Check Your Head:

Ahhh yes, the third studio album by the Beastie Boys released in 1992, the soundtrack of my sophomore year of high school. As fond as those memories are, I really just wanted to focus on the title “Check Your Head” and how it relates to the megachurch. I believe every one of them should have a sign over their main entrance with those words spelled out in giant block letters. Why? Because that’s exactly what you must do in order to fall prey to their system, you must check your head, or check your brain at the door. Let me explain.

Now, before I get into this, let me just say that, this is not meant by any means to be perceived as derogatory towards anyone who is currently attending one of these churches. I used to be right there with them. I was deep in it for several long years of my life. Fully dedicated, fully believing every word, fully mind controlled. Their tactics are subtle and psychologically persuasive, so we can’t with any integrity, fault the millions of people who attend these services on a weekly basis. If it happened to me, it can happen to anybody. It’s like when you watch one of those cult documentaries on Netflix, and you wonder how in the world can these people buy into this shit? “I’d never fall for that” you say to yourself, but you’d be surprised. Slowly, over a period of time it begins to set in unnoticed; like the frog in a pot of water, the heat gets turned up little by little, and before he knows it he’s fully cooked, and he didn’t even notice what was happening.

I started attending a megachurch in Tulsa Oklahoma back in the mid 90’s. When I first joined the church the average weekly attendance was around 3,000 people, I believe at the time of this writing, that they’re currently sitting at around 11,500 members, with each member paying them at least 10% of their income. At the beginning everything was great, they’ll promise you anything to get you in the door, and for a while everything seemed cool, I really liked it, and I felt like I was obeying God by attending there. I liked it so much that I applied for a job there. I ended up getting the job which was a combination of several different positions. I worked in the shipping and receiving department part of the week, and the other part of the week I worked as a church journalist interviewing other members and writing articles for the church newsletter. It was fun for a while, and I felt proud to be a staff member as well as a church member, and they eventually gave me my Minister’s License.

Working in the shipping and receiving department meant I was privy to some sensitive information like the churches tithing statements that we would mail out every tax season for write-off purposes. I knew the exact amounts that each individual member was giving to the church. It was staggering to see, but I didn’t think too much of it. But my God, we’re talking millions and millions rolling in on a consistent basis. I also got to see all the letters people would send in asking the church for help. Local people, church members, foreign missionaries and Bible teachers in third world countries simply asking for any help, such as a box of Bibles, some children’s church curriculum, food etc… these were most often met with a form letter stating that the church’s quota had already been met for the year. Sadly, I spent a lot of my time mailing these things out, and it was a punch in the gut. We also got several requests from tithing church members, like single moms who needed diapers and formula, also met with a form letter, because most of the money was going towards building a multi million dollar football stadium for their private school they were planning. Now, I realize that you can’t physical help everyone who asks, but there just wasn’t much help being offered at all to these people in need.

After a while they started taking a mandatory 10% tithe from our paychecks. It started being automatically deducted from our wages, and I was thinking, is this what “cheerful giving” is? I didn’t feel real cheerful about it. Then they established a rule that you couldn’t have private Bible studies in your home with other church members. They wouldn't let people volunteer who had been divorced. You couldn’t clap in church (the Pastor actually apologized for this rule later on) because it was disrespectful to God. As staff members, we were forced to volunteer during one of the weekly services or we would be fired. Church members who didn't tithe consistently were blacklisted, and weren’t allowed to attend church functions. When the Senior Pastor walked down the halls, staff members would literally freeze in fear, and I remember thinking, is this how people reacted to Jesus? One Sunday, the Pastor addressed the entire congregation from the pulpit and instructed us all not to read Rob Bell’s book “Love Wins” that had just been released, because he said he was a Heretic, and was “sewing seeds of discord among the brethren” by saying that there is no such place as Hell. If you got up during service to use the bathroom, the ushers wouldn’t let you back in the sanctuary because it was a distraction. Give me a break.

One morning, during a fundraising campaign for yet another unnecessary building project (a multi-million dollar hunting retreat for Pastoral Staff) the Senior Pastor addressed the congregation and said that he knew (because God had told him) that there were several people here who could give $10,000 this morning in the offering. He asked them to stand, and they did, and then he gave them each a gold coin in front of everyone for their obedience. Look, I’m ranting a bit here, but this stuff must be exposed at some point. Probably the thing that disturbed me the most was the Pastoral Care Dept. If you were a tithing church member, and then consistently gave more than your required 10% as an “offering” you had access to what the church calls ‘‘Pastoral Care.” You could request a private counselling session with one of the church ministers to discuss any life issue you may be experiencing, such as marriage problems, parenting, specific prayer requests, financial difficulties etc… It was supposed to be private, safe and secure. Confidential. But guess what, it wasn’t, not by a long shot. The “Counselors” would share pretty much everything with the other staff members. I distinctly remember one of them walking into our department at lunch time, laughing and telling us that he just prayed for a lady who was unsure if getting a “boob job” was okay in the eyes of God. He assured her it was. Cringe.

As if all this isn’t bad enough on its own, just think for a moment of all the stuff you must accept as truth in order to be a part of this church system. God made a man out of dust, then made a woman out of spare ribs. They were naked but didn’t know it till a talking snake told them. There were two of every animal on a boat with no windows, a talking donkey, a man getting swallowed by a whale and then getting vomited up as an evangelist, oceans parting at the tap of a stick, a talking burning bush, a valley of dry bones comes to life just like in the Evil Dead movies, a human turning into a pillar of salt, fallen angels mating with women and producing giants, the earth is only 6,000 years old, tongues of fire appeared hovering over people’s heads, and the list goes on and on.

Check your head.

The Bible was never meant to be taken literally, it is an allegory addressed to the human imagination, and all of the above nonsense that goes on in these megachurches is a direct result of doing just that.

I’ve said it before, but it bears repeating: The Bible is either the highest book of psychological magic or nothing at all.

In love and light,

-J