This Time It's Personal

(Updated 9/1)

This isn't going to be a post on space exploration, technology, or a cool video. You've been warned ;)

The past few weeks have again revealed new scandals in the Christian church. In the United States, evangelist Todd Bentley resigned from ministry and admitted to having an affair. This is big news because Bentley led a series of revivals in Lakeland, Florida where miracles were supposedly taking place.

But that's not the big news of the past few weeks. In Australia, a popular youth pastor and song writer is accused of duping many followers into believing he had terminal cancer battle to hide his 16-year obsession with pornography (or so this is how its explained).

And this is where it gets personal....I'm related to this guy. Some of you know that we're related to folks in Australia that are involved in mega churches. Some of you know this through connections in Facebook, etc. One of the reasons I felt I had to write this was to give my thoughts on this given my background. Some of you know me from church and others from outside of church who might not be involved in a church right now.

I feel like I'm catering to a multitude of audiences in one post while dealing with a wide swing of emotions. I know I'm not an internet superstar or anything like that. I'm not trying to throw my family under the bus. At the same time, I feel like there is some analysis that people in the US aren't getting. In a sense, "I report, you decide".

He's my cousin twice removed. My family has been going through a wild swing of emotions this week. I'm not close to him, but I know his grandparents who are related to my dad.

It's an incredible story. You can read the details for yourself by following this link. A YouTube video is below, but it may not be up for long. If you're having problems viewing, it may have been deleted.



Isn't it incredible how "big" this guy got by making everyone think he was dying?

But I still think there's something fishy. Today there was an interview with Michael's wife. She states that over the two years he lied about cancer she never went to a doctor visit with him. She would drop him off and pick him up from the doctor visits.

Huh? If Danielle had cancer I'd be there taking notes, asking questions, etc. This completely doesn't make sense to me. Could it be that there is a larger cover up effort going on here?

Digging a bit deeper we can try to connect some dots as to what has led up to this. Mike's dad (my first cousin) says that he's been battling a mystery disease since he was 12. Danny is the senior pastor of one of the fastest growing mega churches in Australia. My brother sent me this interesting blog post with another theory as to what happened. Here's a snippet to save you time:

So, you're Michael Guglielmucci, and your dad's the expert at making the perfect porn-avoiding Christian Marlboro Man Hero, but you still have a psychological need to be cared for, which doesn't fit into your dad's theology or teaching…

One week, you have a few days off school because of a cold and you find people are caring for you and filling that psychological need.

And then you fib a bit about how bad you're feeling and you find care expressed even more..and for a while you're feeling even better about yourself.

But the only way to fill this need and keep receiving care from a father who only really cares about building his ministry and flying off to Darwin and Christchurch and Perth, is to keep faking ill health.

It gets his attention. It works so you keep doing it.

And you're in church circles where all you've ever known is a culture that when you pull at the heart strings then money starts flowing your way, like when you turn on the hot water tap in the shower, hot water comes out.

So after two decades of doing this, which is normal and second nature to you, you find yourself standing in Hill$ong singing music with an oxygen mask on ..and people are filling your (Munchausen Syndrome) psychological need even more.

The above is just a theory, but to those involved in church it's possible that you can be so wrapped up in ministry that you forget your other obligations. I've heard of stories of pastor's wives checking into hospitals so they can finally get their husband's attention. It is a sad case.

So there are several key points that the church really has to catch on to:

• Accountability: Michael needed a way to talk about his problem and couldn't. His dad needed to be accountable to caring for his family. Where was the church in holding these guys accountable?
  
  
• Priority: Could it be that Danny's ambition to create the biggest mega-church in Australia put that goal before family ignoring what was going on with his family? I know he took Michael to a lot of hospitals, but was it just another thing to juggle or should he have stopped growing his ministry to tend to his son for a majority of the time?
  
  
• The true victims of scandal: What about all the people who were going through cancer who looked to Michael for encouragement? Especially those who gave them money? What about all of the people who hear this and think that Christians are goofy and will never hear a gospel message because of credibility?
  

I felt I had to write this blog post to vent. I've felt sorry for him, angery at him, disappointment at the family, church, etc. I am very passionate about seeing people get to know God, and something like this just upsets me ... especially because we're related! Throughout the years we've heard about all the great things Danny's church had been doing.

I'm not going to go into a rant of Pentecostal churches (but I've thought about it).

Your take-away (and mine) from all this:
So I hope what you take away form this is a renewed passion for integrity in all aspects of your life. Without it, a lifetime of work could be nullified.

Now a new dilemma has come up. Should churches use the song "Healer" in service?

From reading around the blogs on the internet I see three choices:

• Use the song
• Don't use the song
• Put off the decision for a while to see what develops

Personally, I am reminded what the scriptures tell us in John 4:24 "God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in spirit and in truth." [emphasis mine]

The words of the song may be true, but there is doubt on the spirit in which the song was written. The author is in the process of being proven to be deceitful (not just addicted to pornography). There are plenty of spirit-led worship songs with truthful words to sing. My vote is to wait to see these open issues answered. Of course, we do need to pray for Mike and that he will repent and be restored.

In our church, we have a bookstore where we sell books from many Christian authors. If an author is discovered to be caught up in a scandal his/her books get pulled. I don't see how music is different than books in our bookstore.

Finally, with all these questions it's hard for me to hear this song and keep my mind on worship. Therefore every time I hear the song I will pray for Mike, but shouldn't I be worshiping God during worship time?

Ok, I feel better. By the way, this is my 100th post. Now I'll go celebrate...