Beware the Rule Makers

Mentioning “church” in tabloid journalism such as channel 7’s ‘Today Tonight’ manages to get attention. It got mine, but like most other religion based stories the facts were highly sensationalised. Should we expect anything less from a current affairs program proven for fudging facts?

The headline went, “Talent show finalists banned from church, we’ll tell you why”. Provocative headline, very emotive, I was hooked in. I had to see whether this was a ‘real’ church that was involved or an institution more resembling a cult.

In typical ‘foot in the door’ style we met the pastor of the offending “church” (I use that term rather loosely here), the Geelong Revival Centre. The leader proclaimed to be spreading God’s word, despite the revelation of many strange rules made up by him and him only. These have no origins in the bible and I am sure none would be upheld by any bible believing Christian Church.

Unfortunately there are those that would see Today Tonight as the ultimate vessel of truth and could easily come to the conclusion that this is the norm of all ‘churches’. When it’s just not the case.

The only comment against this assertion was a throwaway line that a member of the Geelong Revival Centre had “escaped” and was now at a “nice Baptist Church”. We are left to assume that he is happy there. It’s only by pure miracle that he didn’t throw in the towel on a faith in God after experiencing what can only be described as a cult, as so many do after poor experiences with so called Christians.

Today Tonight could have hammered the point home on cults but didn’t, for whatever reason. Perhaps to them calling them a church gets a better response than evil power tripping egotist led Cults.