The Truth

Burnside Writer's Blog had an interesting post today about Mike Guglielmucci, a Christian music artist and pastor who pretended to have a terminal illness assumably to hawk his song "Healer." You can view Burnside's great post here. There is a video on youtube promoting the song and giving the back story on the inspiration behind the song here. Burnside writer Bryan Allain does a much better job of discussing the deception and that God's truth can still be be spoken through the mouth and deeds of a liar...etc so I'll leave that untouched.

What struck me was the video. Not the artist, whose story in the 20/20 lens of retrospect seems a bit off and vague (walking cane, oxygen, and agony? what disease is this?) but the other Christian music artist testimonials scattered throughout the video. There is something in a Christian that is almost jealous of transcendental suffering and what bubbles up in a person's soul when extremely pressed. In this video, it was almost a separate category of worship, how this terminally ill man was being used by God. So now I'm wondering how this situation will challenge their faith. I'll assume all testimonials were coming from the very core of their faith and that evening was the very presence of God for them. They felt him there, he moved in them, and through the people in that room. They were caught up in something very powerful. And now they know that they were gushing about a man, and a night, and a song that came from the dark place in a man's soul that would conceive to deceive so many for reasons that we can all probably relate to even if we wouldn't have made the same decisions. I think I would struggle mightily had I been there that night and experienced what they experienced. I spent more years than I'm willing to admit getting over a three week relationship because it was a connection beyond my ability to describe. My biggest struggle was not getting over him but reconciling the certainty of the connection with everything that followed. Never mind him, I really struggled with trusting myself. How could I have been so very wrong but so very certain? And what was I wrong about? About his feelings for me, about my feelings for him, or that if I was right about both that it meant we were supposed to be together forever?

I'm sure that night Pastor Mike Guglielmuccihe was wholly caught up in what was happening in that venue. Regardless of his motives, I believe he was probably moved. I believe it was hard for him to continue when he saw how God was using his song. Maybe you misrepresent to generate sales but then you see people believe in you, see something in your walk they want to emulate, begin to celebrate you, and attribute virtues to you that you don't think you have. That's got to make it hard, if you have any soul or conscience at all, to continue in deception.