Promise?

If Jim Bakker doesn't get a million dollars, his show is going to be cancelled in a week. The televangelist recently made this announcement on his program. Given Bakker's history it's hard to say whether or not he's actually telling the truth, but we can hope. Bakker has been a wild-eyed conspiracy monger (and potato soup monger) for years, and his nonsense isn't helping anyone.

In a somewhat frantic tone on The Jim Bakker Show this week, televangelist Jim Bakker begged his followers for money, saying that if he didn’t pay his bills, his show would soon be taken off the air.

“I’ve been told that the network is gonna cancel our broadcast within another week,” Bakker said. “We’ve got to catch up on the bills, and that’s about a million dollars.”

“We’ve lost millions in finances due to the legal battles we’ve fought, losing our ability to receive donations by credit cards for over a year — has left us in a desperate state,” he continued. “But what the Devil has tried to do is silence our voice.”

So to translate - "I'm fiscally irresponsible, but you all have to bail me out because my irresponsibility is the Devil's fault." Anybody who remembers the 1980s shouldn't be even remotely surprised that Bakker is fiscally irresponsible. But I guess it must have been the Devil's fault back then too - or maybe it was witches. Whoever it was, "anybody but me" seems to be his general answer regarding who's responsible for his personal failings.

Some commenters on social media asked where they could send money to make sure Bakker's show was really cancelled - still no word on that. While there isn't necessarily anything wrong with religious programming, Bakker is a complete kook. He's peddled all sorts of conspiracy nonsense on his show, some of which has been covered here on Augoeides.

The misinformation Bakker spreads about all sorts of things, from magical practice to discredited COVID cures, is profoundly wrong and sometimes dangerous. And that doesn't even include his predictable ramblings about how the world is going to end any day now.

Eating Their Own

I suppose in hindsight something like this was inevitable. The QAnon conspiracy theory derives much of its support from conservative Evangelical Christians, which I'm convinced is where the whole "Satanism" angle comes from. It's a holdover from the "Satanic Panic" of the 1980s (which, as you might recall from the other day, comes from porn) that at some point was basically shoehorned into the earlier Pizzagate trafficking narrative. And as I've mentioned, the minute somebody proposes that massive groups of Satanists are doing anything, you can know that it's false because there are no massive groups of Satanists anywhere. I don't think there are even tiny groups of Satanists that do the things QAnoners accuse them of.

But for once, today's post isn't about that. It's about QAnon turning on the same Evangelical Christian leaders that have given the movement some validity in Christian circles. This has happened with pretty much every "blood libel" conspiracy throughout history, and that adenchrome nonsense definitely places QAnon among those. Conspiracies that rely on flat-out demonization are dangerous things that are hard to handle, even when you are on their good side. The idea that political opponents are unspeakably evil instead of just being political opponents is not just unrealistic. It engenders a level of paranoia that can easily be turned against anyone, including onetime political allies.

Earlier this week, Right Wing Watch noted how MAGA pastor Jackson Lahmeyer, who is running a primary campaign to unseat Republican Sen. James Lankford of Oklahoma, has openly embraced QAnon conspiracy theorists as part of his campaign, only to become a target of their conspiracy theories. QAnon activists accused the pastor of pedophilia and child sex trafficking in July after he posted a photo of his young daughter wearing red shoes.

Similar allegations are now being leveled against several high-profile evangelical leaders. Late last month, self-proclaimed “prophet” and QAnon conspiracy theorist Johnny Enlow posted a “prophetic alert” on his Facebook page in which he warned that “many of our most famous pastors and Christian leaders are about to be exposed as sexual deviants, pedophiles and worse.” We had no idea what that meant at the time, but now it appears to be related to allegations being put forth by a woman going by the name Madyson Marquette, who claims to have been a former adult film actress who was sexually abused and trafficked by several well-known evangelical leaders, including Kenneth Copeland, T.D. Jakes, Rick Warren, and even the late Billy Graham.

So Obama Conjured That Fly?

So I'm posting about Mike Pence's effing fly again. Yeah, there were more important takeaways from the Vice Presidential Debate. I just had to share potato soup pusher Jim Bakker's take on what was really a pretty innocuous event. Flies are all over the place, and they do land on politicians every so often. But according to Bakker, the fly was sent by "Obama’s demonic witch doctor army," which combines racism, religious bigotry, and rank stupidity in a single sentence.

“My Chrisitan discernment tells me that that was no ordinary fly,” said Bakker in an online video. “It was a spy sent by Obama’s demonic witch doctor army to distract Pence because he was soundly beating Harris.” However, Bakker, who was jailed in the ‘80s for corruption, is infamous for making ridiculous statements. Last month he accused Joe Biden supporters of backing Satanism.

