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Well, i do think plastic, showman type pastors certainly qualify in the “look at me! I am always right!” category, but they have been around for centuries - the flagellants of the Middle Ages; the Big Tent Revivalists of the turn of the last century; The Mega Churches of today......it is all cult of personality stuff. I am most concerned with the fire and brimstone, lack of empathy, small town types, who preach doctrinal purity over the fruits of the spirit because they preach what they know. They tend to lurk quietly on school boards and in low level, local government positions where they cultivate a ‘big fish/little pond’ persona and are rewarded mightly by their congregation which is filled with local big shots, who ‘run the the town’. They, like all narcissists preach a gospel of compliance and duty; spending their time identifying those loyal and annihilating those who are not.
Flashy is usually not respected and therefore not really taken seriously by the groupies who follow them like they used to follow the Grateful Dead before they were saved at an alter call or other big Jesus event. The small time pastors are taken seriously because they preach insecurity, every move we make is a choice between damnation or salvation.....whether it is preached as once saved always saved and practiced as ‘everything I do reflects my elect statuus’ or i can lose my salvation with every action. The real message is, trust in my message about God, i am the strength you need not the whimp gospel preached by my inferiors out there, who pervert or twist the gospel into what their people want to hear.