Thursday, August 21, 2008

My very own "Stuff Christians Like" post

If you know me, you know that the blog "Stuff Christians Like" is pretty much my favorite non-family blog to read. (It's linked at the right-hand side of this page.) Jon Acuff is wickedly funny and sarcastic and has some pretty staggering spiritual truths to share in the midst of it all. In the spirit of his blog, I present my very own "Stuff Christians Like" today.

Jumping on a fallen pastor like hyenas on a wounded gazelle

If you haven't read the buzz in the Christian community or blogosphere, allow me to catch you up. Mike Guglielmucci is a youth pastor from Australia. Also a musician of pretty great talent. He's been very popular in Australia since he was a teenager and started a youth Bible study that had incredible numbers of participants. A few years ago, he was diagnosed with a pretty aggressive form of cancer. He stated that God gave him the song "Healer" in one fell swoop. The song is amazing, by the way; I taught it to my worship team last week. There is/was a video circulating that told the story of how he wrote it. There's footage of him singing the song on stage to a packed stadium with an OXYGEN CANNULA IN HIS NOSE. Pretty amazing stuff; the text of the song says, "You hold my every moment, You calm my raging seas...You walk with me through fire and heal all my disease...".
Anyway, it came out this week that the cancer thing was a total fraud. He does not, has never had, in fact, cancer. Not only has he been creating the whole thing, but he apparently even deceived his WIFE and family, not to mention the church that employs him.
The depth of this deception is enormous. (It makes me tired just thinking about that kind of juggling.)
However, that's not even what this blog is about. It's about all the chatter that's been going on since the news broke. People who are claiming to be Christians, saying things like, "I knew all along something wasn't right about this...False prophets will burn in hell...Should we pray for him?....Did he not know full well what he was doing!!? False prophets should not be tolerated and dealt with as according tot he word - read Titus....AND I hope he gets cancer for what he's done."
Coming so swiftly on the heels of the Todd Bentley story (which I just don't have the patience to get into right now, go Google it), this really doesn't make the people of God very attractive to the world, does it? It's very disheartening to me. However, even more disheartening is how people WHO ARE CHRISTIANS are reacting to this scandal. It seriously makes me sick. When Christians hear about things like this, it seems like a lot of people say, "Grace? What is this grace you speak of? We know not of this 'grace'...only our gut feelings that say this guy was a charlatan all along!" Seriously, people? Have we not all sinned? Have we not all fallen short of the glory of God?
I am not, in ANY WAY, condoning what Mike or Todd have done. It's an awful thing to happen. But you know what? There, but for the grace of God, go I.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Gretchen - you hit the hypocrisy of the church right where it needs to be hit - we are so quick to point out other peoples' sins while trying to hide or deny our own.

Anonymous said...

i have had many of the same thoughts. i think of the song by DC Talk -What if I stumble? and a really old school song called Don't shot the wounded. Like you I am heart broken about what Michael has done. How did he become SO decieved and controled?? I believe Healer was a truly Godly inspired song and that Michael loves God. I think maybe he wrote that song because he so desperatly needed a healing. Not from physical cancer but from the cancer that kills the spirit. The whole thing is just so sad.

Jen said...

well said, Gretchen!