Thursday, January 27, 2005

Miracle Water

I was watching TV while getting ready yesterday morning and saw a infomercial for "Miracle Water" being sold by some evangelist. Even though it was horrific, I couldn't stop watching.

And then suddenly, I thought I was going to cry. It's not because I was struck by the healing power of the spirit of god or anything. It was the whole exploitation of these people and I just felt so sad. And then it was almost comical. I kept teetering between laughing and crying.

There was the woman who asked Leroy (the evangelist) to meet a man she could marry and a month later she met him. Then she drank the "blessed" miracle water and wanted to lose weight and she lost 10 dress sizes. And the comes on the evangelist and says "Can you imagine losing 10 dress sizes!? Order this miracle water today and you'll be blessed and never struggle again." Something to that effect.

There was the woman in an audience of some church who got up and threw her walker down, not needing it anymore. There was a woman telling the story of her son who was ill and couldn't play with friends, but the drank some miracle water and was healed! The doctors couldn't explain it.

Come to think of it, they were all women telling stories - at least the ones I heard. Maybe men already have god's blessings and don't need it.

Anyway, what do you all think of this? How can anyone do that? Exploit faith and put it into a bottle to sell, handing out empty promises of god's blessings?

Being the research queen that I am, I looked it up some info today and found out some ironic things. His name is Leroy Jenkins (read his testimony - "miracle arm") and apparently at some point in the past he had to stop distributing the water because it was making people sick. It had some bacteria in it and was unsafe. I guess he must be back in business if I saw this commercial yesterday though.

Here's some more classic quotes from this guy, if you want to read them. Apparently he promises healings for those that can produce $1000 check.

I'll leave you with this:

"You have to be willing to give to Him. Whatever you make happen for God's work, He will make happen for you. You see, they obeyed Jesus and poured out what they had. If you want God to bless you, you have to pour out something to Him. The Bible says in Luke 6:38, 'Give and it shall be given unto you.' This was Jesus talking. He was saying, 'Give God your best and He will give you His best!' What is your best? Is it $100 or more? then give that. If it is $50, give that. If it is $30, give that, or the closest thing you have to $30."
(Leroy Jenkins, letter from his ministry 2004)


1 Comments:

At January 27, 2005 at 10:32 AM , Blogger Dave said...

I've seen that guy on TV. All I can do is shake my head and feel bad for the people he exploits.

You made a really interesting observation about the gender gap.

On the bright side, the placebo effect is real, so I guess there's actually some benefit in taking a placebo -- and I'm sure water tastes better than snake oil.

If Jesus were here though, he'd kick Leroy's ass.

 

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