P-2 PEOPLE FILES
- Jerry Pokorsky - Huron A Polnac Jr - Linda Barnes Popham - Sarah Posner - Sam Powell - Richard Pratt - Natalie Prieb - Eetta Prince-Gibson - Karen Swallow Prior - Ray Pritchard -
jery pokorsky
Fr. Jerry Pokorsky is a priest of the Diocese of Arlington who has also served as a financial administrator in the Diocese of Lincoln. Trained in business and accounting, he also holds a Master of Divinity and a Master's in moral theology. Father Pokorsky co-founded both CREDO and Adoremus, two organizations deeply engaged in authentic liturgical renewal. He writes regularly for a number of Catholic websites and magazines. Father Pokorsky also serves as a director and treasurer of Human Life International.
Jerry Pokorsky Files
There is a tension between real and imagined fears. Imaginary fears—or those only partially based on reality—are irrational. Jesus feared the Cross in the Garden, and His fears were realistic. In His anguish at the prospect of the Crucifixion, He prayed, “Father, if thou art willing, remove this cup from me.” We need not deny fears anchored in reality, but we must place our anxieties in service of God’s positive or permissive will. So Jesus concludes, “…nevertheless not my will, but thine, be done.” (Lk. 22:42) Like Jesus, we tremble at the prospect of the Cross. Yet recent events demonstrate that many of our fears are disproportionate and irrational, making us vulnerable to organized scare tactics. -Fr. Jerry Pokorsky ; Catholic Culure; 3.18.22
Huron A Polnac Jr
May 29, 1998: Baptist Press: Utah churches face challenges as part of religious minority
South Valley Baptist Church in suburban Salt Lake City is celebrating the completion of its first building, a particularly joyful event considering the mission congregation has existed for six years and has owned its property for five. An extended series of zoning and permit roadblocks to construction compounded a perception of community opposition in an area where Baptists are often considered outsiders.
“It’s just been a constant struggle, and if we hadn’t felt that the Lord had put us out here, we wouldn’t have stayed, humanly speaking,” said Huron A. Polnac Jr., the church’s pastor and a missionary of the North American Mission Board. “But it was interesting … . God has shown us through all of this that he is out here helping us.”
South Valley’s story is somewhat typical of Southern Baptist churches in a state where Mormons make up about 75 percent of the population, much more in some rural areas. Gains, while not impossible, are difficult. The key to success, according to several pastors and state convention leaders, is to understand the environment in which churches are operating and respond accordingly.
South Valley Baptist Church in suburban Salt Lake City is celebrating the completion of its first building, a particularly joyful event considering the mission congregation has existed for six years and has owned its property for five. An extended series of zoning and permit roadblocks to construction compounded a perception of community opposition in an area where Baptists are often considered outsiders.
“It’s just been a constant struggle, and if we hadn’t felt that the Lord had put us out here, we wouldn’t have stayed, humanly speaking,” said Huron A. Polnac Jr., the church’s pastor and a missionary of the North American Mission Board. “But it was interesting … . God has shown us through all of this that he is out here helping us.”
South Valley’s story is somewhat typical of Southern Baptist churches in a state where Mormons make up about 75 percent of the population, much more in some rural areas. Gains, while not impossible, are difficult. The key to success, according to several pastors and state convention leaders, is to understand the environment in which churches are operating and respond accordingly.
linda barnes popham
June 14, 2023: Religion News Service: Ouster of Saddleback and Fern Creek from SBC over women pastors is affirmed
Warren and the Rev. Linda Barnes Popham, who leads the Louisville church, each argued that Baptists don’t agree on a range of matters — from Calvinism to COVID-19 — but that hadn’t halted their ability to have a shared commitment to spreading the gospel.
Warren and the Rev. Linda Barnes Popham, who leads the Louisville church, each argued that Baptists don’t agree on a range of matters — from Calvinism to COVID-19 — but that hadn’t halted their ability to have a shared commitment to spreading the gospel.
sarah posner
Sarah Posner is an American journalist and author. She is the author of two books about the American Christian right and has written for The American Prospect, The Guardian, The Nation, Salon, AlterNet, The Atlantic, The Washington Spectator, The Daily Beast, and The Washington Post. She was formerly a contributing writer for Religion Dispatches, writing on the intersection of religion and politics. Her second book, Unholy, was favorably reviewed by the National Catholic Reporter and by writers at Wesleyan University and Washington University in St. Louis.
Sarah Posner
“Some elite Republicans are shocked, shocked, to discover the ugliness lurking in the party. Figures from Peggy Noonan to Colin Powell cannot believe it! The party of the city on a hill is turning vulgar! The only card left in the Republican deck is straight out of the religious right’s 30-year-old battle plan, which the GOP has warmly embraced since Reagan. The Republican Party has validated the religious right’s mythology of Christian nationhood, cowed to its authoritarian litmus test, and made demagoguery not only fashionable but heroic.”
-Sarah Posner, author of “God’s Profits: Faith, Fraud and the Republican Crusade for Values Voters."
-Sarah Posner, author of “God’s Profits: Faith, Fraud and the Republican Crusade for Values Voters."
Sarah Posner
The following is adapted from Sarah Posner's new book, God's Profits: Faith, Fraud, and the Republican Crusade for Values Voters out now from PoliPoint Press. (March 2008)
Although over the past two years John Hagee has gained international notoriety for his agitation for an Armageddon war with Iran and his evangelical Zionist project, Christians United for Israel, back in 2000 he was little known outside Pentecostal circles. But for many years Hagee had been a mainstay on religious television, a Word of Faith televangelist with a large and devoted following. Known also as the prosperity gospel, Word of Faith is a nondenominational religious movement with no membership or doctrinal requirements. Its main tenets are revelation knowledge, through which the believer derives knowledge directly from God, rather than from the senses; identification, through which the believer is inhabited by God and is another incarnation of Jesus; positive confession, or the power of the believer to call things into existence; the right of believers to divine health; and the right of believers to divine wealth. It is through revelation knowledge that the Word of Faith movement has created its alternate universe in which rational thought is rejected and where the media, intellectual thought, science, and any type of critical thinking are scorned. Drawing on the Pentecostal tradition of casting out devils, pursuits associated with the Enlightenment, especially secularism and humanistic thought, are denounced as the work of Satan.