“A lot of people that are voting this week… the next few weeks… they’re voting for their faith, and their faith is Satan worship… So if they vote their faith, we need a lot of Christians to vote more so,” said Bakker in a video posted to Twitter. However, the fly became an online celebrity overnight. Several memes sprung up to commemorate the fly’s debate appearance. The Biden campaign got in on the fun by selling branded fly swatters.

“Within minutes of the debate wrapping up Wednesday, the Biden campaign tweeted a photo of Joe Biden with a fly swatter and a caption that said, ‘Pitch in $5 to help this campaign fly,’” said CNN. And unlike Bakker, most viewers stated that Harris won the debate.

Idiots like Bakker are one of the reasons that we see so much polarization in American politics. People on the other side of the political aisle from him can't just be people who he disagrees with, they have to be "Satan worshippers" with "demonic armies." The fact is that there aren't enough Satanists (or even occultisist of all stripes) in the entire country to swing a single state Democratic, let alone make up the entire Democratic electorate.

Jim Bakker's Phony Virus Treatments

Televangelist Jim Bakker never met a survivalist product he didn't like. So naturally he's treating the COVID-19 virus as a great opportunity to make a quick buck. The FDA has warned Bakker to quit promoting various alternative remedies as treatments for the virus. There is no evidence that any of these products work against the virus, and the FDA is concerned that people may use them in place of seeking medical treatment.

“The FDA considers the sale and promotion of fraudulent COVID-19 products to be a threat to the public health. We have an aggressive surveillance program that routinely monitors online sources for health fraud products, especially during a significant public health issue such as this one,” FDA Commissioner Stephen M. Hahn said in announcing the enforcement actions.

The products include teas, essential oils, tinctures and colloidal silver, which have been cited as not safe or effective for treating any disease, the agency said in a statement with the Federal Trade Commission. The FDA said it was particularly worried that the products may cause people to delay or stop appropriate treatment, “leading to serious and life-threatening harm.”

Maybe Bakker always was a total huckster, but in his old age he's gotten a lot more blatant about it. Remember the potato soup? That look on his face as he tastes it just screams "delicious," doesn't it? There's also not a lot of explanation of how a tub of fully hydrated potato soup is expected to survive the apocalypse. Similarly, his bogus health treatments have a lot in common with faith healing.

Even if I were Christian I would have a hard time putting my faith in Jim Bakker, but apparently that's not true for everyone. Somebody must be watching his show.

UPDATE: I totally missed this when I posted the article, but a reader pointed it out. The FDA Commissioner's name is Stephen Hahn. This isn't the first time somebody named Hahn has gotten Bakker into trouble...

Stop the Mousemen!

There are only a handful of people who can misread a scientific study more adeptly than 700 Club evangelist and longtime Augoeides punching bag Pat Robertson. I'd probably put nutty creationist Ken Ham in that camp, and the jury is out on potato soup entrepreneur Jim Bakker. Last week Robertson launched into a rant against the scientists attempting to breed a race of half-mouse half-human freaks using cells derived from fetal tissue. You know, a rant against something that totally doesn't exist and never will.

Televangelist Pat Robertson has claimed scientists are attempting to "make a mouse human" using aborted fetal tissue, adding that "Adolf Hitler never did anything as bad as this." The comments were made Tuesday on Robertson's Christian Broadcasting Network (CBN) show, The 700 Club, after the program aired an emotional report concerning fetal tissue being used in scientific experiments.

The segment mentioned a study involving mice and fetal reproductive tract tissue. It did not mention the aim of the research, which appears to be studying the effects of synthetic hormones on female reproductive tracts, rather than creating human-mice hybrids. The segment also contained interviews with anti-abortion activists, including one who mentioned a cancelled study that involved "humanizing mice."

"I'm sure a lot of people will be shocked when they learn of these experiments," said CBN anchor John Jessup, who introduced the segment. "Well, they're no more shocked than I am," replied the 89-year-old Robertson.

To be clear, there are legitimate ethical issues surrounding the use of fetal tissue and the creation of transgenic organisms for research. But framing it as a courageous battle against the mousemen is just ridiculous. What, does Robertson think these non-existent monsters will escape from a lab and proceed to commandeer all the cheese in the world by force?

Also - even if our ethics lead us to conclude that this research is very wrong, and even if the research involves what Robertson claims, can we really compare the creation of a few mousemen to the mass genocide of millions? Sorry, I just don't buy that. Robertson's sense of proportion has always been out of whack, but this is extreme even for him.

Twice in Ten Days?

Talk-radio "prophet" Mark Taylor has really been hitting them out of the park this month, at least in the crackpot department. After telling his fans last week that something about racehorses meant that Barack Obama's execution was imminent (?), this week he's claiming that Democrats conjured Hurricane Michael as "retaliation" for Brett Kavanaugh's confirmation. If he keeps this up, he's going to get his own tag here on Augoeides just like Pat Robertson has. Do you think he's jealous or something?

