Bro Gary Hawkins 23: Give Us the History

[Xan]

1 hour ago, thoughtful said:

Baker sells his crap in the form of books and "life coaching," and he has run for office.

His church declared bankruptcy in 2011.  You just don't see that many churches declaring bankruptcy.  How crooked and greedy must he actually be?  Of course, he had reasons and they were doing building and someone siphoned off members, blah, blah, blah.  My feeling is that Baker's salary is always the first and biggest thing that gets paid.  No wonder he's yelling at his flock to give more.

[postscript]

In my legal career, I’ve done loans to churches, synagogues and religious schools of different faiths. The churches are generally non-denominational. A church in need of money with strong ties to a denomination will usually get a loan from the diocese or synod rather than a bank. The loans are usually tied to a building project, are secured by a mortgage on the church property, and have below-market interest rates because they’re being made to a not-for-profit. Once in a very long time, the minister or a well-heeled and devout congregation member will personally guaranty the loan. 

The religious institution has to show the bank they have the ability to repay the loan, so they are made to come up with annual budgets. Most churches/synagogues will pay the loan back with no issues. However, if the church can’t repay (often due to an internal dispute and loss of membership), chances are the bank will never foreclose. It’s guaranteed terrible publicity - big bad bank beating up on struggling church - plus the bank doesn’t really want to own a church property that will be tough to manage and sell. Instead, the bank will quietly write off the loan and allow the church to finish imploding on its own. 

That’s a long way of saying it’s tough for a church to go bankrupt  Creditors usually prefer to take a loss rather than have reporters slamming them and church members howling about persecution. It’s also easy for a small church to just close up shop and start again elsewhere under another name. I can only imagine how badly mismanaged his church must have been to have to go through a bankruptcy. 

[thoughtful]

Gary misunderstood Lutrick's question (surprise!) and slipped a little lecture in with his answer, as well. Chris Howe did a bit better  (but not much) at clarifying that everything comes from the KJV, therefore directly from God:

[thoughtful]

Becky's latest posts:

Spoiler

Food fearmongering fundie fun! The pictures (and there were almost 100 of them) were from Harder's original post, not things Becky found in her cabinets:

Spoiler

 

Comments:

Um, Debbie . . . did you proofread?

Now, I think it's a pretty basic idea that highly processed foods are not as healthful as fresh, but these people need to make everything into an evil conspiracy.

And Becky, define "all of the disease going on with children now." Because, depending on how far into the past you are dreamily romanticizing, it's likely that some of your four and Gary's three (definitely his eldest) would not have made it past infancy, let alone grown to adulthood, in most of the "good old days."

 

Edited September 29, 2023 by thoughtful
riffle

[Alisamer]

11 minutes ago, thoughtful said:

And Becky, define "all of the disease going on with children now." Because, depending on how far into the past you are dreamily romanticizing, it's likely that some of your four and Gary's three (definitely his eldest) would not have made it past infancy, let alone grown to adulthood, in the "good old days."

This is true. I'm sure she's thinking of things that have always existed but are known and diagnosed now (autism, ADHD) or possibly things that seem to be more common now (food allergies, for example). But I've been doing some family tree research and one of my great-great-grandmothers lost three of her kids in six days to Typhoid. And then she died of the same thing a few years later. We have preventative vaccines for stuff that used to kill people. We have better treatments for the illnesses people DO get. And we know now how diseases are transmitted and have strategies (and laws) to help minimize it. 

Incidentally one of my great-great-great-grandmothers is a Hawkins. I haven't seen a link to Gary yet but sadly I wouldn't be surprised to find one. 

[postscript]

2 hours ago, thoughtful said:

Gary misunderstood Lutrick's question (surprise!) and slipped a little lecture in with his answer, as well. Chris Howe did a bit better  (but not much) at clarifying that everything comes from the KJV, therefore directly from God:

True/false, multiple choice or fill in the blank questions? Real college-level there, Chris. This sounds like it’s a continuation of homeschooling workbooks, not an attempt to teach theology. Sadly, I can see the Rodrigues boys (never the girls!) being pushed to finish their education using this program. 

[Alisamer]

41 minutes ago, postscript said:

True/false, multiple choice or fill in the blank questions? Real college-level there, Chris. This sounds like it’s a continuation of homeschooling workbooks, not an attempt to teach theology. Sadly, I can see the Rodrigues boys (never the girls!) being pushed to finish their education using this program. 

