandates and a part of any healthy Christian’s life, but when that is the end purpose of the organization than that organization ceases to serve Christ and becomes the agent of Mammon.
The moment a religious entity begins to function on the basis of economics it becomes what Christ came to end.
Passive acceptance leads to cold blindness.
Truth comes in fragments, sometimes truth has thorns, sometimes it is heavy, and it rarely fits into our pre-made little fire ring, but rather than expand our ring we throw down the pieces that don’t fit and wait for the one’s that do, even if they are few and far in between. Passive acceptance preserves its internal code, but in a different way than the ignorant rebellious, it does so by merely allowing that which seems to be to be that which is. I hate to sound too philosophical, so I’ll rephrase that statement. Passive acceptance does not fight what does not fit. It simply takes on the convenient shape necessary to be accepted by the status quo.
The inevitable result is a state of inactivity that leads to spiritual atrophy. In the past sixteen years of ministry I have seen the atrophy of passive acceptance bring great people to a place of complete spiritual ineffectiveness.
Atrophy is what happens when you completely cease to use a muscle. The lack of movement causes the muscle to shrivel and become useless. This is a preventative measure designed by God to protect the rest of the body from a perceived injury, disease or infection. The damaged limb is shut off to keep the healthy parts alive.
Passive acceptance requires no movement, and no resistance. Resistance however is the basis for strength. Why is there weakness in the Church? There is weakness because it seems easier to lead a group that passively accepts the doctrines and teachings that come from the establishment. Ask any hard questions and you’ll be labeled as a rebel and treated accordingly.
This type of leadership creates a chameleonic group of shape-shifters. So, the passive acceptance that seems so appealing to those who want to control the trafficked, is ultimately what causes the atrophy and death of its constituents.
A weak nation, society, or church is the direct result of leadership that uses ignorance to control its populace. The people will fade into their surroundings and die the death of obscurity. That’s why so many young people raised in a legalistic environment (who weren’t destroyed by ignorant rebellion) so easily fall away from their “faith” when they become adults and get out from under the oppressive thumb of the legalists.
The code is completely external and they have been taught that the best response is no response. They are the epitome of chameleonicity with no identity of their own. Why are they like that? They are like that because of their leaders. They are a direct product of religion. They have no capacity for any other response. I say that men who keep their people in ignorance to bully them into submission will stand in judgment for becoming the enemies of Christ. We’ve looked for a man to call the anti-Christ, and there will come one who will embody the type, but we have overlooked the spirit of the anti-Christ that is at work amongst us already, speaking in places of spiritual authority and putting men and women into bondage for their own personal gain.
Studies have shown that well over 60 % of Christians leave their faith when they enter college. Religion shrugs its shoulders and points accusingly at the youth or cites the fact that prayer was taken out of schools in the 1960’s when in reality this is the only possible outcome of a system that is about conformity.
The dove and the fish have been replaced by the chameleon as the symbol for modern Christendom.
The third response is the state of informed resistance. Christianity doesn’t need a rebellion. The spirit of rebellion will never mix with the purpose of Christ. They are polar opposites, but there does need to be a generation of informed resistors, people who are willing to “know the Truth” so they can be set free. If ignorance is bondage, than knowledge is freedom.
The legalist will always hold as suspect the man or woman who dares to question the establishment. Young people are marked as rebellious when they aren’t willing to “accept everything by faith” and play by the rules and yet this is the very thing that will make them strong. Ask, seek, and knock, study to see if these things are so and to show yourself approved. Search out your own salvation with fear and trembling, be ready to give an answer for the hope you have. The truest Christian symbol is a question mark.
What is truth? If you take away the right to question you turn Christianity from a rushing mighty wind into a windowless room full of stale recycled air.
Are we willing to take everything that we believe and hold it in question and scrutinize it in light of the Bible? If we aren’t than we forfeit our claim to be “people of truth.” If there is any other document, manual, book or doctrine that takes preeminence over His word, than we must confess to the world, we are not Christians, we are just another stripe, shade or pattern that you are free to choose from among the many others that are available, we are not the flock of Christ, we are a group of chameleons.
Some colleagues of mine told me, tongue in cheek, that I am “the poster child for the fight against legalism.” I’m o.k. with that. I’m not interested in being a part of a rebellion, but there is a difference between rebellion and protest. Christianity cannot be another pattern or shape that I put on when I’m at church or amongst a certain set of people. If I have to change who I am depending on whom I am with, than I am not being true to Christ or His call, there should be no duplicity.