Self-proclaimed Christian prophet Mark Taylor, who is the subject of a new movie produced by Liberty University, today declared that Hurricane Michael was created by Democrats as “absolute retaliation” for the confirmation of Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh.

Last week Taylor revealed that liberals had created Hurricane Florence because the storm would “flood out the evidence” of voter fraud by Democrats. Taylor is a regular guest on Jim Bakker’s slop buckets show, where the audience shouts “amen” at his prophecies.

I suppose to a simpleton like Taylor the logic is obvious - if Pat Robertson conjures hurricane shields and is a Republican, Democrats must conjure hurricanes. Right? It also explains why the Trump administration has been unwilling to devote the necessary resources to rebuilding Puerto Rico after Hurricane Maria. Why should he clean up after his political enemies? And the tactic is effective, too - Hurricane Katrina is considered one of the key events that hurt the George W. Bush Administration.

See how that works? Take one part simplistic black-and-white thinking, one part historical revisionism, and about a billion parts batshit crazy and you have some idea of how Mark Taylor sees the world. The dude has made exactly one accurate prediction - and not only that, the same prediction made by basically everybody who owned a MAGA hat in 2015. He predicted that Donald Trump would be elected president. For some reason, this got a bunch of fundies to make a movie made about him. He's been wrong about everything ever since.

To be clear, I'm not saying that it's impossible for a skilled magician to conjure a hurricane. It's also true that some of those magicians are probably Democratic voters - I usually am, especially these days. But the idea that any political objective could be served by conjuring up a random hurricane to hit a random place on the map makes no statement at all. I expect that if a Democrat really was good enough to do it and wanted to make a political statement, they would blast Mar-a-Lago right into the Atlantic Ocean.

Wizards Don't Rule the World

As a matter of fact, members of large mainstream religions like Christianity do. But Poor Oppressed Christians apparently have a deep-seated need to be oppressed by things that don't actually oppress them in any way - like occultists. There are so few occultists in the world that even getting a few thousand of us together is a difficult chore that only a couple of national conventions can pull off - and there are individual megachurches bigger than that. Recently author Paul McGuire appeared on The Jim Bakker Show and told the evangelist and potato soup peddler about all the wizards and "supernatural multidimensional" beings oppressing him and other good Christians.

“The physical battles that we see in our world and nation right now are a direct manifestation of the spiritual battles going on in the invisible realm,” McGuire said in an audio clip flagged by Right Wing Watch.

“There are people very high up in what is called the globalist occult or globalist Luciferian rulership system, and this rulership system consists of what used to be called the Pharaoh-God Kings, it’s what Aldous Huxley called ‘The Scientific Dictatorship,’ and these are advanced beings who know how to tap into supernatural multidimensional power and integrate it with science, technology, and economics,” he continued.

McGuire even had the hierarchical structure of these advanced beings pegged, saying they are at the “highest level of the pyramidic organizational structure in which the highest ranking officers, if you will, of the New World Order and Mystery Babylon are ruling the earth through an organizational structure that looks like the pyramid on the back of the U.S. dollar."

"And they control the world because they understand that the true control of the world is done through supernatural mechanisms.”

Now there are such a things as magical powers, and some of us are even pretty good at using them. But they aren't anywhere near as instantaneously powerful as what you see in fantasy novels, and hardly any of the richest people in the world are practitioners. "Globalism" is basically about free trade - that is, money. When you know a lot of really rich people, or went to high school with their kids like I did, what you learn is that the key to being rich is to think about money all the time. That doesn't leave a lot of time for magical practice.

Resisting Trump Means Resisting God

Jim Bakker is rapidly turning himself into the new Pat Robertson, at least here on Augoeides. This is the second post this week that involves the evangelist and bad potato soup entrepreneur. Recently Bakker interviewed Paula White, a prosperity gospel preacher (and accused heretic) who is thought to be President Donald Trump's spiritual adviser. True to that characterization, White explained that "to resist Trump is to resist the hand of God" and argued that the president is a devout Christian who surrounds himself with Christians. Given Trump's character, personality, and history, the former has always struck me as especially dubious. While Trump has surrounded himself with evangelicals like Vice President Mike Pence, there's no evidence that he's ever been particularly religious.

