A fruitcake and The Great Fruit Inspector

Steve Carney has written a book called "The Great Fruit Inspector: The Judgment of God."

Steve Carney, as you shall see, is a fruitcake.

First some background. Carney has a "Bible teaching and writing ministry" which "grew from his ministry in intercessory prayer." There is the first clue: All actual scientific studies of intercessory prayer show intercessory prayer not only doesn't work, but with regards to sick people who know they are being prayed for, it makes things worse - the sick get sicker.

Where did Carney learn enough about the Bible to be able to teach it to others? Well, he is said to be a graduate of the Rhema Bible Training Center in Tulsa, Oklahoma, which really doesn't create a lot of confidence is his biblical knowledge.

The Rhema Bible Training Center was begun by a whacked out Pentecostal preacher by name of Kenneth Erwin Hagin. Hagin had no formal Biblical education or training whatsoever. That does not mean he was not intelligent, nor does it mean he wasn't highly motivated to make money and a name for himself in fundamentalist religion.

Born in 1917 in McKinney, Texas, Hagin supposedly was a sickly child because of a deformed heart and an incurable blood disease. In 1933, bedfast, Ken had a powerful conversion experience during which he claimed to have died three times. Each time he died he saw "the horrors of hell."

Hagin wasn't through dying though. It happened again in 1934 but this time he evidently didn't need to see hell and was brought back to life by "the revelation of faith in God's Word."

Of course he was.

In 1936, he started preaching. No education. Just started preaching. He went on to pastor several Assemblies of God churches in Texas, and in 1949 "began an itinerant ministry as a Bible teacher and evangelist. No education. Pretty soon he was on the radio and his organization blossomed by the establishment of a Bible correspondence school and a "prayer and healing center."

There were problems, though. He was accused of plagiarism and in one instance he admitted he had plagiarized but said it "was actually proof that his teaching ... [was] from God." Of course it was.

Heresy is common among Pentecostal and other fundamentalists, largely because they all believe a little bit differently and thus their orthodoxy is somewhat fluid. Hagin was charged with introducing "gnostic heresies" by Judith Irene Matta. The whole business is technical and stupid and who cares, but it does show that not all was well in Hagin-land.

Hagin died of heart disease in 2003 but his ministry continues under the guidance of his son, Kenneth W. Hagin.


This is the fundamentalist milieu out of which comes Steve Carney. According to a blurb for his book, Carney is said to be "called to turn our nation to truth, revealed in the Bible. Though controversial, his topics confront and convict believers to kindle a deeper passion for Christ."

Of course he is.

The book is titled "The Great Fruit Inspector." This GFI is, in fact, God! And Mr. Carney warns that "the Age of Judgment can be seen on the horizon." Of course it can. Carney will go on to spell out what the "age of judgment" means for all of us, and he knows about this because "his revelations about God's corrective involvement in the affairs of modern man was given to him in a season of deep intercessory prayer."

Maybe "deep intercessory prayer" drives people insane?

Anyway, "Tragedies intensify," says Carney, "as the birth pangs of a woman." Oh, that's original! But also there is 911 (sic) and Katrina and the War in Iraq. "Each calamity is like a warning sign: Caution: danger ahead! Warning: rebellion is hazardous to your health. Beware: the soul that sins, it shall die. Detour: change direction in your life and live!"

None of this is original stuff. It's the same old quackery that fundys have been preaching for god knows how many years.

Carney says that as global disasters come upon us we have to try to determine if they are the result of God's judgment, blah, blah, blah!

But there on the horizon, not only the Age of Judgment can be seen but also "the light of God's kingdom."

This nonsensical theological garbage has nothing to do with anything but why does he call god the great fruit inspector? Well, god is going to check the fruit in his churches and if the fruit's no good he's gonna start pruning with big pruning shears and oh, my, it's not gonna be much fun, and you'll sure wish you had stopped sinning and being a bad person.

"Fruit," you see refers to god's children in the churches who are supposed to be about doing god's work, which in most cases means convincing other people of how bad they are and how they are going to hell unless they accept Jesus in their hearts.

Steve Carney and his book are not worth fussing about. But Carney is one of literally hundreds of thousands of these crackpots who roam the country spinning their ignorant theologies while conning money out of the trusting and unsuspecting.

The really bad part is that Carney and his fellow snake-oil salesman posing as preachers along with the dupes who follow after them form a large part of the base of the Republican Party.

I'm not sure what can be done, but we need to be aware these people are out there and that they are active and that they are a danger to our Democratic system and we need to challenge them and call them for the fruitcakes they are!

And wouldn't you think if god had something to say to the world he could do it without relying on ignorant, uneducated religious shysters?