spiritual pickpockets
NYT:
Professor Walton called the prosperity preachers “spiritual pickpockets.”
“To dismiss and ignore the harsh realities of this economic crisis,” he said. “is beyond irresponsible, to the point of reprehensible.”
4 points of view
We were living in Paris, back when my father was Egypt’s ambassador to France. Each day we used to get at least four daily newspapers, from Le Figaro on the right side of the political spectrum to L’Humanité, which was the newspaper of the Communist Party. I remember asking my father, Why do we need four newspapers? He said to me, “Unless you read different points of view, your mind will eventually close, and you’ll become a prisoner to a certain point of view that you’ll never question.”
here in Singapore, we have four dailies too: The Straits Times, The Business Times, The New Paper and Today.
and for the 18,000, they have four points of view too: joseph prince at the rock, joseph prince books, joseph prince cds and joseph prince television.
awesome.
what I confess I possess or am i just princessed?
Why, if God wants to reward the faithful with material possessions, are so many believers in foreclosure?
what’s wrong with cheap?
Time Magazine: So what’s wrong with cheap, in a nutshell?
Ellen Ruppel Shell: Well, in a nutshell, it comes back to bite us in the ass.
right believing always leads to right eating
“Right Believing Always Leads to Right Living.”
“This is God’s way for you to experience effortless success in your life. He has done it all on your behalf. Your part is simply to believe and receive.”
- Destined to Reign, Joseph Prince
one of effortless jo’s 18,000 told me today that her favourite part of the cow is the tenderloin.
uncertain of my Cow’s Anatomy, i checked the tenderloin’s wikipedia entry, the best part which I reproduced below:
This muscle tissue does very little work (in other words, effortless), so it is the most tender part of the cow.
right believing doesn’t just lead to right living, in this case, it leads to right eating.
sowing into the machine of grace
Our God bears no resemblance to a vending machine.
good read
We are at a moment in history were we all need a lot more truth and a lot less snake oil.
away for 2 weeks and a reply to a passer-by
i will be away for 2 weeks but i thought i’ll rush to reply a sincere comment.
hey childofthefire,
thanks for your comments. i enjoyed reading them.
i wish to write a longer reply but unfortunately, i am hours away from a 2 week vacation. i will write more when i return.
on top of my head, there are some questions. can someone who finds effortless jo funny and thinks he is wrong necessarily hate grace and only believes in self-effort? if we can’t earn God’s grace by our own efforts, can we still be effortful as a grateful RESPONSE to His grace? if let’s say the Christian life is about depending on God 100%, what do we do, considering it’s 100%; are reading, hearing and believing efforts? why do you choose to comment on this blog? do you feel that by writing you can change my mind or you just needed to express yourself? or do you write to defend effortless jo? do we need effort to defend effortless jo? if there are many morons in the world who bring us to ruin with their self-conceited, self-destructive ways, are there also many beautiful people who work hard at great personal cost to stand up for the oppressed and take care of the widows and orphans?
as a descendant of slaves, i am interested to hear your opinion on slavery and Rosa Parks who is like you, a black passionate woman. do you think Rosa was full of effort or she just let the Holy Spirit take control of her? whatever your answer, thanks to her, we don’t have to sit at the back of the bus when we’re in America.
i like to end this short note with a real life story (from your part of the world) i read recently. the legendary oral historian, Studs Terkel once saw a yuppie couple at a bus stop and he started conversing with them. “Labor Day is coming up “, he said. One yuppie, with a look of contempt on his face replied, “We despise unions.” According to Guardian, this was how the rest of the exchange went:
‘How many hours a day do you work?’ I (Studs) ask. He says, ‘Eight.’ ‘How comes you don’t work 18 hours a day like your great-great-grandfather did? You know why? Because four guys got hanged in Chicago in 1886 fighting for the eight-hour day … For you.’
i wish you well and when i come back, i have more questions for you. no one should really come to for me answers.
the fundamental weed in the garden is Effortlessness
i read a great article today and was about to pick up a quotation and post it here until i found something else:
And I believe the fundamental weed in the American garden is, in fact, ease. Easy-ness. Effortlessness.
faithful readers would know why i love this sentence so much.