If this generation is to become what Christ called the previous ones to be than we have to let them ask the hard questions that make us uncomfortable and peel away the layers of religion that we have added to the faith. We have to be able to help them find an identity that is based on the never changing word of God. If we do this right, we will see them shed the chameleon skin and not die a death of obscurity in the land of darkness.
Christianity has never been about blending in. It has always been about coming out from among the darkness of Babylon into the light of Christ, no matter the cost, or better said, because of the cost.
We’ve had the opportunity over the last few weeks to serve some homeless people in St. Louis. I am reposting this article about James, a friend from Louisville, KY who happened to be homeless at the time.
© Armando Heredia. All Rights Reserved
I was asked to do a funeral for a homeless man’s brother. He is a great man, this guy James, he’s just been through some hard knocks and leaned on the wrong things. We’re not so far away from where he is at, not really. It’s just that our vices are more acceptable. Self-righteousness, religiosity, secret lusts, greed, you list them and in just a small group of the “hallelujah’s” as my grandfather use to call us, you’ll find them all. James’ vices are more visible and harder to conceal, but you’ve got to love the get-back-up spirit this guy’s got. This funeral was not as much about the passing of John, James‘ brother, as it was about the staying of James.
It’s about struggling with grief and unanswered questions. It’s about the darkness of the moment and all of the wondering.
It’s about waking up tomorrow and continuing on, about struggling to stay sober, working to pay the bills, about trying to stay balanced in a world that is so upside down and crazy.
It’s about life, yes, life without John here physically, but not gone from the memories.
But most of all it’s about hope.
“Now the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, that ye may abound in hope, through the power of the Holy Ghost.” Romans 15:13
As we sat there, we were letting go of a loved one, in hope that this was not the end, that there is an eternal life that is in the Hands of a loving and righteous God.
And because it was not the end, God will give strength for today and a hope for tomorrow and all of the memories of John, and what he meant, and the times of fighting and the times of laughing and the times of crying.
And like a photographer that sits in a dark room, treating the images he’s captured until they become permanent representations on glossy paper, today was the day to sit in a dark room (no other day will seem darker concerning John) taking old memories and washing them in words of thanks and words of forgiveness and words of hope. The memories will become softer and the edges won’t be as sharp. The laughter becomes sweeter and the tears mean more after time has passed.
Or we can hold on to the bitter moments and the unresolved feelings and hold onto feelings of resentment, which means “to feel again” and the images carried in spiritual wallets and hung on the walls of the soul will be hard edged and sharp lined with no gloss, just grain and grit, unfocused and tarnished.
It was not a time to explain the mystery of death, because I couldn’t. I only came with hope, the hope that will carry through the hard times, the dark days and the lonely nights. That hope for me is a relationship with Jesus Christ.
He doesn’t take away the pain of loss, but He cares and I find comfort in that.
He doesn’t replace my loved ones that have gone on before, but He’s there for me in their absence. I find peace in that.
He doesn’t dry up the tears and answer all of the questions right when I ask, but He’s showing me, as much as I can grasp at the moment, and I am beginning to know that hope is real and is pursuing me, even now as He pursues us all.
And in the dark room, if He’s allowed, He can help fix those images of the past in our minds that will become the cherished memories of John and his life in the future. Because we are broken, when we say the word “fix” we automatically think of changing the images, of touching up the blemishes on our memories, of manipulating the past so it is better, nicer and more acceptable. But to a photographer to “fix” is to make permanent. To let what is be what it is. We spend so much time trying to change what can’t be changed that we never step out of the dark room and walk in the light of right now and tomorrow.
Jesus was the light that shined in the dark hearts of men. The beauty of that is when you expose negatives to light, in the right environment, they become positives. Jesus Christ is the Light of the world so we bring all of our negatives: shame, sin, immorality, hate, prejudice and Christ creates in us a new image.
And some of the things that can’t become positive, Jesus doesn’t wash with His Word, doesn’t transform as a part of our new creature image. Instead, He takes it and exposes it to the fullness of His glory and the film of our lives, the snapshots of those moments become completely destroyed and unusable by us or by our enemy. No evidence, not one image remembered.
That’s when we have to let God have all of the images, but we hoard grainy old “Polaroids” and low-res digital shots in the dark corners of our hearts, and take them out when we’re feeling sorry for ourselves or when we stumble. And we hold them out to God to remind Him of how unworthy we are and how undeserving we are of His grace. When we do that He gently takes the images from us and washes us again, pointing to the image and making us realize that it’s a fake, a look-alike from the past.
