Are shepherds necessarily representative of their flock?
Is the flock responsible for the behavior of their shepherd?
I’ll come back to that in a bit.
You know how it’s all but irresistible to observe human misery?
Sure you do.
You might be a perfectly nice person and not all deserving of such an accusation. You might be the nicest person in the room, or maybe the nicest person you know. You might even be as nice as me, but for some reason there’s a part of your instinct that forces you to stare at car crashes, tune into CNN’s political and environmetal catastrophe and suspenseful talk show DNA/DAD test unveilings, and watch those first few episodes at the start of American Idol.
Human misery is the best term I can think of to describe the stimulant of uniquely guilty indulgence I get from spending at least a few minutes every Sunday checking in on some of my favorite crusaders. Sunday Morning Tele-Evangelism is proof not only of the existence of God, but that he does indeed have a similarly sadistic sense of humor.
I can’t get enough of these Televised Evangelists. Regardless of their message, the medium they present, in their bizarrely contradictory manner, affirming the ideals of humility and chastity, ensconced in golden robes and decadent splendor, I find divinely and remarkably sin-sational... for lack of a better testament.
There’s an undeniable thread of salesmanship that binds these beckoning beacons to the padded crosses to which they aspire. They use salesmanship to supplement a lack of their genuine charm, with something slightly more artificial. They use salesmanship convey a new dimension, a new deal now available in an older promise. Often the new promise implies conditions that they are not qualified to offer. They use salesmanship because inherent to the process of professing in their medium, faith is a performance. I use the word salesmanship because it seems inescapable to me that book-marked somewhere in their bibles is the need to convince their subjects of something, that their flock is at some level unfaithful. Though strangely enough, in my opinion a flock certainly should not need to be sold.
I don’t want to mention names, and fall before a pulpit of topical accusation, so I’ll keep my accounts conveniently untraceable and unaccountable. These are sins of a breed that crosses crucifixes and herds sheep of all denominations. It’s not the message that troubles me; it’s the vacuous vessel that more than moderately needs a new dogma.
For those of you that might think that I’m the only one checking in on these pied pipers, stay tuned for the shots of the audience. They come in droves. The devoted fill monster stadiums around the world, and tune in every week to see these performers, these beaming, larger than life, and larger than scripture, bringers of the word, of… a healthy Sunday morning Goddening.
I designed that word deliberately to sound like bludgeoning.
So where falls the blame: The preacher or the choir? The pied piper or the mice that follow? The dictator or the public that surrenders their freedom? The liar or the sucker that believes them? I realize I’m painting an argument in this manner with a broad biased brush, so to reiterate: My focus remains on those ever so sparse instances in our history and on today’s world stage/altar when the influence of the faithful is exploited… and when those faithful allow their faith to fall under another’s advantage. In a situation of persuasion, salesmanship intruding on faith, and leaders using faithful ideals to influence political direction, it’s about more than who’s wearing the wool and whom the wolf’s clothing.
Sadly, we live in a world of unclean conclusions. Accountability in this case tends to fall on the wall. The wall tends to be an integral part of the problem.
Anyone can argue that without the droves of the faithful, the salesmen would have no one to exalt to, no one to swindle, and nothing for me to rant about. The counterpoint, which I tend to prefer, forgives the hypnotized for falling susceptible. The onus in my world of rational acceptable moral standing blames snake oil sales on the purveyor, not so much in the hypochondriac rubes. If they never rolled into town under banners and bombast, offering answers to questions that weren’t asked, then no one would ever be left that all too common feeling of under-whelming results.
In the end people can choose spend their money on whatever magic beans they find valuable, and hook their wagon to whichever horse best suits their chariot. So long as they are hurting no one, I say praise away sister, hallelujah and amen to all men. And if you want to invest your faith in a leader that I wouldn’t buy a used car from, your business is just that.
The real problem for me involves when these guys point their finger, and use their often sizable influence, justified by a source that is often interpreted to their will and service, and involves a target that I humbly submit is often beyond their reach and thus none of their God-damned(pardon me, but somehow fitting) business to condemn.
This is when they wield their real power, and like any corrupting power in the world…
There is an old adage, that seems in a way to be more antiquated by the day, that enforces a separation of church and state. That notion should extend and evolve, to separation of church and… everything. Not that I see faith of any form as negative and in need of segregation, but involving every single other form of decision that represents people not invited to the meeting, religion should be held at the door. Government represents us as a community and a majority, as equals, but religion is and should be an individual experience, speaking to our personal journeys, and not covering us like a blanket.
I can’t imagine any responsible leader, counsel or guide that would claim that a religious experience or personal ethos of one of his flock should precisely the same in every detail as the follower sitting in the next pew. How then, can the same responsible leader assume that connecting religion to the state, to the majority, to a defined worldview, and away from an individual experience can be in the interest of faith?
It makes no sense for a leader to broaden and dull his flock’s direction, unless that leader seeks more flock – and more power.
It seems to be the doctrine of the day to choose an outrage. Regardless of the voice, this media altar on which we all kneel, voices from one corner of the ring, must oppose another, and implies a host of other attributes and beliefs that don’t necessarily apply. Example: I’m in favor of a certain kind of car, have a negative opinion of a certain military engagement oversees, have accepted a certain theory on the origin of our species, and am a fan of a certain TV show, thus my opinion must be divinetly _______, on the issue of abortion.
There are very few pluses in living with so many thuses. A thus about my beliefs, drawn from my faith, which you’ll never know, my ethnicity, which you’ll never guess, or how I spend my spare time is simply a fallacy. I just hate to think that these stadiums of people, doing what is essentially a very positive thing, being lead into a fallacy that follows a thus, thus probably negating the real value of the affirmation they seek.
It’s clear to me that the standard Televised Evangelista has interests that they must protect. They are running a business. They have an employer and likely stockholders, perfectly mortal failings, and not to mention followers who can only better be served by these teachings when the teacher’s resources and tentacles reach emperor-like proportions. Who can blame them for bringing their best guns to the show? If I had a congregation three times the size of my hometown to sermonize you can bet that my followers would not be left wanting for a quenched sense of purpose. They would know that they could all be crusaders like me, so long as they agree with me on what evil to defeat.
To the modern-day icons of faith and purpose: By all means, spread the word, feed the faithful. But for the love of… well, of God… don’t spend your Sunday selling your wares to the people who trust you. After all, wasn’t Sunday meant for rest?
Eh, man.
