Deliverance at "midnight"

[Image from the Huffington Post]

Rod Parsley, in case you forgot, is the uneducated hick who "pastors" the World Harvest Church - a non-denominational, fundy, money-maker. He's also a political right-winger skating on the fringes of insanity. (Just Google his name!)

Because of all of the above, he fits snugly into the religious ballyhoo that defines Charisma magazine, a neo-Pentecostal rag that spouts the usual fundamentalist claptrap.

I find the theology of guys like Parsley unfathomable. They insist they preach a god of love, but are constantly using horrific passages from the Hebrew bible to make a point. Thus, in a little "meditation" intended to give the faithful hope, Parsley quotes a passage from Exodus describing how his killer god slaughtered all the first-born Egyptian children AT MIDNIGHT."

He doesn't flinch while attributing such an atrocity to his god. He simply ignores what the passage clearly implies: the Hebrew god was a ruthless murderer!

(And why doesn't he use a quote or a story from the Gospels to buck up his fantasies?)


Parlsey wants the word, MIDNIGHT, 'cause it fits his meditation, which is quite simply that when things get tough, the tough get going - with god, who is always there in your "midnight" situations, when everything appears hopeless.

Yep, "Too often," says the preacher, "in the middle of the night, in the midst of our darkest crises ... we allow ourselves to become upset, distraught, concerned, and anxious."

Don't do that, says Parsley, for "God sits on His throne saying, 'When you have worn yourself out through your own ability, I will be here to help you and life you up..."


"We serve a God," pontificates Parsley, "who is so much greater than we allow Him to be. Rely on Him alone. Turn to Him. In the midnight hours of your life, God will bring your deliverance."

Yeah, right. Does he mean we should shed ourselves of doctors and other caregivers? What does he mean? It's all unadulterated nonsense.

And if you asked Parsley to give you examples that could be tested and verified by outside, neutral observers, he would reach his own "midnight" hour.

Did God bring "deliverance" to those who died in the Holocaust? What about the innocents killed in the Haitian earthquake? Where was God when a young girl was killed by murderous cancer cells, created in her body by the same god who Parsley and his ilk claim created her in the first place!

The truth is, when "midnight" comes, there is no god anywhere in sight! It doesn't matter how often or how hard you pray. No god hears you!


That truth may not be as hopeful as Parlsey's false promises based upon ancient Hebrew scribblings, but the truth is the truth and it's better to know the truth than live a life of hopeful pretense!


I have written more on Parsley here.

And there's more detail on this charlatan here.