Is the Ed Young Sermon Series "Kool Aid" or "Cool Aid"? Kraft Foods May Want to Know!

Today Fellowship Church posted on their website marquee the promo for the new "Cool Aid" series by Ed Young starting next week.

The "Cool Aid" graphic is different from the "Kool Aid" graphic shown to the audiences at the church performances this past weekend. The top picture at left shows Fellowship Church using Kraft Foods' brand image of Mr. Kool Aid, with "Gay Marriage" plastered on it.

If Fellowship Church has not obtained prior approval from Kraft Foods for use of their logo, it is quite hypocritical to use EITHER of these images, considering Fellowship filed a copyright infringement claim against me in 2010 to take down two videos I had posted on Vimeo lawfully under the Fair Use Doctrine of the U.S. copyright laws. Fellowship lawyers claimed:

"The availability of this video [Watchdog's use of a small portion of an Ed Young sermon video] obtained without the knowledge or consent of the Church for free on your site greatly infringes upon the Church's ability to market this work"

 
My lawyer and I contested their video takedown, and we prevailed in early 2011 to have the videos reinstated by Vimeo here and here. 

And this is not the first time Fellowship Church has used other corporations' brand logos before.  As I pointed out here, Fellowship Church used the brand logo of Gatorade, changing it to Haterade, and they also used the "Twilight" logo to promote another sermon series.

Maybe Kraft Foods will contact Ed Young and Fellowship Church and ask them politely to stop using their Kool Aid brand name and logo.

Another example of the zaniness these days in the modern evangelical mega church.

Finally, the Ed Young Sermon Series We've All Been Dreaming of: "KOOL AID"

UPDATE: Since posting this article last night, I just can't help but wonder if this is not a media stunt. Really, how can General Foods, the owner of the Kool Aid brand, be in favor of Ed Young using their product logo with the words "gay marriage" on them, which would be associated with a sermon (presumably) against gay marriage?  Will be interesting to see how this plays out.

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Finally, the sermon series from Ed Young we've all been waiting for, starts Saturday June 2, 2012!!

Title of the next Ed Young, Jr. sermon series:

"Kool-Aid"!

Yes, Ed has been accused of serving up the Kool Aid for his church members each week, and now he is going to actually preach about Kool Aid! The first topic in the Kool-Aid series is on Gay Marriage, so should be exciting to see how gay marriage and Kool Aid line up.

A few reasons why this is an excellent choice for a Fellowship sermon series:

1. The bible actually has nothing to say about Kool Aid or beverages with absolutely no nutritional value, leaving things wide open.

2. Kool Aid is 90% water and 10% sugar, thus there is a tithing lesson in there somewhere.

3.  "Kool" rhymes with "Fool", enabling Ed to call it something clever like "Fool Aid", much like he took "Gatorade" and called it "HaterAde" to accuse his criticizers of being "haters".

4.  So many of the Kool Aid marketing slogans can be adapted to the reality of Fellowship Church, such as the following (I'll let the readers figure out how to change the slogans for today's Ed Young-type church):

"Your friend is cool!" - "Our friend is Kool Aid!!!"

"Smart moms serve Kool Aid"

"Ohhh Yeah!!!!!"

"Kool Aid to the rescue!"

5. Kool Aid is a perfect metaphor for the doctrine taught at many of these churches: it might taste good and look good, and the gullible drinkers think it is a healthy drink, but Kool Aid really offers no nutritional value except for the sugar content (and that isn't even supplied by the cheap Kool Aid packs).

6. We all know what "Drinking the Kool Aid" refers to - the tragedy of Guyanna and Jim Jones and the mass suicide, but since then it has taken on the meaning of people not thinking clearly about what they are taught, and blindly following the charismatic leader. Very appropriate metaphor for today's mega church and rock star preacher mind set.

So let's all go to Fellowship Church to hear about Kool Aid - but beware of the grape Kool Aid samples in the foyer.

Yet Another "Man of God" - This Time a Calvinist - Secretly Video Taping Christian Women in the Church Bathroom

Well, up in the corn fields of Indiana, we have yet another "Man of God" arrested for his video voyeurism.

Readers, meet Robert Lyzinga, a reformed/Calvinist pastor of the Sunrise Christian Reformed Church in Lafayette, Indiana (their website is down as of this writing). Robert's church is part of the Christian Reformed Church of North America, a Calvinist denomination of about 1100 churches. You can see Robert's church's entry here in the CRCNA church database.

Robert's arrest has been nationwide news; here is one of the more complete news stories.

What is it with these pastors getting their jollies from videotaping women - women in their own churches that God has supposedly "appointed" them to have pastoral authority over?