I could see the girls doing it. Didn't Nurie and Kaylee get some "Bible certificate" from some course they took? Since it's all self-paced and Jill wouldn't have to do any of the grading, I could see her having some of the kids do this "course". She'd probably make them pay for it though. And do it by mail, no email or anything. Partly to shelter them and partly to keep them from using her data. 

[thoughtful]

5 hours ago, Alisamer said:

Didn't Nurie and Kaylee get some "Bible certificate" from some course they took?

Yes, from:

Or, as I like to call it, Ripley's Believe it or Burn.

 

Edited September 30, 2023 by thoughtful
riffle

[thoughtful]

I guess Gary met someone with a name he thought was weird:

[thoughtful]

Becky and Gary were in church last Sunday evening, 9/24, as was the person I think may be their landlady (still no way to tell for sure).

This woman often has little kids (always boys, as far as I can tell) hanging around her before church, and it always looks like she's giving them something. I guessed it was candy or other treats, and I think I'm right.  The camera shows a little boy jumping up and down with excitement. She drops something into his hand from a small container (looks like tic tacs or the like), but a man gets in the way, so I can't tell if he gets anything. Then she drops one into her own hand, and he eats it right out of her hand:

Spoiler

 

      

I think Gary was talking to the kid behind him, but he may have been watching this whole procedure.

After Onward Christian Soldiers, a prayer, and some delay due to an out-of-tune guitar (Mrs. Baker jumps back to the piano, ready to fill in, but Pastor Baker decides to let the guitarist go tune), they do blessings (neat, special good). Lowlights include details about their jail ministry, delivered by Baker's son, David:

 - 26 men and "10 ladies" got baptized at the jail.

- a stranger donated cases of bibles to the jail. David sounds surprised when he says "and they were all King James bibles!" He found out that the guy who donated them is the son of a pastor, is named Jonathan and has a brother named David. He (David Baker) has a brother named Jonathan, and both sets of brothers are seven years apart in age.

Who'da thunk it?  🙄

 - Jonathan who donated the bibles is on a mission to donate bibles to every jail in Tennessee, and David just happened to tell him about "my father's jail book," and Jonathan now wants to make it part of his mission to buy those for every jail, as well.

As David says this, Pastor Baker wears a cat-that-ate-the-canary smirk, and even raises and lowers his eyebrows a few times:

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Why not just do this, Pastor:

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 - Jonathan's father, besides being an IFB pastor, is a licensed therapist, recently retired from the Perry County School System. The Bakers need a licensed therapist for their men's home, but "the problem is most licensed therapists are very liberal, and they would not align with our faith values." Jonathan said his father would love to volunteer.

"So many neat connections on so many levels God just did." 🙄

Guitar is tuned, so I fast-forward past the special, a pretty bad rendition of In My Father's Eyes.

Pastor Baker says he's never heard that song, says it was beautiful, then asks who would like to hear it "the other way, with the guitar untuned" and laughs at his own uproarious joke.

Another congregational song, then greetings. Waving guy waves:

 

Spoiler

Back to testimonies - Pastor Baker talks about his jail book some more, and how only God could provide the person who wants to put it into all of the jails.

- a young-sounding woman got to "lead four young girls to the Lord yesterday, and it was really just neat watching the Lord soften their hearts and watching them pray through the prayer."

- another girlish voice, of someone who got to lead three people to the Lord.

Pastor Baker asks how many think he'll preach a normal sermon. I guess they're on to his clever joke and don't raise their hands, because he says "You're right, it's not normal."

- another testimony - a woman says that she went out on their bus route and "got to talk to the mom of some twin girls that haven't come in a long time. Usually when they come they usually get kicked off or whatever because they cause a lot of problems. But, uh, they moved back in town recently - we got to talk to the mom, and she was very open and she got saved."

Baker says "Wow, bring Mama and I bet those girls'll pay attention and do better."

- Matthew is still grateful to God for finding him the job that enables him to be in church, and that God gave him the strength to go out and witness after work. He says nobody got saved, though. How did that happen?

They sing In Times Like These, have a prayer, and a piano solo special, and then it is sermon time.

More later, if I have the strength.