He, Jesus Christ, is the express image of God and we spend our lives trying to develop ourselves to be like Him. He sees us and smiles as we smile and we hold the gaze of the Eternal One. That’s what life is about, and the last beautiful image, when we finally put off this mortal body and put on Christ, is in the hands of the Master photographer, Jesus Christ. He knows when the appointment has been set and He is there, like a Father, with His camera, ready to snap the last shot as we pass from life to death in the moment, the twinkling of an eye. We pass from the world where we look at images of Christ through a glass darkly into the very presence of His reality and we know as we are known.
Precious in the sight of the LORD is the death of his saints. Psalm 116:15
Cheese.
WHEN TRUTH MATTERS
Truth doesn’t change because of relevance. Truth is truth. Culture can be relevant. Truth is contextual.
One day my son Benjamin asked me a question that I believe was the catalyst for a change in my own thinking. About Benjamin, he’s a deep thinker. He was only nine when he asked me this. He was reading in Exodus and he came upon the place where Moses is turned aside by the burning bush. Just as Moses is about to walk into his life changing encounter, God told him to stop and of all things, take off his shoes. “Why did he do that, Dad? Why did God ask him to take off his shoes?”
God was asking Moses to place himself at His mercy, to have complete faith in His motive. That translates beautifully in the life of a believer. When you really scrutinize what it means to have faith, it’s also about making yourself vulnerable. Vulnerable’s root word comes from the Latin, vulnerā, it means to wound. Vulnerable literally means “woundable.” When I am staring at a blank white page or canvas I have this initial fear that what I am about to attempt will be a failure, but if I am not willing to convey what’s inside, then I already fail.
God has placed this gift within us, earthen vessels, to glorify Himself in us. Through our lips in speech or song, our hands on canvas or sculpture, our body and feet in dance, every member is designed to create praise from vulnerability.
Think about what Jesus said about prayer. He said not to make vain repetition like the heathen, right? Well, why not? That’s a valid question, don’t you think? Here’s my opinion: He’s looking for His reflection as the Creator in you. Reciting a list of memorized words can be beautiful, no doubt, but they’re not your words.
Be creative in your approach to Him. Be willing to be wounded by people who don’t understand you or your vision. In the end nobody will know what you thought or felt unless you expressed it. Even God, the Creator, manifested, or made Himself visible, to the world as the man, Jesus Christ, the express image of God.
That’s a beautiful illustration about what God is trying to do through us, but here’s the point, God told Moses to take his shoes off in the desert and then told the Hebrew slaves to make sure they had their shoes on before they left to go to the desert. The fact that God told Moses to take off his shoes was irrelevant to the Hebrew slaves the night they were fleeing Egypt, even though it was true.
Why, because it was out of context. The truth here didn’t have to be relevant, it had to be contextual. If we are going to express the truth of God’s word today, it won’t be because we change it to make it relevant, truth doesn’t have to be relevant, in fact most people are getting tired of the watered down stuff we’re pumping out today. So much of what we are doing in the name of being relevant just becomes fodder for the next cliché. Truth, though, needs to be presented in a way that can be put into the context of the lives of the people you are reaching for. {From Cardboard Astronaut : Truth Is Irrelevant}
I was driving in rural Kentucky one day and I came across this old run down store. The front porch had been hit by a large truck years before, (I was told this by an elderly gentleman who was working on the building) the roof was sagging, and there was an entire section of the wall completely knocked down. I stopped to take some photos and was struck by an image. There, in an old worn latch was a pin, locking the door.
Truth is Irrelevant
There was an eight foot hole immediately to the left of the door (which I walked in through) where the cinder block wall had collapsed, but the door was locked. At some point that little pin was significant. A man or woman placed it there with all confidence that it would protect their stuff, and in theory, it worked, but in the context that it’s in now, it has no application. Did “truth” change? No, but the context did. The point here is not about relevance, a latch and pin are always relevant to a door, it is about where the door is.
Some of my darkest days have been when I woke up with the knowledge that most of the things I believed and said I stood for were just concepts and theories that I was not actually living, and not only that I wasn’t living them, but that I hadn’t forged any avenues to apply them.
The hardest days, for me anyway, have always been church days. Don’t get me wrong, I love the Church, but so many times I am frustrated with myself when it’s all over, because I sing songs and make these incredible declarations about what I think and know about Jesus and His passion to reach the lost and help the helpless and the broken, but I haven’t and I don’t. The ideas and theories were true and relevant, I identified with them, but I didn’t actualize them into the context of my life.
