As a girl in Northern Maine, I and many children and teens from my small-town church would attend a week of Bible camp each summer. Tiff Shuttlesworth was always the preacher for the teen camp, which featured hours-long revival-style services each night. Years later, his son, Jonathan Shuttlesworth, is the headliner preacher at the “Festival of Life” scheduled to take place every evening this Sunday through Friday at Kimball Park in National City. Both men espouse a similarly damaging version of the Gospel.
Jonathan Shuttlesworth has posted public statements condemning marriage equality, the Pope, and Muslims. His online revival-tent videos are reminiscent of the “camp meeting” experiences I had as a teen that did so much damage to how I have viewed myself, and how I thought of God as constantly judging me. I don’t want that fearful, guilt-ridden experience for anybody.
When I was a teen, our Bible camp directors continuously praised Tiff Shuttlesworth as a sort of Pentecostal royalty, always reminding us backwoods kids from the sticks how fortunate we were that he would come to our rural area for a week each year to bless us with his presence. It came off as creepy hero worship, but I set those feelings aside hoping to enjoy fellowship with other Christian teens.
However, when I attended in the late 80’s and early 90’s, nearly every sermon of Tiff’s included inflammatory, purposefully nauseating preaching against gay people, abortion, and “sexual impurity” of all kinds. If you describe eating broccoli with enough gruesome detail, it can sound disgusting: so it was with his highly detailed, non-scientific depictions of sex acts and venereal disease. It follows that each year, many of us would come forward and nail our names to a cross at the front of the tabernacle, making purity pledges. There was little discussion of forgiveness and purification for teens who had “lost” their virginity, and no real-world advice or sex ed other than “just say no.”
Though few of us had much money to give in the offering, which was collected during midday chapel and the nightly services, we were encouraged to contribute what we could with promises of God’s blessings in return. I didn’t hear the phrase “Prosperity Gospel” until many years later, but the suggestion that we’re supposed to give something “to God” as a condition of receiving God’s grace, forgiveness, and blessing flies in the face of everything Jesus stands for. It’s a cheap ploy to line the pockets of preachers.
The nightly sulfur and brimstone, fear-based messages sought to “win souls” to Christ by damning “the gays” and the sexually impure to hell. Tiff was a master of the red-faced, volume-increasing ramp-up, encouraging loud “Amens” and cheers from the audience. Using his bully pulpit condemning homosexuality was his favorite go-to if the crowd got too quiet. After getting everyone riled up, he would adeptly change his tone and turn sorrowful, because, of course, he didn’t want anyone to go to hell.
The emotions throughout these long services would rise and fall with the volume and intensity of his preaching, culminating with the “sinner’s prayer” for those willing to accept Christ’s forgiveness for their dirty, dirty sins. We would sing, softly, “White as snow, white as snow, though my sins were as scarlet…,” quietly and tearfully praying for our friends and family members who were surely destined for everlasting hell if we didn’t go home and convert them, and hoping the friends we knew were not yet believers would go forward to the altar. It was a proud moment when we could stand behind a kneeling friend, one hand on their back, the other in the air, reaching heavenward, knowing we would one day walk with that friend on streets of gold.
When it became clear there were fewer numbers of souls being saved, the focus of the post-sermon portion of the service would turn to “baptism in the Holy Spirit.” I dreaded this most of all: teens quietly judging each other’s’ depth of Christianity by whether they could speak in tongues. Many kids like me, raised in the church and steeped in the expectations surrounding Pentecostal culture, but who had not yet achieved or received this mysterious gift of prophesying or praying in an unlearned foreign language, found ourselves pleading with God for this second outpouring of blessing. Though scripture calls speaking in tongues the least of the gifts of the Spirit, this particular brand of Evangelicalism places great importance on it.
I was always a little suspicious of people running the aisles or falling down (“slain in the Spirit”) when Tiff put his hand on their foreheads. I felt a great presence at times, sure, but I was not willing to fake outward expressions, and I always felt like a disappointment to myself, God, and my peers. Maybe I wasn’t praying hard enough. Maybe I had too many unconfessed sins I wasn’t aware of. I suppose at least it kept me from being overly vain in my Christian perfection, since I hadn’t achieved the Pentecostal holy grail of speaking in tongues.