This week, as Trump faced sustained criticism over his response to the violent white-nationalist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, she proved her loyalty once more, appearing on the Jim Bakker Show to defend Trump’s presidency and his spiritual bona fides in apocalyptic terms. While White has condemned white supremacy as evil and has a racially mixed fan base, she didn't mention Trump’s equivocations that have roiled the nation. Instead, she made an extended comparison of the president to the biblical figure Esther on Bakker's show Monday, in an interview that at times sounded more like an impassioned sermon. Like Esther, White said, Trump is a come-from-nowhere figure elevated to leadership against all odds in order to do God’s will. She described Trump as a generous, humble man of “character and integrity” and vouched repeatedly for the state of his soul. “He surrounds himself with Christians, and he is a Christian,” she told Bakker, about a man who’s been widely reported as being irreligious for most of his life, prompting applause from the studio audience. “He loves prayer.”

White didn't need to convince Bakker's audience that a flawed man can be redeemed to do the Lord's work; the Bakker himself went through a high-profile sex scandal in the 1980s and later spent time in jail for mail and wire fraud before returning to ministry. White's case for Trump’s divine mission was based not on his character, but on the future of the Supreme Court and other judicial appointments. To White, Trump is doing exactly what conservative Christians elected him to do. She called the appointment of Neil Gorsuch to the Supreme Court a “miracle” and spoke fervently about future court appointments. “We’ve got 130 vacancies in the lower courts, and he is appointing exactly what we asked for. ... We wanted originalists; we want constitutionalists,” she said. “Right now, we’re scaring the literal hell out of demonic spirits by me saying this right now,” she added, indicating she sensed her words were summoning opposition from dark forces.

Because demons hate the Federalist Society? Seriously? There's absolutely nothing spiritual about one particular interpretation of the Constitution, as much as the bizarro world that fundies live in would like there to be such a thing. Viewing political debates in general as battles between good and evil is highly problematic, especially the way these folks do it. They act as if the only issues that matter are abortion (which is not treated the same as murder under Old Testament law) and homosexuality (which Jesus said nothing about), and at the same time agitate for less financial regulations so that the rich can screw the poor even harder (which Jesus had a lot to say about).

So not only does literal demonization contribute to figurative demonization, it's flat-out stupid if you look at the actual Bible. I also will add that in the case of same-sex marriage, it's as if these folks think that secular legality has anything to do with sinfulness. Presumably, couples entering into same-sex marriages don't believe it's wrong, and their beliefs need to be respected just as much as everyone else's. And thanks to the separation of church and state, churches are never going to be forced to perform same-sex marriages, period, if it's against their theology - which, by the way, could change if the fundies succeed in taking down that wall of separation in order to become some sort of state church.

One more big takeaway from Jones' rant about how opposing Trump is opposing God is that my new novel Trump Card - which, by the way, is terrific - must be especially sinful since it devotes a great deal of time to mocking the president and occultists who (in my opinion stupidly) support him. And you know what? I can totally live with that.

Bakker Says Eclipse Was God's Wrath

Yesterday millions of people all over the United States enjoyed viewing a rare total solar eclipse. But there's one person who didn't enjoy it a bit - evangelist and bad potato soup entrepreneur Jim Bakker. Bakker recently informed his listeners that the eclipse was sent by God because the Almighty is "still mad at the Obama years."

“God came to me in a dream and said I should tell the world that I am plunging the world into darkness to remind people I’m still mad at the Obama years,” Bakker said recently on his online radio show. “Obama legalized witchcraft, sexual deviants getting married and schools started teaching transgenderism.”

Joel 2:31 KJV The sun shall be turned into darkness, and the moon into blood, before the great and terrible day of the Lord come.

— The Jim Bakker Show (@JimBakkerShow) August 20, 2017

Bakker said it would take eight years of the Trump administration for America to “get right with God.”

In another show, Bakker said that the end is closer than anyone realizes.

“You people that are mocking the prophets, you better be careful because God’s raised up the prophets to warn us and to teach us … I’m telling you, people, if you don’t know we’re in the last days, you’re so deceived,” Bakker said.

Jim, you just don't get it. I'm not mocking the prophets. I'm mocking you! Now let's break down just how stupid this assertion about the eclipse really is.

Trump Versus the Antichrist

Today in dubious fundamentalist news, we learn that Donald Trump is leading the fight against the occult and the Antichrist - at least according to one of reverend and potato soup entrepreneur Jim Bakker's buddies. Recently Bakker interviewed Tom Horn, an "End Times" preacher who claims that Trump is going to liberate America from "witchcraft" and "supernaturalism."

Yesterday, Jim Bakker interviewed Donald Trump-loving End Times pastor Tom Horn, who declared that a recent Time magazine cover featuring an image of President Trump leaning against a crumbling Washington Monument was a prophetic sign that Trump is leading the fight against occultism in America.

After Bakker voiced his concerns that Trump is under constant attack from the occult, Horn explained that Trump’s election was God delivering America from a dark spirit of witchcraft and “the supernaturalism that has been at work behind the scenes.”

