from Charisma Online Friday November 11

http://www.charismanow.com/11-11-05/

It's Getting Really Weird Out There

by J. Lee Grady

In many charismatic ministries today, basic Christian
morality has been hijacked.

How would you feel if your pastor announced from the
pulpit that he had uncovered a "new revelation" in the
Bible? His discovery: That a church leader can have
more than one wife.

Hopefully, you and everyone in the building would run,
not walk, out of that church and never come back until
the pastor had been replaced. But I am afraid too many
of us gullible charismatics might stay in the pews-and
eventually give the guy a standing ovation plus a
$10,000 love offering.

That's how strange it is getting out there. Something
has gone terribly wrong in our movement. Everywhere I
turn I find that leaders of so-called Spirit-filled
churches are making bizarre choices that compromise
basic Christian integrity. Some examples:

At one charismatic megachurch, staff pastors
successfully convinced all their wives and female
staff members to get breast implants. (I wonder: Was
this discussed at a staff meeting?)

A church in California (known for its revival meetings
and prophetic ministry) recently imploded after
members learned that several men in the church had
been having homosexual affairs with the pastor, who
was married.

A leader with an international following (who wears
the label of "apostle") recently informed his leaders
that men of God who reach his level of anointing are
allowed to have more than one sexual partner. Then his
own son offered his wife to his father out of a sense
of spiritual obligation.
We can all say together: "Eeeuuuwww!"

What has triggered this madness? The devil is working
overtime, yet our discernment is at an all-time low.
Satan's tactics are more brazen than ever. We might as
well let him walk into church on Sunday morning and
give him the microphone.

We've been bewitched. What matters to us today are the
carnal things. We want flash, bang and the wow factor.
If a person can shout loud enough and get everyone to
swoon at the altar, we don't care how he or she lives
at home. Morality is irrelevant.

In 2000 Charisma reported that charismatic preacher
Clarence McClendon had divorced his wife of 16 years,
Tammera McClendon, and married another woman after
only seven days. The ceremony was performed by Bishop
Earl Paulk, founder of the Cathedral of the Holy
Spirit in Atlanta. Several prominent ministers
attended the wedding, lending their endorsement to
McClendon's actions.

Tammera McClendon later informed Charisma that
Clarence had told her while they were married that God
had already shown him the woman who would replace her
as his wife.

McClendon left his denomination, the International
Church of the Foursquare Gospel, after his divorce
became public. He began a new church, Full Harvest
International Church, which currently meets in
Gardena, California. His preaching is aired on the
Trinity Broadcasting Network, and he was a featured
guest on TBN's Praise the Lord program last week.

In fact, McClendon collected the offering during the
network's annual telethon. When I turned on the
program and saw him raising money, I stared in
disbelief.

How did we get in this pitiful condition? The very
pulpits of America have become defiled because we are
unwilling to confront sin. We are playing political
games when the very health of the church is at stake.

Some Christians write letters to me saying: "The Bible
says we shouldn't judge. Sure these leaders have
stumbled, but no one is perfect. We need to forgive."

What Bible are these people reading? Mine says plainly
that it is our responsibility to judge sin in the
church. Of course we forgive, but forgiveness does not
involve putting a preacher back on stage the next week
if he just had a serious moral failure.

When the apostle Paul learned that a man was living in
an immoral relationship with his father's wife, he
tore into the situation with a vengeance. He said:
"Are you not to judge those inside [the church]? Expel
the wicked person from among you."

Those are not politically correct words, but they were
spoken by a true apostle. If we want a restoration of
genuine, apostolic Christianity in our generation, we
need to dispense with the craziness and initiate some
apostolic confrontation.

J. Lee Grady is editor of Charisma and an
award-winning journalist. He writes a column for
Charisma Online twice a week.

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