This story really turns my stomach. Even more, I'm stunned at the places that are immediately urging for forgiveness and healing... how about starting with getting all the truth out?
What is at least as disturbing as the story itself is some of the responses of the christian community that I have read. Because many Christians have found the song so personally meaningful and powerful they seem to be giving a pass on this guy by emphasizing grace with little call for restitution. Have we checked our brains at the door? He made a lot of money with this song. I think an appropriate act of restitution might be for the guy to donate the money he made from the song to cancer research
My take is even more blunt. The guy is a fraud and it calls into question the entirety of whatever it is he's been selling to his followers (and that includes the global audience.)
Of course he's going to get a free pass from some of those who've supported him because they're not ready to acknowledge the full extent of the deception they've fallen prey to, but come on. I've never heard of this guy (fell out of the Hillsongs orbit quite a few years ago!) but I guess this is one of those necessary "cold slap of reality" moments for some of his more naive acolytes... been there done that myself and I know it's painful but probably all for the best in the long run. Young people need to recognize that this melodramatic exploitative style of spirituality is fraught with peril. Michael Guglielmucci joins Ted Haggard, Jim Bakker, Oral Roberts, Jimmy Swaggart and many others in the rogues gallery of Christianist shysters of recent decades.
I just heard about the FL revivals last week from a friend who feels that finally we are seeing a "genuine" outpouring. Good grief. When will we ever see how immersed each of these so-called revivals are in the cult of personality?
r Michael, I love your idea for the singer (whose name already escapes me). Donate profits to cancer research. Amen! What bothered me most is that he has made So Much Money off this song and it was fraudulent. How could his family not know he was lying about cancer? Don't they "go to the doctor's" with him, see medical bills, get prescriptions filled?
If he didn't make a dime then I really don't get it...if it was money he was after then, as twisted and wrong as it is, I understand...but if he really didn't make any money then what was the motivation? to bring glory to God by deceit?
7 comments:
Isn't there some kind of mental illness that involves pretending you are terminally ill, even lying to family and friends?
That's what it sounds like to me.
What an awful story.
What is at least as disturbing as the story itself is some of the responses of the christian community that I have read. Because many Christians have found the song so personally meaningful and powerful they seem to be giving a pass on this guy by emphasizing grace with little call for restitution. Have we checked our brains at the door? He made a lot of money with this song. I think an appropriate act of restitution might be for the guy to donate the money he made from the song to cancer research
My take is even more blunt. The guy is a fraud and it calls into question the entirety of whatever it is he's been selling to his followers (and that includes the global audience.)
Of course he's going to get a free pass from some of those who've supported him because they're not ready to acknowledge the full extent of the deception they've fallen prey to, but come on. I've never heard of this guy (fell out of the Hillsongs orbit quite a few years ago!) but I guess this is one of those necessary "cold slap of reality" moments for some of his more naive acolytes... been there done that myself and I know it's painful but probably all for the best in the long run. Young people need to recognize that this melodramatic exploitative style of spirituality is fraught with peril. Michael Guglielmucci joins Ted Haggard, Jim Bakker, Oral Roberts, Jimmy Swaggart and many others in the rogues gallery of Christianist shysters of recent decades.
And while we're at it, here's another sad-but-true fiasco from the revivalist fringes... this one from down in Florida.
http://tinyurl.com/6adsch
His "Fresh Fire" website offers another generous helping of sanctimony if you can stand it.
http://www.freshfire.ca/
I just heard about the FL revivals last week from a friend who feels that finally we are seeing a "genuine" outpouring. Good grief. When will we ever see how immersed each of these so-called revivals are in the cult of personality?
r Michael, I love your idea for the singer (whose name already escapes me). Donate profits to cancer research. Amen! What bothered me most is that he has made So Much Money off this song and it was fraudulent. How could his family not know he was lying about cancer? Don't they "go to the doctor's" with him, see medical bills, get prescriptions filled?
What a lot of hooey.
He didn't make a dime.
I was at the record label the day it came out.
Just FYI.
Los
If he didn't make a dime then I really don't get it...if it was money he was after then, as twisted and wrong as it is, I understand...but if he really didn't make any money then what was the motivation? to bring glory to God by deceit?
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