CONTINUED from Previous Blog EntryJW: I’ve just finished a little book called “It’s No Fun Being a Protestant.” The Jews and the Catholics and the Muslims, ... It’s not sacrilegious. I don’t make fun of Christ. I tell people I’m a Christian. and kind of a paper mache Episcopalian.... The book starts out with my meeting Billy Graham, which really happened. And he said, as he came into the Green Room, 45 years ago,
BG’s Voice: I’m Doctor Graham. Are you who I think you are?
JW: I’m Spanky McFarland, Our Gang comedy.
BG: No, no, who are you? Aren’t you Jonathan Winters?
JW: I know who you are. You’re Dr. Billy Graham.
BG: May I ask, What are you?
JW: I’m Caucasian.
BG: I know that.
JW: No, you don’t. I have brown eyes. Our people got across the river first.
BG: Be serious. What denomination are you?
JW: That’s what you should have asked me. See, driver’s license says Caucasian, and other little items I’ve had to fill out. But what denomination? I’m Episcopalian.
BG: Let me ask you something seriously. And try to be serious. What do you find the difference between my being an evangelist and you being an Episcopalian?
JW: Now Billy, when we go to Yankee Stadium we go to see a ball game.
He didn’t get it.
And I said, when you go to Westminster Abbey, you go to a church second to St Peters. See, when your people get to second base, we’re already home.
So, that’s the book. See, to me, I really do my homework, especially writing a book like this because you’re going to offend a lot of people. But what these people have done on television seven days a week is frightening to me... that you walk up to a man who has cancer in his right arm and you say, “Jesus is going to heal you.” And two thugs, some guys from Harlan County, catch him and supposedly the cancer is gone.
I turned to a guy the other day who is re-born, and he said to me “What are you?” and I told him -- this guy with silver gray hair on CNN or something -- I said “Why don’t you come up here to the Cottage of St. Francis and heal the cancer people there?”
“We don’t do that kind of work.”
JW: It’s not a ballpark or an amphitheater. It’s sixteen kids with cancer. You’re a phony. Get out of my way, Jack.
It’s a big business. A very big business. There’s a lot of guys who are very bad cats who are sucking it in. and the poor public... these people go, wheelchairs ... I don’t know. It’s frightening.
You don’t see Jews out there coming up to my door. You don't see Catholics. Who are these people beating on my door, asking me if I accept Christ? I said to a Jehovah’s Witness, “Do you people ever salute the flag?” and they said, “No, we don’t believe in the flag.”
Get lost, Jack. I don’t need that.
It’s a lot of strange things... people yelling and screaming, going across the stage throwing the Bible up in the air... To me it’s bizarre.
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TO BE CONTINUED
Jon Winters photo courtesy Christina Bergstrom
http://www.bergstromsphotography.com/
2 comments:
Winters nailed it. Ken Copeland, Benny Hinn, now Andrew Wommack are taking advantage of the sick, poor, especially in Africa and countries without knowledge of their illicit activity, gaining "seed money" for their falsely prophetic empires.
They have multimillion dollar jets, take the scriptures out of context.
As a Christian and mother, I taught my children from Dr.Walter Martin's 'Kingdom of The Cults' and 'Counterfeit Christianity' by Dr. Hank Hanegraff, from the Christian Research Institute.
Every family of faith in Christ needs this great reference tool.
700.00 for a "Faith Class", a semester at Wommack's compound in Woodland Park, CO.
Those who are desperate to receive healing will travel from across oceans and use their entire life's savings to give to a charlatan who appears on TV as a conservative minister.
Please read these books, educate your children, as well as in your conservatively Christian church body about the counterfeit carpetbaggers who only want to take.
Jesus said the sick and poor we would always have with us. As a medical professional woman of faith in Christ, I believe that we are to use all the resources that we have been given to help eachother obtain our optimal level of functioning on earth.
Jesus is the Great Physician. He suffered as no one on earth has ever suffered.
Taking a "Get Your Healing" class and being taught to slap a person on the forehead, babble while doing it as the ancient Greek, and taking money from the infirmed and their family members is cult-like activity.
I am glad to know Jonathan Winters called out this dangerous practice.
Thanks for your comments. I agree with you that a lot of shameful things have been done in the name of Christ. (I don't put Billy Graham in the same category as these others, though getting mixed up in politics tainted his reputation.)
Most people don't know that Jim Jones started with a healing ministry where he would pull tumors out of people's insides. (He practiced sleight of hand and palmed things like chicken gizzards out of people on stage.).
When I was still living at home, on one occasion: as I was leaving the house to go to a Bible study, my mom (an RN at the hospital) asked that we pray that Odessa Moore would die that night. Mom said her suffering was horrible as she was dying of skin cancer. Mom said she was a Christian, listened to Christian radio all day, but was ready to home to be with the Lord.
I went to the Bible study and at the start we would pray. I asked tha we would pray for Odessa Moore to die that night. The entire group opposed this idea and wanted to pray for her healing, which they did. Later I prayed she would be relieved of her suffering that night, and the next morning she was dead.
It's a sorry state of affairs when Christians (like the ones you cite above who get taken advantage of by these hucksters) are so lacking in discernment.
Many stories can be told at this point.
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