Charisma News always traffic in deception but this was something more...

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This one took a little bit to unravel. The above linked article was posted today at Charisma News with today's date and the author being indicated was Jamie Buckingham. Google only turned up a Jamie Buckingham that passed away in 1992, so I was confused. Adding to the confusion is the opening line said, "The morning after a recent ministry scandal broke", and had a hyperlink to an article about the recent Robert Morris scandal. So, the clear intention of Charisma was to deceive its readers into thinking this was an article written today, in reaction to the Robert Morris scandal. Except it wasn't. It was written by that former bible teacher who passed away 32 years ago. It was written in 1988 in reaction to the Jimmy Swaggart scandal, not the Robert Morris debacle. It certainly appears that Charisma wanted the patina of relevance to today, to try and get Christians to not trust the secular media by using the ghost of Jamie Buckingham but pretending he was referencing recent scandals. Let us reason once more beloved and see what Charisma might be up to with this deception.

"The morning after a recent ministry scandal broke, I woke to the internal words, "Beware of the tumblebugs." It's been a long time since I thought of tumblebugs. Lying in bed, I remembered kneeling as a child in our barnyard watching those tiny beetles at work. A tumblebug finds a pile of manure. With its front claws it pulls out a small amount, mixes it liberally with its spit, works it into a ball, then rolls it across the barnyard, pushing the bundle with its nose. As I look out over the kingdom, I realize God has given His church a gigantic dose of laxative. The secular media"the tumblebugs of society"smelling the results of God's purgative, have rushed out from under their rocks. They're not looking for the hand of God, much less His face. They're not even interested in the type of purgative the Holy Spirit administers to cleanse and purify His church. All they are nosing for is expelled waste. Once found"and God's people never have excelled at digging latrines"they roll it into a neat little TV spot, serving it up on the 6 o'clock news." - Jamie Buckingham

So again, the "recent" ministry scandal was Jimmy Swaggart but for some reason, Charisma could not just be honest and say they saw parallels from what Buckingham wrote to today. Instead, they chopped his original article up and removed any references to Swaggart. Now, I do not know Buckingham but his entire premise is just as bad as if Charisma wrote it themselves. Are we expecting the world, and the media from the world, to be seeking the hand of God or His face? That is an absurdity. I am not going to get into his disgusting metaphor here but suffice to say it is not an evangelism strategy to paint the lost as seeking our excrement. It is the type of arrogance the pervaded the church in the era in which Buckingham ministered and has only grown worse during the Purpose Driven years. Because Buckingham passed away in 1992, he never got to see that his notion that God gave the church a laxative to cleanse and purify by exposing Swaggart was equally incorrect. Swaggart's era gave way to the abuses of Holy Laughter, the Kundalini spirit at Brownsville, the Purpose Driven Church heresy and eventually the NAR.

"No one is a stronger proponent of freedom of the press than I. But it is truth that sets us free, not twisted, slanted, one-sided, incomplete facts. Such stories land us in more bondage than any journalistic censorship imposed by government regulations. A free press in the hands of irresponsible journalists is as dangerous as a vindictive man who shouts "Fire!" in a public theater. The journalists whose primary intent is to catch people in wrongdoing (or who edit film to create the impression of such) are instruments of their father, the devil." - Jamie Buckingham

The confusing messages indicate that Buckingham would have fit right in with today's apostate church. So, you are the strongest proponent for a free press but liken them to tumblebugs clawing through manure? How terribly Christian. It seems the same complaints that the NAR pretends is wrong with the media today were the same three decades ago. The problem is that both are wrong and distorted. Was there a redeemable side to the Jimmy Swaggart scandal I am unaware of? How about the Robert Morris scandal? Was there slanted, one-sided coverage or was it just the inconvenient truth that both Morris and Swaggart had swindled over 100 million dollars each from the church while being complete hypocrites. Swaggart loved preaching holiness and paying for prostitutes. Morris loved abusive tithing teachings after he had sexually abused a 12-year-old for four years while a married up and coming pastor. The church has seen 40 million people leave in the past 25 years and these are the reasons why. Correctly reporting the scum that both Swaggart and Morris represented in their own times, IS responsible journalism. With apologies to the dead, it seems Buckingham is making a very tortured argument that the problem with Swaggart, and now Charisma is trying to make about Morris, is that they got caught. The responsibility for journalists is to the truth and it so sad that it is not the same for Christian leaders. No one is editing film. Morris molested a little girl for four years and then lied about it as he built his 100-million-dollar empire by bleeding Christians of all their money to line his pockets. That is not shouting fire. It is shouting the truth. It is staggering that someone like Buckingham, who wrote 45 books, can look at the Swaggart scandal and conclude not that he was an instrument of the devil, which he was, but rather those that reported the truth about it were. The same goes for Charisma today and Morris. How can you look at what Robert Morris or Mike Bickle did and somehow conclude that the devil was using those the reported it instead of the perpetrators? It is disgusting.

