{"id":2957,"date":"2007-02-13T10:25:39","date_gmt":"2007-02-13T10:25:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/viamedia\/2007\/02\/friends-of-god.html"},"modified":"2007-02-13T10:25:39","modified_gmt":"2007-02-13T10:25:39","slug":"friends-of-god","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2007\/02\/friends-of-god.html","title":{"rendered":"Friends of God"},"content":{"rendered":"

At First Things, Michael Linton has a very thoughtful assessment of Alexandra Pelosi’s HBO program on evangelicals:<\/a><\/p>\n

\n
\n

We scoff at Shirley MacLaine running into the surf and joyfully shouting \u201cI am God, I am God!\u201d But when Haggard boasts about our great sex, and Falwell crows about our political power, as we sway like Dervishes chanting mantras, we don\u2019t look that different from her\u2013just drier and not as pretty. We\u2019ve become sensualists, aesthetes, untroubled by either self-reflection or accountability.<\/p>\n

As if to drive home this point, the most sinister fault Focus on the Family finds in Pelosi\u2019s documentary is an aesthetic one. Her camera angles do not flatter her subjects; we\u2019re not handsome enough. FOTF is silent about Falwell\u2019s politically motivated insult to Senator Clinton (demeaningly calling her by her first name) and Haggard\u2019s assault on the privacy of the marriage bed. The silence about Falwell and Haggard is shameful, and the complaint is absurd, as if anything other than the magic of the WETA Workshop could make Falwell not<\/em> look like Boss Hogg of Dukes of Hazzard<\/em> fame (and, for the record, I look a lot more like Boss Hogg than I do Cousin Bo).<\/p>\n

Pelosi does provide reprieves to this sorry picture of spiritual etiolation, though. There\u2019s the sweet old minister who sits with Pelosi in his car and tells her, with tears in his eyes, about \u201chis Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.\u201d (He erects monumental white crosses near interstate exchanges, each cross costing him about $30,000 out of his own pocket.) And there\u2019s the lady in a drive-up teller booth who simply offers to pray with anyone who wants to spend a few moments with the Lord: Drive up, roll down the window, pray, and drive away. And there\u2019s the Mennonite mother with ten children in Tennessee who speaks honestly of being frazzled by the work but still uplifted by the Lord. But in Pelosi\u2019s film, as in our culture, those folks are being pressed to the margins by the other Evangelicals\u2013the big churches, the big programs, the big visions.<\/p>\n

Yes, we can see ourselves in Pelosi\u2019s film, but a lot of what we see should make us wince. We\u2019ve forgotten the Scriptures and allowed ignorance to characterize our preaching, and delirium our worship. In our confidence in God\u2019s grace, we have become presumptuous in our salvation. And we\u2019ve too often confused salvation in heaven with right voting on earth. We need to change. We need to repent.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Related: "My Evening With Joel" – a review of a Joel Osteen event (one of his touring events, not at the place in Houston)<\/a> from the perspective of a Reformed Christian. <\/p>\n

\n
\n

Joel\u2019s own sermons are not like those of his fathers (the late John Osteen). They strike me as the next generation of the Charismatic movement. They aren\u2019t about experiencing the power of the Holy Spirit in your life; they are just about encountering your feelings. He talks over and over again about your relationships with other people and in the end he doesn\u2019t really ask you to do anything – except try to change. His language is a mix of manifest destiny and late night infomercial. If I had to characterize the 600 words \u201csermonettes\u201d I heard I would say \u201cCharismatic emergent, non-threatening, non-spritualized therapeutic language.\u201d Maybe American Idol<\/em> with Paula as the lone judge.<\/p>\n

Never once did I hear the words Gospel, Jesus Christ, Trinity, Sin, Cross (except in Scripture songs sung by performers and in a video testimony played before the Osteens arrived in arena)<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/blockquote>\n

\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

At First Things, Michael Linton has a very thoughtful assessment of Alexandra Pelosi’s HBO program on evangelicals: We scoff at Shirley MacLaine running into the surf and joyfully shouting \u201cI am God, I am God!\u201d But when Haggard boasts about our great sex, and Falwell crows about our political power, as we sway like Dervishes…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":180,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2957","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"yoast_head":"\nFriends of God - Via Media<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2007\/02\/friends-of-god.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Friends of God - Via Media\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"At First Things, Michael Linton has a very thoughtful assessment of Alexandra Pelosi’s HBO program on evangelicals: We scoff at Shirley MacLaine running into the surf and joyfully shouting \u201cI am God, I am God!\u201d But when Haggard boasts about our great sex, and Falwell crows about our political power, as we sway like Dervishes…\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2007\/02\/friends-of-god.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Via Media\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2007-02-13T10:25:39+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"awelborn\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Friends of God - Via Media","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2007\/02\/friends-of-god.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Friends of God - Via Media","og_description":"At First Things, Michael Linton has a very thoughtful assessment of Alexandra Pelosi’s HBO program on evangelicals: We scoff at Shirley MacLaine running into the surf and joyfully shouting \u201cI am God, I am God!\u201d But when Haggard boasts about our great sex, and Falwell crows about our political power, as we sway like Dervishes…","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2007\/02\/friends-of-god.html","og_site_name":"Via Media","article_published_time":"2007-02-13T10:25:39+00:00","author":"awelborn","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2007\/02\/friends-of-god.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2007\/02\/friends-of-god.html","name":"Friends of God - Via Media","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/#website"},"datePublished":"2007-02-13T10:25:39+00:00","dateModified":"2007-02-13T10:25:39+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/#\/schema\/person\/aea2dcda1635c9c2d6030d9c7595725a"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2007\/02\/friends-of-god.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2007\/02\/friends-of-god.html"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2007\/02\/friends-of-god.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Friends of God"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/","name":"Via Media","description":"Amy Welborn","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/#\/schema\/person\/aea2dcda1635c9c2d6030d9c7595725a","name":"awelborn","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/9f2\/9f2100183464289fedc5b8a621c15110x96.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/9f2\/9f2100183464289fedc5b8a621c15110x96.jpg","caption":"awelborn"},"description":"Amy Welborn was born in 1960, the only child of a now-retired professor of political science, a teacher-librarian-artist mother,deceased since 2001, was a teacher, librarian and artist. The Catholicism comes from her side. Amy grew up in a number of places - Indiana - Washington, DC - Lubbock Texas - Arlington, Virginia - DeKalb, Illinois - Lawrence, Kansas - and Knoxville, Tennessee, where the family settled in 1973. She attended Knoxville Catholic High School, then the University of Tennessee where she majored in history. She received an MA in Church History from Vanderbilt University, where she wrote a thesis on the changing role of women in 19th century American Protestantism, and the ways Scripture was used to justify those changes. She worked as as a teacher in Catholic high schools and a Parish Director of Religious Education and started writing for the diocesan press - the Florida Catholic - in 1988. Amy has written columns for Our Sunday Visitor and Catholic News Service at times over the past twenty years. Her articles have been published in venues ranging from Our Sunday Visitor to the New York Times to Commonweal. She has written 17 books. 18, if you included the as yet tragically unpublished novel. Amy has five children, ranging in age from 26 to 4 and was married to Michael Dubruiel, who died unexpectedly in February 2009. She lives in Birmingham, Alabama.","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/author\/awelborn"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2957","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/180"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2957"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2957\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2957"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2957"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2957"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}