When preparing to run for president, then-Texas Governor George W. Bush knew that the San Antonio televangelist had a large television audience, which Bush family evangelical adviser Doug Wead estimated at seven million strong. Wead had ghostwritten Hagee's 1997 conspiracy-theory book, Day of Deception, which claims to take "a probing look inside the United States government and expose blatant acts of deception designed to destroy democracy in America." Those "acts of deception," according to the book, were carried out by the Antichrist in his effort to install a "one-world order." Evidence of the one-world order, according to Hagee, includes "the Eastern Establishment," the United Nations, the National Education Association (NEA), the Council on Foreign Relations, and the Illuminati, the imaginary, shadowy group of international financiers that has long been fodder for conspiracy theorists. Hagee didn't mention that many Illuminati theorists believe in a connection between the Illuminati and the Yale secret society Skull and Bones, to which both Bushes belong. Nor did Hagee, who bills himself as a friend of the Jews, note that Illuminati conspiracies have often included anti-Semitic narratives about Jewish bankers.
In his 1988 campaign biography of Bush Sr., Wead sought to dispel conspiracies that the Bush family was behind the supposed one-world order. But as a ghostwriter, Wead blamed his old boss for trying to bring about what Hagee believes is a satanic, demonic "new world order." Just one year after penning Hagee's conspiracy-laden screed, Wead was pushing Governor Bush and Karl Rove to arrange meetings between the governor and the pastor, and the governor enlisted Hagee to recruit other pastors to sign on to the Bush campaign effort.
Despite accusing Bush Sr. of collaboration with the Antichrist, Hagee delivered for George W. Bush in his 2000 book, God's Candidate for America. In that book, Hagee was unequivocal that Jesus would vote for Bush. "If you are concerned about the sort of America your children and grandchildren will grow up within," Hagee wrote, "then you need to cast your vote for George W. Bush and the Republican Party." God's Candidate, like Day of Deception, decries Satan's work through the United Nations and the NEA but omits references to a new world order created by international financiers and the "Eastern Establishment." Hagee continued to promote the book even after Bush took office, and he wrote a prayer for the president in the post-2004 election edition of Stephen Mansfield's campaign biography, The Faith of George W. Bush.
But for the vitriolic preacher, it wasn't enough to endorse Bush; Hagee had to equate the opposition with evil incarnate. The Democratic Party, Hagee wrote, "is the home of those who advocate homosexuality, abortion, free-sex, unlimited handouts, maximum taxation, little freedom from government control, and toleration of drug use." The GOP, in contrast, "is the home of social conservatives who believe in the sanctity of life, hard work, clean moral living, limited government interference in our lives, minimum taxation, and a return to Bible-based societal values." The book was published by his nonprofit Global Evangelism Television, which that year used tax-exempt donor money to pay Hagee nearly half a million dollars in salary and deferred compensation for sixteen hours of work a week. Hagee earned another $300,000 from his church. But in keeping with the Word of Faith credo that poverty is evidence of insufficient faith, Hagee went on to depict welfare as satanic:
Instead of faith, Satan offers fear; instead of commitment, Satan offers selfish promiscuity; instead of stable home lives, Satan offers multiple divorces. Instead of career and gainful employment, Satan offers laziness and quick-money schemes and gambling. Instead of Christian charity, Satan offers a lifetime on the public dole. God's will for each man and woman is to have positive self-esteem; Satan wants each man, woman, and child to feel insignificant.
Hagee offered up then-Governor Bush's taxpayer-funded, "faith-based initiative" as the best alternative to Satan.The Bush-Hagee alliance possessed a certain cognitive dissonance as so-called compassionate conservatism collided with mean-spirited denunciations of demon possession. Hagee lauded the Republican Contract with America, spearheaded by former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, who later admitted that he was committing adultery while pursuing the impeachment of Clinton. Nonetheless, Hagee invited Gingrich to be the keynote speaker for his 2007 Christians United for Israel Washington Summit. Mirroring the right-wing noise machine, while also reflecting the anti-intellectualism of Word of Faith, Hagee added that "the worldy-wise pseudo-sophisticates of the major news media will always put a positive spin on stories involving pet liberal issues while sneering at issues important to Christians and conservatives." Hagee's disdain for "pseudo-sophisticates" reflects the Word of Faith view that revelation knowledge is superior to the other truth-seeking pursuits and that any endeavor driven by critical thinking is to be not only scorned but mistrusted as the work of the devil himself.
In his writing and preaching, Hagee makes clear that people who engage in revelation thinking are controlled by God, not by their minds, and therefore will have more financial abundance in their lives: "Reason givers are controlled by their minds," he writes in his book, Mastering Your Money. "They do not ask God how much they should give; they ask their CPA. Revelation givers are controlled by the Holy Spirit. They see God as their supplier. Revelation givers do not give according to what they have, but according to what God can supply." Hagee continues that "you will never prosper until you believe and confess that it is God's will for you to prosper." He believes that there are two economic forces at work, those of God and those of Satan, and "you do not qualify for God's abundance until you become God's child." And exhibiting the anti-worldly, anti-government position of Word of Faith, Hagee maintains that "God Almighty controls the economy of America, and God controls your income! Your source is God, not the United States government. ... When you give to God, He controls your income. There is no such thing as fixed income in the Kingdom of God. Your income is controlled by your giving." Believing or not believing in these principles is one's choice, and if you make the wrong choice, you've clearly sided with Satan and will be cursed financially: "The difference between living a life of prosperity and a life of poverty is a matter of choice. ... Tithing is a choice. If you choose to not tithe, you will be living under a financial curse."
One former member of Hagee's church, fearful to talk on the record because Hagee is "really powerful" and has "got so much clout," described Hagee as "very angry" and "not approachable." The former member, who attended Cornerstone for about ten years, recalled that she had been going to Cornerstone for six years before she actually met Hagee. "I said, 'Oh, Pastor Hagee, I'm finally getting to meet you after six years,' and he said, 'Oh, I've been back here every Sunday' and turned and walked off." Her husband is bipolar, and when they went to marriage counseling, the church "told him he was a loser and an infidel." The counselors encouraged the former congregant to leave her husband, but "thankfully, I prayed enough. ... I began to see trouble, you know, I began to see things that wasn't right."