Edited September 30, 2023 by thoughtful
fixing grammar

[Xan]

1 hour ago, thoughtful said:

I guess Gary met someone with a name he thought was weird:

I saw this too.  I wondered if Michaela was about to name the baby boy she's expecting some weird name but she's apparently naming him Joe Jr. so I don't think that would set Gary off -- unless he was hoping they'd name the baby after him.

[thoughtful]

David Baker's sermon on the evening of 9/24 starts with his asking for the screen to be lowered, then, saying, in a voice that rivals Jill's for condescension (if not pitch), "Boys and girls, tonight we get to watch videos - in church!"

Unlike Jill, he thinks he's funny when he does that shit.

He says he's been collecting things he thinks they will find helpful and useful for about a year. He tells them to look at 1 Timothy, chapter 6, verse 20, where, he says, Paul is warning Timothy about a problem we still have today. He reads, interrupting himself with comments.

Quote

 O Timothy, keep that which is committed to thy trust, avoiding profane and vain babblings, and oppositions of science falsely so called:

He says the title of his talk is "Trust the Science," with a derisive tone.

Oh, goody - an anti-science rant.

He starts with global warming, which, of course, the bible says will never happen - oh, except when "God's gonna burn the earth with fire one day."

"This week our presid - " he pretends to choke on the word. "I can't say it - sorry - I just can't, it just - um, in front of the UN, talked about the - one of the most important problems we have in our world today is global warming. They've been pushing that for so long. Global warming is called government control."

He claims the government is just using warnings of global warning to get money, then "to avoid that," reads the next verse:

Quote

Which some professing have erred concerning the faith. Grace be with thee. Amen.

He's a much better reader than Gary, but he leaves the -ing off of professing. Then he repeats the verse, and makes it "professed."

So much for that perfect, unchangeable book.

He then sends them to Deuteronomy 22, but doesn't read yet. He reviews a previous discussion (I think he meant in church, but it's unclear), going through the bible and finding instances of it being a wonderful source of scientific information, because God knew everything about science before people did.

The examples he said they already covered are:

- washing your hands in running water to reduce germs - he talks briefly about how people used to die before doctors knew to wash their hands before surgery.

- putting someone in a deep sleep before surgery (God did that to Adam before taking a rib out). He jovially goes on to describe a soldier having his leg amputated in the old days when they just told you to bite on a stick. But now science has caught up with God.

- the bible says the earth is a circle. "Who would have known that, back then?"

Dave, it's an oblate sphere. And lots of people knew it was a sphere "back then."

- quarantining people with a disease - his proof is the isolation of people with Hanson's disease (he says leprosy, of course).

- the universe  came from "one beginning spot, and then has expanded out. What is that? That's creation and God said the universe is expanding."

- "the life of the flesh is in the blood." He brings up the fact that doctors used to bleed people to show that God knew this but people didn't yet. Somehow, despite his love of all things gross, he forgets to mention leeches.

Tonight he wants to give them more. Of course, they don't need to hear it, because they all know that Jesus lives in their hearts.

I can't wait.

Back to Deuteronomy. He reads:

Quote

Thou shalt not plow with an ox and an ass together.

Now we're getting into the really scientific stuff!

He asks how many of them have ever plowed behind an animal, and names the three people who raise their hands (one is his father). Gary is not among them, so now we know he can't claim that particular old-fashioned country boy thing.

The three people say they plowed with one or two horses or mules. Pastor explains that the gaits of differing animals would not work together, and would break the yoke.

Personally, I think this bit of  biblical wisdom is the ancient version of the warnings on modern appliances - y'know, things like not putting a hair dryer in water. I guess there have always been people so stupid that such things are necessary. I can't imagine that most experienced farmers didn't know this.

He does say that the verse does seem to make sense, so maybe he's making a different point, besides God being so wise, he knew that oxen and donkeys shouldn't plow together, but people needed to be told. Let's see.

He reads the next verse:

Quote

Thou shalt not wear a garment of divers sorts, as of woollen and linen together.

He acts like someone who is puzzled by why that matters, acknowledges that it doesn't seem like common sense, then takes a detour to tell them how "this verse is used so many times, when we talk about things in the old testament, things in Deuteronomy, the difference of cross-dressing, and men and women shouldn't wear each other's clothes, they go to this and say 'Aww - do you believe that too?' And this is the verse they use to mock the other things in the bible. Listen carefully - just because you don't understand it, doesn't mean you shouldn't obey it."

