Pastor Gave Prophetic Sermon - His Secret? MySpace!

Posted by Alex in Religion on August 4, 2008 at 12:37 am


Last Sunday, Pastor Irwin Allen of Peoria, Arizona, deliverd a sermon about sins so specific that some people in the audience gasped with recognition.

So how did Pastor Allen gave such a "prophetic" sermon? He read the blogs of the people in his congregation:

Pastor Alton, who cultivates a reputation as a computer illiterate techno-phobe, is actually an avid reader of MySpace pages, blogs and personal websites of the people in his congregation. "I appear, shall we say, un-hip," he says. "Therein lies my advantage."

Though he publicly refers to the Worldwide Web as the "Worldwide Waste" and e-mail as "sin-mail," in his home office is a bank of computer screens with more than 170 bookmarked sites — personal web pages, blogs, Twitter, MySpace, Facebook, LinkedIn, Digg, Flickr and more.

Each week Alton surfs the sites for hours to find evidence of questionable behavior by people in his church. He jots offenses down and incorporates them into his Sunday sermons.

Link – via Locust & Honey

Update 8/4/08 – It’s a satire, LarkNews is like the Onion for evangelicals (which, I fully admit, I didn’t know though I did look for references to the story and could only find it on LarkNews – Thanks Rev. Kate Layzer)


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19 comments to "Pastor Gave Prophetic Sermon - His Secret? MySpace!"

  1. alison
    August 4th, 2008 at 12:54 am

    uhhhhh...

  2. seekshelter
    August 4th, 2008 at 1:02 am

    ggrrr... sounds annoying... reminds me also of that guy in oklahoma that knocks on windows of people that pick up hookers... someone in his congregation should let him know that his tie is yellow..

  3. gibson8or
    August 4th, 2008 at 2:18 am

    I always thought hypocrisy was a sin...

  4. Moodindigo
    August 4th, 2008 at 3:12 am

    "Therein lies my advantage"

    He actually sounds *proud* of this behaiour, like it's a competition. Spying on people just so he can humiliate them in public. Yuck.

  5. John
    August 4th, 2008 at 4:32 am

    Before anyone gets too worked up: the source is LarkNews, a parody site. It's The Onion for evangelicals.

  6. Christophe
    August 4th, 2008 at 5:33 am

    Big Father is watching you!

  7. hearsetrax
    August 4th, 2008 at 5:42 am

    further proof that 99% religious zealots are a bunch of phonies

  8. Tim Giachetti
    August 4th, 2008 at 5:57 am

    This guy is a total wanker.

    What happened to "practice what you preach"?

  9. Chuichupachichi
    August 4th, 2008 at 7:03 am

    @ Moodindigo
    (He actually sounds *proud* of this behaiour, like it’s a competition. Spying on people just so he can humiliate them in public. Yuck.)

    Reading "public" postings is not spying.
    If he were calling them by name and pointing them out, then describing their sins. That would be public humiliation.

    Just in case the story is even true?

  10. Kate Layzer
    August 4th, 2008 at 7:12 am

    Folks, THIS IS SATIRE!!!!!!!!!! It's from the hilarious satirical site Lark News, larknews.com. So you can tone down the righteous indignation!

  11. Dave
    August 4th, 2008 at 7:34 am

    News Flash: Not everything you read in the Internets is true!

    Come on, Alex; we all know that Neatorama isn't real journalism, just entertainment, but could you try just a little harder to put a tiny bit of journalistic honesty into the stories you post that hint at being true? Did you even bother to check out the originating story and site, or did you just copy & paste from the Locust & Honey blog? That's sure what it looks like.

    Even a little digging would've revealed that the story you linked to was satire. But no. Instead we get yet another hyped up headline on Neatorama giving the Christ haters another imagined thing to yell about.

  12. ted
    August 4th, 2008 at 7:38 am

    I don't get that whole site. Someone please explain it to me.

  13. John
    August 4th, 2008 at 8:28 am

    Well, LarkNews is mostly insider humor for American evangelicals. It pokes fun at our eccentricities, of which there are many. But it may not be easily understood outside of the evangelical culture.

  14. Kate Layzer
    August 4th, 2008 at 8:31 am

    It's probably only funny if you've had some exposure to evangelical culture. John's description of it as "the Onion for evangelicals" is perfect. It's evangelicals poking fun at evangelicals--who are only one of many Christian subcultures, by the way.

  15. Scooter
    August 4th, 2008 at 8:35 am

    Even if this isn't real the idea that it could be is what truly makes it funny.
    Since when is myspace or facebook private. It's a hard lesson for teenagers to learn, if you want it to be private write it in a diary.

  16. jjj
    August 4th, 2008 at 9:17 am

    The sad part here is that a lot of people don't pick up on the fact that it's satire. That says a lot about people's feelings toward organized religion in general.

  17. Skipweasel
    August 4th, 2008 at 9:45 am

    If you're in any doubt about whether LarkNew is satire, read their FAQ. I'm still giggling some minutes later.

  18. donna
    August 4th, 2008 at 10:50 am

    Satire is funny. A description of creepy behavior is creepy.

    There's a difference.

  19. JC
    August 5th, 2008 at 9:23 pm

    Now I´m afraid to check my sin-mail.


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