Just Blame Me
“Pilate sentence him due to fear,
in accordance with the petition and intention of others.
These people sentence him for their own advantage
and without any fear,
by dishonoring him through sin that they could abstain from,
if they wanted.
But they neither abstain from sin
nor are they ashamed of their already committed sins,
for they do not take into consideration
their unworthiness of the kindness
of the one whom they do not serve.”
Bridget of Sweden
“Once you attempt legislation upon religious grounds,
you open the way for every kind
of intolerance and religious persecution.”
William Butler Yeats
Blame me.
I’m used to it.
I’ve been blamed for everything since the mid-60s, when Mrs. Flynn ordered a whole side of beef – steaks, roasts, ribs, ground (she made the world’s worst meatloaf) – and, after it was all stored in the garage freeze, the Flynn Family – minus the First-Born Son - left town for the weekend.
At the University of Miami Sigma Chi House, that could only mean “PARTY AT FLYNN’S!”
Unhappily, a to-this-day-unknown partier left the freezer door open while searching for ice. The meat spoiled.
It’s no secret who got the blame.
Almost sixty years later, “Blame Skipper” is the family’s fallback play.
So, blame me because I didn’t tell you about the “seven supernatural blessings for you and your house.” I thought they were part of a… (We’ll say “grift” ‘cause “scam” is so judgmental.) The “supernatural blessings”?
“God will assign an angel to you.”
God will be “an enemy to your enemies.”
“He’ll give you prosperity.”
“He’ll take sickness away from you.”
“He will give you long life.”
“He’ll bring increase in inheritance.” [Can’t understand that one unless it means God’s gonna kill a few folks or knock off an unknown distant uncle so that you get an “increase in inheritance.”]
“He’ll give you a special year of blessing.”
But wait!
That’s not all you’ve missed out on. There’s also
“A beautiful 10-inch Waterford crystal cross”
And “an Olive Wood communion set from the Holy land,” including “unleavened bread and grape juice from the Holy Land”
Wow! Your own special angel and a 10-inch Waterford crystal cross – also available at Amazon.com for prices ranging from $69.84 to $255 or directly from Waterford.com at roughly the same price.
The angel, the “supernatural blessings,” the communion set, the cross, matzo and grape juice, and various pamphlets and CDs [Who uses CDs anymore?] – all for a mere $1,000 or “as the Holy Spirit leads.”
The matzo, grape juice and “Olive Wood” communion cup would have made it easier for you to join the preacher for a “special Good Friday global communion service at noon.”
For the pecuniarily disadvantaged (like your Editors), a mere $125 would get you the “communion set.”
Let’s not forget the “attractive, commemorative boxset” and the instruction booklet “on how to celebrate the Lord’s supper” and “special disc on communion” [Surely, the “Lord’s supper” is different from the Passover Haggadah read in Jewish homes on the first and second nights of Passover.]
Wow! Your own special angel and a 10-inch Waterford crystal cross!
Darn it! Ya missed out on all that and didn’t punch in your credit/debit card number at her various accounts. Blame me. It’s all my fault.
I didn’t tell you about the “Passover Season: God’s Divine Appointment With You.”
I thought (still think) the “promises” were part of a grift by President Donald Trump’s “Special Government Employee and Senior Advisor of the White House Faith Office.”
But wait.
The Senior Advisor (See how nice we were. We didn’t even refer to her as a “huckster.”) declared “April 12 at sundown through to the twentieth is God’s supernatural miracle working season” and urged “Let’s give generously to God. He’s a good god [as opposed to bad gods]. And, if He’s blessed you, give generously to this ministry.”
Not miraculously, the bottom of the screen with her YouTube “God’s Divine Appointment With You” 35-minute religiomercial (How’s that for a new word?), showed: “Give your tithe and offering to support [her] Ministries today” with a 1-800 number, CashApp, PayPal, Apple Pay “and more” “opportunities,” as well as a mailing address to send your bribes for God
It was, after all, she declared “a supernatural, miracle-working season” – April 12 – 20. Also known as Passover 2025.