Horn said that America, since its inception, has been under the control of the occult and that the Founding Fathers actually prophesied “a coming global leader … that is going to lead the United States into a new world order,” who Horn asserted would be the Antichrist. But the Time cover, he said, was a prophetic sign that Trump is leading that battle against this coming supernatural darkness.

“Did you see what Time magazine did?” he asked. “In their feature article on Trump called ‘Trump Goes To War Against Washington, D.C.,’ it’s a giant picture of him leaning against the obelisk and breaking it. That was a very subtle and telling message about who this war is against. This is a battle against supernaturalism. Some got it and most didn’t, but that is exactly the point that they were making.”

There's a whole lot wrong with those statements, so let's start at the top. America has never been "under the control of the occult." Many of the Founding Fathers were Masons, and early on in the history of the United States Masonry played a similar role to the state churches of Europe. That's probably what Horn is talking about, but contrary to what fundies think, Masonry is not a form of occultism or a system of magick or anything like that.

The White Horse of the Apocalypse

That arrow is tipped with something particularly hilarious about tiny hands.

According to disgraced evangelist Jim Bakker, the apocalypse is upon us. How does he know, you might ask? Why, he's already see the first horse, the White Horse of the Apocalypse, with his own eyes. In fact, it would have been hard to miss, because according to Bakker the White Horse is actually people making fun of Donald Trump. By that logic, there's a whole lot of apocalypse going around right now, and it shows no signs of letting up.

Bakker now sells survivalist food and gear to doomsday preppers on his “Jim Bakker Show.” In a clip from Thursday that was posted online by Right Wing Watch, he claimed there was a “hatred among peoples and this is satanic.” Then he went full “Sleepy Hollow” on his audience:

“This is the White Horse of the Apocalypse. The White Horse of the Apocalypse is the first horse. It’s a horse of speech. It’s a horse of spirit. And the spirit of Antichrist is out now. This is what you’re seeing. You want to know what the Antichrist spirit looks like? That’s what’s going on in America. These people mocking the president, the words they use, the speech they use, that’s the spirit of Antichrist. That’s the spirit of hatred.”

Bakker had a popular ― and lucrative ― TV ministry in the 1980s, but resigned in shame after a sex scandal. He eventually did five years in prison for fraud.

With the usual caveat that I have no real issues with Christians who aren't nutters like Bakker, I'm going to ask the obvious question here. Why should anybody worship a God who can't take a joke? That's So Sad! There, I made fun of one of Trump's tweets. Did I unleash the destruction of the world? It doesn't look like it. What's genuinely sad is watching Bakker carry all this water for Trump's thin-skinned authoritarian nonsense.

A reminder - this is America. We have the right to make fun of the president's hair, or his hands, or his diction, or his tweets. Every single president has been poked fun at over their personal foibles. And, if I want to say that I think Trump is incompetent and unqualified for the job, that's my right, too. Dealing with jokes and opinions like those is part of being a public figure, and as the old cliche goes, if you can't stand the heat stay out of the kitchen.

Bakker should go back to selling potato soup to survivalists before his schtick degenerates into self-parody. By all accounts Trump is not a particularly religious man, so there's no reason to think that God is going to give him any special treatment. That being so, there's no reason to think there's anything theologically special about jokes targeting this particular president. And around here, mocking the president is practically a national pastime.

Witches! All the Way Down!

Evanglist and potato soup huckster Jim Bakker's show is back in the news here on Augoeides, and for once he's not even the craziest guy on it. For a recent episode, that honor goes to his guest, Richard Maginnis of the Family Research Council. After Bakker went off on one of his usual tirades about the Obama administration favoring Muslims, apparently because the administration has refused to violate the constitution by barring Muslims from all political posts, Maginnis added that the "senior leadership" in this country is being influenced by witches. Because of course it is.

Bakker had a segment on his show yesterday where he brought up President Obama‘s recent nomination of a Muslim federal judge as proof that his administration is giving “preferential treatment” to Muslims… which is an absurd notion. As if Abid R. Qureshi was nominated because he was a Muslim and not because his credentials are impeccable. Meanwhile, Christians make up every branch and twig and leaf of government, but Bakker doesn’t think there’s anything weird about that.

Anyway. That wasn’t even the worst part of the segment. His guest, Robert Maginnis, a senior fellow with the Family Research Council and a former Army lieutenant colonel, responded to Bakker’s claim with an even more ludicrous one:

"… I know that there’s demonic forces in that city. I have personally met people that refer to themselves as witches, people that say they advise the senior leadership of the country. We invite within the federal government people to advise us, and often some of those advisers, I think, have evil motivations, things that you and I would not approve of."

Now I do want to point something out here. To a fundamentalist like Maginnis, somebody who reads the Bible different that he does is a Satanist, and Satanists and witches are the same thing. So most likely, the "witches" he's talking about are Episcopalians, or Methodists, or Presbyterians. Don't believe me? Hillary Clinton is a devout Methodist and these folks have been calling her a witch from day one. And isn't Donald Trump a Presbyterian?

