Pastor Bil Cornelius knows how to draw the faithful to Easter mass. The head of a megachurch in Corpus Christi, Texas, is planning to give away $2 million in cars and prizes in a sectarian version of “The Price is Right.”
Cornelius will be giving away sixteen cars, 15 flat-screen televisions, furniture sets and other prizes to anyone who attends the church’s Easter services on Sunday.
He insists that the game show theme is “an opportunity to share Christ with people who may never go to a church for any reason.”
It seems that Mark 11:15 does not apply if you give away the goods in the Temple rather than sell them directly:
And they come to Jerusalem: and Jesus went into the temple, and began to cast out them that sold and bought in the temple, and overthrew the tables of the moneychangers, and the seats of them that sold doves;
Corneliuis insists that he and his donors are “willing to do whatever it takes to get spiritually lost people in the door to hear about the love of God.”
In the end, Cornelius promises “[t]hey’re coming for the loot and they’re going to leave with Jesus.”
Perhaps, but he should give full credit to Janis Joplin:
For the full story, click here.
Over dinner on Sunday, I heard several tales of how packed church was from my Catholic and Episcopalian relatives.
Man, what’s wrong with this guy’s business, er, I mean megachurch, if he has to offer bribes to fill the seats on Easter? (Could we start a competition for least charismatic preacher at an evangelical megachurch?)
Your headline is inaccurate. Mass is the eucharistic celebration in the Catholic Church. Other Christian denominations have services.
Call me cynical but I somehow don’t think that come ons that promise this type of loot will attract those who are open to accepting Jesus as their personal savior. This is just PR for the “pastor.”
I’m not sure I agree with the analogy with the temple merchants. On one side there’s people making money from people’s faith, on the other side there’s people trying to make people’s faith from money. It’s more of a marketing campaign.
I don’t think dilapidating wealth is the image they want to give, but that’s a different question altogether.
Sounds like bribery. It is now a matter of time for GodTM to smite them.
uhhh, did anyone happen to get the address of that church?
“He insists that the game show theme is “an opportunity to share Christ with people who may never go to a church for any reason.”
Because nothing says Mark 10:21:
<i
like scoring a free flatscreen!
I am still waiting for Dialing for Dollars to call me. Sorry I will have to pass on the church…..
This cognitive realm is where they tend to say things that conservatives interpret as the right to abuse.
The abuse was toward disfavoured races and sexes a while back. Women were inferior and could not vote until recently, and blacks suffered like oppression.
Now the earth is the whipping boy of these degenerates.
God made the environment for humanity to use in anyway humanity sees fit, so there is really no anthropomorphic climate impact.
Senator Inhofe is of that Beavis & Butthead ilk.
http://blogdredd.blogspot.com/2010/04/kill-baby-kill.html
“We shall find all precious goods, we shall fill our houses with plunder;”
~ Proverbs 1:13 ESV
Sorry, JT I see no divine contradiction here.
Do winners get a 1099-GOD?
My location this morning has been exposed,at least I wont tell anyone my number in line.:-)).
“It seems that Mark 11:15 does not apply if you give away the goods in the Temple rather than sell them directly”
YAY G*d!
Unfortunately I don’t belong to a mega church…
Well, let’s just hope that nobody’s tube top falls down as they run scremaing to the alter to collect their prize.
Prof,
I should have known you were going to Mark 11:15, but I’ll have to say I didn’t see the Janis Joplin reference coming from the headline. Well done.
Seriously, what was this guy thinking?