Posted on 01/22/2015 6:20:28 PM PST by Gamecock
WALDRON, KS — On the edge of Kansas’ windswept prairie, near a nondescript grave, sits the most recent token of affection.
It’s a tube of lip gloss.
Since her death on July 20, 2007, fans and friends of Tammy Faye Bakker Messner occasionally make pilgrimages to where the ashes of the Christian television celebrity were laid to rest. There, they leave the types of cosmetic items – lipstick, mascara – that helped give Tammy Faye her distinctive look.
In a Harper County cemetery, remote and unmarked, Tammy Faye’s gravestone is far away from the glamour, controversy and cameras that followed the woman who helped build three Christian television networks: the Christian Broadcasting Network with Pat Robertson; the Trinity Broadcasting Network with Paul Crouch; and Praise The Lord ministry – and ultimately the ill-fated Christian theme and water park Heritage USA in Fort Mill, S.C. – with Jim Bakker, her first husband.
“I took her down there and showed her Waldron, she thought it was a quaint little community,” said her husband, Roe Messner, a mega-church builder who for decades was based in the Wichita area and in more recent years moved to a suburb of Kansas City, Mo.
“She was glad to see where I grew up and all. She thought it was kind of neat.”
‘A personal thing’
Waldron the town is a throwback in time. Houses, storefronts and garages are in varying degrees of neglect along the dirt-covered streets that lie quiet until a passing vehicle stirs up rooster tails of dust.
It was once a thriving town with a railroad, two banks and two newspapers. Its population is now 10.
“It is a nice quiet place to live,” said Mayor Shirley Nelson. “Most people here are second and third generation, raised here or very close by.”
It is a tight-knit community where neighbors watch out for one another and are both protective and proud of their town’s most famous celebrity.
Roe Messner grew up in Waldron. He buried Tammy Faye’s ashes next to his mother, Nellie. When it is his time, Messner – who is in his eighth decade – said he will be buried next to Tammy Faye.
“That’s our family plot,” Roe Messner said Tuesday. “I buried her next to my dad and mother. My little brother is buried there.
“The press never did know Tammy. It is a shame what the press had to say. She was not anything at all about what has been written.”
Harold Waldschmidt, the cemetery sexton, said he’s seen the lipstick and mascara when he mows.
“I don’t bother it,” he said. “I feel like that is a personal thing.”
‘She was so sharp’
In the late stages of the failing Heritage USA and PTL empire, Tammy Faye was often portrayed on TV in tears, mascara running down her cheeks. She divorced Jim Bakker in 1992 while he was in prison for defrauding millions of his followers and after his widely publicized infidelity with Jessica Hahn.
In the meantime, Messner – who had been the chief builder of the Heritage USA theme park – was convicted of bankruptcy fraud and spent two years in prison.
Tammy Faye married Messner in 1993. In 2004, she appeared on the reality show “The Surreal Life” and re-emerged as a television and cult personality, this time embracing gay men infected with the AIDS virus and appearing alongside ex-porn-star Ron Jeremy.
Her faith never wavered through controversy or failing health.
“You wouldn’t believe when Tammy passed away, you know those big mail sacks?” Messner asked. “I got 12 mail sacks the week she died. It was literally thousands and thousands of sympathy cards.
“She was the most common, down-to-earth person you ever saw. The press always made her out to be some nitwit type of person. She was totally different. Her IQ was 165. She was so sharp and different than everybody thought she was.”
Even now, he said, people will sometimes write and say they have visited her graveside.
“I was down there this summer, and I could see several people there had left stuff,” he said.
The pilgrimage
Getting to Waldron, which is about 95 miles southwest of Wichita and nearly on top of the Oklahoma state line, requires back-roads determination.
Washboard roads slow SUVs to covered-wagon speeds. There are seldom any road signs, and cellphone coverage is spotty.
“You have to be kind of familiar with the area,” Nelson, the town’s mayor, acknowledged. “Some roads you can’t take all the way.”
She pointed recent visitors down the road and to the right, to the unmarked cemetery.
“I’m tickled to death,” Nelson said of people who come to visit.
“I never did meet Tammy Faye,” Nelson said, “but I always heard stories about her.”
Psalm 139: 19-24
What made me want to wretch was her singing, and you could just sense she thought she was another Judy Garland.