Seriously, though, I don't know of any Pagan or occultist who might describe themselves as a witch in any senior advisory position whatsoever. Look what a stink gets put up when a Muslim gets nominated for something. Can you imagine how bad it would be for an actual Pagan? Legally there's no religious test, but for minority religions like Paganism there might as well be.

Sadly, though, the Family Research Council was quite influential during the second Bush administration. Because unfortunately, there's no similar test for reactionary fanatics.

The Holy Land Experience Estate Sale

Here's another cautionary tale about Christian theme parks. Last week, I covered the story of Heritage USA, a park in South Carolina that was once owned by Jim and Tammy Bakker. In the mid-1980's it was one of the most popular theme parks in the country, but it fell into disrepair after being struck by a major funding scandal and Hurricane Hugo in 1989.

In 2001, Christians decided to try again. That year marked the opening of Ken Ham's Creation Museum in Kentucky and The Holy Land Experience in Orlando, Florida. Ham should be well-known to regular readers here as the man behind Ark Encounter, a tourist attraction modeled on the Biblical description of Noah's Ark.

But The Holy Land Experience has not been nearly as successful as the Creation Museum. The park appears to be going out of business after racking up more than a million dollars in debt by 2014, the last year it filed with the IRS. The park is now holding an estate sale, selling off just about everything in the place.

In the market for a throne, a Roman gladiator's helmet or a near life-size Nativity scene? Then the Holy Land Experience in Orlando has a sale for you. The massive estate sale by the Christian theme park started Thursday and lasts through Saturday. The Holy Land Experience is selling scores of items, many of them Biblically themed, amid declining revenue and contributions.

IRS documents show that in 2014, the most recent year filings are available, The Holy Land Experience had anywhere from $1.9 million to $2.5 million in contributions. By contrast, it had $42 million in contributions in 2010. The theme park had a $1.3 million deficit in 2014.

It should be noted that even the Creation Museum saw a big decline in attendance after its first year, which I am of the opinion can be associated with "point-and-laugh" tourists who went just to see how terrible the science presented would be. But maybe there are more people out there than we generally realize who will patronize any establishment that depicts Jesus riding a dinosaur - you know, because really, what's cooler than that?

There's an old joke that I like to make - "What do you call Christian music that's good? Music." Even fifteen years ago, much of Evangelical Christianity worked hard to keep its followers in what was essentially a separate world that was all-Christianity-all-the-time. Maybe I'm reading too much into the failure of a single park, but it could be that people are becoming less willing to put up with an inferior product just because it bills itself as "Christian."

What's Left of Heritage USA

A blinded alligator cries to heaven from the ruins of the park

This story was posted on the Internet last year, but it seems to me that it might be a cautionary tale for Ken Ham's beloved Ark Encounter. In the mid-1980's, a Christian amusement park called Heritage USA in South Carolina became a very popular tourist attraction. The park was owned by Jim and Tammy Bakker, who at the time were wealthy and powerful televangelists. These days, Jim is busy selling potato soup to survivalists and doomsday preppers - but I digress.

In 1986, Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker's Heritage USA was the third most-visited amusement park in the US, behind only Disney World and Disneyland. Now the park that once entertained millions of guests is falling to pieces, and looks more like the scene from a post-apocalyptic movie than a place for family fun.

Heritage USA opened in Fort Mill, SC, in 1978, and by the mid-eighties drew in six million visitors each year. The park was perhaps best-known for "Jerry's Slide," a 163-foot water slide that Falwell slid down in his suit, resulting in one of the most famous photographs of the televangelist. But those water slides and fairy tale castle were, in part, responsible for Falwell's downfall. After scandals regarding Falwell's fundraising efforts to build the park's never-completed hotel and the IRS's revocation of its tax-exempt status, Heritage USA was hit by another, more physical blow. Hurricane Hugo wreaked havoc on the park's buildings in 1989, and Heritage closed for good shortly afterward.

So basically, it wasn't just fundraising scandals that doomed the park. Essentially, God smote it. You never know, he might actually have something against science-deniers and prosperity gospel freaks. Remember back in 2010, when God went on a bit of a smiting binge? One of his targets was "touchdown Jesus," a 62-foot tall statue depicting Jesus with his arms raised to the heavens. Could there be something to that whole "graven image" prohibition after all?

There's already a fake news story floating around (see what I did there?) claiming that Ark Encounter was destroyed in a flood. Which it would be if a flood ever happened, because Ham's ark isn't actually seaworthy but rather just a big boat-shaped building. The story has been able to get so much traction because the fact is, it would be just plain hilarious if it really happened - maybe even hilarious enough for God to go ahead and do it.

