There’s a roundup here. (For more on the case itself, there’s also a nice fisking of the Florida Times-Union article here.)
I simply do not understand abusive pastors. I remember trying to explain the Open Door Community Church cult once in 1980 when another survivor of R.L. Hymers’ cults showed up at the store I was working at, selling shoes. When we found ourselves in a lull with no customers in the store we tried to explain it to a third individual. The fellow former Hymerite finally summed it up with, “it was an entire church based on one man’s ego.”
That’s what it usually is, though in the case of Mac Brunson it appears that greed was also a big motivating force. Robert Hymers was not so much greedy as he was very, very power-hungry and abusive: he was not against taking your money, but if he had the choice he would prefer to humiliate you publicly.
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As a former Hymerite—a survivor of Hymers’ cults—I do not consider myself a spiritually sound person. But I do know that G-d likes to use broken vessels. I do know that the Lord hung out with hookers sinners and tax collectors.
“The sea refuses no river.” And that is enough for me.
Oh, hey! It’s Pete Townshend’s nose. Attached to Pete Townshend! And I like that look:
UPDATE: Phrasing fixed above; I had remembered it as “prostitutes and tax collectors,” but it was the more-generic “sinners and tax-collectors.” We do know that He encountered prostitutes and treated them as human beings—requiring repentance, but not condemning these women, as the established religious folk of the day would.
I apologize for what, in the b-sphere, we sometimes call “loose shit.”
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The sad truth about humanity is that we crave the sheepfold more than independence. The wolves know this, but we must still strive to turn people into shepherds.
If your Bible says that Jesus “hung out with hookers,” you definitely need to procure a sound translation. The Bible most certainly does *not* state that prostitutes (of any sort) were regular associates of His, and this conclusions is further evidenced by the fact that His accusers, who freely accused Him of anything they believed would stick, did not breath a word of this nature.
If there is a religious teacher in your life who holds that Mary Magdalene or other women mentioned in the Gospels were prostitutes, find another religious teacher. The idea is man-made, and not divinely inspired.
As far as God using broken vessels, *all* vessels are broken in one way or another. That’s the reason Jesus went to the cross.
As an aside, I have the opinion that if Hymers and the like do not repent of their ways, part of their punishment will be to see, without veils of denial, just how messed up they are.