(My father passed Oct., 2008; The below was originally posted Feb., 2009, reworked for my site June 2015)

See also my “Sermon” ~ Mark 11:20-25, “Moving Mountains: Faith in Faith” 

(To skip the intro and go directly to the eulogy, click “here“)

An Introduction to My Eulogy

Many years ago, my father was the road manager for a short time for Wilson Pickett and then was involved with Mitch Rider and the Detroit Wheels. Before this time period of my father getting into all aspects of the music industry (drugs, traveling, and the like), I was born in 1970. One-year later my mother and father were divorced. It was the seventies, so the hippie/vagabond lifestyle was chic and my mom traveled a bit, finally settling down in Detroit [proper], married to a wonderful man. My father settled down in North Hollywood California, the other side of the country.

In 1976, my father was saved through the ministry of Ma Bean, a skinny little charismatic woman who had a ministry in Southern California. It was part of the early “Jesus Movement,” where hippies were giving up their drug highs for the “high of Holy Spirit.” After my dad was born again, he started to contact us in order to be involved in his son’s [my] life. He would travel once-and-a-while to Detroit to visit with his family and also see me. In 1982, one of my mom’s aunts who lived in California was sick, so my mom went to visit. During this visit, my dad was key in bringing my mom to the Lord. After her return to Detroit my mom divorced her current husband [a very tough time for me, any child] and we moved to California where she was remarried to my father in a charismatic Catholic church service.

We attended Church on the Way (Jack Hayford’s church [not an “invitation” or endorsement of Hayford]), visited an almost Pentecostal Catholic church when there was a Charismatic service, and TBN (Trinity Broadcasting Network) was on 24/7 in the home. While the A-Team was the discussion point at school, any programming other than TBN was “devilish.” (I am sure some can relate.)

Years later, my mother and father were would find themselves divorced again. I attribute this to a few factors. First, mainly due to no real doctrine being present in their life, just emotional Christianity. Their subjective wills were not firmly based in the immovable will of the revealed God of Scripture. This is not to say they were-not-or-did-not have a real conversion moment… I did at thirteen. But replacing the sound doctrine of the Cross with “kingdom now/word faith” theology stretches the boundaries of Christ’s salvonic work (1 Samuel 16:7). Secondly… my mother is a hippy [vagabond] at heart — unfaithful to her Lord and her husband. This isn’t ideal, but she i-s my mom. Thirdly, my father became almost unbearable in his later years. You hear about person’s becoming “grumpy” later in life… this was my dad. He should have brought these issues confidently into God’s throne room and asked for a softer heart rather than by relying on his own merits/faith for miracles to be done in his life.

Some time after my parents divorced this second time, I remember my dad having just enough to pay another month of his mortgage… or… paying TBN during one of their faith marathons.

During this particular drive, TBN had a fire pit built in back of their California studio and promised that no matter what a person’s financial need and situation was, that they could receive 10-times the amount given — and very possibly more. So my dad took his last $2,000 and sent it in. Obviously he lost the house, and ultimately his life (I will explain further shortly).

It is this type of thinking that has devastated my family as well as taking the life of my father. It is not just another form of Christianity, it is a killer form if taken to its logical end.

Which is why I must participate in such a site and post articles like this, if only to reach one soul with the true freedom found in a proper understanding of Law and Grace.

There is freedom for those who take up their cross, in this case, it is a cross of understanding what Jesus died for… it wasn’t for my father’s mortgage.

Jesus died for something more valuable than that, more valuable than all the money racked in by TBN…. He died for your and my soul.

My father was sent home to “live” with my wife and myself with a diagnosis of two-months to live. On October 25th I was reading Scripture to my father when his breathing started getting worse than it already was. I stopped reading from the Word and started to fluff the pillows and blankets surrounding my father. He managed to gasp “help” and shortly thereafter was strong enough to cry a bit…

…

(as I did as well)

…

…while telling him that I loved him and wiping the drool from his mouth and the sweat from his brow. I could not dial 911 or call for help because my father was sent home with us for this reason… to pass as comfortably as possible.

All I could do is watch my father suffocated to death.

He looked scared.

Not because he lacked faith in God, but because the natural tendency of mankind is to live. He was also coming to the understanding that the doctors were correct and his theology flawed… realizing your life is slipping away and having so many open ends in it can be daunting. Even terrifying, to say the least.

You see, his lungs were full of cancer due to his colon cancer.

This cancerous barrage spreading through his body was the result of him feeling sick but not going to the doctor to get checked up. Rather, he would claim his wellness by faith.