About the tithe, the former Cornerstone member recalled, "That's a shame issue there if you don't tithe. … We've heard him say, … everybody who's got their tithing envelope, wave it in the air. So that's shame on you" if you don't tithe. Yet Hagee, before he converted his nonprofit Global Evangelism Television into a church in 2004 (thus relieving him of the obligation to file a publicly available tax return), was known to be the highest-paid nonprofit executive in San Antonio, making nearly $1 million a year. Now, because of the conversion, his salary remains a secret. In 2000 his John C. Hagee Royalty Trust, whose trustee is Hagee's brother-in-law Scott Farhart, spent $5.5 million on a ranch in Brackettville, Texas. The property includes the Hagee-owned LaFonda Ranch, which has its own private airstrip, where televangelist and Hagee friend Kenneth Copeland landed his aircraft for a weekend of hunting rare exotic game.
Another component of Hagee's ranch is a cattle-raising operation. For that project, Hagee formed a nonprofit -- run only by himself -- called the Texas Israel Agricultural Research Foundation, which he claims works on joint research endeavors with an Israeli university. Water consumption is highly regulated in the parched section of the state where the ranch is located, but San Antonio legislator Frank Corte introduced a bill that would have exempted Hagee's outfit from the state's water use laws. To move the bill, Hagee enlisted the services of one of San Antonio's most powerful lobbyists, David Earl. Members of Hagee's church sent more than eighty nearly identical letters -- some from the church's fax machine -- to the Texas House of Representatives committee considering the bill, urging its passage. The letters argued that the bill would "protect Texas agricultural research projects that have entered into agreements to share information with Israeli organizations." The bill stalled in committee, and Hagee's lobbyists were forced to apply for permits from the local groundwater control board in Kinney County to pump water on the property.
Other Hagee ventures operate through trusts and companies run by Farhart and involve prominent San Antonio businesspeople. These ventures include a failed investment in a proposed hotel in downtown San Antonio and a planned development near his church. In another venture, Hagee crossed a group of local businesspeople who sought to market their beauty products made from salt from the Dead Sea through Hagee's ministry. They charged in a 2006 lawsuit that they entered into the deal after Hagee billed himself "as someone that had a lot of political connections," making the group "aware of his rubbing shoulders with people influential in the Bush Cabinet," according to the group's lawyer, Jesse Castillo. Castillo said that his clients claimed that Hagee backed out of the deal because the church was facing tax problems due to "a concern that they were mixing the business interests of the church with the business interests."
The former congregant whose husband is bipolar said that even though she and her husband wrote a big check to the church after they sold their house and tithed close to 10 percent of their income, "We never prospered there." Most of the people she knew there were struggling financially, including some who were evicted from their apartments because they couldn't pay their rent. Hagee, she said, has a "very powerful hold, and you don't even realize it. ... We were there ten years, and I knew something was wrong, but I couldn't figure out what it was." She even feared speaking to a reporter: "If I say too much about him, God's going to get me. ... [Hagee's] got so much money and he's so powerful, he could take everything we have in a minute."
Another former member told of tithing even when she had to borrow out of her 401(k) plan to make her mortgage payments. At one point, she said, "at Christmastime I didn't have gifts under my tree. Two small gifts for my kids, that was it. I was so broke, and I was tithing." At the time, she believed that tithing would result in her own blessing. Still another former member, a single mother divorced from an abusive husband, told of tithing out of her child support checks, even though she was living in an apartment with subsidized rent. Contrasting her small apartment with Hagee's home in an exclusive San Antonio subdivision and his multimillion-dollar ranch, she added, "I don't even have a house! My kids grew up on top of each other like sardines. ... I just want a little house." She added, "I thought something was wrong with me. Why am I still [living like this]. I've given and given and given and tithed and tithed and tithed." But while attending Cornerstone, she, like the others, felt guilt and enormous pressure not to question Hagee or his doctrine, and that atmosphere was reinforced through multiple church services each week and mandatory meetings with smaller cell groups whose leaders were vetted on the basis of classes, tests, and the faithfulness of their tithing. As a result, the former member said, "I looked to Pastor Hagee as a god."
Although over the past two years John Hagee has gained international notoriety for his agitation for an Armageddon war with Iran and his evangelical Zionist project, Christians United for Israel, back in 2000 he was little known outside Pentecostal circles. But for many years Hagee had been a mainstay on religious television, a Word of Faith televangelist with a large and devoted following. Known also as the prosperity gospel, Word of Faith is a nondenominational religious movement with no membership or doctrinal requirements. Its main tenets are revelation knowledge, through which the believer derives knowledge directly from God, rather than from the senses; identification, through which the believer is inhabited by God and is another incarnation of Jesus; positive confession, or the power of the believer to call things into existence; the right of believers to divine health; and the right of believers to divine wealth. It is through revelation knowledge that the Word of Faith movement has created its alternate universe in which rational thought is rejected and where the media, intellectual thought, science, and any type of critical thinking are scorned. Drawing on the Pentecostal tradition of casting out devils, pursuits associated with the Enlightenment, especially secularism and humanistic thought, are denounced as the work of Satan.
When preparing to run for president, then-Texas Governor George W. Bush knew that the San Antonio televangelist had a large television audience, which Bush family evangelical adviser Doug Wead estimated at seven million strong. Wead had ghostwritten Hagee's 1997 conspiracy-theory book, Day of Deception, which claims to take "a probing look inside the United States government and expose blatant acts of deception designed to destroy democracy in America." Those "acts of deception," according to the book, were carried out by the Antichrist in his effort to install a "one-world order." Evidence of the one-world order, according to Hagee, includes "the Eastern Establishment," the United Nations, the National Education Association (NEA), the Council on Foreign Relations, and the Illuminati, the imaginary, shadowy group of international financiers that has long been fodder for conspiracy theorists. Hagee didn't mention that many Illuminati theorists believe in a connection between the Illuminati and the Yale secret society Skull and Bones, to which both Bushes belong. Nor did Hagee, who bills himself as a friend of the Jews, note that Illuminati conspiracies have often included anti-Semitic narratives about Jewish bankers.
