John
has been blessed with the unique gift of being able to make any and
every bit of Bible fit in with his belief that God wants us to be rich.
In his capable hands, a parable about sowing the seed of the Word of God
becomes Jesus' greatest teaching on the subject of making money, and a
half-hour TV show about Jesus becomes John Avanzini's greatest ploy to
fleece the vulnerable for every cent.
His boundless
generosity will stretch to sending you a free book about how to conjure
up "Miracle Money", and for your convenience, the book contains a form
for you to fill out specifying your donation to his ministry.
Ever-concerned for your spiritual welfare, John tells you (having given
you thirty pages of miraculous testimony involving outrageous sums of
money) to write down the first amount that Avanzini, through his
cunning manipulation and smarmy rhetoric, the Holy Spirit
plants in your head, and warns you not to listen to your common
sense Satan and change your mind.
I can
guarantee you Avanzini's bank account will provide copious evidence that
his doctrine of wealth and prosperity actually works and yields
extravagant results -- at least for one person. Get used to the scenery
around the Hall of Shame, John: you're gonna be here a long time.
I've
heard this guy publicly denouncing media celebrities as "sluts" and
"whores". Such misogynistic terms of abuse reflect perfectly his
pet-subject -- the subjection of wives to their husbands. Insults and
slander drip liberally from this preacher's lips, and he never passes up
a chance to say something spiteful about the ungodly sinners in the
world who (too bad for us, I guess) just don't live up to his standards
of holiness and godly conduct.
He'll forever
be remembered as a big man who always had a slanderous word to say about
everybody, especially if they're gay, cohabiting, refusing to obey their
husbands or simply not born again, and on their way to the eternal pits
of hell. Welcome to the Hall of Shame, John.
Unsurprisingly, Benny has received several nominations for the Hall of
Shame. He may have stuck by his renunciation of that ridiculous
hairstyle, but his frequent renunciations of the gospel of Health and
Wealth only ever end up with him turning right back to the crap again. I
dedicate this entry to L, a lady I once knew who was miraculously healed
of cancer live on stage at a Hinn crusade, an awesome occasion dampened
only by the fact she died of the same cancer two years later.
Click below to watch some
clips:
CBS documentary on Benny
Hinn:
Benny Hinn or Benny Hill?
Watch his shenanigans for yourself:
Famed
for being the "Holy-Ghost Bartender" responsible for dispensing large
quantities of God that can make the
most straight-laced person collapse in fits of laughter in a second,
Rodney Howard-Browne
is a charismatic superstar hailing from South Africa, but now pastoring
a megachurch in Florida.
There are many
reasons we could add Rodney to the Hall of Shame, but the proverbial
back-breaking straw is his words on the European
God TV channel in February 2005. Mid-programme, Rodney turned to the camera and issued a stern
rebuke to people suffering with depression: The reason you're
depressed is because you're serving the Devil and you're on your way to
hell.
Frankly, this
is only a step down from telling a cancer-patient they're sick because
God is judging them. Abusive, ignorant and dangerous: This kind of BS
seals Rodney's place in our Hall of Shame.
Rarely has the story
of the Emperor's New Clothes been so brilliantly and perfectly
exemplified as in the bizarre case of Peter Popoff. In the 1980s, as a
faith-healer, he would stride the aisles of his auditorium revealing
amazing details about members of the crowd. "The Holy Ghost is telling
me your name is Englebert, you live on the corner of 51st Street, you
have a birthmark on the lower-right testicle, and you have a 37-year-old
daughter named Ethel who has had cancer of the big toe for the last
three years, two months, thirteen days and four hours! She's healed NOW
in the name of JEEEEEEEESUS!"
And they fell
for it. That was, until an incredibly perceptive genius by the name of
James Randi smelled a rat, and
decided he would try and find out just what was going on with that
curious-looking attachment hooked around Popoff's ear. Well, dagnabbit,
it turned out to be an earpiece, and Englebert and his Ethel had been
just two of thousands of victims of one of the alltime biggest phonies
in televangelism. Popoff's wife had been garnering details by
circulating among the audience before the show, and relaying the
information through the earpiece during the service. Randi exposed
Popoff as a fraud live on the Johnny Carson Show.
Generally
speaking, you never live down a fiasco like this. Well, Popoff lived it
down. Almost two decades later, Popoff is back on the airwaves, and can
be seen on any number of US cable channels hawking his wares (genuine
holy water) and performing the same dumb tricks. Popoff is one guy who
isn't going to pop off easily. (Forgive me. That pun was an accident
waiting to happen.)
