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Wednesday, August 17, 2011 | 7:26am
The Ghost of Marjoe Gortner
The media continues to play ‘cash for kids’
First there was the creepiness of Toddlers & Tiaras , Then there was the soul-stealing abomination called Repo Games
And now, the media continues their downward slide with a new show called Pint-sized Preachers .
The show, seen on the National Geographic Channel, follows a group of ultra-young Christian ‘preachers’ as they wow their congregations with their 4-year-old wisdom.
When I first heard of this new show, my mind immediately went to Marjoe Gortner and the lessons still not learned from his story.
In the late 1940’s, Gortner hit the scene as the youngest ordained preacher in the world.
At three years old, Gortner’s father noticed that Marjoe had a gift for mimicry and decided to train him as a preacher. Rather than admit that this was the parents idea, he was forced to repeat a story about receiving a vision while taking a bath.
In the course of his ‘training’, his parents (recognizing that they couldn’t hit the child for fear of showing bruises), came up with a new way to enforce their will… they waterboarded their 4-year-old.
Trained in the art of money-making (a skill popular in the revival tent crowd), Gortner continued to be the family paycheck until the 1960’s, when a crisis of conscience forced him to get out of the business.
In 1972, a documentary called “Marjoe” was released. In this film, Gortner confessed the scam, showed the methods used by preachers to get money out of the congregation, and basically spilled the beans on the whole for-profit ministry industry.
The entire documentary can be seen HERE.
An Opinion…
The texts of the 3 great Abrahamic religions (Judaism, Christianity, Islam) all teach that if an individual seeks God with an honest heart, it really doesn’t matter what faith they approach from.
From this perspective, the honest Christian has more in common with the honest Muslim than they do with those who steal God’s name and reputation for profit.
In watching the Marjoe documentary again, I see a young man who (in his own way) honestly loves his God while exposing the lower elements of his industry.
In my opinion, no four-year-old knows enough to want to be on TV. This new show could not exist without the urging of the parents; and that makes the situation all the sadder.
For more information of Marjoe Gortner, click HERE
FILED IN TV
Karl Marx was credited as saying “religion is the opiate of the masses.” When people don’t have a proper relationship with God and are burdened by low self-esteem, they become candidates for this kind of scam by those who have no scruples……..
I DESPISE unscrupulous/scandalous preachers, who misuse the “word of God” in order to put fear in people’s hearts and control them. Once they control them, they can get whatever they want out of them……thus, this foolishness.
I feel the same way. Since I’m a Christian, the major source of my ire are the Christian televangelists.
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There are a few famous names (one in particular) who have been busted for faking their whole miracle act. Another has been caught on secret videotape laughing about ‘taking grandmas last dollar’.
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As a person who has a real (if imperfect) faith, I am dumbfounded when I see it happen. To stand up and rob people using God’s name is such a horrible thing, I can only conclude that these people are secret atheists. I can’t see how they would otherwise dare to do the things they do.
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Compared with most televangelists, I find the purity of a Jeremiah Wright type to be refreshingly clean.