(TikTok screencap)

A photo of an elaborate stage presentation of a Christmas show inside a church with the caption ‘Jesus: "help the poor." texas mega churches:’

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[–] 140 points 10 months ago (4 children)

When American Christians get to the afterlife and meet god ....

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  • [–] 63 points 10 months ago (3 children)

    They wouldn't get to meet God. They'd go straight to hell.

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  • [–] 73 points 10 months ago* (2 children)

    That's ridiculous, even Jesus thought so.

    And Jesus entered the temple and drove out all who sold and bought in the temple, and he overturned the tables of the money-changers and the seats of those who sold pigeons. He said to them, "It is written, ‘My house shall be called a house of prayer,’ but you make it a den of robbers."

    Matthew 21:12-13 (Source)

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  • [–] 52 points 10 months ago

    "Christians": Put Christ back in Christmas!!!!

    Also "Christians": More flying elves, and the magical reindeer's nose needs to shine brighter!

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  • [–] 51 points 10 months ago* (5 children)

    Last time I attended a service all I could think was, "How would you explain that you spent $250,000 on the sound system?"

    Took my step-son to that same church to witness me voting, trying to set an example. It was like a mini-mall in there.

    Sarcastic child: "Dude! Do they have a Starbucks too?!"

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  • [–] 6 points 10 months ago (3 children)

    ... I think they usually do have a coffee shop.

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  • [–] 3 points 10 months ago* (2 children)

    i'm a church musician lately and the one i play at puts a pot of regular and a pot of decaf on. what they have isn't bad for drip coffee, but that's where they are.

    and most of us in the band are of the "coffee? COFFEeE!!" persuasion so they really don't even need good drip coffee, but eventually we'd start bringing our own grounds and it'd become a thing.

    part of me wants to find one with a coffee shop now, but i really dislike those services.

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  • [–] 3 points 10 months ago (1 child)

    I think this is the first time I've encountered a church musician on Lemmy. What instrument(s) do you play?

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  • [–] 5 points 10 months ago

    so currently i'm just a bass specialist in english handbells. i also sing, i am not great at bass guitar and i just got my sax out of the attic a few months ago and am still rusty. way back in my school days i worked my way through the district's set of instruments and taught myself how to play everything they had except the double reeds. not necessarily well, but enough that if i wanted to get competent it would only take a couple weeks.

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  • [–] 2 points 10 months ago

    Around a decade ago I went to church with my parents. They don't go to a mega church but it is a large church in a Texas suburb. My mom offered to buy me a cup of coffee. I thought she was making that silly joke about "buying" me a cup because, it's a church, coffee is free right? No. She actually paid money for coffee at church. And it was a goddamned k-cup.

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  • [–] 40 points 10 months ago (2 children)

    This was last year right? Assuming this year will be even bigger and more batshit

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  • [–] 33 points 10 months ago (6 children)

    They turned the church into a circus.

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  • [–] 14 points 10 months ago (5 children)

    Do they still give out bread tho?

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  • [–] 18 points 10 months ago (4 children)

    That’s communism. Supply side Jesus says no.

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  • [–] 30 points 10 months ago (2 children)

    Jenny Nicholson had a good video about this a while back.

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  • [–] 30 points 10 months ago (5 children)

    So they donate money to be entertained? There is already an industry for that.

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  • [–] 27 points 10 months ago (4 children)

    Yeah but this one doesn't pay taxes

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  • [–] -1 points 10 months ago (3 children)

    Pretty sure there are some struggling artist who also don't pay taxes. Mostly because they are too poor but still.

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  • [–] 1 point 10 months ago (2 children)
  • [–] 23 points 10 months ago

    Stuff like this is why I don't publicly practice my faith with a specific lineage of Christ believers. Money corrupts if there is not honor or values. Also fuck them for not actually using to help people but themselves. That's why I want to remove Tax exempt status from mega churches. (Not the smaller churches, just the mega ones.)

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  • [–] 23 points 10 months ago (1 child)

    Y'know I actually enjoyed when churches would put on (actually) funny skits or silly Christmas plays for outreach or whatever because like, entertainment is a universal communication medium, and what's wrong with having a little fun along the way?

    But that was on the order of your local middle school production, maybe. Cardboard, craft paint, and a lot of suspension of disbelief. :p

    This "Cirque du Holé" business in gigantic "campuses" is embarrassing. Like that time all those churches loaned out a literal micro roller coaster to each other for. . .some reason. . .?

