#1620: Steve Foss

You were probably aware of this, but among the numerous churches and congregations in the US there is some … seriously crazy stuff going on. And I am sure that there are plenty of people like Steve Foss, senior pastor of Upper Room Church in Keller, Texas, doing their things. He’ll serve as an example. Republic of Gilead posted a partial transcript of a sermon he delivered at the 2012 Deliver Us from Evil conference; the topic was the “assault against Christianity and the church in America. Through music, our schools, government, and even in the church, the Devil has been unleashing corruption and deception to try and steal the church’s power in America, and in the world.” (Keep in mind that Foss’s speech was interspersed with glossolalia).

Foss began by claiming that archaeological evidence supported the existence of nephilim, who were 30 feet tall beings worshipped as gods by the ancients because of their knowledge of heaven, science, and technology. After being destroyed in the Flood, they became demons who are now looking for bodies to possess. And they are in particular targeting celebrities in the entertainment industry, who have proved to be willing victims: “You know Madonna? She has druid priests in the recording studio, summoning spirits so she can sing her song. Now I got a question for you. If they’re summoning those spirits in order to perform, what do you think’s coming out through the music?” If you care for your kids, you don’t want them listening to body-possessing zombies of 30-foot man-angel hybrids, do you? Justin Bieber, too: “He don’t sing that good! He ain’t all that good-looking! ... You got little girls passing out. It’s a worshipping spirit. Are you all hearing me? What they did with Michael Jackson. It is what the enemy ultimately wants. He wants to steal the worship of God. He wants to be worshipped.” And whenever anyone wants to be worshipped, there’s a demon behind it.

Then he praised the plagues God sent to Egypt, especially the killing of the first-born: “The firstborn of Pharaoh was considered – not only were they considered divinity, but they were considered to be of divine birth. So the firstborn son was a god, so God killed their god! [at this point his audience went wild with applause] Come on, y’all hear me. God killed their god.” The moral principle seems to be that if x loves y very much, then it is OK (obligatory, in fact) to kill y because strong love takes worship away from God. Good to know.

Then he turned to the UN: “Don’t you think for one second the U.N. has any bit of good in it. There is nothing good in the United Nations. It is ruled and controlled by demonic forces that are trying to bring about a one world government system ... Why do you think they hate Israel? And they hate Christians. Don’t you think one thing about it. You know, they just tried to pass a treaty and get America to sign a treaty that would literally make homeschooling illegal. And you could have foreign troops come in, foreign police forces and officials come in, and U.N. officials come in, and actually arrest American citizens on American soil.” Obama is part of it: By decree of the UN he is going “to put a tax on the Internet [he seems to be referring to this; accuracy isn’t Foss’s strong suit]. They’re going to put a tax on American travel. Why? Because they want to redistribute the wealth. To take the money from America and put it overseas. One of them is going to majorly restrict guns in America. We’re going to submit it to the U.N.” He also targeted some esoteric small organizations and New Age groups and used increasing social disapproval of corporal punishment as evidence of the waning authority of the church: “In a lot of places, you can’t even spank anymore. Man, I believe the Bible. Beat ‘em, so they shall not die. You know, people say spare the rod, spoil the child. That’s not what the Bible says. The Bible says spare the rod, you hate your child.”

Finally, to round it all up, Foss addressed the gay agenda, which caused President Obama to release an evil spirit, one of the nephilim, who is currently making people think that those who advocate the execution of homosexuals are bigots.

Diagnosis: Thing is: People like this run their churches and tend to their flocks and help build communities around the US. The people regularly attending the shit Foss delivers are, for all I know, otherwise normal people – who still listen. I leave it as an exercise to figure out how to reason with them.