Religious Sleight of Hand Tricks | Eastern NC Now

    From the early times of the Christian faith there have been charlatans. Simon the Magician is the first cited in the New Testament. He knew the art of magic and turned it toward people seeking Christ. The Disciples were mad and wanted Jesus to call down lightning to destroy him. They got a surprise when Jesus refused, but said (instead), "God can use even Satan to accomplish his purposes!"

    Before Jesus were the Pharisees and Priests getting rich off religious entertainment. Their best money-makers were Tithes and Temple Money. Bringing your "first fruits of the crop in the amount of 10%" was God's command. "Bring all the tithes into the Temple" was the simple command written in the Old Testament. Someone had to supervise the giving so the Priests were glad to do so! The Altar Table was the place to put them so, again, the Priests were glad to take it each evening to the back where they lived

    and dine like Royalty! They were pleasingly plump / well clothes from the best cloth brought in / telling the people if it were good enough of not. Meanwhile the people perished from hunger and not enough clothes to keep warm in the cold of a desert night in the Holy Land.

    Temple Money was their best idea. They decreed through the Pharisees that street money was not pure enough to come into the Holy of Holies inside. They started setting up tables on the front porch of the Temple so people could exchange---"for a small fee"---their street money for the "pure stuff." In addition, you could now use your new Temple Money to buy a dove or other sacrifice to enter the Temple and kill it at the Altar. Priests enjoyed that fresh meat in a day of no refrigeration and the only preservation was massive amounts of salt!

    Jesus made his pilgrimage to Jerusalem --- as good Jews did --- for the special time of Passover. After his triumphal entrance on the back of a donkey he came to the Temple and got "madder than Hell!" He took a whip and went after those charlatans of religion making money hand over fist. He beat the Hell out of them and scattered their animals and money all over the place. His words were, "You have turned my Father's House into a den of thieves!"

    That was the second they seriously plotted to put him on a cross with Roman soldiers and Pontius Pilot attending to the "justice" for a rebel raising Cain with a cane. Jesus was doing more than making trouble; he was interfering with the process of getting rich off fear and criticism. They knew that if they kept the Jews feeling guilty, they would have to keep coming back with more gifts to buy God's favor.

    They killed him in pain and agony of the greatest kind for their day. In our day the electric chair has been put aside as "cruel and unusual punishment." Some demented executioners have omitted the hair shaving and salt solution to really make a criminal suffer with cooking like a wiener on a stick instead of a heart-stopping serious jolt throughout his body and brain to send him to Eternity --- and scramble the brains which both work off small electrical discharges. In their world of "get even" it was better to fry a criminal slowly with much screaming and squiggling!

    Torture is nothing new to evil men. We used it at Abu Garib and Guantanamo on Middle Eastern fighters we captured and flew to the black holes where no news cameras could see. We all know the report from Congress which clearly cited our cruel and unusual ways which are totally against the Geneva Accords signed by us before WWII was ended. It made it a crime punishable by death to torture prisoners of war.

    What would Jesus say to the Southern Baptist Convention's new Pharisee leaders?

    Paraphrase of Matthew 23:1-36

    The Pattersonites and Presslerites control the SBC so practice and observe whatever they tell you, but not what they do; for they preach, but do not practice. They make many rules and narrow theologies, hard to bear, and lay them on men's shoulders; but they themselves will not live personal lives under them.

    They do all their deeds to be seen by men; for they make their designer ties bright and their expensive tailored suits sharp, and they love the place of honor at all Pastor's Conferences. They love being recognized and called "Dr." by their subservient masses. But you are all the same as Baptists: you have one master, Jesus, and one Father who is God in heaven. Neither be called President or Vice-President, for you have one master, the Christ... But woe to you, dictators to Baptists, hypocrites! Because you shut the kingdom of heaven against men; for you neither enter yourselves, nor allow those who follow you to go in.

    You go on glorious and expensive overseas mission trips to make a single proselyte and then corrupt him. You make all kinds of Resolutions and use Robert's Rules of Order in any way to get your way. You don't care what promises you make or public statements as long as you sound politically correct. Your sermons are slick and designed to please men. You neglect the Gospels and the ideas of God's love and forgiveness, replacing them with legalisms and judgmentalism to make sinful men feel worse.

    You blind guides, straining at a gnat and swallowing a camel! Woe to you dictator pastors! You are like dishes and cups cleaned only on the outside while the inside is full of rotting food and disease. First cleanse the inside and the outside will clean itself. You take statements out of context from Baptist forefathers and act as if they applaud your mindless theology. You say you would love what the forefathers died for, but you take away the freedoms for which they would give their life. They went to jail and endured punishment so we could live in a land of freedom of religion and conscience. You would have been in the mobs which booed them and threw them in prison. You would have shot them rather than listen to their cries for freedom of individual churches and believers.

    Many Baptists are saying we have deserted our heritage of freedom in recent years, but you call them "skunks" and "liberals" to anyone who doesn't know what being free and Baptist means. The hottest fires of Hell wait for those who do not live in love and allow their brothers in the faith to be free. Anyone who claims to serve a God of love, but cannot love his brother, who is different or uses different words, is a liar and a hypocrite destined for God's harshest judgment. - Rev. Gene Scarborough,     Pastor, Turkey Branch Baptist Church