His first visual comes up, to show us that "now, by science, they do know why." It's a video, and we hear the narrator say, "A Jewish doctor, named Heidi Yellen, conducted a study on the frequencies of fabric."

It goes on to say that fabrics with a high frequency are good for you. Linen and wool each have a frequency of 500, but, when combined, the frequency drops to 0.

I wonder if Dan Rather knew the frequency of his clothes.

I found a shortened version of the video, but not the whole thing he showed:

Spoiler

All I know is that I am allergic to both of them.

The person behind the study (which has not been peer-reviewed or published in a scientific journal, as far as I could find) has some . . . interesting ideas, and seems to be heavily into all kinds of woo:

https://independent.academia.edu/HeidiCrawfordYellen

Trump and Moses, eh?

Scroll down and you'll find the article from which people seem to have gotten this idea - "Tikkun Olam to Heal the World Wearing Flax-Linen Attire." I can verify that tikkun olam means to heal the world, but nothing else about the whole idea seems legit to me.

I can't find any other information on the quarterly "Hebrews Today," but it is not a scientific journal. I do not have the patience to read it.

Here is her bio:

https://heidicrawfordyellen.academia.edu/

Hey, guys, if you're going to ask for money, maybe you should check for typos:

Spoiler

Baker goes on to acknowledge that all of them are probably wearing mixed fabrics (so much for obeying the bible, Dave), and that's why they feel tired all the time. He goes on to make a fuss about how science proves "a verse they mock!"

I guess people like me are the "they" he refers to.

I need a break. Maybe I'm just tired because the outfit I'm wearing is cotton, rather than linen.

Edited September 30, 2023 by thoughtful
formatting

[thoughtful]

Becky done it again:

[marmalade]

The Chinese weep.

[postscript]

I thought weeny gravy was his favorite meal? 

That all looks like leftovers from a Chinese place. At best, packaged/frozen Chinese from the grocery store.  No more appetizing than any of his other food pictures, I doubt Bro’s palate is any more educated than the rest of him. 

[thoughtful]

1 hour ago, postscript said:

I thought weeny gravy was his favorite meal? 

That all looks like leftovers from a Chinese place. At best, packaged/frozen Chinese from the grocery store. 

From what he's said, Chinese food edges out weeny gravy as his favorite. Come to think of it, when he describes heaven, he mentions Chinese and sometimes Mexican food, and grabbing already fried catfish from the river of life, but I don't think he's postulated weeny gravy in the hereafter.

I'm pretty sure he's said, and Becky's confirmed, that she makes Chinese food from scratch. I don't know how true that is, and whether she buys things like spring/egg roll wrappers ready-made. And Gary is probably clueless about what goes on in a kitchen.

But it may very well not be just re-heated prepared food, but straight from Becky's heart and kitchen. The chicken may be made from one of their own flock.

What gets me is how many dishes she made. It's one thing if you are entertaining a lot of people, or ordering in a restaurant. But that many different things, each needing to be cooked separately, for only two or three people, seems like a lot of work for someone with conditions that cause pain and extreme fatigue.

Not to mention the redundancy and excess starch (to my mind, anyway) - rice and noodles, two things that are wrapped in dough and appear to be fried, another that is breaded and fried.  There appear to be two chicken-based dishes, which is also redundant.

They may have had company, and Gary just always perceives her making Chinese food as being for him, so that's the way he worded it.

[thoughtful]

Of course, there's a racist comment under Gary's Chinese food post:

Spoiler

Gary wants to get back to losing wait. I understand - I hate having to wait, too. Lots of other Garyisms in this one - and that's after he edited it.

Spoiler

Original:

Yep - all he did was change "fell" to "fill," neither of which is the correct spelling of "feel."

Comments:

Spoiler

 

[AmazonGrace]

Oh he edited fell to fill when he meant feel,

Good joy  jog, Gary

[AmazonGrace]

Gary wants to buy a vowel:

Tchwd = they watched?

Quote

Ok folks after yesterday government thing. All I can say is people believe the government but not GOD. Like I’ve said before this Covid shut down in 2020 has a lot brain washed . Tchwd way to much news. Folks you’ll see very soon the LORD is coming back and taking over.

