by Doyle Davidson and the Water of Life Church.
I have to tell you that Ken has a weird fascination with TV preachers and he will watch them for what seems to me like hours. Therefore, I have seen much more than I ever wanted to of said preaching & stuff.
Clearly, I bring my prejudices to this: I tend to think that preachers should have been to seminary and stuff. Maybe even ordained, depending upon their groove (I'm in the Episcopal type of groovy as you know).
Of other sorts...seems to me that Bishop TD Jakes does some interesting work....Joel Osteen is a nice happy fellow...But now, Robert Tilton needs to go away and take Benny Hinn with him. And Mike Murdock...! what a shyster. His offices were in our town for a while. Ken striped their parking lot and saw the Jaguars and Porsches that he and others drove.
But my lord Miss Agnes...Doyle Davidson is in a category all his own. The Water of Life is a non-denominational church in Plano (north of Dallas). Do you remember the case a couple of years ago where that poor sick lady Dena Schlosser cut off her baby daughter's arms? She said God told her to...she and Andrea Yates have been keeping each other company in the state mental prison and I am not making this up. Schlosser had been going to the Water of Life church and was supposedly obsessed with Pastor Davidson. For his part, Davidson quickly disavowed any connection with her and I don't know anything about that, certainly not enough to judge.
HOWEVER. Last night when we were looking at TV, we came across the Water of Life broadcast again. Not only is Mr. Davidson unintelligible, not only does his stage / preaching area look like the inside of a casket, not only do they sing terrible dirges...we are used to that...but last night I guess they were having an exorcism or something, because he was pacing around the stage saying over and over again (as best as we could make out), "LOOSE! Jezebel! Amen!" There was a lot of praying and chanting going on in the background, and there was one woman screaming like her life was ending. It went on for at least 10 minutes before we couldn't take it anymore.
Understand that I grew up Episcopalian, but also going to charismatic churches on the side, so being around speaking in tongues, singing in the Spirit, being slain in the Spirit...is not new to me. However, screaming bloody murder in the Spirit, that's a new one.
I was so mystified and distressed that this morning I went to teh trusty Internets and looked up Mr. Davidson's church to see what I could learn. Not much: there are some videos you can watch if you want to see him talk and try to understand what he says.
But then I found the Letters to Lisa section, where he writes daily letters to Lisa Staton, a former member of his church whom he believes God has sent him to be his wife. Trouble is, she is and has been married to someone else for 20 years. You can read more about this weird obsession here - go past the part about Dena Schlosser to the part about Davidson himself.
No wonder Christianity has such a bad rap.
Later, kids; I need to go wash my hands.