There’s just something indefinably yucky and theologically schizophrenic about trying to cash in on Jewish tradition and custom while claiming to be “christian.” What can be weirder than celebrating a YouTube “communion” service on Good Friday, instead of Holy Thursday, when – in Christian tradition – we follow the command of Jesus “Do this in remembrance of me”?
As if to legitimize her money pitch for “one of the most exciting, life-changing, miracle-working seasons of the whole year,” the “pastor’s” program ended with an endorsement from the man who brought the world the God Bless America Bible – at the amazing price of just $59.99 for a printed-in-China-for-less-that-four-dollars, copyright-free King James version of Sacred Scriptures.
Shortly after the pastor’s Passover special offer announcement, Newsweek’s London-based reporter Jordan King quoted Being Lutheran podcaster and pastor Jason Gudim: “If you give [her] a grand, the only thing you’ll ever be is poorer in every conceivable way imaginable.”
We made the decision not to support this “ministry” by even naming it or the director/pastor.
But understanding it – and similar religious expressions - is important.
As noted, the “pastor” now heads the White House Faith Office, established by a presidential executive order directing the Department of Justice to prosecute “anti-Christian bias” This same pastor was a spiritual advisor to President Trump during his first administration.
In a June 2019 (we’ll call it) “sermon” in a Tampa megachurch she declared the then White House “holy.”
"The church is Christ's body in which he speaks and acts and by which he fills everything, including the White House, including government halls.
"How does he do that? He does that through you. He does that through me. Wherever I go, God rules. When I walk on White House grounds, God walks on White House grounds. When I walked in [the church in which she was speaking], God walked in [the church]... When I go in to the dry cleaners, that dry cleaning place becomes holy. I have every right and authority to declare the White House as holy ground because I was standing there and where I stand is holy."
Now thrice married, the televangelist was born in Mississippi, grew up in Maryland and, at age 18, “converted” to Christianity following a troubled childhood and her father’s suicide. In a 2005 episode of her television show, she reported:
“When I was just 18 years old and barely saved, the Lord gave me a vision that every time I opened my mouth and declared the Word of the Lord, there was a manifestation of his Spirit where people were either healed, delivered, or saved. When I shut my mouth, they fell off into utter darkness, and God spoke to me and said I called you to preach the gospel.”
She attended but did not graduate from the Church of the Nazarene-affiliated National Bible College and Seminary (not a regular college or university with recognized academic degrees; member schools are accredited through the National Bible College Association) and was subsequently “ordained” by its then president.
In 1991, she and her then husband founded their own church in Tampa; by 2004 it reported a membership of 20,000 – making it the seventh largest congregation in the US. In 2008, the church organization was forced to sell two parcels of land in Lakeland, Florida to settle a dispute with the Evangelical Christian Credit Union. Her original church subsequently charged that she had stolen $600,000 in audio-visual equipment owned by the church to start her current church.
Her churches have gone through several iterations [We will not name them.] and the online news service The Christian Post (March 27, 2025) noted:
“In 2016, as part of an exclusive interview with The Christian Post, [she] maintained that she does not believe in the prosperity gospel despite claims from some that she promotes it.
"’I do not believe in the 'prosperity gospel' as I've been accused of believing it,’ she told CP. ‘I do believe that all good things come from God, and I also believe that God teaches us so much through our suffering.’”
Nonetheless, the same CP post report noted:
“In 2016, [she] offered her followers an Easter Sunday deliverance from a spiritual death sentence for a $1,144 ‘resurrection seed’ she said was set by God.
“Preaching the story of Lazarus, who Jesus resurrected from the dead in John 11:38-44, [she] promised believers in a video appeal that if they would sow the seed and have faith, she believed deliverance would come.”
An ardent supporter of Donald Trump during his 2016 campaign and subsequent administration – especially his decision to move the American embassy to Jerusalem, she served on his first term “Evangelical Advisory Board.”
