You know, I love mug shots where the perps have big grins on their faces. Specifically, the cat ate the canary kind of look. This week’s headlines managed to present one that couldn’t be missed, and dare I say, I think there are even twinkles in the eyes of these men. In the mug shot, you see three of six men who took it upon themselves to heckle Joel Osteen, pastor of the Lakewood Church in Houston, Texas. All seven were eventually escorted out of the church and booked on misdemeanor charges of criminal trespass.
I wonder how many folks were possibly undiscovered, and planted in the congregation that day for the sole purpose of hijacking a few minutes of Joel’s divinely blessed presence.
Now, according to a statement given by Osteen’s church, the hecklers weren’t there bashing God, but Osteen, referring to the mega church pastor as a “liar”. Turns out the six men that were hauled out of there were members of another ministry called Church of Wells, located in Wells, Texas. And this isn’t the first time these fellows have gone to outside venues, even the high school in their hometown of Wells, and raised some serious Cain with the city’s residents. According to KSLA News, church members, including an elder, have had multiple run-ins with local authorities over the last year while protesting outside schools, churches, and universities.
This church has been rather ill received throughout it’s community, and they seem almost proud of this, using the push back of the local residents of Wells as proof they are persecuted for simply trying to share their gospel.. This small church has a major martyr complex to say the least, and they are picking a fight with the more mainstream Christian public.
It’s a feud, fueled by the religious rhetoric of the likes of evangelical pastors like Ravenhill, Knox, and Barnard. It’s a struggle for what they perceive to be true expression of love through purposeful suffering. Of course, Osteen and other mainstream pastors take a more empowering, somewhat inspirational approach with much less intentional exposure to incited punishment.
The difference between the two churches is astronomical in approach. While Osteen supports putting your life down for Christ, The Church of Wells has the attitude that you must turn people to Christ, even if it means you force potential believers to kill you in order to prove your belief to them. It’s quite a sight to read such doctrine being espoused by radical Christian extremists, and I recommend you peruse this rarely exposed level of religious woo at the Church of Wells website.
Just don’t go reading and watching the material on the site all alone. At the very least, cook up some popcorn to munch on while you listen to a carefully selected onslaught of evangelical Youtube sermon highlights, sprinkled with desperate street preaching, that is all set to a woeful sounding melody of “poor me” style hymns.
A great example of ministry feuding can be seen with David Koresh, late leader of the Branch Davidians. Most people remember him for the botched attempt by our government to seize his compound in Waco, Texas on suspicion of numerous weapons violations. I wonder how many know how he even came into power to begin with because it is a fascinating story with an important lesson regarding determining leadership within extreme religious cults. A book I have, Why So Many Gods?, by Tim Baker and Kim Etue, shares this story. But, for sake of brevity, I’ll give you the nutshell version.
Koresh was banging the female elder of the Mount Carmel Center. Elder describing more than just her position in the church. She died. There was a struggle for power, and Koresh lost, the dead elder’s son taking the opportunity to kick him off the property at gun point. Unfortunately for the son, Koresh was extremely popular in the rest of the Branch Davidian community. To settle who would lead the church, the elder’s son dug up her corpse in order to have a “pray off”. Essentially, the men would pray to resurrect her from death, and the person who accomplished that would be declared the new winner.
Needless to say, she remained rather dead and gross on a table, and Koresh attempted to report the son for abuse of a corpse, all the while agreeing and even participating in said Lazarus style challenge for power. A gun battle ensued between Koresh and the mommy’s boy upon revelation of Koresh trying to get the authorities involved. The cops did get involved, and Koresh somehow managed to avoid jail after nearly killing the other messiah wannabe, and got a mistrial declared in his assault case. During this time, the elder’s son turned out to be an axe murderer since he put an axe blade into the skull of yet another man claiming to be a messiah, and so Koresh took over the show.
I wish this was made up. Okay, I’m lying. No, I don’t.
It’s mind blowing, isn’t it? You can read the Wikipedia version of Koresh’s ascent to power here. I highly recommend the book Why So Many Gods?, it gives more detail to the background story, and covers many other wild and crazy cults, along with how they came to be. Yes, a lot of them are just as dramatic as Koresh, though the necrophilia element is rather unique so far. Being these are cults, you know the origin details are going to make you ask yourself “W.T.F. did I just read?”, and it goes to show the desperate lengths those holding opposing Christian views will traverse in order to be more Christ-like than other ministries.
It’s this desperation amongst ministries that the news story of Osteen’s heckler encounter reminded me of, minus the proverbial banjo music, blue jean overalls, and a lip stuffed with tobacco. If the main goal was spreading the good news, obviously, there is no need to throw stones at your fellow pastors, even if you don’t completely agree with their message. The power of Christ cannot be corrupted by a wayward shepherd, right?
These displays of religious groups harassing others, especially the larger organizations, are pure jealously of one church being more successful than the other; a deep seated hatred of a visibly seen promised prospering of a ministry that doesn’t translate to every church. This hatred is usually accompanied with a belief of a darker influence being afoot, as one of the screaming protester’s had claimed by yelling at Osteen,”You’re a liar.” It must be sin paving the way to the mega churches success, not a sharp marketing team.
