Word of Faith

An Egregious Example of `smarm•i•ness` ~ Bankrupt Word Faith Preacher Markus Bishop`s Arrogance

Published by Papa Giorgio

Via The Word on the Word of Faith

From the video description:

This is perhaps one of the lowest examples of Word of Faith arrogance, legalism and judgmentalism you’ll ever see.

In one breath, “Pastor” Markus Bishop ferociously mocks and dismisses generations of Christians who use simple storytelling tools to win people to Christ for the sake and tries to smarmily tell them to instead invest untold millions of dollars into extravaganzas that will dazzle “the new generation” because “God ain’t broke.”

Perhaps Markus ought to practice what he preaches about prosperity and get his church’s bills paid on time:

PANAMA CITY BEACH — Faith Christian Family Church is in foreclosure and the disputed parsonage for Pastor Markus Bishop is still mired in litigation, The News Herald learned this week.

Faith Christian Family Church will be sold May 26 in a foreclosure auction unless church officials pay SunTrust Bank $2,924,126.71, court records show.

Suntrust loaned the church $2.8 million in August 2008, taking the deed on the church at 13300 Back Beach Road as collateral, court records show.

The church’s pastor, Markus Bishop, signed off on the deal and gave his title as “President of Faith Christian Family Church of Panama City Beach, Inc., a Florida Non-Profit Corporation.”

According to Suntrust, Faith Christian has not made a payment on the loan since October 2010. In February, the company started foreclosure proceedings.

“Client relationships are confidential. We’ll decline to comment on them,” SunTrust spokesman Mike McCoy said Thursday. “We do make every effort to avoid foreclosure and view it as an action of last resort.”

Faith Christian’s attorney, Mitch Dever, declined to comment on the situation. Attempts to contact Bishop were unsuccessful Thursday.

…read more…

Here is more ugliness in regards to this “man of god”

Heartbreak! Rifqa Bary Refuses Chemo After Healing Revival

Published by Papa Giorgio

She has fallen in with the wrong crowd. Out of the frying pan into the fire. The sad thing is, her parents may not be the worse thing for her… she may be. In fact, her killing herself through bad theology is now higher than her mom and dad doing it.

Religion News Blog:

Christian convert Rifqa Bary is refusing chemotherapy for cancer because she believes that she was cured at a faith-healing event, according to a motion in Franklin County Juvenile Court.

Rifqa was to undergo a year of chemotherapy after her cancer was surgically removed, the document filed by her parents states. But Rifqa, who is in foster care, was taken to a faith-healing event in Youngstown a couple of weeks ago by Franklin County Children Services, without her parents’ consent, according to the document.

A motion to force treatment is to be considered on Tuesday in Juvenile Court.

Rifqa’s attorneys, meanwhile, are asking the court to make “special findings” so that she can obtain an immigration status that will allow her to stay in the country and obtain medical care. Rifqa, a native of Sri Lanka, does not have legal status in the United States, her attorneys have said in court.

[…]

Rifqa ran away from home in July 2009, saying her Muslim father would kill her for converting to Christianity. She lived with evangelical pastors in Florida before returning to Ohio to live in a foster home.

[…]

The Barys want to force chemotherapy and are concerned that their daughter could die without treatment, Tarazi wrote….

…(read more)…

More Word of Faith Related Deaths Coming from The Followers of Christ Church in Oregon

Published by Papa Giorgio

To read more on this topic and to start and look for help to escape such bad theology that leads to death instead of life, visit The Word on the Word of Faith’s group blog, especially their recovery forums.

Religion News Blog:

An Oregon City couple will face charges of second-degree manslaughter in the faith-healing death of their newborn son, the third such fatality involving the Followers of Christ church in the past two years.

Dale R. Hickman and Shannon M. Hickman, both 25, were booked about 1 a.m. Friday at the Clackamas County Jail. Dale Hickman’s father, Phillip Hickman, posted 10 percent of their $500,000 bail, and they were released about two hours later. They will be formally charged Aug. 30.

Their infant son was born in September, 2009, about six weeks premature. He weighed 3 pounds, 5 ounces and lived nine hours.

No one with medical training attended the birth, and no one called a doctor or ambulance. An autopsy determined the infant died of staph pneumonia and complications from a premature birth, including underdeveloped lungs….

….Members of the Followers of Christ church rely on Research resources on faith healing”>faith-healing rituals – anointing with oil, prayer and the laying on of hands – rather than secular medicine. Church members have testified that they would not go to a doctor or hospital even if it meant the difference between life and death, preferring to put their faith solely in God’s power to heal.

The Hickman and Wyland indictments underscore a pledge by Clackamas County District Attorney John Foote to aggressively prosecute church members who fail to provide necessary medical care to their children, as required under Oregon law.

Foote reached out to church members earlier this year, urging them to seek common ground that would assure that their children receive adequate medical care….

…(read more)…


Benny Hinn Having an Affair With Paula White (?)

Published by Papa Giorgio

Televangelist Benny Hinn, who resides behind gates in Dana Point and has a church and television studio in Aliso Viejo, and Without Walls International Church pastor Paula White of Florida have posted statements on their websites denying a report that they are romantically involved (OC Weekly).

…White was a self-proclaimed “messed-up Mississippi girl” growing up in Tupelo. Her father committed suicide when she was 5, and White’s website says she suffered “sexual and physical abuse” up until she was 13. White says her life changed when at 18 she received a “divine visitation.”

By 1991, she and then-husband Randy White were founding their own mega-church in Tampa.

The couple announced their divorce in 2007, after the church came under fire to failing to repay $170,000 borrowed from an elderly widow. The money, originally borrowed in 1995, was used as down payment on a house.

Randy stayed on with the ministry, now called Without Walls International Church.

Last year, however, Paula returned to that church’s pulpit, replacing Randy, who resigned citing ill health. At her first sermon, White told the congregants: “Mama is back.”…

…(read more)…

The question is this, while the National Enquirer often gets it wrong [they were right on Jesse Jackson and John Edwards], when pics like this hit the “press,” it is hard to deny: