After all, I’m not Jesus, and while I’m willing to take up my cross, I’m not looking to be a martyr. And I was boxed in, so I wouldn’t be able to leave even if I wanted to.Īfter much prayer and reflection, I had resolved not to disrupt the service, no matter how bad it got, despite Jesus’s own decision to flip tables in the temple. I was guided to a parking place by a very friendly man with a security vest on. The service was held in a big top, old school red and white candy-cane-striped circus tent.
I thought it might be a couple of hundred people, bigger than most of our snake-handling churches but not nearly as big as our megachurches, and I was right about that. Not so at Global Vision Bible Church – there are many lives at stake as the church insists on hosting “mask-free” services. except that the only person whose life is at stake in the snake-handling churches is the one handling the snakes. My mom probably made one of the best challenges to my decision to attend the service, reminding me that Tennessee has snake-handling churches which also have bad, even deadly theology, but I’ve never felt the need to attend one of them. Some folks thought it was picking a fight, and reminded me that many of the folks who attend these services come armed and ready for a fight, why encourage them? Others questioned if attending the services would simply legitimize the fringe-group or give them more of a platform or airtime than they deserve. It is clear that “Christian nationalism” now has its own delta variant. But the theology was worse than I could have ever imagined. The people were nicer than I anticipated that they would be. In fact, I was invited to stay late to help fold up chairs after the service, which I gladly did.
And I managed to wear a mask, without getting kicked out. This past weekend, I visited the “mask-free” worship service of Global Vision Bible Church, led by charismatic Trump-apologist, Greg Locke.
0 kommentar(er)