First we had Tom Neal - a KJV-fundamentalist Baptist - accused of videotaping women undressing in his office. He was stupid enough to actually video tape himself turning on and turning off the device.

Then last fall we had Sammy Nuckolls - a Southern Baptist Evangelist - arrested for using a spycam to secretly videotape women - even the wife of his best friend. He was brazen enough to set up his spy pen in the bathroom of a woman's house he was staying with - and he got caught. By the way, if you haven't seen this recent news report of one of Nuckolls' victims speaking out, watch this report to see just how sick Nuckolls truly is.

So we have A KJV-fundamentalist Baptist, an SBC Evangelist, and now in Robert Lyzinga we have a reformed Calvinist! Yes, Robert came up with the bright idea of hiding cameras in phony air-freshener installed right smack dab on the bathroom stall doors to film the women in his church going to the bathroom! He too was caught red-handed when the phony air freshener fell off, the camera was exposed, and investigators saw footage of Robert's office and desk filmed on the camera. Robert obviously was not a reader of the Watchdog, else he would have seen the mistake that Tom Neal made and would have avoided capturing incriminating footage of his own desk as he set up the cameras.

So church members, watch out. One thing I've noticed over the years is churches attract a lot of weirdos who might be doing similar things as these pastors, but who are much too smart to get caught. If we have three pastors that have been caught red-handed video taping their own church members, how many other pastors and other nuts in churches are doing the same thing with these tiny, inexpensive cameras? How many were caught and NOT reported? How many have yet to be caught?

Finally, I leave you with this quote from the news report of Lyzinga's arrest:

"Clevenger [church deacon] called Lyzenga’s arrest a shame, but noted that the pastor was once a great leader for the congregation.

'Pastor Bob did a lot of good while in service to this church,” he said. “He was a good pastor and a good man.' "

Such fond memories they will have of "Pastor Bob" and all the "good" he did. What is sad is this is the same thing I heard a former member of Trinity Baptist say about child molester Bob Gray after his arrest: that people were too quick to overlook all the good that Pastor Gray accomplished before he was arrested.

Yes, people do tend to forget all the good that the "men of God" do when they turn out to be perverts molesting boys and girls or secretly video taping nude women.

People except the church members and deacons who were under the pastor's spell for so long, of course.

Perry Noble is Latest to Offer "90-Day Money Back Guarantee" on the Tithe

Perry Noble is the latest pastor to issue a formal "money back guarantee" to his church members as a gimmick to get a revenue boost at the church.

Ed Young, Jr. has tried this money-back guarantee gimmick. Also, Robert Morris has tried the gimmick at his church and he has pushed it in churches around the country including Celebration Church in my own city of Jacksonville, Florida when Morris preached earlier this year for Stovall Weems.

Below is the video of Perry Noble issuing the challenge. Here is a link at the church website to a form one must fill out to let the church know you are taking the challenge. I guess to qualify you need to let God, er, I mean NewSpring, know you are taking the challenge? When do you think NewSpring will post a redemption link for people to request their tithe back?

If a discerning Christian watches Perry's video and listens very closely, they will see how absolutely ridiculous this "guarantee" is, and why members at Perry's church should absolutely reject this idea as the money-grubbing marketing scheme that it is.

Let me give some commentary on Perry's guarantee to help you see why members of Perry's church should be offended and disgusted at such a challenge:

"Here's what we believe here at Newspring Church:  you cannot out-give God."

I hate this statement. I've heard it for years, and you have too, probably. Of course God is God, so who really could "out-give" God? Who said you can? I hate this statement because of how the preachers like Perry who utter it want to use it to motivate gullible people to fork over more money to their church.

The implication of this phrase "you cannot out give God" is that the more money you give to the  church, the more blessings you will receive. This statement implies that your material blessings are tied to how much money you give. More money, more blessings. Less money or no money, no blessings, only curses.

The phrase "you cannot out give God" implies that by giving to Perry's church you are "giving to God" (which is not true), and it implies that you cannot give too much to Perry's church because God will make sure he has your back no matter how much you give. You CAN give too much money to Perry's church, if you cannot afford it and if it means you can't properly care for your family. God makes no promise to Christians to subsidize foolish donations made to a 501(c)3 religious organization.

And we're just getting started.  Here's the next phrase from Perry worth examining:

"And the very first way we that we put God first in the area of our finances is the tithe: 10% of our gross income."

 Oh yes. If you are truly committed to Jesus, you will show it by giving 10% of your income. Not 10% of your "net" income. It has to be the "gross", the before-tax amount, of course.

