Years ago, Lee Stoneking gave this blog an audience without realizing it. Literally, discussing the science of his Holy Magic Hair Theory caused the blog to go from a few hits a day (thanks mom) to getting hits from my mother, two aunts, and any girlfriend who gets past the three date anniversary. And that's exciting. Except we at SAL have gone our separate ways from Stoneking.... And like two star-crossed lovers, I felt in my heart of hearts that a reunion was imminent. I just didn't know how to start a conversation again with someone who meant so much to the blog and myself. Yet luckily Stoneking started it at Youth Congress when this happened....
Let's get this straight: Stoneking has a theory that shouting attacks the air and conversely attacks the Prince of Air himself: Satan. The theory of evolution may not check out, but Lee Stoneking's theory of Sound vs. Air absolutely checks out. Because the Bible. And because, hashtag loud noises matter.
The theory: Joshua decided to enter Canaan and kill anyone else living there (women and children alike) and had a whole lot of success until he got to Jericho and there were walls around the city, so some marching and loud noises caused the city walls to fall and thus we can conclude that sound noises caused wall-failure.
Except with Lee Stoneking, shouting causes air particles to get shredded speedily and a take-no-prisoners, wam-bam-thank-you-mam kind of recklessness. And for Stoneking, no walls will collapse, however, because that would be physical proof of a miracle and that's not his style. Instead, tongues are spoken. Crying happens. And this all checks out. Apostolic Sound vs. Air, and Apo Sound wins.
But the critical discovery regarding the Stoneking Shout vs. Air hypothesis is that while studying the issue scientifically and Biblically, Dr. Lee Stoneking realized that Satan himself was the Prince of that very Air that was shredded by Shout.
Further Hypotheses
Whilst Dr. Stoneking is currently nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize about this discovery, several minor logistical questions remain.
Question 1: If Satan is the Prince of the Air, who are the King and Queen of the Air?
We may never know. But if, as rumor has it, that the King of the Air is God Himself, then aren't we attacking God every time we shout? (more research needed).
Question 1. A: If God is the King of the Air and Satan is the Prince of the Air, is God the Father of Satan? Is this like the opposite of Darth Vader revealing "Luke, I am your father?" (more research needed)
Aside: I'm not an air particle expert here as the Shout vs. Air Science is a newly constructed field. Therefore I will have to to defer to our resident Air-depletion specialist, Dr, Lee Stoneking regarding such matters in the mean time.
Question 2: If shouting attacks air, is it possible that one of the main causes of global warming is humans having a loud shout? After all, scientists agree that the amount of O-Zone depletion has increased at silly exponential rates within the past two hundred years. Is it then a coincidence that during this very same 200 years that the rate of human shouting has increased at nearly the exact same rate?
And if I'm correct (more research needed), and the smoking gun of global warming is shouting humans, then can we just let the global warming blame-game about pollution be put to rest?
Question 2. A. Does screaming count as shouting? (From the video of Youth Congress' Great Shout Invasion, it seems screaming was permissible to shed and deplete air particles.) And if so, how much damage did the Jews cause the atmosphere when six million of them were screaming for their life in the gas chamber? Question 2 A. 1. What kind of injuries did Satan sustain after the aforementioned Jewish Air-Scream invasion of the early 1940's?
Observations: Observed that a lot of the air particle depletion from Congress occurred in a setting where screaming and shouting was encouraged amongst thousands of youths. A setting where one could openly emit LOUD NOISES in order to kill Satan, and ALSO NOT be declared a crazy, a wimp, a rebel rouser or be suspected of possible terrorist intentions. Actually Congress may have been the only place in the world where screaming & shouting would be rewarded with a fist pump or a bro-hug even though tears were clearly stuck in your eye-lashes.
Testing & Results: Rumor has it that the Oklahoma Air Particle Assault did not end at Congress but found it's way to many a church the following weekend(s). And the scientific measurements of just a sample of these church confirmed that air particle shreddings were not limited to 23,000 insecure adolescents making loud noises for emotional effect. No sir. In fact, air particles were depleted at the exact same rate no matter the amount of shouters within a venue. One loud shouting home missions church of eight people and a pet cat named Steve reported that they were "having difficulty breathing and feeling slightly light headed" after having a Shout alter call service for a whole twenty minutes. The good news is that inside sources tell me that after this shout attack, that Satan is nursing an ACL tear and is expected to be out of any spiritual warfare activity for at least 6-9 months,
Sound vs. Air Theology in Action: After finding out that Satan was injured and in hiding over a bit of shouting at the air, I have taken up the task of shouting in wherever the Spirit compels me to. Sure I was alone in the shout each time, and sure it was way awkward to be amongst people who didn't have one clue about the amount of Air destruction they could commit with some loud vocals, but when Satan's on the retreat, there's no time to explain why you were shouting out loud.
