Miraculous or Scandalous?
(Pimping Jesus To The Physically Ill)
Letter to the Ojai Valley News Editor March 2007 By William Roberts
It’s hard to understand why those who claim to respect Lord Jesus Christ would want to degrade his divine message into a poorly managed bad carnival side-show act, but that’s exactly what happened every night last week at the “New Wine Harvest Fellowship Church.” Promoted as the “Miracle Explosion In Ojai,” the crippled, blind, deaf, chronically sick, and even skeptical non-believers were promised that the charismatic “Apostle Charles Ndifon from Nigeria” would command God to instantly heal anyone who agreed to show up!
Yup; Emerged in the nonstop droning of synthesized piano and a Hallelujah wail, Charlie would snap his wrist, bellow incomprehensible explosive utterances, and then; Abracadabra! Crutches were tossed aside and the lame danced like Fred Astair! Albeit only in the eyes of the bewildered, because what the attentive saw was a criminal like abuse of the weak who yearned to believe in their own healing but continued to teeter non-the-less!
Most Americans are terrified of zealous Muslims who believe suicide missions to kill infidels will be rewarded with virgins to defile when they get to Mohammed’s big tent in the sky. Yet an alarming percentage of Ojai residents accept this shameless perversion of Christian theology with equally blind fanaticism! Instead of humbly respecting Gods independent freedom to extend His grace as He pleases, when He pleases; Charlie strutted the stage snapping his fingers demanding God heal when and where Charlie commanded! (All In the name of Jesus of course!)
When did Jesus get relegated to a warehouse clerk accountable for supplying whatever gross material desire one orders him to deliver?
If the anointed Reverend could actually heal the sick, then he should take his incoherent mantras into the Hospitals and teach his craft to the doctors. Those who really love God already have access to His grace without all of Charlie’s fanfare.
Educated people don’t appreciate such a pitiable mix of bad magic and good hypnosis, especially when it is accompanied by a well choreographed team of “Miracle” workers that include individuals who done “Super-Man” tee shirts and knee-high, vanilla flavored, vinyl, stiletto heeled boots that would make Nancy Sinatra envious!
Am I the only one alarmed by such an embarrassing charade of religious entitlement? Despite how difficult it might be for the infirm to get out of bed and down to the local Hallelujah revival, the alleged reward was so alluring that the church was packed with the desperate hoping God would glance kindly upon them and issue a no-strings-attached free medical miracle on their behalf! Fair enough. But after Satan “…smote Job with sore boils from the sole of his foot unto his crown.” (Job 2,7) this exemplary devotee of God proclaimed: “Though he slay me, yet will I trust in him;” (Job13, 15)
So what does all this shameless fraud say about the integrity of the ministers who promote, endorse or tacitly stand by as Christ’s elegant message to “Love God with all thy heart and all they soul” (Deut. 6.5) gets degraded into a self-serving, sleazy “Lay-it-on-me-Jesus” vaudeville act?
Such unabashed public displays of twisted faith demonstrate a serious lacking of sound theology and not only accelerate the growing crisis in Christianity, but it also reflects scandalously on all other God centered faiths. Those who have even a grain of genuine God consciousness aren’t compelled to petition Him for anything because they are confident that God is always in charge and never needs to be told what to do. Despite the monumental trials Job suffered, his faith never wavered because he knew the Supreme Lord always bestows upon His devotee exactly what he needs, regardless of how it might appear from our extremely tinged, pithy, and conditional point of view.
So on behalf of all of those who don’t wish to see God’s pure son bastardized into the spokesperson for a spiritual Wal-Mart, I humbly request that Reverend Charles Ndifon please thoroughly read and study the Biblical story of Job before he performs his next “Miracle Healing Act.” Hopefully that penance will awaken him enough to respect God like Job did and stop promoting his own misguided voodoo interpretation of God’s mercy at the expense of those who are ill.
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William Roberts is an ordained Brahman priest under the tutelage of HDG A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami. He is the director of the American Vedic Association, which sponsors the free Bhagavad Gita Fellowship on the first and third Tuesday of every month. For more information call: (805) 640-0405.