Nutty Pastor

Every profession has its share of idiots that make it hard for all the rest of the normal people doing their jobs. But out of all of them, sometimes I think we pastors have to deal with more nutcases than the average person. Take this article for example. I pulled it directly off the website of our local newspaper. This is stupid beyond belief. But it's good to know when there are crazies out there saying crap like this, it definitely lowers the bar for how good I have to preach on a given Sunday! Read it and weep...

North Georgia pastor says Christians don't have to die
Quoting little-noticed passages out of the Bible as proof, North Georgia pastor Dr. Lillie says that death and taxes are not the two things that are certain in life. Her messages teach that Christians can literally conquer death and make their bodies immortal. She bases her teaching on such passages as John 11:26 where Jesus says, "Whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die." "He said, 'You shall never die,'" the pastor emphasized. "No death, period. And why do the Scriptures tell us in Deuteronomy 30:19, 'I have set before you life and death...therefore choose life.' Why choose life, or why be given a choice at all, if you have no option but to die anyway?" Lillie's citation of Bible verses about avoiding death is raising eyebrows and sending Bible readers scurrying to find their Bibles as they read her weekly column in the local paper in Ellijay. She has challenged people to find any place in the Scriptures where Jesus prepared people to die. "Everything Jesus did supported life, not death," she said. "Jesus never taught people how to die, but most religions do." The minister's eyes danced as she acknowledged that her messages run counter to what traditional Christianity has taught. On her church's web site and in other messages she continues to refute religious leaders' teachings by referring individuals back to statements in the Bible. "Jesus overcame death and hell. He said to follow him, and that we are also to overcome. Did he mean that the only way to overcome death is to first be overcome by it?" she smiled. "Of course not. How silly." Lillie has been a pastor for more than 30 years. "The Bible clearly says that Enoch and Elijah did not die," she stated. "It also says that God is no respecter of persons -- that every person has equal opportunity to receive the blessings of God. If Enoch and Elijah overcame death, and if Jesus did, and Paul said in 1 Corinthians 15:53-54 and Romans 8:11 that our mortal bodies must put on immortality, why would Christians be buying life insurance and burial plots? Life insurance is really death assurance." Lillie is pastor of a non-denominational Christian church called The University of Spiritual Awakening. "The whole point of people being here on earth is to create and 'save' their earthly body by making it incorrupt and immortal. The body is the only part of man that is not already immortal. It's the body that needs to be 'saved,'" she said.