Bene Diction Blogs On

By Rick Hiebert. All Rights Reserved. Used by Permission.

Robert Grasseschi, no doubt under the mentoring of his evangelist wife Faytene, is picking up how to speak in charismatic churches. But Robert, who says he used to be an adept basketball player, rhetorically bounced his three point shot off the rim recently.

The couple were guests roughly a couple of weeks ago at the North Hollywood, California church of evangelist Toure Roberts. Apparently, One Church International is quite hip and popular from what Roberts says. He has to turn away potential guest speakers. And also the church has a strong interest in the arts.

The couple are apparently friends of Roberts. So it would be quite natural in the run up to Faytene’s The Cry Hollywood initiative, that she would want to talk about what she hopes to do with “cool” perhaps younger, Christians who could lend a hand.

One of their videotaped sermons is posted online here. Faytene has some interesting things to say, but a couple things strike me as worth noting.

Robert is up first, introducing Faytene. I like Robert. He seems affable and friendly. But how he goes about it winds up being accidentally funny, with a possibly jarring subtext.

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I’m curious.
Are you looking forward to 2012?

There were over 555,000 visitors to this blog in 2011, which worked out to an average of 1,2084 readers a day. Here’s to you!

The final round of voting for the 2010 Canadian Blog Awards ends January 20th. BDBO is currently 4th in the Religion and Philosophy category. Click over and vote eh?

This song is on my mind tonight, enjoy.

In 1952 Mario Lanza had a fight with MGM and was dropped from The Student Prince prior to shooting. He was replaced by Edmond Purdom, who lip synched the musical soundtrack Lanza had already laid down. Mario Lanza did all the songs in the studio in one take. This song was one of three written for the movie. Prince Karl is sent away to school because the princess picked to marry him has no use for his personality and lack of social skills. Karl adapts well to his new surroundings and friends and falls in love with a barmaid. When the King dies suddenly, Prince Karl is summoned home to take up his responsibilities. This is sung before the coffin of the king in the cathedral as the prince accepts his fate.

By Rick Hiebert. All Rights Reserved. Used by Permission.

Faytene Grasseschi, in a recent internet interview, offers some fine advice on how Christians in public life should reply to being critiqued.

Great advice. I hope that she turns over a new leaf and starts to practice it, as her graciousness is very much at odds with things she has said in the past.

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The five stones New Birth Missionary Church leader Eddie Long said he had, seem to be coming at him as the year draws to a close.

This thing I’m going to fight!, I feel like David against Goliath. But I got five rocks, and I haven’t thrown one yet“. – Eddie Long

A May settlement in a sexual coercion case is supposedly being broken by three of the men who told media they were writing books, (Long and New Birth Church are suing for breech of contract) was followed by news that parisoners caught in an investment scheme were suing. A lawsuit between a bank and a church owned business was settled in September, which was followed by news that Vanessa Long, the second wife of Eddie Long was going ahead with a divorce; which was followed by an announcement a few weeks ago that Eddie Long was stepping out of the pulpit for an undisclosed period to ‘take care of family business.’

Now New Birth Christian Academy, a private school for K-12, housed in the New Birth complex, announced it is closing immediately.

New Birth Christian Academy, a school affiliated with the Georgia New Birth Missionary Baptist Church, sent a letter to parents saying that the school would not continue with classes after the Christmas break citing the economic downturn and declining enrollement.

With the 18-year-old academy closing, over 221 students and 20 staff will find themselves without a school. Parents were notified a couple of days before Christmas.

The letter sent to the parents of students cited an ongoing operating deficit and declining enrollment as reasons for closure. Parents were not told how large the claimed deficit is. The letter also said that school officials would help parents find other schools to enroll their children for the duration of the 2011-2012 school year.

Thanks to Right Wing Watch for pulling this clip from Rick Joyner’s Tuesday Prospective Prophecies program.

