I was leaving work a couple weeks ago and noticed something stuck under my windshield wipers. Upon further investigation, the thing on my windshield was a few tracts written by cult leader pastor Tony Alamo. And it wasn’t just my windshield – every car in site had tracts under their windshield wipers. Two of the tracts actually weren’t bad. They basically explained the way of salvation and challenged the reader to accept Christ, quit sinning and share the gospel with others. Nothing to complain about there. But the third tract…… well, that one was a bit different. Everything from accusing the Catholic church of Satanism to calling Barack Obama the anti-Christ. So I decided to dig for a little more info on Pastor Alamo. Here’s some info taken directly from his Wikipedia page:
Tony Alamo (born Bernie Lazar Hoffman; September 20, 1934) is an American cult leader and convicted child sex offender. He and his late wife Susan are best known as the founders of an organization currently known as Tony Alamo Christian Ministries. The organization is based in and around Fouke and Alma, Arkansas, United States, and has been referred to as a cult. On July 24, 2009, Alamo was convicted on 10 counts of interstate transportation of minors for illegal sexual purposes, rape, sexual assault, and contributing to the delinquency of minors. On July 28, 2009, shortly after his conviction, Tony Alamo again made headlines by calling himself “just another one of the prophets that went to jail for the Gospel”. On November 13, 2009, he was sentenced to the maximum punishment of 175 years in prison.
A prophet going to jail for the Gospel?
More like a man who has spent decades perverting the Gospel going to jail for being a pervert.
Now, this isn’t Alamo’s first run-in with the law – he has also served two prison terms for tax evasion. But here’s the deal: if you’ve been reading this blog for awhile, you’ve probably noticed recurring themes of love, forgiveness, second chances, etc. I even have a link in the sidebar to a ministry called People of the Second Chance and I’ve got one of their stickers on my MacBook to remind me to think before I type. So I believe the church should forgive Tony Alamo; for perverting the Gospel, for giving Jesus a bad name, for giving the church a bad name and yes, for his sexual immorality.
But a second chance?
You can’t give someone a second chance if they won’t acknowledge their sins.
And according to his own statements and writings, Tony Alamo is sinless, spotless, clean. A prophet of God falsely convicted of sexual perversion by a government which is being controlled by Satan himself.
Which brings me to Peter Popoff.
If you’re unaware of Reverend Popoff, you’ve probably never had insomnia, because his infomercials broadcasts run almost exclusively between the hours of midnight and 6:00 am and feature clips of him “healing” and praying for people at various crusades, as well as testimonials from followers at those crusades, interspersed with segments of Popoff and his wife Elizabeth in a studio inviting you to call and request whatever gift he’s schilling at the time. Currently, the gift is a bottle of miracle spring water and anointed faith tool. Now, to be fair, the gift is free. But once you receive it, in order for the miracle to work, you need to follow Popoff’s instructions to the letter. And of course, those instructions include sending Popoff’s ministry a donation.
Much like Tony Alamo, Peter Popoff has had issues with people exposing slandering him in the past. During the 1970′s Popoff rose to fame by “miraculously” naming people’s specific illnesses and home addresses during crusades. Beginning in 1983 though, several people began to expose Popoff’s techniques, none of which were supernatural. The most well known exposure came in 1986 when skeptics James Randi and Steve Shaw were guests on The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson. Following his Tonight Show exposure, donations stopped coming in almost instantly and the following year Popoff declared bankruptcy. Yet, he didn’t go away forever; nor did he change his ways. Just a decade later Popoff was purchasing timeslots on BET and by 2006 could be seen late at night on several networks. During 2006 and 2007 I worked a graveyard shift at a hospital and there were many nights where I would flip through the TV channels and hit Popoff on nearly a dozen channels. But he hasn’t stopped at merely “healing” people. Now Popoff is claiming that by calling and requesting the miracle spring water and anointed faith tool you can have your debts miraculously resolved.
Because, you know, God is going to instantaneously pay your debts for the credit card you maxed out when buying the HDTV you just had to have, and the PS3 you needed to go with said HDTV, and eating out all week instead of cooking at home, etc.
But wait! He has proof in the Bible that God wants to cancel your debt!