When services finally ended late into the evening, we would flood out of the tabernacle into the cool summer air, crickets chirping, stars shining, emotionally wrung out, and many of us would line up to buy french fries from the canteen (if we didn’t guiltily give our remaining dollars to the offering plate). Five nights in a row.
Then we would ride home in church vans Friday night to return to our daily lives, many kids to poor homes and otherwise social and spiritual isolation in our respective small towns. The emotional high would fade, leaving a sinking feeling of normalcy. There is no way to maintain that druglike high in daily life, and no tools were provided during the week that would invest in long-term betterment of lives. The preacher and camp directors and counselors had their prized “converted souls” numbers to brag about in the weeks and months following, seeking additional funding from other churches they’d visit, but those lonely souls were left to fend for themselves.
I attended Whited Bible Camp off and on for five or six years, as my summer schedule allowed, from about age nine and through my preteen years and high school. In my final year of Bible camp, I was 18 and preparing to move to San Diego for college. I spent a lot of my free time that week at the altar, seeking peace, strength, clarity, and forgiveness for almost losing my virginity before my big life shift.
My apparent devotion earned me the distinction of Queen of Whited Bible Camp on the final day, and one of my best friends was crowned King. We thought it was embarrassing and hilarious, especially a couple years later when he called me with the news that he had finally come to acknowledge and accept that he was gay. (Also: the whole royal court thing at a Bible camp was just… weird.)
The following summer when I was home from college, I drove an hour to visit one of the evening services, along with many others from surrounding towns. Having been out of the Pentecostal church for a year, the re-introduction was jarring. I was horrified at Tiff’s usual performance, damning the gays (always a safe target) in order to gain cheers and vocal encouragement from the captive audience, and trying to win souls with tried-and-true eternal hell fear tactics.
Not only were the contents of these sermons damaging and the opposite of a loving, healing, Christlike approach I have since come to embrace, but rural Northern Maine is economically depressed.
The “revival” experience doesn’t prepare one for the return to the trials of regular life. For teens, social pressures, cultural expectations related to attractiveness, social media likability, and other sources of stress are not mitigated by a quickly fading “revival” experience. Adults return to financial, job, and interpersonal stresses, maybe hoping God will help them strike the lottery if they are faithful enough, but such hopes do not sustain. Thus, the highly emotional traveling circus-form of proselytizing might line the pockets of “Festival of Life” organizers and allow them to continue to believe they are doing good in the world by spreading the gift of eternal salvation, but when the hype is over, the hard work of real life returns. It’s a cheap thrills version of Christianity that offers fleeting hope, not long-lasting investment in a growing, thriving community.
That this organization has targeted National City is an insult. Event coordinators claim to have been invited by city officials and have referred to National City residents and other communities they insert themselves into as “struggling with poverty, crime and drug-related problems.” The Facebook page has been promoting flashy free giveaways, from Macbooks to a cruise and “bill pay night” – luring in the community to this farce of an event with payouts at a fraction of what they are sure to rake in by way of offerings. Outside of California, they are boasting in their great charity, referring to National City residents as “struggling with poverty, crime and drug-related problems.”
I anticipate Prosperity Gospel preaching will be an element of each service, promising attendees that if they give to the event sponsors with their offerings, God will bless their lives monetarily. The prizes that will be given were funded by similar promises to similar crowds.
To those who choose to attend I suggest you would be better off connecting to your existing hometown churches rather than getting caught up in the hype of false prophets who will take more than they will give. Protect your children from the heresy, words that condemn beloved community members who are made in God’s image, and the ungodly, garish display of high-end prizes.
Jesus didn’t hand out Macbooks and cruises. He didn’t need a gimmick to offer lasting hope, healing, and life. Those are big red flags that these promoters are not representatives of Christ. The last thing this beautiful corner of San Diego County needs is an out-of-town itinerant preacher with his bubblegum version of Christianity offering residents a cheapened hope based on hype. We are getting enough messaging from the President and some local politicians who aim to increase hate against our LGBTQ brothers and sisters, our Muslim neighbors, Catholic community members, and those who do not subscribe to any faith. We don’t need these false prophets adding to it.
The “Festival of Life” promoters seek to spread a backward, Trump-praising, false view of God — and take your money while they’re doing it.
Sara Kent is an environmentalist, Democrat, activist, and perennial idealist.
