Another week, another church. This week I visited Hope Presbyterian Church, a mega-church located in the suburbs of Memphis, TN, with an average weekly attendance of 7,500. As expected, it is full of wealthy, white families with a few black folks scattered here-and-there for good measure. After navigating the expanse of minivans and SUVs and dodging families with the standard 2.5 children, I made it into the front door. Once inside, I ran the gauntlet along the corridor where parishioners were dashing between vending machines and coffee kiosks to stock up before the big show.
Inside the sanctuary, I made my way to the 7th row for the best view. The show started promptly at 11:15am. The music was a good mix of contemporary and traditional songs, but was essentially a 30-minute concert starring the zombie-like choir and various musicians—from guitarist to drummer to saxophonist. When the music team finished, there was a customary offering and the pastor, Dr. Craig Strickland delivered his sermon. His homily was the third part of a seven-part series titled, “Seven Words from the Cross”. In the series, Dr. Strickland is lecturing on the seven comments Jesus made while hanging from the cross. By the way, these comments by Jesus are not consistent across the four gospels, but that is neither here nor there. Last Sunday, he discussed “love” citing John 19:25-27, where Jesus says to his Mother, “Woman, here is your son (John the disciple),” and, “Behold your mother,” speaking to John of Mary. He goes on to explain that loving your family and treating fellow believers as family is a good thing. The entire sermon was pleasant and non-judgmental. Because of its lack of substance, I won’t bother with further analysis.
This entire experience is a shining example of why Christianity is wrong and evil. Contemporary Christianity is deceptive. Believers focus on sweet and loving passages by Jesus and Paul, while ignoring the genocide and rape sanctioned by their god in the Old Testament. They emphasize Jesus as a loving, humble servant who only wants to save you from his vengeful father who seeks to cast you into eternal torment. The moderate, touchy-feely version of this religion legitimizes all the fringe denominations, which lie to children as a means of propagandizing them and psychologically and emotionally abuse them.
The truth is Christianity is VERY judgmental and preaches the wicked message of an afterlife of eternal torture to the gullible masses. This experience did nothing but expose the shallowness of contemporary Christianity. Christianity is an evil enterprise that seeks to perpetuate and “make relevant” a dim-witted proposition for financial gain and power.
Church website: www.hopepres.com
