"High on Jesus," the evangelical cliche that originally meant "I don't do drugs," now means the opposite when expressed through the ministry of nutjob Emergent Churcher John Crowder [1], based in Griffin, Georgia, who's been stirring up the neo-hippies with tales of miracles, healings, signs, wonders, "bi-locating" (that's when John appears in two places at the same time, compliments of the Holy Spirit), but mostly marijuana-induced raving. I first saw the guy in a YouTube video called "Tokin' the Ghost" [2] (puffing on a joint of "Jehovahuana" as a way of accessing the Spirit) and assumed he was an atheist busting on Christians.
It turns out, though, that he's got an active ministry that claims to be building an orphanage in India, and he has a whole raft of speaking engagements at storefront-style pentecostal churches where he thunders about being "wasted on Jesus" and talks about "the heavy drunken glory." Since a lot of pentecostal preaching uses metaphors about being "drunk in the spirit," you don't really know whether he's talking about drugs, alcohol or God when he says things like "Get whacked, stay whacked, never go back!" "We're huffin' olive wood from the garden of Gethsemane," he tells an interviewer in Israel [3]. "And we been snortin' some dust from the tomb of our Lord and Savior. We been smokin' Baby Jesus."
But apparently "Tokin' the Ghost" is not even his most famous YouTube moment. That would be the time he entered the pulpit totally wasted on something [4] and started talking about his own inability to speak, followed by a series of "oing oing oing" noises that presumably indicate speaking in tongues, followed by listing a bunch of miracles that can't be verified. When Crowder first started getting popular with his "New Mystics" ministry, he stirred up a hornet's nest of criticism, mostly from his fellow Emergent Churchers who wanted people to know that, although he wears the uniform (including the goatee), he is not on the team.
Unfortunately, the Internet being the global community that it is, people started sending in videos of similar preachers doing similar drug-induced schtick all over the English-speaking world. (Check out the rooster-crowing [5] of John Scotland of Toronto Airport Christian Fellowship, where the mass-psychosis "Toronto Blessing" occurred in the late nineties, and the ravings of Chris Harvey of Australia.) Apparently this is a trend that harkens back to the Jesus Freaks, like our own veteran Door reporter Bob Gerzstyn [6], who was dropping acid when he found God but quickly sobered up. These new guys went in the reverse direction, and some of them seem to be actively leading people to drug usage.
By saying that's wrong, I'm identifying myself with the non-emergent Old Fart church. But on the day of Pentecost, it was the non-believers who thought the apostles were drunk. The apostles knew they were not drunk, and that being seized by the Spirit appears like drunkenness to those who have no eyes to see. Crowing like a chicken, squinting your eyes like a man with a massive migraine, jerking like an epileptic, these are the signs of self-deluded men who, if they have the slightest fear of God, should be terrified that they'll lead even one child toward junkiedom, which is not the sort of thing you can clear up by quoting verses on "freedom.".
30 Days Interest on That Would Fund The Door Through 2117
A London hedge fund injected $30 million [7] into GodTube, the sanitized Christian version of YouTube based in Plano, Texas, after only nine months in business. Maybe that will be enough money to ask the Holy Spirit for some better lighting and art direction.
Just Paint a Target on Obama's Back
Here's one to keep the next Secretary of State awake at night. Edward N. Luttwak, a fellow at the huge Washington think tank, the Center for Strategic and International Studies, points out that, if we do end up with a President Barack Obama, he will be limited in his ability to influence Muslim countries because they will regard him as an apostate [8]. By abandoning the religion of his father (Islam) and converting to Christianity, he is eligible for the death penalty in some Islamic countries and is guilty of the ultimate sin in all of them. This is relevant, not just when he talks to Mahmoud Ahmadinejad--because he did say he would talk to him--but when he visits any nation in the Middle East, since the security forces charged with guarding him will be full of devout Muslims who will be certain of his sin. That could in turn lead to international incidents, since any attempt to kill him would not be punishable under Muslim law: punishment is prohibited for anyone who kills, or attempts to kill, an apostate.
Polygamists Are People, Too
Arizona and Utah members of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints were in a panic the last few weeks, wondering whether police would be raiding their homes and spiriting away their children in a replay of what happened to their brethren in Eldorado, Texas, where 464 children have been seized without legal review. So to allay their fears, law enforcement officials in St. George, Utah, held a town hall meeting [9], making it clear that, in the words of Utah Attorney General Mark L. Shurtleff, "We do not plan a raid to end polygamy. . . . We don't believe that's the answer."
Both states have had various encounters with the sect ever since 1953--the year of a famous Colorado City, Arizona, raid now regarded as a disaster for both sides--and both attorneys general have offered to lend assistance to Texas. (Texas officials said thanks but no thanks, and turned down an invitation to attend the town meeting, saying they were too busy. One thing they were busy doing, according to the FCJCL lawyer, is classifying grown pregnant women as minors [10] so they can hold them in custody until the child is born.) Since it would seem to be in everyone's interest to separate the two issues here–underage sex on the one hand, polygamy on the other–wouldn't it be wise to get together with the male elders and suggest some ways they could guarantee the virginity of their women up until age 16 (the legal age in the states involved), without the state's getting involved in their polygamy practices? This would seem to follow the course of family law precedent for the past hundred years, which has been moving toward staying out of the bedroom when consenting adults are involved, but aggressively breaking up families where underage sex is practiced. Unfortunately, Senator Harry Reid of Nevada [11] has suggested doing the opposite: toughened enforcement of polygamy laws, even to the point of bringing in the Department of Justice as supercops. At this point many of the church members are afraid to answer their doors, so what might be appropriate is a) a few soothing words (like the town meeting), and b) forcing the cases of the 464 children into a courthouse, where they belong, so that parents have a fighting chance of getting their kids back. Of course, that would involve treating the church members like denizens of our own planet.