In his 1988 campaign biography of Bush Sr., Wead sought to dispel conspiracies that the Bush family was behind the supposed one-world order. But as a ghostwriter, Wead blamed his old boss for trying to bring about what Hagee believes is a satanic, demonic "new world order." Just one year after penning Hagee's conspiracy-laden screed, Wead was pushing Governor Bush and Karl Rove to arrange meetings between the governor and the pastor, and the governor enlisted Hagee to recruit other pastors to sign on to the Bush campaign effort.
Despite accusing Bush Sr. of collaboration with the Antichrist, Hagee delivered for George W. Bush in his 2000 book, God's Candidate for America. In that book, Hagee was unequivocal that Jesus would vote for Bush. "If you are concerned about the sort of America your children and grandchildren will grow up within," Hagee wrote, "then you need to cast your vote for George W. Bush and the Republican Party." God's Candidate, like Day of Deception, decries Satan's work through the United Nations and the NEA but omits references to a new world order created by international financiers and the "Eastern Establishment." Hagee continued to promote the book even after Bush took office, and he wrote a prayer for the president in the post-2004 election edition of Stephen Mansfield's campaign biography, The Faith of George W. Bush.
But for the vitriolic preacher, it wasn't enough to endorse Bush; Hagee had to equate the opposition with evil incarnate. The Democratic Party, Hagee wrote, "is the home of those who advocate homosexuality, abortion, free-sex, unlimited handouts, maximum taxation, little freedom from government control, and toleration of drug use." The GOP, in contrast, "is the home of social conservatives who believe in the sanctity of life, hard work, clean moral living, limited government interference in our lives, minimum taxation, and a return to Bible-based societal values." The book was published by his nonprofit Global Evangelism Television, which that year used tax-exempt donor money to pay Hagee nearly half a million dollars in salary and deferred compensation for sixteen hours of work a week. Hagee earned another $300,000 from his church. But in keeping with the Word of Faith credo that poverty is evidence of insufficient faith, Hagee went on to depict welfare as satanic:
Instead of faith, Satan offers fear; instead of commitment, Satan offers selfish promiscuity; instead of stable home lives, Satan offers multiple divorces. Instead of career and gainful employment, Satan offers laziness and quick-money schemes and gambling. Instead of Christian charity, Satan offers a lifetime on the public dole. God's will for each man and woman is to have positive self-esteem; Satan wants each man, woman, and child to feel insignificant.
Hagee offered up then-Governor Bush's taxpayer-funded, "faith-based initiative" as the best alternative to Satan.The Bush-Hagee alliance possessed a certain cognitive dissonance as so-called compassionate conservatism collided with mean-spirited denunciations of demon possession. Hagee lauded the Republican Contract with America, spearheaded by former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, who later admitted that he was committing adultery while pursuing the impeachment of Clinton. Nonetheless, Hagee invited Gingrich to be the keynote speaker for his 2007 Christians United for Israel Washington Summit. Mirroring the right-wing noise machine, while also reflecting the anti-intellectualism of Word of Faith, Hagee added that "the worldy-wise pseudo-sophisticates of the major news media will always put a positive spin on stories involving pet liberal issues while sneering at issues important to Christians and conservatives." Hagee's disdain for "pseudo-sophisticates" reflects the Word of Faith view that revelation knowledge is superior to the other truth-seeking pursuits and that any endeavor driven by critical thinking is to be not only scorned but mistrusted as the work of the devil himself.
In his writing and preaching, Hagee makes clear that people who engage in revelation thinking are controlled by God, not by their minds, and therefore will have more financial abundance in their lives: "Reason givers are controlled by their minds," he writes in his book, Mastering Your Money. "They do not ask God how much they should give; they ask their CPA. Revelation givers are controlled by the Holy Spirit. They see God as their supplier. Revelation givers do not give according to what they have, but according to what God can supply." Hagee continues that "you will never prosper until you believe and confess that it is God's will for you to prosper." He believes that there are two economic forces at work, those of God and those of Satan, and "you do not qualify for God's abundance until you become God's child." And exhibiting the anti-worldly, anti-government position of Word of Faith, Hagee maintains that "God Almighty controls the economy of America, and God controls your income! Your source is God, not the United States government. ... When you give to God, He controls your income. There is no such thing as fixed income in the Kingdom of God. Your income is controlled by your giving." Believing or not believing in these principles is one's choice, and if you make the wrong choice, you've clearly sided with Satan and will be cursed financially: "The difference between living a life of prosperity and a life of poverty is a matter of choice. ... Tithing is a choice. If you choose to not tithe, you will be living under a financial curse."
One former member of Hagee's church, fearful to talk on the record because Hagee is "really powerful" and has "got so much clout," described Hagee as "very angry" and "not approachable." The former member, who attended Cornerstone for about ten years, recalled that she had been going to Cornerstone for six years before she actually met Hagee. "I said, 'Oh, Pastor Hagee, I'm finally getting to meet you after six years,' and he said, 'Oh, I've been back here every Sunday' and turned and walked off." Her husband is bipolar, and when they went to marriage counseling, the church "told him he was a loser and an infidel." The counselors encouraged the former congregant to leave her husband, but "thankfully, I prayed enough. ... I began to see trouble, you know, I began to see things that wasn't right."
About the tithe, the former Cornerstone member recalled, "That's a shame issue there if you don't tithe. … We've heard him say, … everybody who's got their tithing envelope, wave it in the air. So that's shame on you" if you don't tithe. Yet Hagee, before he converted his nonprofit Global Evangelism Television into a church in 2004 (thus relieving him of the obligation to file a publicly available tax return), was known to be the highest-paid nonprofit executive in San Antonio, making nearly $1 million a year. Now, because of the conversion, his salary remains a secret. In 2000 his John C. Hagee Royalty Trust, whose trustee is Hagee's brother-in-law Scott Farhart, spent $5.5 million on a ranch in Brackettville, Texas. The property includes the Hagee-owned LaFonda Ranch, which has its own private airstrip, where televangelist and Hagee friend Kenneth Copeland landed his aircraft for a weekend of hunting rare exotic game.
