(I’m putting this in IMHO since it doesn’t seem important enough for GQ)
My 60-year-old roommate spends a great deal of time watching TV preachers on TBN. Since I have to see this every time I pass the television set, I’ve come up with the following question:
Do black preachers act like that when they don’t have TV cameras pointed at them? I swear every one of these guys sounds like Louis “Satchmo” Armstrong and moves like James Brown when they preach. Granted, the white TV preachers are a little more animated than the real live white preachers I’ve listened too. But the black TV preachers … wow.
Is it just that TBN goes out of its way to find “showmen” to put on TV? Or does TBN actively encourage this outlandish style if the preacher isn’t already like that?
TBN actively seeks out outlandish people with shaky theology. At least in my opinion. Really, a couple of the shows are ok but the majority are as you describe, a little oulandish. Were you watching TD Jakes by chance?
I don’t get TBN, unfortunately. (The first time I saw “that woman” on it, I stood, transfixed).
The local access programs are even better. Sometimes it the opposite, where a preacher will stand there, stock still, barely moving his lips. Entertainment!
Oh, Peter Popoff sucks.
Depends on the person and style of church. You can easily find churches that do this in real life. Every time I’m in the area, I get roped into attending my Grandparents’ church, and the Pastor puts on the kind of show you’re talking about. That, along with the people leaping up and running around in the aisles and “speaking in tongues” (called catching the holy ghost) makes it a very entertaining experience for all the wrong reasons imo. Much better than getting guilted into going to Mass with the RC side of the family.
You sure it’s Money and not ‘Dollar’? I spot Creflo Dollar jr on TV from time to time. (Given what I’ve found about him looking for that page, I have to say…what an appropriate name…)
I have seen Mr. T preaching on one of the religious channels before (perhaps TBN), and you can imagine how animated he is. I never linger there UNLESS it’s him. Mr. T pities the foo’ who don’t love Jesus!
Yeah, but Rexella & her hubby Jack Van Impe are actually the more laid-back white faces on TBN- granted, Jack will wax ecstatically eloquent while discussing portents of the Apocalypse, but he’s still maintains some dignity when compared to a lot of the TBN stable of preachers.
Re the comparisons to Satchmo & James Brown- where do you think Louis & James got that delivery from? Black exhortative preaching is, like jazz, an African-American art form.
[HIJACK]The most terrifying black preacher on TBN is a woman. The first time I saw her I thought it was Willona from Good Times having hit the Born Again circuit as has-been celebrities sometimes will (Willie Aames, Gavin McLeod, Demond Wilson, etc.) and kept thinking “Oh God I’m so glad Florida didn’t live to see her like this! Damn Damn Damn!” As it turned out it wasn’t her but could easily be her long lost sister.
The woman is nuts even by TBN standards. Listen to her if you ever get the chance: she makes absolutely no sense whatsoever, it’s just however many minutes of free associating self referentialism punctuated by “Praise Jesus! Blessed be God!”- no Bible passages, no theology of any kind, just “Praise the Holy Spirit!” in stories about how an audible voice or voices told her to give a homeless woman her car (and of course the next day a check for twice the value of the car arrives from nowhere) or “Now you ask why does God want me to have this baby when I can’t support it why does he care if I have an abortion when my man beat me I’ll tell you a story and this is true one time I went through the drive through at my bank and the woman looked at me and said ‘Girl you know you don’t have an account here!’ PRAISE JESUS! But I looked at her and I said I know that I do and there’s a 4 in it cause Jesus was on that cross between 2 thieves and there was a centurion at the base and that makes 4 and I need some money and the woman looked at the screen it said I had six million dollars PRAISE GLORY!” (Audience and Jan going wild for no apparent reason) “And I took that money and I used it to buy an apartment complex Yes Jesus! and I heard a voice in my mailbox telling me to burn down that apartment complex and dance nekkid in the ashes yes Jesus and when I did that the police came and took me away and I sued them for $59 million and I used that $59 million to buy all of Mexico and tear down those Catholic idols and I did it for my lord amen! So you better HAVE THAT BABY GIRL cause God doesn’t care about what shoes you wear as long as your heart is in the bathtub!” (Audience resembles audience at Ben Hur chariot races and Jan literally gives birth to herself in excitement.)
It is literally that psychotic and rambling. Do yourself a favor and watch her if she’s ever one- she’s the only ranting raving black woman who looks like Willona from Good Times [but thankfully isn’t] on there to my knowledge.[/HIJACK]
I just caught a Rev. Bill Winston while channel surfing. He was doing some rather quiet eloquent teaching. And in spite of his “Name It, Claim It” theology, Frederick K.C. Price is also quite laid back.
Wanna see a real change? Check out the saga of Charismatic former Pokemon-damner now Universal Salvationist & Gay-affirming Carleton Pearson.