Bentley brags about a lot of things in the full video, his ‘open visions,’ his healing services, his anointing and authority; in this clip he brags about ‘the Lord’ telling him to punch a man with a broken sternum and broken ribs who supposedly came up for prayer at Morningside in his first public meeting since Lakeland. (December 18 2009?) This fellow is supposedly named Craig, was supposedly suffering from stage 4 cancer, and who Joyner says is an employee of Morningside. Joyner and Bentley take cues from each other, and Joyner hastens to inject that Bentley hasn’t punched anyone since.
Since ‘the Lord’ told him to whallop Craig, how long is it going to be before ‘the Lord’ tells Bentley to punch someone else?
Craig apparently was in a truck accident, was separated and depressed as well as having stage 4 cancer. Note how many times Bentley uses the term ‘the Lord said’ or ‘the Lord told me.’

“Don’t try this at home unless this is the Lord.”

Joyner attempts to justify this supposed restored behavior by saying Jack Coe and Smith-Wigglesworth hit people. Joyner says if it isn’t ‘the Lord,’ Bentley would be sued. Craig just happens to be in the studio and steps in to chat with Joyner and Bentley. The punching Craig story starts about 9:02, in the full video, and Bentley does some cold reading. Bentley leads Craig into conversation into a root of bitterness and anger which caused Craig’s infirmities (spirit of cancer) and brags about his ‘words of knowledge’ and ‘vision’ and ‘word of the Lord’. Craig doesn’t offer to provide medical records for his supposed liver cancer, depression or broken bones. Bentley says earlier Craig had lung cancer. God doesn’t know the organs of the body and which ones need His touch? If you can stand to watch the full video, the unsubstantiated claims get even crazier as Joyner and Bentley plan to sell DVD’s and do a series on healing.

Bam!

This is Bentley restored?

“Every barrel of oil that comes out of those sands in Canada is a barrel of oil that we don’t have to buy from a foreign source.” Texas Governor Rick Perry. Clarinda, Iowa December 27th

And his audience applauded.

New York Times Where is Rick Mercer asking a presidental candidate from Texas about Prime Minister Jean Poutine Steve Poutine when we need him?

EFC Vice-President, lawyer Don Hutchinson is not happy with CBC coverage of government consultations on the proposed Office of Religious Freedom.

Well, there you have it. I’ve been outed by the CBC. Yes, it’s true. I was a panelist at the Department of Foreign Affairs consultation on establishing an Office of Religious Freedom. I don’t know the selection process for attendees or for the panelists either. The panelist bios might give a hint and the CBC has conveniently published them for ease of reference.

My selection might have to do with being a lawyer who works a great deal in the field of religious freedom and my employer, The Evangelical Fellowship of Canada, alone and in conjunction with the World Evangelical Alliance, has been directly engaged in this area since the 1990s. It could be that I have been a member of the Religious Liberty Commission since 2006 and its chair since 2008. Perhaps, it’s related to my being a member of Advocates International’s Task Force on Religious Freedom (Advocates is active in over 100 countries) or a member of the board of directors for Voice of the Martyrs Canada (part of an international network supporting persecuted Christians around the world). Maybe, everyone ahead of me on the list said no. I didn’t ask. They didn’t tell.

While I don’t disagree with Hutchinson on how media portrays evangelicals,  media is not the only one to fault.  If Canadian evangelicals  start the martyrdom/victimization meme we see from the religious right in the US and from our religious right (Charles McVety) and if Canadian evangelicals adopt a defensive stance with media, reporting is not going to improve.

Much of what is good and true about Christianity doesn’t make news, and that makes sense. Christianity is relational; love God, love others as yourself.  Christianity’s positive effect on society and on government policy also doesn’t get much ink, air time or pixels and that also makes sense. Where I think we continue to struggle as evangelicals, is in self-awareness, self-policing and public honesty about the flaws in our variety of institutions, range of beliefs and bad behavior by individuals.

I appreciate the blog Get Religion, which works to educate media in religious reporting. Less sarcasm, complaining and fluff and more educating networking with media and individual journalists will help Canadian evangelicals get their message out before guys like Charles McVety hog the spotlight.