Another component of Hagee's ranch is a cattle-raising operation. For that project, Hagee formed a nonprofit -- run only by himself -- called the Texas Israel Agricultural Research Foundation, which he claims works on joint research endeavors with an Israeli university. Water consumption is highly regulated in the parched section of the state where the ranch is located, but San Antonio legislator Frank Corte introduced a bill that would have exempted Hagee's outfit from the state's water use laws. To move the bill, Hagee enlisted the services of one of San Antonio's most powerful lobbyists, David Earl. Members of Hagee's church sent more than eighty nearly identical letters -- some from the church's fax machine -- to the Texas House of Representatives committee considering the bill, urging its passage. The letters argued that the bill would "protect Texas agricultural research projects that have entered into agreements to share information with Israeli organizations." The bill stalled in committee, and Hagee's lobbyists were forced to apply for permits from the local groundwater control board in Kinney County to pump water on the property.
Other Hagee ventures operate through trusts and companies run by Farhart and involve prominent San Antonio businesspeople. These ventures include a failed investment in a proposed hotel in downtown San Antonio and a planned development near his church. In another venture, Hagee crossed a group of local businesspeople who sought to market their beauty products made from salt from the Dead Sea through Hagee's ministry. They charged in a 2006 lawsuit that they entered into the deal after Hagee billed himself "as someone that had a lot of political connections," making the group "aware of his rubbing shoulders with people influential in the Bush Cabinet," according to the group's lawyer, Jesse Castillo. Castillo said that his clients claimed that Hagee backed out of the deal because the church was facing tax problems due to "a concern that they were mixing the business interests of the church with the business interests."
The former congregant whose husband is bipolar said that even though she and her husband wrote a big check to the church after they sold their house and tithed close to 10 percent of their income, "We never prospered there." Most of the people she knew there were struggling financially, including some who were evicted from their apartments because they couldn't pay their rent. Hagee, she said, has a "very powerful hold, and you don't even realize it. ... We were there ten years, and I knew something was wrong, but I couldn't figure out what it was." She even feared speaking to a reporter: "If I say too much about him, God's going to get me. ... [Hagee's] got so much money and he's so powerful, he could take everything we have in a minute."
Another former member told of tithing even when she had to borrow out of her 401(k) plan to make her mortgage payments. At one point, she said, "at Christmastime I didn't have gifts under my tree. Two small gifts for my kids, that was it. I was so broke, and I was tithing." At the time, she believed that tithing would result in her own blessing. Still another former member, a single mother divorced from an abusive husband, told of tithing out of her child support checks, even though she was living in an apartment with subsidized rent. Contrasting her small apartment with Hagee's home in an exclusive San Antonio subdivision and his multimillion-dollar ranch, she added, "I don't even have a house! My kids grew up on top of each other like sardines. ... I just want a little house." She added, "I thought something was wrong with me. Why am I still [living like this]. I've given and given and given and tithed and tithed and tithed." But while attending Cornerstone, she, like the others, felt guilt and enormous pressure not to question Hagee or his doctrine, and that atmosphere was reinforced through multiple church services each week and mandatory meetings with smaller cell groups whose leaders were vetted on the basis of classes, tests, and the faithfulness of their tithing. As a result, the former member said, "I looked to Pastor Hagee as a god."
sam powell
Sam Powell
“How you are fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning! How you are cut down to the ground, You who weakened the nations! For you have said in your heart: ‘I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God; I will also sit on the mount of the congregation On the farthest sides of the north; I will ascend above the heights of the clouds, I will be like the Most High.’ Yet you shall be brought down to Sheol, To the lowest depths of the Pit. (Isaiah 14:12–15)
Notice the echoes of the same themes—the tower reaching to heaven. We will be like the most high. We will exalt our throne. We will sit on the mount of the congregation of the Lord. Read the whole chapter. Isaiah is speaking about the spirit that drives Babylon, and every kingdom of this earth.
In other words, “We will establish the kingdom of God on this earth. We will build cities. We will pass laws. We will deal with evil-doers. We will create a society, a City on the Hill. And there will be no more curse.”
View it from the backdrop of the description of Babel. This is a major theme throughout the Bible, but I only want to focus on one aspect of it.
The Tower was built with bricks and mortar, and the original readers of Genesis would have known exactly what that meant. Someone had to make the bricks and build the buildings.
That would not have been Pharaoh, the one with the grand plan. It would have been the slaves.
And so comes the downfall of every single scheme to build the kingdom of God on this earth. Someone has to make the bricks.
Even the founding of our own country, which many claim is the “City on the Hill”, using the phrase of the puritans. Who did the work?
Dabney complained after the slaves were set free that he hardly had time to write anymore because of all the menial labor that wasn’t getting done.
In our own state, the California Indians were enslaved to harvest the crops and build the cities. The adobe houses weren’t going to build themselves.
The “City on the Hill” is a grand idea, until you think about who is making the bricks. One thing is for sure. The one who says, “Come let us make bricks” is NOT the one who is actually making the bricks. The one who holds the whip is the one giving the commands. The one at the other end of the whip is making the bricks.
At the end of Genesis 11, there is a contrast. We are introduced to a new character. Abraham. God gives Abraham a promise and Abraham believes it. And he learns to wait for it.
Hebrews 11 tells us this:
By faith he dwelt in the land of promise as in a foreign country, dwelling in tents with Isaac and Jacob, the heirs with him of the same promise;10 for he waited for the city which has foundations, whose builder and maker is God. (Hebrews 11:9–10)
Abraham lived in tents his whole life, because he waited for another kind of city. A city where God makes the bricks and builds the city.
Dwell on that for a moment.
There is no oppression, no vanity under the sun, no pain and toil.
And truly no more curse. No curse for anyone, for God will take it on himself.
