Jerry Johnston is an evangelical pastor at a megachurch in suburban Kansas City and a leader of many of the anti-gay, anti-science, regressive social movements in Kansas.
He keeps up many of the great traditions of megachurch minister, with the immovable hair, the TV show, the lavish lifestyle, and the dodgy accounting. The Kansas City Star dug into his finances, and found that there is little or no oversight, that Johnston's family is on the church's payroll, and late taxes.
A former fundraiser for Johnston's church told the Star: "What he preaches from the pulpit, he doesn’t put into action. You would have to call someone like that a hypocrite." The fundraiser, Bruce Shalberg, left the church in 2004, having given hundreds of thousands of dollars, and having seen the projects he raised money for never come to fruition.
Reaction on the blogosphere has been fascinating. Mousie Cat points out that Johnston comes from a traditional path to fundamentalist authoritarianism. Diane Silver points out with surprise that revenue from Johnston's books and DVDs don't go back to the church, but to Johnston's own for-profit corporation. Later, she rounded up the responses from the Christian bloggers, who are rightly outraged.
Tony's points are well worth considering. His point about Johnston not being of Kansas City, but a phenomenon of the suburbs is exactly right. Megachurches are ways to replace the community feeling that gets lost in suburbs. I'll have more to say on this point later, but these megachurches play into a culture in which it's easier and easier to be totally selective in what parts of the national culture you want to engage. Tony writes "I'm actually not surprised that the white folks who were conned into Johnston's alleged get rich scheme were taken advantage of. People looking for answers (especially women) are always easy prey." I would just point out that the search is not just for answers, but for community, and a community that agrees on what questions are worth answering.
Johnston's church is not concerned with the questions that Tony is interested in: how do we make the community of Kansas City as a whole stronger and safer for everyone. Despite his affectations of misanthropy, sexism, racism, etc., Tony brings people together.
Johnston is uninterested in how people live their lives in the public sphere. The murder rate and gang wars of Kansas City are less interesting to him than the private behavior of Jolie Justus and other gay members of his community, or how teachers present science in science classes. Jesus had a powerful gospel of social justice, a gospel which seems completely absent from what I've seen of Johnston's sermons.
At the end of the day, I wish there were more of a discussion of that hypocrisy, which seems more fundamental than his fleecing of the congregation.
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I'm actually surprised that people are surprised. I agree with you that his socially vile viewpoints are worse than the pedestrian fraud and misappropriation, but everyone knows someone homophobic. Not everyone knows a felonious con artist.
It's kind of like how Upton Sinclair's The Jungle spawled food regulations instead of action on the plight of workers.
What makes you think Tony is "affecting" the racism, misogyny and anti-Semitism that litters his blog?
I don't know if the feelings are genuine, but I think that it is a persona he uses. I doubt he goes around talking like that in other settings, and I think he knows it gets a reaction, so he carries on. Genuine or not, it's an affectation. At the end of the day, I really think that Johnston and his ilk are more hateful, though perhaps less offensive.
"At the end of the day, I wish there were more of a discussion of that hypocrisy, which seems more fundamental than his fleecing of the congregation."
I agree with your assessment; unfortunately, that discussion is far less likely, since as soon as it starts someone will yell "attack on religion," and discussion over.
"Affectation: 1 a: the act of taking on or displaying an attitude or mode of behavior not natural to oneself or not genuinely felt b: speech or conduct not natural to oneself." - Webster's Ninth New Collegiate Dictionary
So, Josh, either Tony is affecting the racism, anti-Semitism and misogny in his blog, or it comes out of him naturally. It cannot be both. And if Tony were to use that language on the street, he might get punched in the face. Better to hide behind the keyboard and sling dirt at others. Coward. Punk. Hater.
I don't know which it is, so I'll give him the benefit of the doubt. He may just realize that talking that way will keep bringing eyeballs to his commentary on politics and events in Kansas City. Or he may really mean all the things he says. I try not to assume the worst about people.
Sure, why believe your lying eyes? I guess I'm just not post-modern enough to get Tony ...
Writers and media personalities put on a different personas all the time. I imagine Howard Stern isn't always that annoying guy he is on the radio. It's possible that Rush Limbaugh doesn't spend all his time off the air foaming at the mouth about the horrors that libruls are inflicting on him. Shock jocks know that outrage sells.
There's a line between using stereotypes for literary effect and being racist or antisemitic. It's a fine line, to be sure, and I'm not sure he crosses it.
Homophobe? read 'Men who beat the men who love them', by P. Letellier et al, and then tell me how great the 'gay' lifestyle is.
You people need to wean yourselves from the evolutionary sophistry that so permeates the educational system in America and recognize it for what it is, Marxist propaganda. Can you spell 'duped'?
As for Jerry Johnston, I'd rather contribute to his Church than your government centered utopian world populated by fools like Al Gore. I don't hear any of you complaining about him not practicing what he preaches.
It's good to know that you wouldn't mind contributing to Johnston's and his family's lavish lifestyle. People who thought they were contributing to a religious mission, however, are clearly disappointed that Johnston lied to them. Doesn't the Bible have a whole explanation about how lying is bad?
The rest of your comments, especially your bizarre attempt to make sexual preferences into some all-determining trait, are too off-topic to bother with. Where did Al Gore enter the discussion in the first place?
The bible also has some interesting thoughts on 'bearing false witness', which is what both evolution and environmentalism do besides being junk science.
If you can't demonstrate in an empirical fashion the supposed mechanisms of evolution, then you don't have a science. It's merely another form of religion with its own separate collection of interesting stories.
Al Gore is simply the 'left-wing' icon that along with Howard Dean so characterizes 'progressivism' and 'science' today.
My comments aren't any more bizarre than you inferences that homosexuality is 'nornal'. Since, you like to refer to the bible, perhaps you should pay heed to what is said about sodomy. It is truly a life threatening life-style.
I find it odd that all you people at KU have to do is criticize religion (and on my dime, too.)As an engineering graduate student, I never had time for such amusements.
A. Williams
Neither evolution nor environmentalism involve bearing false witness. Both are rooted strongly in empirical observations, while their opponents always seem to be reduced to dishonesty and bizarre ad hominem attacks from right field.
I don't recall commenting on whether homosexuality is "nornal" or even normal. It is false to say that it is life-threatening. You may believe it to be immoral, but that's a different issue. Skydiving is life-threatening. Love is life-affirming.
I resent the suggestion that I'm criticizing religion. I'm criticizing hypocrisy by a religious leader. I think religion does plenty of good. I think the command to love your enemy is a profound call, one we can all work harder to achieve.
I criticize Jerry Johnston, who has enriched himself from his people's offerings. "Woe to you who are rich, for you have received your consolation."
And I criticize him for flouting his claims to piety, "Beware of practicing your piety before men in order to be seen by them; for then you will have no reward from your Father in heaven. Thus, when you give alms, sound no trumpet before you, as the hypocrites do in the churches and in the streets, that they may be praised by men. Truly, I say to you, they have received their reward.
"And when you pray, you must not be like the hypocrites; for they love to stand and pray in the churches and at the street corners, that they may be seen by men. Truly, I say, they have received their reward."
Just because I don't discuss my religious beliefs publicly, doesn't mean they aren't there. Just because you and Jerry Johnston do discuss them and try to force them on others, that doesn't mean your beliefs are strong either, let alone true.