This sentence is the shortest and softest way to sell to his church members - as the piano gently plays in the background - the false claim that unless you put God first in your finances by tithing, you are subject to a curse on all of your finances and you subject yourself to all sorts of calamity at the hands of God. Perry has said so before.

And one minor detail:  the "tithe" in the Old Testament was not "10% of our gross income". As documented over and over on this blog, the Old Testament tithe was 23 1/3%, not 10%. But preachers know you can't give THAT much, so they round it off to an tidy 10%. When preachers like Perry can't be completely truthful about even the percentage of the tithe from the Old Testament, what makes anyone think they are being truthful of how the verse applies to the Christian?

"And we believe that what the bible says in Malachi chapter 3, verse 10, is true, that if we will put God first with the tithe, then He will bless us."

Yep, "if...then"....if you give 10% of your income, then God will bless you. And as Perry has said before, there is another "if...then" that he believes:  if you do NOT give 10%, then God CANNOT bless you. In fact you are under a curse.

But that is all pure poppycock. It is fiction. It is a preacher using the Old Testament verses in Malachi that were really spoken to the religious leaders of the day who were robbing the resources given to them by the people. These verses applied to those living under the Old Covenant. Those verses have no more application to the Christian's life than to the Old Testament verses on circumcision.

Perry doesn't give any New Testament verses that deal directly with how Christians should give (generously, consistently, and cheerfully), as those verses don't suit his purposes. They might actually lead to a church member believing they are obeying God at a level less than 10%, and Perry can't have that. Instead, it is more profitable to him to use Malachi 3 to make you think that the pathway to blessings is to give minimum of 10% of your income to his church.

And next, we see the kicker...that Perry and NewSpring actually do NOT believe Malachi 3:10:

"We believe it [the principle of the tithe] to the point that we are challenging you to take our 90-day tithe challenge. And in 90 days if you don't like feel God has blessed you...we will refund every dime you gave..."

This is my favorite part of the money-back guarantee, because it proves the preacher doesn't actually believe what he preaches concerning the tithe. The entire premise of the "tithe" is that it belongs to God, and if you don't bring your 10% to church, you are stealing because that portion of your income doesn't belong to you, it belongs to God (and to give it to God, you have to of course deliver it in a pre-printed envelope, with the check made not to "God" but to "NewSpring Church".)

So get this:  if it belongs to God and not you, and if Perry Noble and NewSpring church leaders actually believed that....then how on earth would they think it OK to take what was not yours to begin with (your tithe), and give it back to you just because you want it back? Wouldn't that mean THEY are robbing God by taking what you gave to God and then giving the money, which is God's money, back to you? Wouldn't Perry and NewSpring now be under a curse? Where in scripture did the priests have the right to give back from the storehouse anything that was already given?

This proves that either Perry doesn't believe what he teaches about the tithe, or maybe a scarier proposition: perhaps Perry believes he and NewSpring Church ARE God. Or maybe it really is a hoax, they know it, and they just think you're too stupid to carefully consider the implications of their guarantee.

Here's one that I can't believe they didn't edit out or do a retake on:

"If you don't feel like God has blessed you, if you don't feel like God has done what his word has said, if you believe God's a liar, then's here's what we'll do:  we'll refund every dime you gave during that 90-day period, no questions asked. We're not sending anybody to your house, nothing weird."

When you watch the video, you'll see Perry give a chuckle or snicker as he says "if you believe God's a liar"....because here is the catch:  if you actually make a claim to have your money refunded, this will be interpreted by your church to mean you believe God is a liar. Perry says they won't send anybody to your house. Maybe not, but you will be singled out as a heretic, a money-grubber, someone who is hurting the church.

There you have it...the "90-Day Challenge" from Perry Noble and NewSpring Church.

Next post:  Watchdog will issue his own "Challenge" to members of Newspring Church, so stay tuned!!

An Analysis of Chuck O'Neal's Press Release - He is Digging an Even Deeper Hole for Himself and His Church

I guess Chuck O'Neal and Beaverton Grace Bible Church (BGBC) are worried that the parking lot at their church this Sunday might look like the picture at left, after the avalanche of bad publicity they have received over their recent defamation lawsuit against Julie Ann Smith and four other former church members.

So, Chuck and BGBC decided to help their case by issuing a "press release" yesterday. A press release might be in order, given all the negative press - maybe a brief statement that Chuck stands by his allegations, a call for people to not rush to judgment, asking people to let the justice system do what it is supposed to do once all the facts are put to a jury.