HE makes the bricks and prepares a place for you. And you can dwell in a tent while you wait, if that is what it takes. THIS is the kingdom of God. --Sam Powell; Lambs Reign Who’s Building The Bricks Of Nationalism? 11.2.22
Notice the echoes of the same themes—the tower reaching to heaven. We will be like the most high. We will exalt our throne. We will sit on the mount of the congregation of the Lord. Read the whole chapter. Isaiah is speaking about the spirit that drives Babylon, and every kingdom of this earth.
In other words, “We will establish the kingdom of God on this earth. We will build cities. We will pass laws. We will deal with evil-doers. We will create a society, a City on the Hill. And there will be no more curse.”
View it from the backdrop of the description of Babel. This is a major theme throughout the Bible, but I only want to focus on one aspect of it.
The Tower was built with bricks and mortar, and the original readers of Genesis would have known exactly what that meant. Someone had to make the bricks and build the buildings.
That would not have been Pharaoh, the one with the grand plan. It would have been the slaves.
And so comes the downfall of every single scheme to build the kingdom of God on this earth. Someone has to make the bricks.
Even the founding of our own country, which many claim is the “City on the Hill”, using the phrase of the puritans. Who did the work?
Dabney complained after the slaves were set free that he hardly had time to write anymore because of all the menial labor that wasn’t getting done.
In our own state, the California Indians were enslaved to harvest the crops and build the cities. The adobe houses weren’t going to build themselves.
The “City on the Hill” is a grand idea, until you think about who is making the bricks. One thing is for sure. The one who says, “Come let us make bricks” is NOT the one who is actually making the bricks. The one who holds the whip is the one giving the commands. The one at the other end of the whip is making the bricks.
At the end of Genesis 11, there is a contrast. We are introduced to a new character. Abraham. God gives Abraham a promise and Abraham believes it. And he learns to wait for it.
Hebrews 11 tells us this:
By faith he dwelt in the land of promise as in a foreign country, dwelling in tents with Isaac and Jacob, the heirs with him of the same promise;10 for he waited for the city which has foundations, whose builder and maker is God. (Hebrews 11:9–10)
Abraham lived in tents his whole life, because he waited for another kind of city. A city where God makes the bricks and builds the city.
Dwell on that for a moment.
There is no oppression, no vanity under the sun, no pain and toil.
And truly no more curse. No curse for anyone, for God will take it on himself.
HE makes the bricks and prepares a place for you. And you can dwell in a tent while you wait, if that is what it takes. THIS is the kingdom of God. --Sam Powell; Lambs Reign Who’s Building The Bricks Of Nationalism? 11.2.22
richard pratt
Richard Pratt
In recent decades, Christian television has spread what many call the “prosperity gospel” — the misguided belief that if we have enough faith, God will heal our diseases and provide us with great financial blessings. Of course, most people reading this article scoff at the thought that faith can yield such benefits. But don’t laugh too hard. We have our own prosperity gospel for our families. We simply replace having enough faith with having enough obedience. We believe that we can lift our families out of their brokenness if we conform to God’s commands.
You’ve probably encountered this outlook at one time or another. Teachers and pastors tell wives that they will enjoy wonderful relationships with their husbands and children if they will become “an excellent wife” (Prov. 31:10). After all, Proverbs 31:28 says: “Her children rise up and bless her; her husband also, and he praises her.” At men’s conferences, fathers recommit themselves for the sake of their children because “the righteous who walks in his integrity — blessed are his children after him!” (Prov. 20:7). In much the same way, young parents are led to believe that the eternal destinies of their children depend on strict and consistent training. You know the verse: “Train up a child in the way he should go; even when he is old he will not depart from it” (Prov. 22:6). Passages like these have been taken as indicating that Christian families experience blessings and loss from God, quid pro quo. We believe that God promises a wonderful family life to those who obey His commands.
Now, we need to be clear here. The proverbs commend certain paths to family members because they reflect the ways God ordinarily distributes His blessings. But ordinarily does not mean necessarily. Excellent wives have good reason to expect honor from their husbands and children. Fathers with integrity often enjoy seeing God’s blessings on their children. Parents who train their children in the fear of the Lord follow the path that frequently brings children to saving faith. But excellent wives, faithful husbands, and conscientious parents often endure terrible hardship in their homes because proverbs are not promises. They are adages that direct us toward general principles that must be applied carefully in a fallen world where life is always somewhat out of kilter. As the books of Job and Ecclesiastes illustrate so vividly, we misconstrue the Word of God when we treat proverbs as if they were divine promises. --Richard Pratt; Key Life; Broken Homes in the Bible 12.5.19
You’ve probably encountered this outlook at one time or another. Teachers and pastors tell wives that they will enjoy wonderful relationships with their husbands and children if they will become “an excellent wife” (Prov. 31:10). After all, Proverbs 31:28 says: “Her children rise up and bless her; her husband also, and he praises her.” At men’s conferences, fathers recommit themselves for the sake of their children because “the righteous who walks in his integrity — blessed are his children after him!” (Prov. 20:7). In much the same way, young parents are led to believe that the eternal destinies of their children depend on strict and consistent training. You know the verse: “Train up a child in the way he should go; even when he is old he will not depart from it” (Prov. 22:6). Passages like these have been taken as indicating that Christian families experience blessings and loss from God, quid pro quo. We believe that God promises a wonderful family life to those who obey His commands.
Now, we need to be clear here. The proverbs commend certain paths to family members because they reflect the ways God ordinarily distributes His blessings. But ordinarily does not mean necessarily. Excellent wives have good reason to expect honor from their husbands and children. Fathers with integrity often enjoy seeing God’s blessings on their children. Parents who train their children in the fear of the Lord follow the path that frequently brings children to saving faith. But excellent wives, faithful husbands, and conscientious parents often endure terrible hardship in their homes because proverbs are not promises. They are adages that direct us toward general principles that must be applied carefully in a fallen world where life is always somewhat out of kilter. As the books of Job and Ecclesiastes illustrate so vividly, we misconstrue the Word of God when we treat proverbs as if they were divine promises. --Richard Pratt; Key Life; Broken Homes in the Bible 12.5.19
natalie prieb
eetta PRINCE-GIBSON
Oct 21, 2022: Religion News: Best In Religion Journalism: Religion News Association Presents Its Annual Awards
Among the highlights:
Still more winners: Erika Lantz for Excellence in Enterprise Religion Reporting for the podcast “The Turning: The Sisters Who Left,” Eetta Prince-Gibson of Moment magazine for Excellence in Magazine and Non-daily Newspaper Religion Reporting, and Jodi Rudoren of The Forward for Excellence in Religion Commentary.