In June 2019, having been recognized as a “spiritual advisor” to the 45th president, she delivered [We’re tempted to say “screamed” but we’ll restrain ourselves.] an address at Tampa’s River Church in which she declared that her mere presence anywhere made God present. [This is a uniquely ideosycratic interpretation of the Judeo-Christian idea of God’s omnipresence. Traditional Judeo-Christian theology holds that God is present everywhere and at all times, even before a human person enters upon the scene. Certainly, that Faith sustained – and this is just one example – men and women of all Faiths through the death camps of the Holocaust.]
Speaking in a Miami church in 2020, she described a supernatural experience:
"I literally went to the Throne Room of God. There was a mist that was coming off the water, and I went to the throne of God, and I didn't see God's face clearly, but I saw the face of God ... I knew it was the face of God
"He put a mantle [on me] and it was a very distinct mantle. There was a mantle, and I saw it very distinctly, the color was like a goldish, a yellowish goldish ... and then I saw the Earth for a moment, and [God] brought me back, and he put me in certain places, one being the White House, one being certain continents.
"I didn't come out of that really until the next morning,"
She is often described as a proponent of a “prosperity Gospel,” a form of evangelical Christianity that preaches financial and physical well-being can be achieved through adherence to the will of God – as interpreted through the preacher. The predominant message of the “prosperity gospel” is that by giving to charity – i.e. the preacher’s organization – the individual will experience an increase in wealth and health. Exponents of this “theology” produce a seemingly inexhaustible supply of pamphlets, books, “gifts,” and tchotchkes, many designed to “protect” the giver from attacks by “the evil one.”
While she rejects the idea that she preaches a “prosperity gospel,” in the lead-up to Easter 2016 she exhorted her followers to invest $1144 because “there’s gonna be a resurrection in your life” if they invest in “resurrection seed.
"I don't know what is dead. I don't know what the enemy sent a death to. I don't know what decision that caused death to come upon whatever the situation you're facing, but I do know that God has sent me to you to bring resurrection life. To tell you that I believe that as we put our faith together before Easter Sunday on March 27, there's gonna be resurrection life in your life,
"There's someone that God is speaking to, to click on that donation button by minimizing the screen. And when you do to sow $1,144. It's not often I ask very specifically but God has instructed me and I want you to hear. This isn't for everyone but this is for someone. When you sow that $1,144 based on John 11:44 I believe for resurrection life,"
"You say, [preacher], I just don't have that, then sow $144. I don't have that. Sow $44 but stand on John Chapter 11:44.”
In return for your donation, she promised
“prayer cloths that we have anointed that we have prayed over, that are going to be a point of contact. In Acts 19, the Bible says, Paul prayed over these prayer cloths and they brought forth special miracles, signs and wonders. There have been times that I have taken prayer clothes that have been anointed as a point of contact. I put them in my loved ones sneakers, I put them under their bed. I put them on parts of my body that I believe God for healing.
"And it was the most dire, distressed, absolutely devastating circumstance. I would stand in faith that that miracle was gonna come forth and I would watch God do it. God has never failed. I can sit here and say this. There is not anything in my life that I've prayed according to the word of God and I've not seen God answer,"
Trump’s new White House Faith Office, for which the pastor was named a Special Government Employee and Senior Advisor to the president is charged with
Consulting with experts within the faith community and making recommendations to the President regarding changes to policies, programs, and practices to better align with the American values.
Coordinating with agencies on religious liberty training and on identifying and promoting grant opportunities for non-profit faith-based entities, community organizations, and houses of worship.
Collaborating with the Attorney General to identify failures to enforce constitutional and Federal statutory protections for religious liberty.
In these days after Easter, we can all relax. This purveyor of “resurrection seed,” “prayer cloths” and thousand-buck “Olive Wood” communion cups will protect us from “anti-Christian bias.”
Maybe not from grifts, cans and scams, but from “anti-Christian bias.”