    What a grift.

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  • [–] 21 points 10 months ago (1 child)

    Wow they really hate the poor

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  • [–] 19 points 10 months ago (1 child)

    What in the ragety-anne-fuck is going on there?

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  • [–] 19 points 10 months ago (3 children)

    It not like this fly over system costs very much. Compared to the huge building and technology they install. I am fully against Church and religion in general, but flying Santa isn't too spectacular. The private jets, buildings the size of Amazon warehouses that actually cost....

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  • [–] 3 points 10 months ago (2 children)

    Maybe, but the small things do add up. Insurance rate increases due to high risk aerial performances, coordinator/safety team, etc.

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  • [–] 17 points 10 months ago (2 children)

    Don't you remember that bible story? Where he got the bread and fish, gave the food to his friends, then flew around to flex on the poors?

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  • [–] 16 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

    I didn't know a mime getting hanged was in the Bible. Gotta feel bad for the French even their god hates them.

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  • [–] 12 points 10 months ago (4 children)

    These people are all damned to Hell.

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  • [–] 13 points 10 months ago (3 children)

    They are creating it on Earth.

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  • [–] 1 point 10 months ago (1 child)
  • [–] 3 points 10 months ago*

    So make sure when you say you're in it but not of it

    You're not helping to make this earth a place sometimes called Hell

    Change your words into truths and then change that truth into love

    And maybe our children's grandchildren And their great-great grandchildren will tell

    Stevie Wonder - As

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  • [–] 12 points 10 months ago

    Looks like the set of The Righteous Gemstones.

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  • [–] 11 points 10 months ago

    Panem & circenses…

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  • [–] 11 points 10 months ago (2 children)

    People are gonna watch The Righteous Gemstones and think it's a documentary

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  • [–] 10 points 10 months ago (1 child)

    Putting up a literal show for the believers. Look at the shiny thing, and give us money!

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  • [–] 10 points 10 months ago

    Murka don't needem none of that Woke Communist Fake News Christianity. Jesus was a ripped alpha male who beat up on weaklings for fun, and told the poors to get a job!

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  • [–] 7 points 10 months ago (1 child)

    Ok I thought they were hanging Ronald McDonald in effigy

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  • [–] 7 points 10 months ago

    But only by suffering enough will the poor be worthy. Then they’ll magically lift themselves up out of poverty.

    So heap suffering on them!

    Oh look, I guess they were never worthy…

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  • [–] 6 points 10 months ago

    What a golden calf.

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  • [–] 6 points 10 months ago

    And somehow Palpatine returned.

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  • [–] 10 points 10 months ago

    What in the actual three-ring-fuck is going on in this picture?

    I know that church doesn't have to be as solemn as a funeral, but still... unless these production levels are generating millions for charity, I can't imagine how people are just okay with this.

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  • [–] 5 points 10 months ago

    If you need pyrotechnics to sell compassion, maybe the priorities are backwards.

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  • [–] 8 points 10 months ago (6 children)

    If Jesus returned from the dead he would be anti-Christian.

    How much further from actual Christian values can modern Christianity get?

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  • [–] 4 points 10 months ago (4 children)
  • [–] 1 point 10 months ago* (2 children)

    If you start a cult, are you not the first member of the cult? Shoko Asahara was still the leader of and member of aum shinrykio

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  • [–] 2 points 10 months ago (1 child)

    I'm not that knowledgeable about the events. But did he name the cult?

    If someone else named the cult, and someone else wrote the Bible. And the book did not exist in his time. Then even if he was a real person that wanted good in the world, he was never a part of the religion/cult that was started in his name, right?

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  • [–] 1 point 10 months ago

    A lot of the bible that gets followed by mega churches follows the doctrine of Paul who never met Jesus and was a power hungry bastard who claimed to have hallucinated Jesus after he got hit on the head with a rock.

    The idea of salvation through Jesus being through faith and not actions, throwing money at churches, treating any sex for pleasure as an apex sin comes from him.

    Effectively these are not Christians but Paulians.

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  • [–] 4 points 10 months ago (4 children)

    Kinda unrelated, but I got a place on my church's theater. I'm gonna act as an angel. Hope they won't put me flying like this.

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  • [–] 1 point 10 months ago (3 children)
  • [–] 3 points 10 months ago

    Most of them lost the vision eons ago

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  • [–] 1 point 10 months ago

    Some things would mix well. I'd go to "church" just to see the mix.

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