Thursday, August 11, 2011

Don't co-op Jesus

Yesterday I went to the Get Motivated seminar at the Bilo center. I'll confess, my expectations were pretty low. I mean, the tickets only cost $1.95. But they had some impressive speakers in the line-up (Laura Bush, Colin Powell, Steve Forbes, Bill Cosby, etc), so I decided to go.

First, there was some good content from the promoted speakers. I will say that many of them seemed like they threw a speech together in 5 minutes while sitting on the toilet, but hey, it only cost $1.95.

But there were two speakers that I wanted to punch in the throat. I know it's not nice to say that, but they made me mad. They were slick sales guys who were trying to get participants to sign up for a class to learn how to make more money. That's fine. I have no problem with that.

What angered me was how these guys co-opted Jesus. It was like Jesus was on their side and he was their trump-card. "Invest their way, love America and follow Jesus and you won't have to work a real job any more in your life."

I may be wrong, but I don't think Jesus needs to be co-opted. I think he needs to be followed, and humbly at that. Jesus is the Lord of all. He is the King. Let's not go out of our way to bring him down to our size and help us fulfill our American Dream. That's not what being a disciple of Jesus is about.

I guess what I'm getting at is that these guys make genuine follower of Jesus look bad. So please, if you were there, don't judge Jesus' followers from what you heard/learned from these guys. I apologize for how they misrepresented Christianity.

On a humorous note, I left the Bilo center to get some lunch (had a great Calzone at one of my favorite places downtown Greenville - Bertollo's Pizza). When I got back the doors to the Bilo Center were locked. Supposedly the Fire Marshall wouldn't let any more people in. I think it might be because I didn't sign up for the class on how to make more money. Eventually they let 100 people in and I was number 47. But man, people sure can get angry when they are locked out of a $1.95 seminar. I wasn't one of them.

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