"Why does the press continually ask questions of prominent pastors that attempt to set them up to look like buffoons? Remember what the news reporting media did to former Secretary of Interior James Watt? Once the newspapers discovered he believed in the return of Christ, they warped his words to sound like Watt felt it was OK to destroy our natural resources since the world would be burned up when Jesus returned"the exact opposite of what he believed." - Jamie Buckingham

Apparently, the victim mentality amongst the apostate church is not just from today. No one can make anyone look like a buffoon. We do that all by ourselves. Reporters ask questions but we answer them. We decide how to answer them. If we cannot answer without looking or sounding buffoonish, then I would suggest that we either not take the question or not answer it. Either way, it is not the fault of the person doing their job. Keep in mind the two scandals that prompted Buckingham to first write this and Charisma to reprint it today with selective editing to deceive their readers. Research on James Watt reveals that he was the most horrific Secretaries of the Interior EVER. He personally oversaw the destruction of a great deal of God's creation in this country and when he left that position, he went to lobby for building companies seeking contracts from the government. In 1995, after Buckingham had passed, Watt was indicted on 18 felony counts including perjury, obstruction of justice and influence peddling in trying to get those government contracts for his employer. There was one story however that fits the outrage that Buckingham references. A quote was attributed to Watt that was reported as, "After the last tree is felled, Christ will come back." One writer named Glenn Scherer attributed this quote to him and then it was repeated by journalist Bill Moyers. When it was discovered, Watt never said it, the error was corrected and Moyers apologized. Hardly the vast conspiracy of the boogeyman media that Buckingham was making it out to be. Ironically, Watt did however, say in response, "I know no Christian who believes or preaches such error. The Bible commands conservation"that we as Christians be careful stewards of the land and resources entrusted to us by the Creator." Except he was not a faithful steward of land and resources and his record proves that. The Charisma rewrite concludes:

"Following my brief foray into the world of the secular media during the PTL scandal, I quickly realized no good can come from Christians being interviewed on programs such as "Larry King Live," "Nightline" or "60 Minutes." But following the most recent scandal, I saw publicity-hunting preachers by the score drooling to have their pious faces making nonsensical statements on the tube." - Jamie Buckingham

Now, what is interesting here is that line "following the most recent scandal" is NOT what Buckingham wrote in 1988. The actual line is "following the Swaggart scandal." Either Charisma was trying to not rehash the Jimmy Swaggart scandal or there was an even more nefarious reason for this willful deception. Remember that Charisma linked the Robert Morris scandal article in the very first line of this piece to deceive the readers into thinking this was written today, and about the scandals rocking the NAR church. Thank God for an independent media that is in the business of reporting the truth or else we may never have heard about the Morris scandal. Thank God for independent Christian discernment ministries that pursued these truths until Morris had to slink away in disgrace. I am not sure who Buckingham was referencing that was on news shows with drooling pious faces or who Charisma wanted you to think this was referencing today and I do not really care. The PTL scandal was a disgrace for the church and the Morris scandal was worse. The fault for those scandals lay with the criminals who were at fault, not the secular media for correctly exposing them.

Look, if Charisma wanted to reprint Buckingham's article to draw what they thought were fair comparisons to the Morris scandal that would be fine. They would be wildly wrong but at least they would not be maliciously deceptive. I understand though why they assumed they could get away with it. They routinely platform articles written by the worst charlatans and hucksters in the apostate church today who constantly butcher scripture. They do so, because they rely on their readers remaining ignorant and never doing the work of a Berean. I guess they figured if they do not bother to check the bible, why would they bother to check why a man who died the year Bill Clinton became president would suddenly be writing an article today about Robert Morris. Charisma wants their readers to only follow them, so they can control them and the information they take in. Pay no attention to the sex offenders behind the curtain, just hate the little dog who pulled it back.

Reverend Anthony Wade - August 29, 2024

Authors Bio:
Credentialed Minister of the Gospel for the Assemblies of God. Owner and founder of 828 ministries. Vice President for Goodwill Industries. Always remember that in all things God works for the good of those who love Him and are called according to His purpose.