[INFIDELIS MAXIMUS] Marjoe's Miracle
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Infidelis Maximus
May 18, 2007, 10:58:40 PM5/18/07
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Al Gore's film winning the Academy Award for best documentary this past year reminded me of something.
People who know of him usually either love or hate Marjoe Gortner--there's not much middle ground. Infidels love him for exposing the chicanery in Pentecostal faith healing and tent revivals. The religious, particularly those still plying Marjoe's former trade, tend to hate his guts (given how they love their enemies and all, you know). Regardless, Marjoe Gortner's exposé of Pentecostal nonsense and faith healing is something you probably won't be able to talk your eyes off of. The first video details his childhood and uncanny ability to imitate the idiot evangelists of the 40s and 50s (yes, they're still around, though they are now more about entertainment than they used to be--think Chevy Chase's faith healer in Fletch Lives). You can see how he got his running start down the road to ruin:
The second one is the exposé itself. Under the pretense of documenting evangelical and non-denominational faiths, Marjoe allowed a camera crew to follow him around on an evangelism tour in 1971. He then proceeded to give secret, backstage interviews and insights into how the preaching-for-money business really worked. He allowed the crew to tape him counting his earnings each night, and gleefully revealed trade secrets of the con artists working the Pentecostal evangelism circuit. The resulting film, Marjoe, won the Academy Award for best documentary in 1972. He duped thousands of churchgoers, including, at one point, his own father. He was certainly a brash little guy--it would be hard to top him in the stunt-pulling department. I guess you might say he had a little of Brian Flemming in him :-)
Regardless of how unsavory this might seem, I admire Marjoe. Talk about going out in a blaze of glory! Say what you want, but it took some courage to burn those bridges and destroy his livelihood. He didn't just pull a fast one on these people; he killed his primary means of supporting himself. And rather that settling for the phony miracles of the charlatans he exposed, Marjoe worked a few real ones--I'm sure his film opened the eyes of more than a few impressionable young Christians who saw it. Given the enormous pull of fundamentalist beliefs couched in a glorification of ignorance, that's miraculous indeed.
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Posted By Infidelis Maximus to INFIDELIS MAXIMUS at 5/18/2007 09:27:00 PM
People who know of him usually either love or hate Marjoe Gortner--there's not much middle ground. Infidels love him for exposing the chicanery in Pentecostal faith healing and tent revivals. The religious, particularly those still plying Marjoe's former trade, tend to hate his guts (given how they love their enemies and all, you know). Regardless, Marjoe Gortner's exposé of Pentecostal nonsense and faith healing is something you probably won't be able to talk your eyes off of. The first video details his childhood and uncanny ability to imitate the idiot evangelists of the 40s and 50s (yes, they're still around, though they are now more about entertainment than they used to be--think Chevy Chase's faith healer in Fletch Lives). You can see how he got his running start down the road to ruin:
The second one is the exposé itself. Under the pretense of documenting evangelical and non-denominational faiths, Marjoe allowed a camera crew to follow him around on an evangelism tour in 1971. He then proceeded to give secret, backstage interviews and insights into how the preaching-for-money business really worked. He allowed the crew to tape him counting his earnings each night, and gleefully revealed trade secrets of the con artists working the Pentecostal evangelism circuit. The resulting film, Marjoe, won the Academy Award for best documentary in 1972. He duped thousands of churchgoers, including, at one point, his own father. He was certainly a brash little guy--it would be hard to top him in the stunt-pulling department. I guess you might say he had a little of Brian Flemming in him :-)
Regardless of how unsavory this might seem, I admire Marjoe. Talk about going out in a blaze of glory! Say what you want, but it took some courage to burn those bridges and destroy his livelihood. He didn't just pull a fast one on these people; he killed his primary means of supporting himself. And rather that settling for the phony miracles of the charlatans he exposed, Marjoe worked a few real ones--I'm sure his film opened the eyes of more than a few impressionable young Christians who saw it. Given the enormous pull of fundamentalist beliefs couched in a glorification of ignorance, that's miraculous indeed.
--
Posted By Infidelis Maximus to INFIDELIS MAXIMUS at 5/18/2007 09:27:00 PM
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