**false teachers, false prophets and the world friendly church of the present day are valuable warnings that need to be discussed.**
Valuble warnings? How many times a week do you need to be reminded that Joel Osteen is a blind leader of the blind? Is that how you feel spiritual? Imo, Pharisee behavior is just as sinful as the teachings of the worldly preachers.
**That means keeping their keyboards shut.**
Well, then the ‘attack false teacher’ threads should be a ‘causcus’ type (which would effectively limit free speech), to keep people like me out. Because I’m an ‘equal opportunity’ (no respect of persons) criticizer (and of myself as well).
You quote Psalms 139 to cement your case for attacking false teachers, which is just fine.
The last two verses:
23 Search me, O God, and know my heart: try me, and know my thoughts:
24 And see if there be any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.
...show the right attitude. Are you sure that you have displayed that attitude in your posts?
So just how many times this week have I posted threads about the charlatan Osteen? Last week? The week before?
I'll wait while you count them.
Or are you just hurling hyperbolic false accusations to see what will stick?
How many times do you need to be reminded? You seem to have it all right, so maybe once a year is enough for you. But there are others for who once a day is not enough! Or perhaps is it that you send your hard earned money to the Lakewood cashcow?
I repeat from an earlier post:
I said nothing to elevate sin or sinners. It is proper, for those professing Christianity, to humbly point out sin, and move on, remembering our own past.
**So just how many times this week have I posted threads about the charlatan Osteen? Last week? The week before?**
As a truck driver with a ‘dumbphone’, I don’t log on every day, and then only for short times here and there as I prefer to be out in the shop, instead of surfing the web. I have been home on more evenings than usual, hence my visiting FR more lately.
It just seems that I see you as the self appointed attack dog of the false teachers. That’s fine. It’s just that, as I said before, the threads seem to invite, or evolve into, un-Christlike, petty mockery of the targets. If you can’t see that, then you are as blind as the Pharisees.
**Or perhaps is it that you send your hard earned money to the Lakewood cashcow?**
Not a dime. And I quit giving to the Calvinists when I saw their avoidance of God’s SCRIPTURAL rebirth process, as taught in Acts 2:38, which is in fulfillment of: Matt. 28:19,20; Mk 16:16; Lk 24:47; and John 20:22,23. Those are the commisions of the Lord which harmonize wonderfully to Acts 2:38
Matthew 28:19,20
Keep in mind that before ascending, Jesus Christ’s first detailed command to his apostles, was for them to “..teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost; teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you..”.
What particular command did he detail right there?...YOU BAPTIZE THEM. I think you know he is talking about water baptism, so we are in agreement about that. Besides, they (the apostles) weren’t able to perform the Holy Ghost baptism. So, the Lord wasn’t instructing them to do something they were not empowered to do.
Mark 16:16
The Lord brings up his command for baptism again, giving the command in wording that shows how serious he is about water baptism: “He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved; but he that believeth not shall be damned”.
Remember again, that the Holy Ghost baptism is not the apostles responsibility. If they preach the gospel, and the listener(s) want baptized, the minister performs the water baptism. The minister may go on his way, both he and the convert having done their parts, trusting that the Lord will baptize with the Holy Ghost. The conversion of the Ethiopian eunuch (Acts 9:35-39) spells this out quite clearly.
Luke 24:47
The Lord commanded “that repentance and remission of sins should be preached in his NAME among all nations, beginning at Jerusalem”. While one would ask, where’s the water baptism in THAT command? All one has to do, is see that command initiated in Acts 2:38, for it’s fulfillment.
John 20:22,23
The Lord “breathed on them, and saith unto them, Receive ye the Holy Ghost: Whose soever sins YE remit, they are remitted unto them; and whose soever sins YE retain, they are retained”.
SO....when THEY began to remit sins (Acts 2:38), THEY did it by water baptism in the name of Jesus Christ as per HIS instructions.
Those, that don’t believe their words (including: to be baptized in the name of Jesus for the remission of sins) will have their sins retained. It’s possible to change one’s mind and obey His will. For, after being told to obey Acts 2:38, I refused to accept the Lord’s command for several years. I am thankful for his patience.
Since you seen to want to change the subject from attacking my intention to the validity of my theological perspective, I think I’ll just bow out here.
Grace and peace.
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