Letting Satan Speak For Your Church

February 12, 2006 by

I find this hard to believe. I keep thinking I’m missing the joke, like an Onion article you mistake for real news.

St. James United Church of Christ in Limerick, Penn. has the following Bible verse as a slogan on their web site:

“If thou therefore wilt worship me, all shall be thine” Luke 4:7

Sound familiar? Those would be the words of one Prince of Darkness while tempting Jesus Christ. As a church’s tagline? Seriously?

Like I said, I keep thinking it’s a joke. The rest of their site is pretty progressive (“what if church is like spinach?”), but that’s a little too progressive. (link via Jordon Cooper via Dashhouse via Between Two Worlds)

Update: Early word is that the church was the victim of hackers. Thought I smelled something fishy. Update: Nope, it was a simple lack of proofing.

Post By:

Kevin D. Hendricks


When Kevin isn't busy as the editor of Church Marketing Sucks, he runs his own writing and editing company, Monkey Outta Nowhere. Kevin has been blogging since 1998, runs the hyperlocal site West St. Paul Reader, and has published several books, including 137 Books in One Year: How to Fall in Love With Reading, The Stephanies and all of our church communication books.
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17 Responses to “Letting Satan Speak For Your Church”

  • Keith Plummer
    February 12, 2006

    I wondered myself whether this was a joke of some kind so I searched at the United Church of Christ’s official site. Sure enough, St. James is an actual UCC church.


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  • Justin
    February 12, 2006

    *Said with my best Napoleon Dynamite accent*

    “Idiots!….Gosh!”


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  • Erik
    February 13, 2006

    Going down the list of 10 on the website itself…
    #6 is a little shady as well.


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  • Conservative Culture
    February 13, 2006

    Satan Speaks For One UCC Church

    For years I have known that many churches are clueless when it comes to good marketing of their message. So it was with mild humor that I found a site called “Church Marketing Sucks.” So I bookmarked the site and check it on occasion. Just…


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  • Rick
    February 13, 2006

    Yeah, I’m at a loss to explain this one, too. