DescentBB

[Fixed the link for you.]

Back in high school, the church youth group I was involved in did a similar experiment. We were asked by another church to pose as teens who might not be treated well by their church. So my group got dressed up as punks/goths/skaters/stoners, and attended their service under the guise of being an inner-city group bussed in. It was interesting, because the results were fairly polar - some went out of their way to welcome us, and others kept their distance and muttered things.

Plot Twist: The pastor later comes out as an atheist.

thanks for the fix!

vision wrote:Plot Twist: The pastor later comes out as an atheist.

or, is converted to one, after this sorry show by 'Christians'.......

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/07/2 ... 54742.html
http://www.snopes.com/glurge/homelesspastor.asp

damn, Grendel, you take all the fun out of it.........I was afraid Snopes would look into it. The story was too perfect to have not been in the major news cycles. Oh, well!

Well, the story can still be pondered IMO. Lots of verified similar stories around Probably rooted in human group behavior.

Ah, of course. Should have known.

What the hell is the point of coming up with fiction like that, anyway? Geez, find a real story.

it does illustrate a very valid point, Thorne. At least from the perspective of this frequent church-going observer......

Church is just another byproduct of groupism. It is where like-minded people go to reinforce their subjective morality and feel exclusive.

not sure I completely agree, Vision, there is a more complex dynamic than that. Folks are there for a variety of reasons, and the makeup of congregations varies widely in terms of diversity. Some may, indeed be monolithic and group-think in nature. I don't really see that with the Methodists I have been associated with during my life.

callmeslick wrote:... The story was too perfect to ...

Too perfect by what standard? Interesting.

Will Robinson wrote:

callmeslick wrote:... The story was too perfect to ...

Too perfect by what standard? Interesting.

giant congregation, zero positive response, etc, etc. Real life would be more nuanced, or at least I would hope........

What amazes me is so many people are willing to write this off as fake. It might be, it might not be. We just don't know.

But it shows a little something about humanity. A person isn't supposed to act good because they might 'burn in hell'; a person is supposed to act good because it's the human thing to do.

Imagine yourself in his shoes for a minute. What would you think of others if they looked down on you? Treated you like street garbage? Or maybe they only treated you well because of a certain date on the calendar? You wouldn't think too highly of people after a while, would you...

Or, if it is fake, it shows something entirely different about a different group of people. Like the ones who would find it to be the perfect thing to wave in someone else's face...

the only people who would feel angered by that are the same people who treat others like crap.

Ferno wrote:the only people who would feel angered by that are the same people who treat others like crap.

And those who don't like bullies.

uh.. right. because people that expect others to be human are bullies.

Ferno wrote:uh.. right. because people that expect others to be human are bullies.

I'm afraid I don't follow your point.

If the story is fake but someone takes pleasure in taunting Christians with a story they fabricated, or someone is pleased because they think they have found a true story that accomplishes the same, then they are bullies.

That's what I was talking about.

bullying seems WAY too strong a term. In fact, most people I know who read that article and mentioned it to me ARE Christians, who are keenly aware that there is a detachment from the message at times.

callmeslick wrote:bullying seems WAY too strong a term. In fact, most people I know who read that article and mentioned it to me ARE Christians, who are keenly aware that there is a detachment from the message at times.

Why the emphasis on being a Christian as if it disproves anything? Christians can be bullies too.
The difference in your scenario is did they read the story, recognize a problem and try to correct it?
Or do they merely repeat it without even checking to see if it is true in a rush to take pleasure in taunting the people they think the story will aggravate?

more a matter of self-reflection, Will.......sort of 'there but the grace of God go I.....'

Will Robinson wrote:I'm afraid I don't follow your point.

If the story is fake but someone takes pleasure in taunting Christians with a story they fabricated, or someone is pleased because they think they have found a true story that accomplishes the same, then they are bullies.

That's what I was talking about.

will.. my point is, taunting someone doesn't automatically equate to bullying. If you even grazed that road, you'd know it.

This is exactly like a story that you would find in a book of sermon illustrations, whose stories aren't necessarily factual either, but always illustrate some moral point. If you see bullying of Christians in this story, I'd more closely examine your own biases!

Allow me to interject my perspective, for what it's worth. I am not a regular church-goer. I've been to a number of churches, but at least half of my Sundays spent in any sort of assembly have been at someone else's home or my own. I have two problems with this story. The first is that I think learning things from a story (or movie) that is not entirely based in reality is a questionable practice, because the learning process is potentially tainted to whatever degree by things that are artificial or not real. You're learning from someone else's idea of what reality is, rather than learning from reality itself. I won't say there is no value there, but there are side-effects.

Secondly, I believe these stories and studies are designed to lead to the wrong conclusion, a conclusion incidentally to be appreciated by believers and non-believers alike. The conclusion is that these congregations are human too and these problems exist in church as well as outside of church. Then we have the social experiment that Foil was involved in to the same end, with the laudable goal of decreasing or eliminating this behavior. That's all wrong. The truth is this symptom speaks to the health of the church, not the individual people in it. The church has failed, in these cases. The people who should be becoming like Christ are found to not be like Christ at all. Do everyone a favor and close the doors.

Sergeant Thorne wrote:Then we have the social experiment that Foil was involved in to the same end, with the laudable goal of decreasing or eliminating this behavior. That's all wrong.

How so? (Just curious.)

Probably Fake. Snopes has some good insights on its origin; including the photo.

Excellent point being made though.

**Edit**

Whoops. Missed Grendel's post.

Jeff250 wrote:This is exactly like a story that you would find in a book of sermon illustrations, whose stories aren't necessarily factual either, but always illustrate some moral point. If you see bullying of Christians in this story, I'd more closely examine your own biases!

I'm not sure if that last part is for me but if so...it isn't anything in the story that has me thinking about bullies. It is where and how the story is offered that makes me question the motives of the offer.
Slick has a history of posting examples of the failures and offenses of certain groups and he doesn't do it for nurturing purposes...he has a penchant for taunting, poke a finger in the eye kind of stuff.

I don’t see bullying of Christians “in” the story, but I do see some bullying of Christians in spreading this kind of story, if it is in fact fake.

Or not....even.

Will Robinson wrote:Or, if it is fake, it shows something entirely different about a different group of people. Like the ones who would find it to be the perfect thing to wave in someone else's face...

^^^

Why is there even discussion pertaining to the intended point(ing of fingers) of the fake experiment here anyway? Fabricated information is dishonorable information and should not be allowed to invoke the discussions it seeks to. This thread should have been strictly about the reliability of the information once the debunking articles were posted. As for questions as to the reliability of the information: a falsely-accredited image, no mention of the church, and no record of the existence of this pastor? What question is there? Even if the story is based on a real one, the phony info discredits it.