You want to know what Deuteronomy 15 says? Here it is:
At the end of every seven years you shall grant a release. And this is the manner of the release: every creditor shall release what he has lent to his neighbor. He shall not exact it of his neighbor, his brother, because the Lord’s release has been proclaimed. Of a foreigner you may exact it, but whatever of yours is with your brother your hand shall release. But there will be no poor among you; for the Lord will bless you in the land that the Lord your God is giving you for an inheritance to possess– if only you will strictly obey the voice of the Lord your God, being careful to do all this commandment that I command you today. For the Lord your God will bless you, as he promised you, and you shall lend to many nations, but you shall not borrow, and you shall rule over many nations, but they shall not rule over you.
If among you, one of your brothers should become poor, in any of your towns within your land that the Lord your God is giving you, you shall not harden your heart or shut your hand against your poor brother, but you shall open your hand to him and lend him sufficient for his need, whatever it may be. Take care lest there be an unworthy thought in your heart and you say, The seventh year, the year of release is near, and your eye look grudgingly on your poor brother, and you give him nothing, and he cry to the Lord against you, and you be guilty of sin. You shall give to him freely, and your heart shall not be grudging when you give to him, because for this the Lord your God will bless you in all your work and in all that you undertake. For there will never cease to be poor in the land. Therefore I command you, You shall open wide your hand to your brother, to the needy and to the poor, in your land.
If your brother, a Hebrew man or a Hebrew woman, is sold to you, he shall serve you six years, and in the seventh year you shall let him go free from you. And when you let him go free from you, you shall not let him go empty-handed. You shall furnish him liberally out of your flock, out of your threshing floor, and out of your winepress. As the Lord your God has blessed you, you shall give to him. You shall remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt, and the Lord your God redeemed you; therefore I command you this today. But if he says to you, I will not go out from you, because he loves you and your household, since he is well-off with you, then you shall take an awl, and put it through his ear into the door, and he shall be your slave forever. And to your female slave you shall do the same. It shall not seem hard to you when you let him go free from you, for at half the cost of a hired servant he has served you six years. So the Lord your God will bless you in all that you do.
All the firstborn males that are born of your herd and flock you shall dedicate to the Lord your God. You shall do no work with the firstborn of your herd, nor shear the firstborn of your flock. You shall eat it, you and your household, before the Lord your God year by year at the place that the Lord will choose. But if it has any blemish, if it is lame or blind or has any serious blemish whatever, you shall not sacrifice it to the Lord your God. You shall eat it within your towns. The unclean and the clean alike may eat it, as though it were a gazelle or a deer. Only you shall not eat its blood; you shall pour it out on the ground like water.
In case you haven’t figured it out, those are the laws concerning debt and slavery that Moses gave to the Hebrews/Jews/Israelites. Last time I checked, creditors and debt collectors don’t abide by the law of Moses.
What’s even sadder is everything that I’ve written is fairly easy to find online, and I’m talking about credible websites. But it’s easier to hope that God will miraculously rescue us from debt we’ve brought upon ourselves, rather than take a Biblical approach and work for it. It reminds me of the scene in Jurassic Park where Ian is ranting and says:
I’ll tell you the problem with the scientific power that you’re using here: it didn’t require any discipline to attain it. You read what others had done and you took the next step. You didn’t earn the knowledge for yourselves, so you don’t take any responsibility… for it. You stood on the shoulders of geniuses to accomplish something as fast as you could and before you even knew what you had you patented it and packaged it and slapped it on a plastic lunchbox, and now you’re selling it!
Think about it – when is the last time you actually heard someone say they wanted to work for thirty or forty years, slowly building a fortune, retire and then spend the last decade or two of their life attempting to enjoy it?
Never!
But you do hear people talking about what they’ll do when they when the lottery or hit it big at a casino or become a rock star (even though they can’t sing, write or play an instrument). I’ve even heard it from wannabe church planters – guys who sit around and talk about how cool it’ll be when they’re pastoring the next Mars Hill or North Point, yet they can’t even amass enough followers to hold a Bible study! People who want instant gratification; no work, no blood, sweat and tears, just the end results.
Okay, rant over.
But seriously…… why do people like Tony Alamo and Peter Popoff have followers? Are that many people (thousands, possibly millions) just that dumb?
