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Piponides

“What goes around, comes around,” they say.  But usually not like this.

Chuck O’Neal, the Beaverton, Oregon, pastor who has recently gained notoriety for suing a former parishioner for libel, has found himself on the receiving end of a law suit—for the very same reason.   And while the defendants in O’Neal’s law suit have drawn considerable sympathy for being dragged into court by the pastor of a large church—presumably benefitting from the resources and good name of his congregation—O’Neal the defendant faces a significantly more formidable legal foe: The Vatican.

Pope Benedict XVI, acting through the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops,  has filed a $1 million law suit against Pastor O’Neal for defaming the Pontiff, the papacy as an institution, and the Roman Catholic Church as an ecclesiastical organization, in comments he made to his congregation in a series of sermons preached at Beaverton Grace Bible Church in April, 2005, following the death of Pope John Paul II.   Particularly damning (no pun intended) were comments O’Neal made in an e-mail to a group of pastors, elders and layman just prior to these sermons: 

You don't want to miss this one.

Tithe or You're Dead

Though evangelicals generally eschew the euphemistic notion of a departed believer “spinning in his grave,” it’s hard not to imagine the posthumous subterranean pirouettes currently being executed by one Adrian Pierce Rogers, who went to his reward in 2005.  The twice-elected president of the Southern Baptist convention, known to most American evangelicals through his TV and radio ministries, served as senior pastor of Bellevue Baptist Church in suburban Memphis, Tennessee, for more than three decades.   And while he was no stranger to theological controversy, Pastor Rogers has been spectacularly eclipsed in that department by his successor, 54-year-old Steve Gaines, whose latest pronouncement on Christian giving has raised a few eyebrows—though apparently, not nearly enough.

Pastor Steve Gaines of Bellevue Baptist Church
may need to call another press conference to explain
why his parishioners have been dropping dead

During Bellevue’s annual “Prove the Tithe Sunday” service, Pastor Gaines preached from Acts 5, a text containing one of the most dramatic incidents of the New Testament church: the judgment and sudden deaths of Ananias and Sapphira.  In a feat of eisegesis worthy of the Trinity Broadcasting Network, however, Steve Gaines, who holds a Ph.D. from Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, declared this passage to be about tithing:

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The Steam Tunnel announces...

Mayday, Mayday.

Dark Shadows Vampire Based on Joseph Prince

Cue Theme Music.  Cue Host.

HOST:   And welcome back for the third hour of Radio Free T4G, where we are blogging and podcasting, live, direct from the Kentucky Fried Chicken Center in Louisville, Kentucky.  It doesn’t get any better than this!

(music fades).  I am your humble host—so humble, in fact, that I don’t get invited to any of the big conferences, but don’t get me started—wouldn’t want to sound like a conspiracy theorist or anything, would I?   Okay, let’s take our first call.  Hello, you’re on Radio Free T4G.

CALLER:   Hi!  Am I on?

HOST:   Yes, you’re on Radio Free T4G.  Who’s this? 

CALLER:   This is Marilee.

HOST:   Hey, Marilee—what’s up?

CALLER:    I’ll tell you what’s up: Those GoAnimate^® videos are brilliant!  Just brilliant!

Federal Vision

was all a Big Joke!

 “It just got out of hand,” says Douglas Wilson

One of the most vigorous in-house controversies within the Reformed theological tradition has taken a bizarre turn.  Pastor Douglas Wilson of Christ Church in Moscow, Idaho, one of the forefathers (and we do mean fathers) of the Federal Vision, has revealed that it was all an elaborate prank, one which got seriously out of hand over the past decade. Rev. Wilson graciously agreed to an interview with Sergius Martin-George, the Steam Tunnel’s Editor in Charge of Editing Operations, via Skype™, from his home in Moscow, Idaho.

SERGIUS MARTIN-GEORGE: Douglas Wilson, thank you for joining us at The Steam Tunnel.

DOUG WILSON:  Serge, it’s my pleasure.  I really enjoy your blog.

SMG:  Really?  Because that’s high praise coming from someone who has written a book on satire.

DW: Well, you guys have done some really funny stuff.  Loved the pieces on Rick Warren, by the way. 

When Harold Camping made his statement of repentance earlier this year and promised that he would make no more end-of-days predictions, a little voice told me this was going to be big.   It was my wife, Jasmine’s.  “Woody,” she said, “This is going to be big.  You just watch—You’ll see.”

Jasmine was right.  It may be pure coincidence, but it seems to the untrained observer that Camping’s actions have occasioned a “season of repentance” in contemporary evangelicalism.  The statements have come one after the other in rapid succession; some of us can hardly believe their content—let alone who has been making them.  Here’s the story:

 Have you checked your Facebook page today? Chances are you’ve been “Timelined.”  The space for that cute little profile picture has now been expanded to a huge headline-sized swath of your Facebook home page profile.  In newspaper terms, it’s almost half of what’s “above the fold.”  What might seem a mild inconvenience to some technophobes (many dragged kicking and screaming into using Facebook in the first place) may be, according to some prophecy experts, the first step in the not-so-long march toward the Apocalypse.

A Very Bad Prank

Pennsylvania Youth Pastor Alarms Congregation with “Unconscionable Stunt”
 by BLAKE ADAMS
Like many Evangelical youth pastors, Paul Craw thought his young charges needed a little shaking up.  So at a recent mid-week service at The Runway Christian Center in Hershey, Pennsylvania, the 27-year-old minister tried something a little off the beaten path.  But instead of shaking things up, he ended up with a group of hysterical teenagers.  And irate parents.

“He should be fired immediately,” said Tara Spivak of nearby Hummelstown, whose daughter, Justa, 15, has been attending Runway’s Youth Group for the past three years.   “How could he even think that something like this would be okay?”

Pat Robertson Breaks His Silence

by  Leo Sánchez  

Televangelist Pat Robertson has been in overdrive of late.  A generous cluster of verbal gaffes has been keeping late-night comedians and the Huffington Post richly equipped with fodder for mockery and social commentary for some time now. From God’s judgment of the Denver Broncos by re-injuring newly-acquired quarterback Peyton Manning, to oral sex and legalizing marijuana, the hits just keep coming.

It now transpires that Robertson’s verbal effluvium is actually much more prolific and robust than was previously known. A CBN employee, speaking off the record, revealed that a recently-implemented production policy has actually prevented a number of Robertson’s colorful mispronouncements from reaching the public.  That’s right—there’s even more.  Much more.