I got an email today telling me there are six Russian women who want me to be their prince and marry them.
So many possibilities here. I think I’ll pass on all of them.
This morning’s plumbing job went smoothly if you don’t count the trip to two different plumbing supply firms to get the proper Price Pfitzer cassette. The unit I took out - from a kitchen sink - literally crumbled in my hand.
This afternoon's job went even better. I had an extra toilet handle out in the garage, the leaking line to the fridge ice maker just needed some teflon tape, and the kitchen faucet was fine (just cheap). They say every plumbing job requires at least three trips to the store, but after this afternoon I'm afraid for the next one. It should take six.
N.B. The plastic nut on the inside of the toilet tank that holds the handle in place has reverse threads. So if you every try to remove one be aware that it turns the opposite of what you expect. (That's a freebie from the handyman.)
The Consumer Product Safety Commission today ordered the recall of 50 million blinds currently in American homes because the cords that raise and lower the blinds can pose a strangulation hazard for young children. Eight cases have been documented where kids in a crib next to a window were strangled by these cords.
Earth to Parents: move the crib away from the window. Did you actually think it was a good idea to have your child standing up in a crib right next to blinds of any kind?
The water in toilet bowls and tanks poses a drowning risk for young children. Remove them from your home immediately. (Note: as with the aforementioned blinds, whether you actually have young children in your home is irrelevant.)
Oh yeah. About those chairs that can tip over if a kid leans too far back...
Tonight's big news story: Oral Roberts died at the age of 91. He can fairly be considered the father of televangelism. He started out in the days of three networks and B&W TV, going on the air in 1955 with his healing services.
Oral Roberts was not the father of charlatan religion, but with his TV ministry he took it to new levels. The news reports aren't going there, but he was a fake and a crook. He used deceit and manipulation to build a following and to get people to send him money many of them couldn't afford to be without.
In 1979 Jerry Sholes wrote "Give Me That Prime Time Religion" about the television ministry of Oral Roberts. I stumbled across the book shortly after its publication and was amazed at what I read. Sholes knew what he was writing about because for many years he served as the producer of Robert's "Hour of Power", the slick TV show taped at Oral Roberts University at the height of Oral's career. But the deceit of that "ministry" got to be too much for Sholes and he resigned.
If you're of a certain age you will remember that Robert's theme song, the song which opened each program, was, "Something Good Is Going to Happen to You!" The last line of that song is, "Jesus of Nazareth is coming, coming to you." Sholes writes that he sat in a production meeting when Roberts insisted the singing of that line be the point at which as he came on stage.
Robert's office had an area two steps higher than the rest of the office where his desk sat. Anyone entering Oral Roberts' office to talk with him sat in a chair and looked up at Oral. The mail room was a processing center where people quickly opened envelopes and removed checks, discarding unread the letters, many with pleas for prayer from Roberts.
Remember the prayer cloths, each of which Roberts had prayed over individually? Bogus.
Healing services? Carefully manipulated productions. Undercover staff members wandered in the lobby before the service asking people why they came. This information was then fed to Roberts so he could "miraculously" identify specific people in the audience and their particular illness or problem.
I don't know where Oral Roberts is tonight. But I know that his place here has been taken by others just as unscrupulous and dishonest. Many of them are nationally known and on TV. Their motive remains the same...money (1 Tim. 6:3-5). They pervert Scripture for the purposes of telling people what they want to hear. Their obscene lifestyles are a testament to their true values. And in some cases they are media darlings. (They share with the media the financial motive.) If you want to know who they are you can get a pretty good start on identifying them by looking for their picture on the front of the books they've written, the DVD series they sell and the promotional material they produce. If your mind can call up their image it's a pretty good bet they're not in it for the service to Christ.
Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr., son of the writer and Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court, once said that if he wanted to make a lot of money and had no scruples about how he did it he would start a religion. Oral Roberts and his ilk saved time and effort by using one that already existed.
2 comments:
The reports say that Oral Roberts had fallen a few weeks ago and broke some bones and then contracted pneumonia. Cause of death, however, was falling off a chair while trying to reah up to put his hands on the elevated hospital television. Guess he really believed that "put your hands on the TV while I pray" stuff he told folks in his broadcast.
My cousin wrote this to another cousin on Facebook today: "Oral was an amazing man... My mentor... A true visionary who finished his course... He will live on in the lives of the Alumni and partners. We will greatly miss him."
Interesting that this cousin's mom, my dad's sister, died a pauper because she gave all her money to Oral Roberts's "ministry." She believed all that "seed faith" c**p. Yet my cousin continued to "buy into" it.
I concur with your assessment.
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