there are other gems:
Our culture’s addiction to ease is unsustainable. A core Christian conviction—one that informed much of the best of Western civilization—is that the good life is not easy. It requires discipline. It invites us into pain. It makes of us ascetics—not people who shun all earthly joys, but people who choose to limit our appetite for ease so that we might actually know true joy…
No society can build itself on ease. Most everything that is good about our society was forged by people who took discipline and work seriously, who built their lives around risk and enjoyed their leisure precisely because it was the fruit of discipline, the Sabbath after a week of concerted work. Most everything that is worst about our society—not least the very worst thing about America, the ongoing legacy of the Atlantic slave trade—was the product of an idolatrous desire to exploit human beings and the created world, extracting labor and resources with no regard for discipline, dignity, and God-given limits…
Less often noted is that the Great Depression was preceded by a previous era of ease and abundance. The fruit of the (seeming) abundance of the Roaring Twenties was an economic crisis of shattering proportions.
christian or not, american or not, i encourage you to read the article because it speaks quite accurately about the times we live in.
i am demonised and other insults
i probably deserved it.
a Fighter Pilot left me a comment: “I think you might be demonised.” probably because of the things i said about effortless jo.
i am not surprised really. the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.
on pg. 252 of his book, effortless jo wrote, “For those who hate me, I don’t take it personally because they are actually hating the gospel.” and on pg. 172, he wrote, “I honestly don’t understand how those who oppose grace can still teach within the context of the Scriptures” (basically, whoever disagrees with me on grace can kiss my ass).
the effortless jo’s school of dealing with enemies might be unsubtle and a little extreme but i must say it’s really funny. i am thinking how one can apply this in life. here are some possible scenarios:
Your colleague doesn’t respond to your email enquiry.
What do you mean you’re busy, do you hate the company and workforce productivity?
A girl refuses to go out with you.
Are you a lesbian, do you hate men?
You get a lousy steak at a restaurant.
You call this a steak, do you hate food? do you hate happiness?
A young person listens to music from a speaker on his phone.
My God, what’s wrong with you? Do you hate music and peace on earth?
You meet someone who supports Man United and Everton.
What do you have against football? Are you demonised?
i have said this many times before – effortless jo makes me laugh.
the funniest bit in destined to reign
on pg. 30, effortless jo writes:
“… some of the top business people, management executives, entrepreneurs, lawyers, accountants and consultants in my country attend our church.”
pg. 99,
“Pastor Prince, if people know that all their sins have already been forgiven, won’t they go ahead and sin?
Well, I have yet to encounter such a creature.
my favorite bad guys
(click on the picture for a bigger picture)
one thinks he’s simply divine although he’s extraordinarily insane. the other puts up a good show week in week out, often on television. the elf-looking dude has the same exact powers as the good guys, but please don’t be confused, he’s one scary dude. mr. horny is a sweet-talking trickster and a conman, also known as the prince of evil (Journey into Mystery #108). and the last dude rely on an inner-circle of lackeys to do his bidding.
and the book just happens to be what I’m reading right now. i wanted to spare you my boring white walls so think nothing of it.
postscript: funny enough, all except fishbowl head truly believed they were ‘destined to reign’.
some awful news to share
i checked my library account some minutes ago and this is what i saw:
would you like me to review it?
i nearly spoke to a stranger
late this afternoon, a woman at the Kinokuniya bookstore told her partner that she was looking for something trashy. almost immediately, a book with a three-word title came to mind.
quite effortlessly, of course.
laugh along with effortless jo – part 2
You are destined to reign in life.
You are called to be a success, to enjoy wealth, to enjoy health and to enjoy a life of victory…
He has called you to be the head and not the tail – Destined to Reign, Joseph Prince
some reasoned that because God wants the best for you, and since success and riches are really great, God wants you to be rich and successful.
by the same reasoning, because God wants the best for you, and since women in Victoria’s Secret intimate wear are really awesome, God wants you to have women who wear Victoria’s Secret panties.
in deepest consequence
Macbeth Act I. Scene III:
And oftentimes, to win us to our harm,
The instruments of darkness tell us truths,
Win us with honest trifles, to betray’s
In deepest consequence.
blessed, healthy and a prosperous future
How does the prosperity gospel explains this?
Indonesian terror suspects, including a Singaporean, executed a Christian teacher in front of his young son… the group was responsible for shooting 59-year-old Dago Simamora, an Indonesian teacher, to death in front of his youngest child year in the south Sumatran town of Pekanbaru.
why effortless jo makes me laugh
(quite tired writing about him, but i promised someone i write about why he makes me laugh. i won’t write about him anymore for a while)
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