[1000 silverlings]

Every church has a "gimmick

The only church's with "gimmicks" are ones that quit preaching the word

[Quix]

The only church's with "gimmicks" are ones that quit preaching the word
= = = =

Hogwash. NOt from this psychologist/sociologist's perspective.

EVERY PREACHER . . . 100% OF ALL PREACHERS I've heard in person, on the radio, on TV, read . . . 100% of them had his own personal schstick--distinctives.

Some were more closely and conservatively tied directly to Scripture and didn't elaborate much beyond Scripture. But even they DID SOME--sufficiently for folks to know how to align with the preacher's disctinctives sufficiently to be on his good side regardless of what Scripture said.

But the overwhelming majority of all preachers have disctinctives EVEN IN THE SUPPOSED SIMPLE PREACHING OF THE WORD--plenty of vivid and overt distinctives sufficient to inculcate into their flocks what makes THEIR FLOCK MORE HOLY AND RIGHTEOUS than all those others out there--even if they periodically claim it's not true.

It's basically old IN-GROUP/OUT-GROUP STUFF. And all humans are prone to it.

And a lot of that is what RW is so guilty of--not being part of the IN-GROUP of the Jr Accusers assaulting him and his ways.