Why declare yourself the Messiah these days, when you can say what God thinks and get RW respect?

[muriel_volestrangler]

An insightful blog on the death of Revd. Moon by Fred Clark, of Slacktivist:

Moon was the last surviving charismatic leader of the wave of movements that spread throughout California and the rest of the West in the 1970s and ’80s — other examples included L. Ron Hubbard’s Scientology, David Berg’s Children of God and Prabhupada’s Hare Krishna movement.

Prabhupada, the ISKCON founder, strikes me as a separate breed from those others — more of a religious figure than a megalomaniacal huckster like Moon or Hubbard. But Barker’s general point again stands: Moon is dead, and they don’t make ‘em like him anymore.

I think that’s true mainly because there’s no longer any need to follow that path if you’re trying to attain what Moon sought: money, power and deference.
...
Consider Jerry Falwell, Pat Robertson, James Dobson, Ken Ham or Ralph Reed. They’re chasing the same dreams as Moon chased — money, power, deference. But they’ve found a way to do it that doesn’t result in their being shunned by the powerful people they long to cozy up to. They have carved out a niche that lets them exploit their followers and still maintain the veneer of respectability that let’s them have their pictures taken with presidents and governors.

Moon declared himself a god and a Messiah, but it’s far easier just to recast God and the Messiah in your own image and then go from there. It takes too much work to recruit tens of thousands of followers who will give you every penny they earn. It’s far easier just to maintain a database of tens of millions of “supporters” who can be relied on to send small checks to help you stop the Satanic baby-killers, the godless evolutionists, the Gay menace, and the socialist agenda of the Antichrist’s coming one-world government.

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/slacktivist/2012/09/03/right-wing-messiah-ex-con-sun-myung-moon-dies-at-92/

He's right - at the end of the 60s, and the start of the 70s, there were many people who'd believe anything, and some got rich off it. But, from a decade or so later, we find there are many more who'll believe anything as long as it's right wing. And that makes to the friend of half of The Establishment, rather than an enemy - a much more secure position.

[xchrom]

1. Kind of gets to the heart of the problem w/ unaffiliated

Evangelicals.

I'm thinking too of the 'I hate religion' Christian preachers and followers.

And it makes me wonder - why did main stream churches like some Presbyterian denominations chase after some of this modeling?

[cbayer]

2. This may explain why we have heard relatively little from or about him in the last few years.

Good article.

[dimbear]

3. Knowledge is getting cheaper and cheaper. 60 Minutes did a bit - free education for everybody.

With factual data abounding, scams just get harder and harder. Harder to pull, and then harder than that to defend.

[SarahM32]

4. Those with a Messianic Complex vs a real Messiah, and the true meaning of the word.

As was predicted by the Mashiach (Messiah) Jesus who ushered in the passing age, there have been and still are many false christs, false messiahs, false prophets, and hypocritical false "shepherds" (like Falwell, Robertson, Dobson, Ham and Reed) who lead their blind flocks astray.

Some of the false messiahs weren't and aren't so bad, though. In fact, some were relatively good and some did a lot of good. Some have followed traditions of the Eastern religions, and some have followed other spiritual traditions. And many have claimed to be The Messiah as well as The Buddha and The Avatar.

As a Mashiach (Messiah) in the Jewish tradition, Jesus of Nazareth broke Jewish tradition in that he was not exclusive but inclusive. His teachings were similar to the Buddha, his parables were similar to those in the Hindu Vedas, and he spoke like a Hindu Avatar, saying "I am the way, the truth, and the Light," and "before Abraham was, I am."

The modern Mashiach/Messiah, however, doesn't do that. He is more in the line of Jewish Mashiachs, and there were many called Mashiach and son of man.

Many Jews, Christians and Muslims think the Messiah will be a "holy warrior," and many Christians think he will be the "the Lord and Savior Himself." But the Messiah's only "weapons" are words of truth, which he delivers before him, and he is not the Savior. Only the Lord Our God is the Holy One and Savior, and as Moses wrote, "God is not a man, nor a son of man."

The truth is that the English term Messiah comes from the Hebrew term Mashiach, but in the Hebrew Bible (the Torah and Tanakh, which Christians call The Old Testament), the word Mashiach, like son of man, does not mean Savior.

The prophets like Isaiah made it very clear that it is God's "servant" that fulfills prophecy, that we should regard no man or son of man as God, and that "besides God there is no Savior."

"Mashiach" in Hebrew means an "anointed one," which is also the meaning of Messiah in English, Christus in Greek, and Christ in English). Those terms are titles for an anointed one, and in the history of Judaism and the Jewish people, mashiachs have been kings, or prophets or high priests, and many have been called "son of man." Isaiah even called Cyrus, the King of Persia, an "anointed one."

Furthermore, not only is the modern son of man and Messiah not the Savior, he is not a king, nor is he what you would call a "holy" man. He is only human, and like Jacob, he wrestles with God

.

That is quoted from the beginning of an article titled A Messiah Is Not the Savior.)
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