The only problem is, this isn't a "press release" like that. It is a press release that dwarfs even Chuck's amended complaint. It is a 5500-word, 18 page long essay in which Chuck makes another accusation against the defendants, he states how his lawsuit is not just to defend him but to actually defend God and Christ, and then defends the theology of a Christian suing another Christian. None of this helps his case, and none of it helps his public image.

First, let's look at this paragraph from the "press release":

"....a member of this group called the police and the DHS to deliver a false report accusing Pastor O’Neal of physically abusing his own children and allowing pornography to be distributed to adolescents in the church. He, his family, and the church were subsequently investigated by the authorities and the case was dismissed as unfounded."

With an important hearing before the judge in just a few days, Chuck decides to add another charge against Julie Anne and the co-defendants. A few things to point out about the statement above:

By including this new allegation that is NOT in the lawsuit, in a press release explaining the charges of defamation, is to insinuate that the defendants maliciously, knowingly, filed a FALSE police report as a part of their alleged defamation. After all, there is nothing wrong, in fact to the contrary it is noble and brave (and in most cases required by law) when a church member has the courage to report facts or even rumors of abuse by a minister or church members....UNLESS, the person maliciously, knowingly, files a false police report to harass someone. That seems to be what Chuck is saying by putting this information in his press release. In my view, Chuck is treading dangerously close to defamation himself, stating as fact that the people he is suing filed a false police report - which is to commit a crime - about him in order to defame him.

Later in the press release Chuck says:

"Families cannot continue to be threatened by false allegations of abuse. "

There you have it. Part of his reason for filing the suit is because families are continuing to be threatened by "false allegations of abuse." Families are never threatened by allegations of abuse - even if an investigation is conducted and no charges are filed. No, Chuck, families are protected by people who report allegations of abuse. UNLESS, people are running around committing the crime of making false, baseless, malicious allegations to defame and harass, which must be what Chuck is saying here else he would not have brought it up in the context of this lawsuit!

If Chuck knows for a fact that the defendants made a false child abuse claim against him, why is THAT not listed as an offense in his lawsuit? Did he file a report with the authorities so they could investigate whether someone made a false police report? If the allegation is important enough to put in a press release justifying his lawsuit, why not put it in the lawsuit as a statement of fact? A quote of calling the church "creepy" IS in the lawsuit, but a false police report alleging abuse is NOT?

Sadly, I don't think Chuck even realizes the harm he is doing by making a public statement such as this. The biggest obstacle in getting church members to report abuse in their churches is the fear of retribution for making accusations against the "man of God".  It is the fear that they will not be believed, and that the minister and his peers will vilify those that make the report, or even the victim himself/herself. Chuck's accusations of malicious false claims of abuse in a public forum against former church members only makes it less likely someone in the future will ever dare to report abuse at his church should it ever occur. Another reason for the BGBC church parking lot to look like the above photo.

And doesn't this sound familiar? A minister doesn't like what a critic is saying about them publicly, doesn't appreciate harsh criticism, so the minister and those defending him at the church decide to make public statements insinuating that the critics are criminals. "Yep, you all just don't know the real story about these critics (wink-wink)". Chuck, you have learned well from your peers on what NOT to do in response to your critics.

Next, Chuck decides to dig himself into a bigger hole by stating the theological implications of his lawsuit, that really it is not just about him being defamed. He is not just defending himself, but he is defending God, too. Yes, God is sovereign, but he still needs Chuck to intervene in our courts to defend God's character.

Says Chuck:

"For three and a half years this group has been engaged in a public, church to church, and World Wide Web defamation, showing their willingness to discredit God, harm the church, harm wives, harm children, and harm the testimony of Christ's Gospel. It is BGBC's firm conviction that this cannot continue. The ministry of the local church and the Gospel cannot continue to be hindered."

Courts absolutely do not want to involve themselves in theological squabbles. Chuck views this lawsuit as a means to stop his gospel from being hindered. This is the same old story - to criticize the pastor publicly for his spiritual abuse, for personnel decisions he has made, or how the money is spent, or any number of other things, is to "discredit God", it is to "harm the church", and by golly you're even harming "the testimony of Christ's Gospel", and it is to "hinder" the ministry of the local church. Yes, pastors everywhere, Chuck is filing this lawsuit for YOU so that "the local church" (that is you!) will not continue to be hindered by these evil bloggers!

Seminaries are teaching these men that they are God's modern day prophets, the 501(c)3 religious organizations that employ them are the Holy of Holies, and criticism of either is to defame God and Jesus himself.

When preachers act like Chuck, their church just might become the "Holy of Holies" - the inner sanctuary where no man but the high priest himself enters.