SIN: CALL IT WHAT IT IS, ...

... not what it isn't! J. Lee Grady, editor of Charisma Magazine, is finding peelings left over from the Pentacostal movement's spiritual Bacchanalia and is shocked by the filth.

The following are excerpts of a column entitled: "It's Getting Really Weird Out There." He opens with ...

In many charismatic ministries today, basic Christian morality has been hijacked.

... then moves to some anecdotal material.

How would you feel if your pastor announced from the pulpit that he had uncovered a “new revelation” in the Bible? His discovery: That a church leader can have more than one wife.

He hopes we would all run from the building "and never come back." But, he admits ...

"too many of us gullible charismatics might stay in the pews—and eventually give the guy a standing ovation plus a $10,000 love offering."

[...] Something has gone terribly wrong in our movement. Everywhere I turn I find that leaders of so-called Spirit-filled churches are making bizarre choices that compromise basic Christian integrity.

Grady offers the following from amongst Charismatic churches ...

• At one charismatic megachurch, staff pastors successfully convinced all their wives and female staff members to get breast implants. (I wonder: Was this discussed at a staff meeting?)
• A church in California (known for its revival meetings and prophetic ministry) recently imploded after members learned that several men in the church had been having homosexual affairs with the pastor, who was married.
• A leader with an international following (who wears the label of “apostle”) recently informed his leaders that men of God who reach his level of anointing are allowed to have more than one sexual partner. Then his own son offered his wife to his father out of a sense of spiritual obligation.

Anyone who calls himself Apostle is to watched more than any who call themselves Bishop, and that's saying a lot! What to do? His conclusion ...

We’ve been bewitched. What matters to us today are the carnal things. We want flash, bang and the wow factor. If a person can shout loud enough and get everyone to swoon at the altar, we don’t care how he or she lives at home. Morality is irrelevant.

Go read the remainder of his column here, it's worth the trip.

[J. Lee Grady is an award-winning journalist; he writes a column for Charisma Online twice a week.]

Apostasy; Charismatic; Christianity; Church; Immorality; Religion; Sin