Among the highlights:
Still more winners: Erika Lantz for Excellence in Enterprise Religion Reporting for the podcast “The Turning: The Sisters Who Left,” Eetta Prince-Gibson of Moment magazine for Excellence in Magazine and Non-daily Newspaper Religion Reporting, and Jodi Rudoren of The Forward for Excellence in Religion Commentary.
karen swallow prior
Karen Swallow Prior, PhD, is a reader, writer, and professor. She is the author of The Evangelical Imagination: How Stories, Images, and Metaphors Created a Culture in Crisis (Brazos, 2023). She has a monthly column for Religion News Service. Her writing has appeared at Christianity Today, The New York Times, The Atlantic, The Washington Post, First Things, and Vox.
The Evangelical Imagination: How Stories, Images, and Metaphors Created a Culture in Crisis
Into this anxious milieu comes Karen Swallow Prior’s The Evangelical Imagination: How Stories, Images & Metaphors Created a Culture in Crisis—a book that is, if nothing else, refreshingly unique in its approach to evangelicalism. Prior attempts to get beneath the doctrinal or sociological definitions of evangelicalism that pervade the academic literature and understand the movement through the “evangelical social imaginaries.” That means the “collective pool of ideas, images, and values that have filled our books, our thoughts, our sermons, our songs, our blog posts, and our imaginations and have thereby created an evangelical culture.”
In one respect, Prior’s effort is to repristinate evangelicalism by disentangling the elements of the evangelical social imaginary “that are truly Christian” so they “can be better distinguished from those that are merely cultural.” Such an effort requires momentarily escaping the blindfold of the metaphors, stories, and images that mold our pre-cognitive intuitions and dispositions in order to see what is real.
(Matthew Lee Anderson/Public Discourse 11/13/23)
Read More>>>>>
Into this anxious milieu comes Karen Swallow Prior’s The Evangelical Imagination: How Stories, Images & Metaphors Created a Culture in Crisis—a book that is, if nothing else, refreshingly unique in its approach to evangelicalism. Prior attempts to get beneath the doctrinal or sociological definitions of evangelicalism that pervade the academic literature and understand the movement through the “evangelical social imaginaries.” That means the “collective pool of ideas, images, and values that have filled our books, our thoughts, our sermons, our songs, our blog posts, and our imaginations and have thereby created an evangelical culture.”
In one respect, Prior’s effort is to repristinate evangelicalism by disentangling the elements of the evangelical social imaginary “that are truly Christian” so they “can be better distinguished from those that are merely cultural.” Such an effort requires momentarily escaping the blindfold of the metaphors, stories, and images that mold our pre-cognitive intuitions and dispositions in order to see what is real.
(Matthew Lee Anderson/Public Discourse 11/13/23)
Read More>>>>>
SBC President Bart Barber apologizes for filing legal brief seeking to limit liability for sex abuse
Well-known Christian author and professor, Karen Swallow Prior, who most recently wrote, The Evangelical Imagination: How Stories, Images, and Metaphors Created a Culture in Crisis, suggested that Barber fire the lawyers who only gave him three hours to decide on whether the SBC should join the brief. “Maybe fire the lawyers that gave you three hours to make such a momentous decision,” she replied to his statement on X. (Leonardo Blair/Christian Post 10/31/23)
Read More>>>>>
Well-known Christian author and professor, Karen Swallow Prior, who most recently wrote, The Evangelical Imagination: How Stories, Images, and Metaphors Created a Culture in Crisis, suggested that Barber fire the lawyers who only gave him three hours to decide on whether the SBC should join the brief. “Maybe fire the lawyers that gave you three hours to make such a momentous decision,” she replied to his statement on X. (Leonardo Blair/Christian Post 10/31/23)
Read More>>>>>
Karen Swallow Prior: Christian Culture in Crisis
This week, Heather sits down with Viral Jesus “honorary co-host” Karen Swallow Prior to discuss the origins of the evangelical movement’s PR troubles. And few thought leaders are better qualified to put the issue into a hopeful perspective than Karen Swallow Prior. Fun Fact: This is Karen’s third appearance on Viral Jesus, and the most of any of our guests so far. Karen’s latest book, The Evangelical Imagination, is about how art, literature, and popular culture have helped push evangelicals into an existential crisis of sorts. And of course, social media, with its penchant for both joy and destruction, plays a role in this evangelical saga.
(Heather Thompson Day/Christianity Today 10/19/23)
Read More>>>>>
This week, Heather sits down with Viral Jesus “honorary co-host” Karen Swallow Prior to discuss the origins of the evangelical movement’s PR troubles. And few thought leaders are better qualified to put the issue into a hopeful perspective than Karen Swallow Prior. Fun Fact: This is Karen’s third appearance on Viral Jesus, and the most of any of our guests so far. Karen’s latest book, The Evangelical Imagination, is about how art, literature, and popular culture have helped push evangelicals into an existential crisis of sorts. And of course, social media, with its penchant for both joy and destruction, plays a role in this evangelical saga.
(Heather Thompson Day/Christianity Today 10/19/23)
Read More>>>>>
Russell Moore, Karen Swallow Prior Spark Outrage for Saying They Don’t Enjoy ‘The Pilgrim’s Progress’
Some Christians are reacting with indignation after Dr. Russell Moore and Dr. Karen Swallow Prior said that they do not enjoy “The Pilgrim’s Progress,” a 17th century Christian allegory written by Puritan preacher John Bunyan. The work is one of the bestselling books of all time, at one point coming in second only to the Bible.
