Is Dawkins right or wrong?  Critique this for me – what are your thoughts?  I will save my thoughts for later.  Oh yeah, and to my personal friends who I hope are still reading this blog – don’t blow this off even though you may be offended.  Just watch it with an open mind and critique it.

[update 30 March:  The original video has mysteriously disappeared, but I found this alternate one which is also dubbed into Spanish]

This filmclip is from the Academy Award winning documentary Marjoe, a film which exposed evangelist Marjoe Gortner as a charlatan.  This type of ultra Pentacostalism is the crap that I was raised with during the late 60s- early 70s Jesus Movement.  From the looks of it, it was filmed at about 1970 – about the time my mother used to frequent these types of services and bring me along to experience the power of the Holy Spirit.  Watch at your own risk – this 10 minute clip includes hyper-emotional preaching, anointed handkerchiefs, speaking in tongues, pleas for seed-faith offerings, and people slain in the spirit.  This is truly a pagan freakshow, and I witnessed it all as a youngster.       Don’t worry, I have gotten over it and have no bitterness towards these experiences.  You grow up, you get wise, and you move on.  Funny thing is, I have a feeling that this is an example of how the early Christian church really was.  I think this has more in common with the churches built by Peter and Paul than today’s insipid Sunday Morning emergent Dr Phil sermons.  What else could Paul be talking about than the miraculous signs taught in 1 Corintians 14:20-40?  I wonder why today’s mainstream denominations sort of gloss over those bizarre passages which mention the more “charismatic” gifts of the Holy Spirit?