Marjoe

Hugh Marjoe Ross Gortner is doing okay. He had a lot to sort out, walk away and heal from. He left preaching at 14 and went back on the revival circuit for 4/1/2 years (cynical and broke) in his mid twenties. He ended his preaching career with this documentary/expose, which he may have anticipated as a springboard for his acting career at the time. From an interview with the authors of Snapping

Today Marjoe restricts the use of his talents to his acting career and to social causes he deeply believes in. Foremost among those causes is informing the public about some of the rhetorical techniques that are being used to manipulate their thoughts and emotions. Most techniques Marjoe is in command of are simple and age-old, but so effective that they can be equally powerful even when and audience has been explicitly forewarned of their use. Toward the end of our conversation, Marjoe told us a story that revealed the fineness of his rhetorical skills. In contrast to the massive physical experiences such as intense group rituals and intimate personal crises that have been recognized as major contributors to the snapping moment, Marjoe demonstrated how words alone, artfully manipulated, may be used to influence groups and individuals, even to the point of evoking the overwhelming emotional response of being “saved.”

“I lecture in about twenty colleges a year,” he began, “and I do a faith-healing demonstration — but I always make them ask for it. I tell them that I don’t believe in it, that I use a lot of tricks; the title of the lecture is ‘Rhetoric and Charisma,’ so I’ve already told them the whole rap explaining how it’s done, but they still want to see it. So I throw it all right back at them. I say, ‘No, you don’t really want to see it.’ And they say, ‘Oh, yes. We do. We do!’ And I say, ‘But you don’t believe in it anyway, so I can’t do it.’ And they say, ‘We believe. We believe!’ So after about twenty minutes of this I ask for a volunteer, and I have a girl come up and I say, ‘So you want to feel better?’ And I say, ‘You’re lying to me! You’re just up here for a good time and you want to impress all these people and you want to make an ass out of me and an ass out of this whole thing, so why don’t you just go back and sit down?’ I get really hard on her, and she says, ‘No, no, I believe!’ And I keep going back and forth until she’s almost in tears. And then, even though this is in a college crowd and I’m only doing it as a joke, I just say my same old line, In the name of Jesus! and touch them on the head, and wham, they fall down flat every time.”

This film won an Oscar for Best Documentary Feature in 1972. Film maker Sarah Kernochan got back the rights and put it out on DVD in 2007.

What will Marjoe mean now, after all these years? I am hoping that the DVD will reach those parts of the country in which the film was never released. The Bible Belt especially. I hope people of other faiths will understand where the power of the evangelical movement has come from, understand the lure of the music and the promise of a life-altering spiritual experience. I hope they will see, too, that this ecstatic union with Christ is also … sometimes … commandeered by ruthless and greed-fueled “servants of God” — the ministers who have, since the year Marjoe was made, erected a formidable enterprise sprawling over the media, corporate America, and the Beltway, with no notion of stopping until the United States becomes one big mega-church.

One preacher not profiting from this success will be Marjoe Gortner. Instead, he came clean. Will anyone listen again?

Marjoe Gortner – wiki
WFMU’s Beware of the Blog – Mp3′s of his sermons age 4-8