And who care's if you found yourself escorted out of a TSA airplane line because you shouted. The air is being shredded and that's more important.
And sure you'll get sweared at next to a man in a urinal as the Spirit compels you to give a loud shout. But even if the man next to you is mid-poop, be rest assured, that your very shout may be preventing a Satanic attack on his soul at that very moment. Tell him to thank you for your shout.
Conclusion: When the tried and true theory of the Lee Stoneking Sound vs. Air theology is confirmed within academia, we'll have more visitors in our church from the shouting revival services for the next week or two and as a result of all the outbursts of emotion, salvation will be easier for the seekers which means even more ridiculous and asinine pseudo-science theologies to manipulate a crowd to get a reaction. And in two months, we'll forget any of this ever happened.
Editor's Comment: To ensure credit where credit is due, Glen McGee wrote this post (side note: goosebumps ahead)-
Fresh on the heels of North American Youth Congress 2015
it’s the Stuff Apostolics Like Recap of Events!
Nah, just kiddin. We actually have finally crossed the
threshold of being so far removed we have absolutely no idea who sang,
preached, screamed, got wifed up or anything else that may have occurred.
I've had a post on my mind for a while now and given that
I spent last night looking at the Instagram hashtags from NAYC, and
became very, very sad, I thought now was a good time to post it.
Looking through Twitter and Instagram there are countless
posts of excitement and zealous emotion for the time spent there. And why
wouldn’t there be? When you live in a culture that’s founded on isolation from
everything that surrounds you, and you’re constantly reminded that you’re “in
the world, not of it,” it’s absolutely intoxicating to completely take over a
city. I recall being 18 years old, withdrawn from my school; my only social
access was the thirty or so kids in my youth group. I felt like I lived in a
bubble. I lived for the large
gatherings the UPC fostered. I counted down to camp season like the rest of the country counts down
to The Superbowl. Just like the countdowns on Twitter and Instagram for the
last month… I only made it to two NAYC’s (2003 and 2005) before my work
schedule couldn’t allow it, and by the time I could take off from work I no longer
cared, but those two NAYC’s were the epitome of excitement for me.
I can’t describe the feeling of being in an arena with 20,000
people who think, dress and live the exact same way you do, when you’re the
weird one back home. At your school you’re the goodie two shoes, the church
boy, the Jesus Freak. But here? Here you’re in your element. Here the tables
turn. Here the girl walking down the street in pants is the one who’s out of
place. Here your bowtie is cool. Here the smell of Aussie hairspray permeates the air like hot garbage in New York City.
But that’s not all. It’s at these functions, the Congress’,
the camps, the rallies, where “commitments” are made. Sermons are screamed with
a practiced pseudo-sincerity that also acts as a calculated emotional spell being cast on starry-eyed
teenagers.
And herein lies the tragedy.
This was me, on the regular.
I can’t tell you the amount of times I sat on my knees with
my face buried in the carpet, my hands filled with tears as I BEGGED God for
the strength to never give up. I interceded with the fervor of a dying soldier
begging not to be left on the battlefield, asking God to never let me become…..
what I eventually became.
I committed with every fiber of my soul to never turn my
back, to never walk away, to never stop believing. The fear the preacher had just
put into me drove me to scream at the top of my lungs every articulation of
commitment I could think of. I listened to the rhetorical idea that “we’re
one generation away from losing the anointing,” and I told God I would never be
a part of that fallen generation.
During the time when most everyone I knew at school were
living normal teenage lives, having their first kiss, going to dances, listening to music and simply having the American Youthful Experience I
spent my time at a Pentecostal altar. I, and my youth group, thrust ourselves
into the emotional hurricane of guilted commitments prodded by a passionate
solicitation for our most sincere devotion. Tearful preachers stood in pulpits
Sunday after Sunday, Friday after Friday, telling us of the risks waiting for us
every time we “stepped outside those doors,” and we bought right in.