“I have written extensively of my admiration for Bunyan in two books,” said Prior, pushing back on the controversy in a Thursday post on X, formerly known as Twitter. “So you can listen to a very clipped clip that’s circulating, or you can read the books. (Yeah, we know what the click-baiters will choose.)”
(Jessica Lea/Church Leaders 8/25/23)
Read More>>>>>
Some Christians are reacting with indignation after Dr. Russell Moore and Dr. Karen Swallow Prior said that they do not enjoy “The Pilgrim’s Progress,” a 17th century Christian allegory written by Puritan preacher John Bunyan. The work is one of the bestselling books of all time, at one point coming in second only to the Bible.
“I have written extensively of my admiration for Bunyan in two books,” said Prior, pushing back on the controversy in a Thursday post on X, formerly known as Twitter. “So you can listen to a very clipped clip that’s circulating, or you can read the books. (Yeah, we know what the click-baiters will choose.)”
(Jessica Lea/Church Leaders 8/25/23)
Read More>>>>>
Karen Swallow Prior
“If evangelicalism is a house, then these unexamined assumptions are its floor joists, wall studs, beams, and rafters, holding everything together but unseen, covered over by tile, paint, paper and ceilings. What we don’t see, we don’t think about. Until something goes wrong and something needs replacement. Or restoration.” --Karen Swallow Prior; The Evangelical Imagination; August 2023
“Empires expand by dominating, rather than loving, their neighbors. The idea of empire is so embedded in the modern Western imagination that it has shaped our understanding of nearly every facet of life.” --Karen Swallow Prior; The Evangelical Imagination; August 2023
May 12, 2023: Baptist News Global: The hidden battle in Christian higher education: A conversation with Scott Okamoto
Additional stories of power struggles in Christian higher education continue with Joe Rigney’s resignation at Bethlehem Seminary due to his embrace of Christian nationalism, Adam Greenway’s resignation at Southwestern Seminary due to financial liabilities and declining enrollment, the potential closing of The King’s College amidst financial chaos and a lack of transparency, and Karen Swallow Prior leaving Southeastern Seminary while citing that she does not share “the same vision for carrying out the Great Commission” and believes she is “not well-suited to the politics of institutional life in the SBC.”
Additional stories of power struggles in Christian higher education continue with Joe Rigney’s resignation at Bethlehem Seminary due to his embrace of Christian nationalism, Adam Greenway’s resignation at Southwestern Seminary due to financial liabilities and declining enrollment, the potential closing of The King’s College amidst financial chaos and a lack of transparency, and Karen Swallow Prior leaving Southeastern Seminary while citing that she does not share “the same vision for carrying out the Great Commission” and believes she is “not well-suited to the politics of institutional life in the SBC.”
ray pritchard
Dr. Ray Pritchard serves as president of Keep Believing Ministries. He has ministered extensively overseas in China, Bolivia, Colombia, Paraguay, Belize, Haiti, Nigeria, Switzerland, Russia, India, Nepal, and South Korea. He is a frequent conference speaker and guest on Christian radio and television talk shows. He has written 31 books, including Stealth Attack, The ABCs of Christmas, The Healing Power of Forgiveness, An Anchor for the Soul, The Incredible Journey of Faith, The ABCs of Wisdom, Leadership Lessons of Jesus (with Bob Briner), Why Did This Happen to Me?, and Credo: Believing in Something to Die For.
Ray Pritchard
Then Haggai said, “‘So it is with this people and this nation in my sight,’ declares the LORD. ‘Whatever they do and whatever they offer there is defiled.
Here is the application of those strange questions. The key is the word “whatever.” When your heart isn’t right with God, whatever you do will be wrong. You see, God wanted more than a temple built. He wanted the hearts of the people to be fully devoted to him. God didn’t want a big house filled with empty hearts. He didn’t want animal sacrifice unless it was accompanied by a living sacrifice of the people.
Write it down big and plain. You can’t fool God. He isn’t impressed by religious ritual unless it is accompanied by a humble heart.
We may summarize this truth in two crucial sentences:
Holiness is not transferable.
Holiness begins in the heart.
That’s the whole point. God wants your heart because if he has your heart, he’ll soon have every other part of your life. That’s why Proverbs 4:23 says “Above all else, guard your heart, for it is the wellspring of life.” There’s an old gospel song that says, “How about your heart, is it right with God? That’s the thing that counts today.”
So how about your heart? Many of us are concerned about heart disease—and rightly so– but what about spiritual heart disease that is just as insidious? During a heated battle one of Napoleon’s soldiers was shot just above a heart. In those days surgery was done without anesthesia. While the doctor was removing the bullet, the soldier declared, “One inch lower you will find the emperor.” What would we find if we opened your heart today? Would we find Jesus Christ enshrined in your heart? --Ray Pritchard; Keep Believing; The Blessings of Obedience Hagaai 2:10-19 6.1.97
Here is the application of those strange questions. The key is the word “whatever.” When your heart isn’t right with God, whatever you do will be wrong. You see, God wanted more than a temple built. He wanted the hearts of the people to be fully devoted to him. God didn’t want a big house filled with empty hearts. He didn’t want animal sacrifice unless it was accompanied by a living sacrifice of the people.
Write it down big and plain. You can’t fool God. He isn’t impressed by religious ritual unless it is accompanied by a humble heart.
We may summarize this truth in two crucial sentences:
Holiness is not transferable.
Holiness begins in the heart.
That’s the whole point. God wants your heart because if he has your heart, he’ll soon have every other part of your life. That’s why Proverbs 4:23 says “Above all else, guard your heart, for it is the wellspring of life.” There’s an old gospel song that says, “How about your heart, is it right with God? That’s the thing that counts today.”
So how about your heart? Many of us are concerned about heart disease—and rightly so– but what about spiritual heart disease that is just as insidious? During a heated battle one of Napoleon’s soldiers was shot just above a heart. In those days surgery was done without anesthesia. While the doctor was removing the bullet, the soldier declared, “One inch lower you will find the emperor.” What would we find if we opened your heart today? Would we find Jesus Christ enshrined in your heart? --Ray Pritchard; Keep Believing; The Blessings of Obedience Hagaai 2:10-19 6.1.97