Satanic Giants Built Stonehenge

Evangelist Jim Bakker's television program is at it again, this time hosting a creationist who believes that "Satan's giants" are responsible for building the iconic megalithic site Stonehenge. Last week on the program, theologian Dr. Dennis Lindsay explained that in ancient times Satan created a race of giants to destroy Israel, and that this same race of giants is responsible for building Stonehenge and other megalithic sites.

Let's unpack that a little from the standpoint of Biblical scholarship. The references to "giants" in the Bible refer to the Nephilim, the offspring of angels who disobeyed God, took human wives, and fathered children with them. But whether the word really literally means "giant" has not been settled, and there is considerable debate regarding its etymology. So whether or not Nephilim were huge enough to pick up and carry enormous stones is anyone's guess.

Lindsay seems to have anticipated resistance to the notion of giants in world history, given the complete lack of historical records or fossil evidence. So he offered this explanation as proof:

“Why and what is the evidence for giant beings on this Earth? We all know about Stonehenge, right? And that’s just one out of hundreds and hundreds of gigantic places around the world that testify that some sort of supernatural power or giants were involved in its construction.”

The full discussion on “The Jim Bakker Show,” which includes Bakker’s promotional spots for $150 water filtration pitchers, can be seen here.

Lindsay also ignores the fact that at this point we have managed to test a number of Neolithic techniques and have found them fully capable of moving and erecting gigantic stones. Maybe the building of Stonehenge was mysterious back in the 1970's when In Search Of was on the air, but most archaeologists consider those mysteries basically solved. The debate continues over the function of the site, but these days nobody really thinks aliens or giants or whatever built the place.

That is, except for creationists like Dennis Lindsay. But that's probably why he's showing up on Jim Bakker's cable show rather than on a more reputable, widely known program.

Witches Versus Evangelists

Jim Bakker is at it again. The televangelist has moved on from hawking potato soup to claiming that when televangelists get caught in scandals, it's witches who are to blame. Bakker may be a creep, but never let anybody tell you that he lacks epic buck-passing skills. What he's implying is that his 1989 fraud conviction had less to do with him essentially stealing a bunch of money than it did with witches casting curses on him.

Bakker recalled a story that a “man of God” told him upon his release from prison. According to Bakker, the man was sitting next to a declared witch on an airplane, who claimed her coven would destroy the television ministry, starting with Jim Bakker.

“She said, ‘Right now, all the witches … They’re all agreeing they’re going to destroy the television ministries and we’re starting with Jim Bakker. And we are all praying, praying to destroy him,’” Bakker said.

Bakker went on to say that you “see [preachers and ministers] going through troubles and you desert some pastor who’s been caught in something… and you don’t know that all the demons in hell brought whatever, whether it be sex, drugs, or women or whatever.”

So, two reactions here. First off, Bakker did defraud people, whether or not it had anything to do with a curse. I don't doubt there were occultists at that time sending curses Bakker's way, as he was a loudmouth and a supporter of the "Satanic Ritual Abuse" hysteria that unfairly targeted occultists. Maybe one of those curses had something to do with Bakker being found out and charged, but that's totally different than what he's implying.

Secondly, this suggests that Bakker's magick sucks. Isn't his Lord Jesus super-powerful over witches and demons and evil magick? And if he is, why would he let one of his servants be tormented in this way? Either he couldn't stop the curse, which means he's weaker than a human spell-caster, or he can and just didn't want to, which basically makes him an asshole. Do either of those seem particularly worthy of worship?

Apparently, Jim Bakker still wants you to think so, and that's why you need to send him more money. You know, for Jesus!

The Other Other White Meat

So evangelist Jim Bakker really, really wants people to buy his potato soup. Bakker explained on a recent episode of his television program that unless you buy his soup, in the End Times your neighbors will eat your babies. Because it says so in the Bible! He also advises anyone who does buy his soup to keep it a secret, so that "the gangs" won't steal it when everyone in the world is starving. And eating babies.

“The Bible says they’re going to eat their arms, the Bible says they’re going to eat their babies, then it says they’re going to eat their children,” he warned. “That’s what people do when they get hungry.” In order to prepare for this, Bakker encourages viewers to buy buckets of food that he advertises on his show but not inform their neighbors that they have done so.

Having food during the End Times, Bakker claimed, is not the only benefit of buying his food buckets; in the event that the government collapses for any reason, he said, basic necessities are all that is going to matter. “If the social security checks don’t come, what are you going to do?” asked Bakker. “The government is already broke! … How can we trust a country that’s broke?”

Bakker explained that although some pastors are urging their congregations not to listen to him, he feels a moral obligation to sell his food buckets: “When you’re huddled in a corner with your grandbaby and they’re screaming and crying and there’s no food – I don’t want that blood on my hands.”