And that’s what happened this past week in Oklahoma City.
Thousands of teenagers, with no practical knowledge of this world, had their
phobias reinforced. Junior High aged children bawled their eyes out, consumed
with the fear of disappointing God. They committed their lives, not just to God,
but also to a Pentecostal “Holiness” lifestyle and an Apostolic Identity.
The tragedy of all of this is not where the story ends, but
in the regret from where it started. And for 20,000 kids last week, it started in Oklahoma City.
I love my life. I love where I ended up. I have a career I
love, that pays me well. I have well rounded experiences, friends that are
closer than my own family, and I live in a city that people fantasize about
living in.
But I am everything I prayed I’d never become. I’ve broken
every commitment I ever made to God. I am a caricature of the worst outcome of
all those impassioned sermons. And while I am so happy about that, the happiness has had to evolve. I've been told several times, and agree, that I am in dire need of counseling. I ended up on my feet, but only after doing a triple axle through confusion, anger, bitterness and deep rooted resentment, and I still haven't stuck that landing.
When I look back on my life and see the path I took to get
here I become so, so sad for the child I was, but not the adult I became. My
youthful, impressionable mind was held captive by a bleak outlook, based on biased conjecture. Instead of learning, and growing, and being matured through experiences I
begged God for stagnation. I was told in dozens of sermons, and I believed, that life in the altar of events like North American Youth Congress was as good as it could ever be and I placed all my chips on that bet.
“Progress be damned, life has to stop here.” Progress wasn’t progress; progress
was the path to hell. Progress would lead me to a life devoid of purpose. New
experiences, friends and ideas were to be feared. But when those inevitable
experiences and friends and ideas came along they brought with them
perspective. When I encountered something I had once prayed never to encounter the
recurring word in my mind was “Really?” Really, this is what’s going to destroy
me? Really, the highest I could ever be was at that altar? Really, these people
are the bad ones?
With every new epiphany another youthful tear of mine became
shed in vain.
Why did I allow my youth to be spent in trembling fear of a
normal life? Why do people see a child or teenager, like in the video at the top of this page, with bloodshot eyes, a face covered
in tears and snot, nerves and emotions shocked beyond that seen in court rooms
and funeral homes, and think “how precious?”
This isn’t precious. This isn’t good. This is sick. The willingness to accept the image of a sobbing, shaking child is predicated on the idea that the child understands what they're doing. But guess what: they don't. The video at the top of this page should cause outrage, but it gets a pass because it's in a church. If anyone walked into a daycare center or a school and saw children that young crying and trembling on the floor they would call Child Protective Services. This is emotional abuse. Children like the ones in the above video filled the seats of that Oklahoma Arena this past week. I posit that there wasn't so much of a "move of God" in that arena as there was emotional manipulation and manufactured distress. These preachers have figured out how to do something very, very dangerous. If a psychologist was granted access to these events and observed the altar calls they, undoubtedly, would tell us we've engaged in amateur mass psychosis. They're "playing" with minds of children and it's not only unhealthy but carries extreme risk. These emotionally loaded situations carry the potential for trauma - real, psychological trauma, and it's treated so haphazardly.
Amidst the hashtagged posts on Instagram I saw videos of kids so young they’ve never had to learn how
to burn a CD so wrought with guilt and fear rocking back and forth on the floor
of an arena making those same commitments I made and I was on the brink of
tears for them, but not tears of joy.
I see kids who will spend the next ten to twenty years
locked in an emotional and psychological battle as they slowly have a curtain
drawn back to reveal the truth of their situation. I see kids with the claws of
manipulation gripping them so tightly they don’t even know who they are outside
of their hair and their skirts, who worship people they will either grow to hate or worse, fetishizing these preachers as some kind of god among men. I
see pastors sons and daughters holding hands and praying with the belief that
they’re supposed to be together, who will grow to resent each other. I know
because I watched this happen to almost every teenage friend I had that truly believed
God had ordained their pubescent relationship. All the while oblivious chaperones and
parents sit with plastic smiles of approval, not understanding the inevitable
disillusionment these children are on a road to.