The fact that Jesus can heal is true for every culture and era, but until a believer takes the theory, in whatever form it was presented to make it “relevant” to him/her, and contextualizes it, bringing it into action in their lives, it is irrelevant, regardless of how “relevant” it is.
This is a research paper I did for my English 101 class on megachurches.
True Christianity is about making disciples, which is a relational concept. Can the megachurch accomplish the original mission of Christ if they cannot successfully sustain true relationships? How can a message of financial prosperity, a lavish lifestyle of pastoral fame, and opulent, multi-acre “church” campuses embody the message of a peasant, homeless Messiah, with twelve intimate followers whose last command was to “make disciples”?
The key component in the term “megachurch” is the prefix “mega.” Mega defines something that is “large or great.” Obviously, a mega-church is an entity that has huge attendance and/or facilities. Fifty-three percent of megachurches have between 2,000 and 3,000 members, while some megachurches, like Lakewood Church in Houston, Texas, can have congregations that boast up to 30,000 in weekly attendance and is housed in a former sports arena. (CQ Researcher. 775-776)
According to British anthropologist, Robin Dunbar, as cited by Malcom Gladwell in his book, The Tipping Point, the largest group of people who can sustain a “genuinely social relationship” is roughly 150. “The figure of 150 seems to represent the maximum number of individuals with whom we can have a genuinely social relationship, the kind of relationship that goes with knowing who they are and how they relate to us…” (Gladwell. 179)
The number 150 is recurrent in a multiplicity of groups that can be documented with solid historical evidence, from hunter-gatherer societies of Australian descent to the patterns used for military organization. The Hutterites, a self-supporting religious colonist group that flourished in Europe and later in America, would form a colony that, when it neared 150 members, would start a new colony, never growing larger than their capacity to sustain true relationships. (Gladwell. 179-180)
Megachurches, however, due to their enormous size, do not have the capacity to focus on this most important aspect and instead have embraced a modern culture of anonymity. North Park University’s McKnight says, “You can enter into the church to the degree that you want. There’s a guaranteed anonymity, if you want it.” (CQ Researcher. 784)
His position is that if you go into a church with 120 people, you can’t walk into the door without people knowing you’re a stranger. In a megachurch of several thousand, people can come and go, “with 5,000 other relatively anonymous persons, just like they do every day of their lives.” In other words, you could go to church and nobody would know the difference. Christianity is not about going to church, it is about becoming the church.
This is contrary to the mission of the Church, to be a body of believers, members that are connected to each other in purpose, passion and belief. If we create an entity that is about filling seats by offering a host of amenities and innovations, without developing relationships, we have not fulfilled the central goal of Christianity, to unite people in the Body of Christ.
The pastors of most megachurches are more like high-powered business-politicians who do not connect on an individual basis with the people who are a part of “their” church. An unfortunate result of the super-sized congregation is that the pastor’s role of shepherding is replaced by a demand for politics and public relations. Although it would be unfair to say that all megachurch pastors’ messages are developed as feel-good PR, this seems to be true on average. Messages of financial prosperity, personal fulfillment and inclusivity are the standard fare. A moment with the pastor would be more like a photo-op with a celebrity politician that might end up on the church website or television broadcast, than a personal encounter with a friend that cares deeply for your soul.
Megachurches are usually Protestant evangelical and have conservative positions on social issues. Their pastors are usually charismatic and preach the “prosperity gospel, stressing personal fulfillment as much as theology.” (CQ Researcher. 769)
Some researchers feel like megachurches are a unique response to growing needs within American culture; critics counter that the megachurches are straying from their traditional religious mission by focusing on helping congregants get rich instead of worshipping God.
While the congregations are typically conservative Protestants, many of the pastors, like Creflo Dollar (his real name), an Atlanta megachurch pastor, whose prosperity preaching and lavish lifestyle has earned the dubious title “the gospel of bling” are anything but conservative. Dollar’s travel choices include a personal Lear Jet, helicopter and two Rolls-Royces. (CQ Researcher. 782) Dollar’s “seed” ministry concept, which is the idea that giving money to “the Lord” via his ministry is the first step in opening “the windows of heaven” is very similar to the very indulgence doctrine that caused Martin Luther to begin the Protestant reformation.
Dollar, along with other prosperity gospel preachers, follow in the same vein as one of the most famous of so called prosperity preachers, Kenneth Copeland. One of Copeland’s followers donated $2,000.00 for Copeland to purchase a private Citation X airplane. “I remember Copeland had to once fly halfway around the world to talk to one person,” she said. “Because we’re partners with Kenneth Copeland, for every soul that gets saved, we get credit for that in heaven.”