Peter, the
Holy Ghost is telling me you're a huckster and an idiot. Welcome to the
Hall of Shame.
Click below to watch James
Randi's exposé of Peter Popoff:
Self-proclaimed
guardian of Anglican orthodoxy, there are few depths to which Virtue is
unwilling to sink in order to find a bit of mud to smear on a heretic, a
theological liberal or a homosexual. Indeed, an ample supply of shit is
always on hand to be thrown generously over those outside the pale of
the One True, God-Given Christian Faith, and when the muck's simply not
there to be thrown, he is blessed with a wonderful imagination and
propensity to creativity. Thus, with a more-than-obvious sleight of
hand, rather than being a human being with whom respectfully to
disagree, Bishop Gene Robinson becomes a pervert who promotes
pornographic websites and makes outrageous claims that Jesus was gay.
Inclusive, loving, tolerant, evenhanded: Everything the rantings of this
tragically bitter man lack. David, take a pew: You might be here a
while.
Guidelines: The Hall of Shame is not
about ridiculing some silly fundamentalist preacher because he believes
in the Virgin Birth or thinks Jesus can fly. Don't write in nominating
some revivalist because he says the world was created in six days or
Adam talked to dinosaurs. The Hall of Shame is reserved for the
abusers, manipulators and charlatans in the public eye
-- the televangelists, preachers and gurus who hurt people with their
words and actions.
Submit a
name: Send Dave an
email including brief details of your nomination, and reasons why
s/he should become an entrant in the Hall of Shame. A referral to a
relevant website would be helpful. Don't forget to include the name by
which you'd like to be identified, and please indicate whether your
email address should be made publicly available.
Alternatively,
if there's a name up there you think should not be in our Hall of
Shame,
let me know.
John
has been blessed with the unique gift of being able to make any and
every bit of Bible fit in with his belief that God wants us to be rich.
In his capable hands, a parable about sowing the seed of the Word of God
becomes Jesus' greatest teaching on the subject of making money, and a
half-hour TV show about Jesus becomes John Avanzini's greatest ploy to
fleece the vulnerable for every cent.
I've
heard this guy publicly denouncing media celebrities as "sluts" and
"whores". Such misogynistic terms of abuse reflect perfectly his
pet-subject -- the subjection of wives to their husbands. Insults and
slander drip liberally from this preacher's lips, and he never passes up
a chance to say something spiteful about the ungodly sinners in the
world who (too bad for us, I guess) just don't live up to his standards
of holiness and godly conduct.
Unsurprisingly, Benny has received several nominations for the Hall of
Shame. He may have stuck by his renunciation of that ridiculous
hairstyle, but his frequent renunciations of the gospel of Health and
Wealth only ever end up with him turning right back to the crap again. I
dedicate this entry to L, a lady I once knew who was miraculously healed
of cancer live on stage at a Hinn crusade, an awesome occasion dampened
only by the fact she died of the same cancer two years later.
Famed
for being the "Holy-Ghost Bartender" responsible for dispensing large
quantities of God that can make the
most straight-laced person collapse in fits of laughter in a second,
Rarely has the story
of the Emperor's New Clothes been so brilliantly and perfectly
exemplified as in the bizarre case of Peter Popoff. In the 1980s, as a
faith-healer, he would stride the aisles of his auditorium revealing
amazing details about members of the crowd. "The Holy Ghost is telling
me your name is Englebert, you live on the corner of 51st Street, you
have a birthmark on the lower-right testicle, and you have a 37-year-old
daughter named Ethel who has had cancer of the big toe for the last
three years, two months, thirteen days and four hours! She's healed NOW
in the name of JEEEEEEEESUS!"
Self-proclaimed
guardian of Anglican orthodoxy, there are few depths to which Virtue is
unwilling to sink in order to find a bit of mud to smear on a heretic, a
theological liberal or a homosexual. Indeed, an ample supply of shit is
always on hand to be thrown generously over those outside the pale of
the One True, God-Given Christian Faith, and when the muck's simply not
there to be thrown, he is blessed with a wonderful imagination and
propensity to creativity. Thus, with a more-than-obvious sleight of
hand, rather than being a human being with whom respectfully to
disagree, Bishop Gene Robinson becomes a pervert who promotes
pornographic websites and makes outrageous claims that Jesus was gay.
Inclusive, loving, tolerant, evenhanded: Everything the rantings of this
tragically bitter man lack. David, take a pew: You might be here a
while.