I’m not here to argue with those who never left. I’m
speaking as a voice of experience, as a voice of those who have gone down
this road. An often said remark by Pentecostals is "I know this is real because I felt it," or "You can't doubt my experience." Well I've had my own experiences and I'd say the same in return. While my feelings of animus may be more extreme than that of my peers, the
sentiment exists in all of us to varying degrees. Those still filling
Pentecostal pews can certainly agree that after a certain age it seems a
disproportionate number of us who grew up in the church leave it. I know this
because I sat under numerous sermons on Friday nights warning of the dangers we
will face once we’re out of high school. The stories of those who went before
us and walked away, only to be met with (presumed) grief filled sermon after sermon which prompted our tearful commitments.
But it wasn’t evil temptation that baited us to some debaucherous lifestyle. We simply matured. We reached the age of
introspection and self-awareness. We entered the workforce, college, and other
avenues of “real life” where our beliefs were challenged. While pastors and preachers
would tell us otherwise, the simple truth is that beliefs that can’t stand up
to questions are wrongly held beliefs. There simply isn’t substance to back the beliefs up. This is
why instead of being taught answers to questions we were taught not to ask
them. We were taught that those who do ask are distractions and tempters, thrown
in our paths as “stumbling blocks.” Biblical phrases like “lean not to your own
understanding,” were used to justify instructions not to think, just to obey,
and that things didn’t have to make sense. We were taught, “God is not
logical,” so that when the things that made sense to us contradicted what we
committed ourselves to at those altars, we would stick with the ramblings of the mad man in the pulpit rather than our own
hearts and minds. Catchy sermon titles and clever wordplay kept these sinister instructions seemingly light hearted, as we walked out of the arena's like the Manchurian Candidate. Almost every person from the youth groups I grew up in have left their UPC churches. Some have gone to Non-Denominational churches, while others have become Atheists. I don't mean just a few. I could throw a backsliders rally and fill the pews with the hundreds who used to stain the carpet with their tears, yet now raise a glass to making it out. It could be argued that we've all lost the battle to the enemy but if those condemning us could just listen to us with an open mind they'd see that's not the case. We're people, just like them. We think just as much and just as deeply as they do. We're just as scared of hell, if it exists, as they are. No part of us is evil. But if we lay awake at night it's not with a gaping hole in our life as we wonder what it is that's missing. We lay awake thinking how much better life had been had we never been forced to buy into the Pentecostal message. Tears may sometimes stain our pillow, but we're not praising God, we're cursing him for letting people use his name to take advantage of us at the most impressionable point in our lives. We may be screaming, but it's not in tongues. It's the cursing and pounding as we look at our lives and our wasted potential because we were too focused on the youth group and not on our grades or our college education. We're cursing the uneducated, inexperienced, unqualified men who stood in front of innocent, blank slates and filled them with anxiety and unease about a world filled with beauty, but painted to be full of despair. We could have been SO much. We could have accomplished SO much. But we let them rob us of a future that hadn't even been written yet.
The memories of “awesome sermons,” “amazing altar calls,”
and “let’s take this revival back home with us” became fleeting memories,
dissipating with every passing year. The vehemence of promises to ourselves, to
our pastors and to God became distant memories, and their value lost.
Why this pains me so much is because it’s cyclical. There is
absolutely nothing I can do to change these kids paths. I would run into every Sunday School classroom, every weekend youth service, every camp and convention and tell each and every one of them that the world is too beautiful and life is too short to waste it on a fabricated story if I thought I could, but I can't. Not only would they kick me out, but at this point in their lives these kids would dismiss me as Satan incarnate, and follow my warnings with more commitments and tears. They are destined for the same path I've travelled. They will pray with the
same fervency I once did. They will make the same commitments. They will ask
the same questions. They will struggle with the same answers. They will have
their characters assassinated by the same men and women who claimed to love them with the love of Christ.
They will become bitter and dejected. Some will fall into depression. Some will
hold grudges. Some will go a little too far in their rebellion. But all will
look back at those sermons, those altars and those tears with regret, to
varying degrees.
Because they should have just been allowed to be kids. Their
youth was wasted, and they’ll never get it back.
Just like mine was. And that is what brings tears to my eyes
again. There are high school seniors whose tears have barely dried from the concrete of Cheasapeake Energy Arena who, by the next NAYC in 2017, will have realized the lies and fear so ardently expressed to them this week. And with no guidance, and a lot of regret, they'll begin a journey in a direction they don't know where will take them. I hope they have the good fortune that I've had, but I've seen too many that haven't. And for that I am deathly afraid.
