I received this email from a concerned outside observer. I thought I'd post it, and invite your responses - as insiders:
Diane
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There's something I've been wondering about, and I may have talked to you about it before. I watched a couple episodes of Jimmy Swaggart, and I looked up his type of "ministry" on the internet. I just can't understand why "the church" says nothing about him and his minions. I mean, the bible says that christians have no business bugging non christians about what they do, but that they have a responsibility to do something if someone who claims to be a christian does something un-Christlike. Why aren't people speaking out? Why doesn't anyone say, "the bible says that we are to be stewards of the earth, not that we have a right to use it and abuse it until there is nothing left of it. The bible says that even bad people can perform miracles. The bible says that God is love, and anyone who preaches a message of hate is not of God."
I just think that the respectable part of the church (if there is any left) ought to educate people so that even poor and desperate people can easily find out that speaking in tongues does not mean babbling incoherrently, it means that even when you speak in your own language, people who don't speak your language can still understand you (I'm talking about Jimmy Swaggart's son, who told his congregation that if they came up to the front to be touched by the "spirit," they would start speaking in tongues, and "proved" it by babbling some nonsense syllables). I don't know if it would help to name names, but I'm sure that firmly repeating the actual message of the bible could help a lot of desperate people. And the huge number of people who think that if they help armageddon come, by killing lots of people, then they will be whisked away to heaven - do they have to slaughter half the planet before anyone speaks up and tells them that they're full of baloney and need to actually read the bible? I know that there isn't worldwide consensus about the meanings of every little bit of the bible, but surely anyone who pays attentions can see that to pillage the earth and slaughter its inhabitants species by species, race by race, is not the work of God. The muslims are getting their message out every day, that the actions of many people claiming to be muslim are against the koran (among other things, the koran is even more clear than the bible in saying that women are to be respected and treated with honour, and that they are to be educated just like the men). So why don't I hear christians preaching God's word instead of money and the glory of being on television?
Are there people speaking out about this? Why aren't they on the news? Is everyone too busy praying to look outside their windows? Do they think that these televangelist abominations will increase the number of christians and it doesn't matter if those christians think it's perfectly reasonable to kill someone for having a different belief? Do they really think that they won't be held accountable for their silence? Why don't I hear people on tv every week talking about what the bible actually says?