As longtime readers of this blog know, I'm extremely skeptical of "End Times" apocalypse claims. Everyone who's ever predicted the end of the world has been wrong, and the idea that the End Times are imminent is actually a relatively new idea in Christianity, dating back to the Millerites of the mid-1800's. And William Miller was simply wrong. He tried to apply his formula for dating the End Times twice and was wrong both times. The Jehovah's Witnesses tried several more times, and were also wrong. Regardless of how elegant the method seems, it just doesn't work.

Even though the risk of a large-scale disaster is low, it's not necessarily completely nuts to store food in case something does go horribly wrong with the system. However, what makes Bakker's schtick look more like a scam is that little of the food he's selling is of the sort that actual survival experts recommend stockpiling, or packaged in a way that makes sense. The potato soup, for example, comes in a single gigantic bucket - once you open it, the whole thing is at risk of going bad.

This also means that once you receive the bucket, you can't open it until the apocalypse. That means practically anything could be in it. I mean, it probably has to be safe for human consumption, but my guess is that to maximize profits it's made with the cheapest possible ingredients and probably tastes terrible. Since you can't open it until the end of the world, you'll just never know.

John Oliver Versus Prosperity Gospel

In yesterday's post I mentioned that, to Jim Bakker's credit, he renounced the "prosperity Gospel" that he once preached. I've posted a number of articles about this misguided interpretation of Christianity, but recently HBO's John Oliver presented the most epic takedown I've ever seen. I've posted the whole video above, and while it is twenty minutes long it's well worth watching.

Oliver uses footage to show just how mercilessly televangelists prey on their viewers. Some even try (often successfully, sadly) to convince their cable congregation that they should use money that they don’t have to donate to the church. They claim that God will eventually wipe out their debts and that the “seeds” they plant will be sown.

The message has apparently been heeded. Using still more clips of actual televangelists, Oliver shows where that money is going. One church leader, Mike Murdock, proudly proclaims that he bought a private jet in cash, and then a bigger one — also by paying cash — and that others should act happy over his “blessing.”

“‘I bough a jet — cash. I bought a bigger jet — cash. F**k the haters, act happy for me,'” paraphrases Oliver. “That’s not a sermon; it’s the first draft of a Rick Ross single.”

The segment goes on to examine how churches uses these funds, how easy it is to become a church, and how little oversight there is from the IRS. It’s so easy, in fact, that Oliver was able to consult with a tax lawyer to legally create his own church. Like other televangelists, he urges viewers to send their seeds (aka money, of course) and provides the church’s contact information.

It's very clear that this whole thing is a scam, and not only that, it's a scam that targets people who can least afford big donations. In the video, Oliver details seven months of correspondence with "prosperity Gospel" evangelist Robert Tilton. Tilton sent "holy oil," prayer cloths, and even dollar bills, all of which were supposed to be sent back to Tilton along with more money. The whole thing is ridiculous.

Jim Bakker Selling Potato Soup

Remember televangelist Jim Bakker? In the 1980's his ministry raised millions of dollars and became wealthy and powerful. But Bakker would be convicted of fraud in 1989 and went on to serve eight years in prison, effectively destroying his organization. Today Bakker is back on the air, with a show that peddles to the doomsday prepper crowd. The video above shows his selling giant tubs of potato soup, which is a far cry from the days of private jets and villas in Tahiti.

“I know you don’t wanna hear this,” Bakker said while lifting a one of the nearly 50-pound buckets. “You’re gonna dream Jim Bakker on TV telling you ‘get ready,’ and you’ll [say] ‘Oh my God, why didn’t I order something?'”

Bakker went so far as to take an awkward sip from one of the six-gallon buckets, which was promoted with an on-screen graphic saying they held 323 servings. He can be seen coughing after tasting the soup, before insisting, “It’s so good.”

Footage from the program also shows him offering a package of seven years’ worth of “tasty new foods” with a $3,500 donation. The package includes macaroni and cheese and chocolate pudding, which Bakker said would allow survivors of the undefined conflict to continue celebrating birthdays.

“You put that chocolate on top, you can have parties when the world is coming apart,” he gushed.

And he makes the end of the world sound like so much fun!

To Bakker's credit, he claims that he read the entire Bible while in prison and came to the realization that the "prosperity Gospel" of which he had been a proponent was wrong and that many of the passages that are often used to support it are taken out of context. That, at least, shows some insight on his part, because prosperity theology is a complete mess.

Still, to go from raising millions to hawking potato soup is pretty huge step down for the once powerful and hugely influential Bakker. Maybe the real lesson here is that God hates fraudsters, especially when they rip people off in his name. I know that if I were the Christian God, such folks would be at the top of my shit list.