Another prosperity preacher, Texas Evangelist, Jerry Savelle, perpetuated this thought at a conference organized by Copeland. Dollar was a speaker at the conference along with other prosperity preachers.
“Any time a worried thought about money pops up in your mind,” Mr. Savelle continued, “the next thing you do is sow”: drop money, like seeds, in “good ground” like the preachers’ ministries. “Stop worrying, start sowing,” he added, his voice rising. “That’s God’s stimulus package for you.” (Goodstein. Nytimes.com)
An indulgence is “in the Roman Catholic Church, a declaration by church authorities that those who say certain prayers or do good deeds will have some or all of their punishment in purgatory remitted.”
“In the Middle Ages, indulgences were frequently sold, and the teaching on indulgences was often distorted. The attack by Martin Luther on the sale of indulgences began the Reformation.” (American Heritage)
Megachurch pastors who preach this prosperity gospel are not conservative Protestants; they are excessive businessmen, selling indulgences and tricking their congregants into buying the “favor of God.”
“This [is] a true saying, If a man desire the office of a bishop, he desireth a good work. A bishop then must be blameless, the husband of one wife, vigilant, sober, of good behaviour, given to hospitality, apt to teach; Not given to wine, no striker, not greedy of filthy lucre; but patient, not a brawler, not covetous;” 1 Timothy 3:1-3, KJV
The Scripture uses an interesting word in this admonition to those who want to lead in the church, lucre. Lucre is translated from the Greek word “aischrokerdēs” which means eager for base gain, greedy for money.” (blueletterbible.com)
Their message and the application of their lifestyle disqualify them from the office they hold. Why then do people flock to them? As in the classic Clinton campaign phrase often re-quoted in reference to politician’s ability to gain office though under qualified or corrupt, “It’s the economy, stupid.” They are rich, so they must be right.
Megachurch pastors have a delicate job on their hands. Their most important job is to keep the people happy. In The Deviant’s Advantage, the authors explore the path of ideas from their inception on the fringe of society to their acceptance as a part of “social convention.” The risk involved in an idea on the fringe that initially catches people’s attention has to either be tamed or removed for the idea to gain the acceptance of the larger community. Harley-Davison, an American motorcycle company, at one time was synonymous with outlaw bikers and renegades, but is now the very expensive bike of choice for doctors, dentists and lawyers. The change came through an intentional repositioning of the identity of the motorcycle brand, and the removal of many of the perceived risks of being involved in the “biker” culture. (Matthews/Wacker. 19)
The very ideas of Christianity, self-sacrifice, repentance, and moderation are controversial and can even be divisive. In a small intimate group of believers, these ideas, though uncomfortable at times, can be accepted and applied through teaching that includes dialogue, trust and accountability. In a mega environment, these ideas, in order to become social convention, must be removed. The result is a feel-good, get-what-you-want, “religion of materialism and status to self-absorbed consumers.” (CQ Researcher. 785)
In conclusion, the mission of the church is not now, nor has it ever been, a means for men and women to make themselves wealthy, famous, powerful politicians. The number of people who come together, if there is no vehicle for meaningful relationships, becomes about the pastor’s ego, not the needs of the people who are drawn into his arena.
The church should be a place of love, healing and comfort, but not void of doctrine and scripture that challenges its congregants to repentance. The megachurch creates a climate of anonymity. “No change necessary here, if you don’t like it, don’t come back, we actually didn’t know you were even here.” I haven’t found that instruction in red letters, noted to be the words of Jesus Christ, anywhere in scripture.
Works Cited
The American Heritage® New Dictionary of Cultural Literacy, Third Edition.
Houghton Mifflin Company, 2005. 12 Nov. 2009.
Blue Letter Bible. “Dictionary and Word Search for aischrokerdēs (Strong’s 146)”.
Blue Letter Bible. 1996-2009. 12 Nov 2009.
http:// www.blueletterbible.org/lang/lexicon/lexicon.cfm? ~Strongs=G146&t=KJV >
Gladwell, Malcolm. The Tipping Point.
New York, London, Boston: Little, Brown, and Company. 2000.
Goodstein, Laurie “Believers Invest in the Gospel of Getting Rich.” New York Times.
15 Aug. 2009. 07 November, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/16/us/16gospel.html
Greenblat, Alan and Tracie Powell. “Rise of Megachurches” CQ Researcher. 769-792
Mathews, Ryan and Watts Wacker. The Deviant’s Advantage.
New York: Crown Business. 2002.