Bro Gary Hawkins

Oh look everybody, did you see that we HELPED someone? Well actually my wife did.
 

Quote

 

Ok folks I want to Thank the LORD for allowed us to help someone in need. Thanks to my wife for helping. Now help us Pray the LORD will open the door to get the Gospel to these folks. People need the LORD.

Bro Gary Hawkins

 

 

[Hane]

Hey, Gary: I just got my flu shot AND COVID booster. Bite me.

[thoughtful]

1 hour ago, AmazonGrace said:

Gary wants to buy a vowel:

Tchwd = they watched?
 

Tchwd - that's classic Gary. He didn't even notice it.

And I love that he could only get as far as "government thing" to describe it, in his tiny little brain.

A commenter knows the solution, of course:

[thoughtful]

I must gird up my loins, put on the full armor of anti-bullshit, and finish listening to the rest of Pastor Baker's 9/24 anti-science rant.

When last we heard, he was claiming that science had proven there was a reason not to mix linen and wool. Nope.

To illustrate the idea that everyone should just do whatever God says, he tells them about his first read-through of the rule book when he went to bible college. He was getting angry, he said, at all of the restrictions listed, including not listening to anything using headphones. Finally, he said, God stopped him to "walk me through some things."

It seems God made him ask himself if God wanted him to go to that college - yes, of course. Did God know what the rules were before he got there? Yes. "Then God must be OK with the rules."

He goes on to repeat that we don't have to understand rules to obey them.

 He says he "left college after three years with eleven demerits, which is unheard of" because he didn't fight it, and followed the rules.

So how'd you get those eleven demerits, Dave?

Of course others were not so pure. He tells them how the no-headphones rule came to be. They had to get all listening material approved, and would get a sticker on the material. One guy "submitted his Hyles-Anderson tour group tape, and got a sticker on it. Then he dubbed over it, Led Zeppelin. And with headphones, he's in the dorm, listenin' to th'Led Zeppelin."

Another video - some bullshit from an apologist about how the 12 jewels mentioned in Revelation are now proven by "science" to have some property or other in common. I couldn't even be bothered, but found the video with a google search, if anyone else wants to tackle it in more detail.

Spoiler

 

Baker blabs about gemstones and the New Jerusalem for a while.

He says the next video is about biology.

Oh, boy.

It's a video of the flash of light (caused by zinc) when a sperm meets an egg. I couldn't find the one they used, with a narrator saying that it was "just as when Jesus was placed in the womb of  Mary." The captions think otherwise:

Spoiler

Spoiler

That's the facebook captioning, The original video's captioning thinks it was Perry.

Spoiler

Baker jokes about that when he resumes.

Of course Baker's point is that life begins at conception.

Whatever, Dave - can I count on you for a kidney or bone marrow if I ever need any? Would you like to be forced to give them to me?

He has two more. I will tackle them later.

 

[Xan]

In some ways, I think Baker is worse than Bro Gary.  Gary knows that he's not too bright.  Baker thinks he's smart, well-educated, and the best thing since sliced bread.

Every time I hear the diehard right to lifers start off on "life begins at conception", I want to ask about the sheer percentage of spontaneous abortions.  Does their god create all that life just to snuff it out?

[thoughtful]

1 hour ago, Xan said:

In some ways, I think Baker is worse than Bro Gary.  Gary knows that he's not too bright.  Baker thinks he's smart, well-educated, and the best thing since sliced bread.

Oh, yeah - he is so full of himself, so arrogant and slick. Much more of a Backpfeifengesicht than Gary.

OK, two more videos - I can do this.

For science!  😁

Before the next video, he asks them to imagine they are artists, and think about how artists always sign their work. He says humans got that from God, making us in his image. 

The video is one I've seen debunked before. Louis Giglio says he was approached, while on tour, by a molecular biologist (from "the university down the road") who asked him what he'd be preaching about next. He said he was about to preach a series on "the glory of God in the human body," and the biologist said "give me your talk."

He says he wasn't quite prepared, sort of stumbled through it, and the biologist asked "What's your big left hook? Ya gotta have a left hook, a big finish, right?"

The molecular biologist told him his left hook is laminin.

Captions:

Spoiler

He goes on imitating this biologist, whose name, no doubt is George Glass (you wouldn't know him, he goes to a different school - in Canada), passionately rhapsodizing about laminin. He still didn't get why it was so important, and the biologist said he had to see laminin.

He went home, googled, and was excited and beside himself and otherwise orgasmic, then finally shows them an image of laminin:

Spoiler

So, neatened up, turned upright, and straightened out for a technical drawing, laminin can sort of be made to look like a cross. It doesn't, really.

 

Here's the original video, if you want to see it:

Spoiler

 

Baker comes back and asks them to turn to Colossians 1. He reads:

Quote

16 For by him were all things created, that are in heaven, and that are in earth, visible and invisible, whether they be thrones, or dominions, or principalities, or powers: all things were created by him, and for him:

17 And he is before all things, and by him all things consist.

Hmmm . . . nothing in there about proteins being God's artist signature.

One more video, again about God's signature in our body. He says "Ever'body know what a DNA is?"

Isn't he skirtcheese Emily's husband?

He says "It is a computer code."

No, it's not.

He also claims that "atheist scientists" say that DNA is the "number one thing that makes them think there must be a designer - just don't wanna admit God, but they say there must be a designer because you cannot - would you believe by accident that the Microsoft Office or Microsoft operating system was written by random?"

After some more tangled crap about how DNA is like a computer program, only much more complicated, he comes back to his claim about atheist scientists. "And so when they see the DNA of a human body, even atheists have to say 'Yes, mathematically, there has to be a designer.'"

No, Dave - nobody says that, except dishonest religious apologists.

Here's the video:

Spoiler

 

It's someone claiming that there are sulfur bridges in DNA, and that they are spaced out in a way that "spells" the tetragrammaton, יהוה, since Hebrew letters can be used to represent numbers.

He also claims that the tetragrammaton actually refers to Jesus' crucifixion, because, of course, all things Jewish are really about Jesus.

Baker comes back and snipes at atheist scientists some more. "Anything that is true science will prove God and the bible to be true."

Nothing you showed was true science, Dave.

 

Edited October 6, 2023 by thoughtful
riffles

[thoughtful]

Becky and Gary were in church on the evening of 9/27, for both services on 10/1, and on the evening of 10/4. Becky stays seated when everyone else is moving around before the service and at the greeting.

I checked the prayer requests for both Wednesday services. On 10/4, Pastor Baker says he wants to share a blessing, even though they usually do that on Sunday evenings. He says: "Troy has a blessing and uh, praise out! And it's pretty miraculous, so, he had something that was holding over his head in another state an' he checked into it and they didn't want him and then they decided 'Oh yeah, we do want you,' and so he had to go to ______ (mumble) County to wait for extradition and they um, didn't come git him yet, and so the jail got tired of him and they just let him out, and uh, and so uh."

He laughs.

"He escaped, just don't tell anybody, OK? But uh, they may  come get him, we don't think they will, so we're stuck - I mean, he's with us now, OK? So we're blessed to have him. So, anyway, literally some of the ______ (COs?) were saying 'We've never heard of this happenin' before. This is just not - this doesn't happen, and so uh God worked it out and so we're glad that uh Troy is back, OK?"

If you didn't understand that, I think he's saying that someone in the congregation (maybe it was someone in Onesimus House) was wanted for a crime in another state, turned himself in and was waiting in a more local county jail, and was released, because God.

BTW, I did look up the name Onesimus. Turns out I'd heard the story many times, from people discussing the fact that the bible approves of slavery, but had only heard the name of the owner, Philemon, not the slave.

Onesimus was the escaped slave. The story was that he ended up with Paul, became a Christian, and Paul wrote to Philemon asking him to accept Onesimus back without punishment.

https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Philemon 1&version=KJV

ETA - here's the description of the Onesimus House discipleship program:

http://onesimushouse.com/

Here's how it describes Onesimus:

Quote

Onesimus is a man in the Bible that had done wrong and had to go to prison.  While in prison, he met the Apostle Paul who led him to Christ.  When Onesimus was ready to get out of prison and go home, he didn’t have a place to go.  Paul wrote a letter to Philemon (the book of Philemon in the Bible) and asked Philemon to take him in, help him out, and get him started in his Christian life on the outside of prison.

The word slave seems to be missing there, Dave.

Edited October 6, 2023 by thoughtful