F-i-n-a-l-l-y, he was so sick he HAD TO go to the doctors for a look at what was wrong.

he was diagnosed with colon cancer and it was recommended he be operated on immediately. He pushed off the operation a few times, canceling dates of the operation in order to claim his healing by faith.

I will never (never) forget this next visit I drove him to at his primary physician’s office. His doctor was at her wits end. When she walked out of the examination room, I told my dad that if he did not get the operation that I was through with helping him. He yelled at me this favorite saying of word-faith teachers,

“GET BEHIND ME SATAN!”

This is important and should not be lost on the audience. I am his son telling him to follow his doctor’s suggestion and quit canceling his operation dates… and I am Satan according to his theology.

He finally acquiesced and got the operation.

The operation proved successful, you could see a marked improvement in even how he looked.

I went with him to his follow-up appointment with his regular, primary care doctor. [Turned out to be his only.]

She showed amazement — as did I upon finding out the information — that he didn’t go to his scheduled meeting[s] with the specialist (the doctor that did the operation).

My father ended up rejecting any form of recommended chemotherapy (his doctor even explaining a new pill form that wasn’t as invasive as radiation therapy).

The doctor was worried that the cancer had spread and they wanted to kill as much of the cancer as they could thus extending my father’s life. My father rejected this and refused to even see his regular doctor. AGAIN, claiming his well-being through faith.

• You see, this type of thinking is ingrained in the word-faith movement that was popularized by TBN (Trinity Broadcasting Network) and taken from the writings of Kenneth Hagin and later Kenneth Copeland. My father had just about every Hagin booklet known to man.

Fast forward to a couple of weeks ago (11-3-08) and my father was being told that he had cancer all over his body. Especially in his lungs, BECAUSE he had a) initially waited too long allowing the cancer to perforate the wall of his colon… and his later b) refusing and post-treatment allowing the cancer to spread quickly.

I was present in the hospital when it took TWO doctors to get the point across that there was nothing more they could do.

I watched as my father begged them for chemotherapy to help extend his life.

Obviously, it was too late for that. And they forcefully explained that.

It was sad to see him put in a corner of the one-for-one odds of our death. It was a bit tougher in his case because it was hastened by his own actions and bad theology.

It did not take long for my dad to revert to saying that Satan was a liar and that he was going to be healed.

It is regrettable that many at this church [my father’s church] commented positively upon reflection of my father’s rebuking of Satan and his claiming his healing by faith.

I wonder if his fellow church members knew what he was really saying? It is this:

And this is the crux of the matter which I will explain more in the actual eulogy I did at my dad’s service.

After my presentation (again, below), one woman came up to me after and said she would love to have seen my father and I heatedly discuss the issue of healing in the atonement.

I did not know what to say.

I wanted to say that what she did not realize was that my position had been proven in my father’s death. There was no need for an argument, death was unfortunately on my side of the argument.

Obviously, there will be a time when all of creation, hence mankind, will be in perfect harmony again as the creation God intended… anyone listening to my presentation thoughtfully would realize such when I read from Romans chapter 8 from two different versions. However, I fear that not too many listened with a sharp ear.

So now I am anguished a bit at my dad’s last attempt to shed a tear right before he took his last breath.

Was it because he faltered in his faith and was frightened that he had been wrong all these years due to his non-healing?

Was it because he had unfinished business with loved ones… namely his son?

Did all the stuff he accumulated in his apartment supplant what he really needed, a family, his grandsons, daughter-in-law?(He drove for years past our condominium three-or-four times a week going to his church without stopping in once.)

W-h-a-t-e-v-e-r his reasoning was, I couldn’t do anything but cry and tell him I loved him.

…

(like I am now)

…

And these folks at his church ~ as wonderful as they are and were to him ~ are soo caught up in their emotional stances of Scripture that a healthy-well-balanced understanding of scripture is too much to ask for.

The charismatic and Pentecostal tradition has a lot to answer for in the proverbial “By-and-By.” Mind you, while I truly believe some of these people at my dad’s church are saved and are going to heaven, they are destroying lives of people around them. They just don’t see it.

Just like the early movement in the Corinthian church that had a similar emotional outburst and rejected a healthy-well-balanced theology that Paul spoke to in 1 Corinthian 14:23. Thus, Paul would have rebuked gracefully and doctrinally my dad’s church.

I think my eulogy, then, is fitting for what I wanted to express… what I needed to express.

This eulogy I entitled:

O’ Sweet Exchange

End of “O’ Sweet Exchange”

At the end of others talking about my father, I had a recording of my father which he apparently recorded on accident during one of his church services on his camcorder. With some help from Pastor Russ from my church the two video files were joined into one audio file. This posthumous find is a very special find and was equally so at the end of the service… enjoy: