Evangelical churches: enjoy in moderation
Luiz Andrada
August 10, 2020.
luizandradabh@gmail.com
As a matter of objectivity, I will call this lunatic asylum using the general term “evangelicals”. Protestants and evangelicals are the same. Protestants protest against the state of affairs of the Roman church, and intend to reform it. They are the historic churches: Lutheran, Anglican, Calvinist. Evangelicals claim total theological and liturgical independence from the Roman church: Baptists, Pentecostals, Neopentecostals, etc. I will call everyone evangelicals.
It takes some objectivity to evaluate this confused phenomenon of charlatans and imposters. Because there are about 45,000 different religions in the world among these madmen who have been protesting for more than 500 years. They are eternally dissatisfied. They protest against everything but themselves. And the multiplication of this religious pathology is uninterrupted. Evangelicals, period. Although they have little to do with the gospel.
And let us not forget evangelical sects, such as Jehovah's Witnesses, Mormons (currently the richest church in the world), Adventists, Messianic Jews, and a multitude of others. They are infinitely creative in their procreation.
I knew this crazy factory for nine years. And I am very grateful to life because it was only nine years. I feel a great deal of compassion for anyone who spends twenty, thirty, forty, fifty, sixty years tucked inside these lunatic asylum. In all the environments I have been in, I have always been very skeptical and aloof, watching everything carefully and trying to keep my distance from the bravest dogs I found around. Evangelical religion seduces because of the engagement of its faithful - theatricality, hysteria - and because of the immense volume of its churches. Unfortunately, this is the fastest growing religion on Brazilian soil, a phenomenon very well explained by the clumsy, empty and futile mentality of our people. It is easy to wash the brains of influential, manipulable, suggestible people, who accept everything and fear to question. Very easy. In fact, evangelical churches are not religions, but companies, franchises, businesses. Open your church, and get rich in a few weeks.
Yes, these evangelical groups are huge, their entrance doors are huge, but few say that their exit doors, in the back, manage to be bigger, and huge herds abandon these religions. Pastors say little about this phenomenon. In fact, these churches are usually true atheist factories, because many faithful are disappointed in God, in the teachings, in the false promises of material wealth, employment, perfect health, protection against dangers, and in the first frustration they tear up their bibles and adhere atheism. I have known several testimonies like that. It is the holy church of ex-evangelical atheists.
You can choose what you want. There are all kinds of guru's opening their church everywhere in this country (Brazil) and in this world. They become themselves apostles, reverends, bishops, missionaries. Everyone deserves a slice of money. From something more liberal, to something more rigid. You can be traditional or charismatic. As pastors are businessmen, and they seek profit, the option for the charismatic movement is the most obvious. Charismatic churches are nothing more than discotheques, and this inflates the church, attracts young people, and increases revenue from tithes, offerings, donations, all in the name of the Holy Spirit. I was always suspicious of charismatic doctrines, and I always had the clear impression that when I entered a charismatic church, I was entering an esoteric sect, of the new era, in which its members live with their heads in the clouds, immersed in sentimental catharsis, sailing in a supernatural world of angels and demons. While many Catholics speak only of Mary, many charismatic evangelicals speak only of the Holy Spirit (I am not saying that this is idolatry); and there are severe accusations by theologians against this practice, not least because this is not the conduct of New Testament Christians. Jesus Christ is the center, not the Holy Spirit.
These franchises have even invented the phenomenon of historic, charismatic Protestant churches, in such a way that, for example, the faithful will find crazy things like a church of charismatic Anglicans. As these historic and traditional churches are failing, the solution found by the pastors is to adhere to the charismatic renewal, with all its very serious psychological disturbances. In Europe, historic churches are in decline, and their temples are sold to become nightclubs, museums, coffee shops, hotels, libraries and even a skate park. Either you choose charismatic renewal, or your church closes. Testimonies of the dangers and psychological damage caused by the charismatic movement are easily found on the internet. Several authors have published articles and books on this subject. It is precisely in the charismatic environment that the most serious processes of brainwashing and manipulation of consciences occur, because of the easy access to the minds of people who are immersed in emotions, feelings, whining, collective hysteria, weakened. Many traditional pastors do not spare words when they rightly state that there are clearly demonic phenomena in the charismatic environment.
Brazilian prisons are also huge fields of evangelization by these churches. Knowing that their sentences are reduced, criminals begin to study the Bible and theology, and soon they are ordained pastors. When they leave jail they continue to commit crimes, with the difference that now they do so in the name of Jesus Christ. A detail of forensic psychiatry: no psychopath is converted, neither changes his life, nor repents. He only uses religion to manipulate idiots, given his spectacular ability to convince people.
In this environment you can be left-wing or right-wing. You can be feminist, or conservative. You can wear ridiculous clothes, like a burqa clown, or you can be more cute and follow the modern style. You can be ecumenical, or against ecumenism. You can be an LGBT activist, and claim that David and Jonathan were homosexual lovers, that Jesus Christ and the apostle John were homosexual lovers, or you can be against homosexuality. Anyway, every evangelical clown finds the circus he deserves.
All this evangelical affectation, this unbearable and empty speech and talk about holiness and the anointing of the Holy Spirit are nothing more than pure hypocrisy, clear perversion. There are many psychopaths and criminals within evangelical churches. There are terrible accusations on the part of ex-evangelicals who have suffered absurdly within these churches. In a short time in this environment, the person observes the sinful and inappropriate behavior of pastors and lay people, men and women. The parasitic pastor who appears in an imported car, living in a beautiful house, while the faithful live poor and modest lives; the youth leader, girl, who preaches against homosexuality, but is discovered dating a girl; the layman who practices corruption in his company; the evangelical politician demanding votes from his church, and then involved in kickbacks with contractors; the Pentecostal pastor, rigid and fanatical, who sexually abused boys in his church; the thief bishop who was arrested; the couple of bishops arrested in the USA for trying to enter that country with undeclared dollars, and for maintaining labor debts; the criminal pastor who practiced extortion against his faithful and was arrested; the Baptist pastor who sexually abused adult girls and minors; the pastor who stole a believer's car, under the pretext of tithing, and under threat of God's punishment if the believer resisted; the immense amount of lies that are told in the name of Jesus, by the pastors, in their pulpits; the idolatry of the sick egos of pastors who want to build mega churches, mega fortunes, to buy mega cars and mega houses; the church that debits its employees' tithing directly from the paycheck; the church that hires hundreds of employees and does not pay all labor taxes properly; the church that manipulates and forces several people to sign statements as volunteers, forcing them to work for free, and much more than formal employees; the idolatry of the sick egos of singers and worship groups that only think about selling CDs and building mega fortunes, and who are much more vain than non-Christian artists; etc.
Evangelical churches are not the depositories of the true Christian religion, as their marketing sectors boast. An American Adventist, although belonging to a church steeped in theological errors, told me something very true: “Luiz, the best thing for all of us, in the face of the chaos that has become the evangelical movement, is to leave the churches, abandon these groups, and live our Christian faith independently, without belonging to any church! ”. In another moment, this person said that many evangelical churches will be the soil for the appearance of the antichrist, with his treacherous, profane, moneymaker, healer, charlatan gospel.
I remain skeptical and observant, taking from my observations the certainty that evangelicals are the most dangerous and toxic group within Christianity.
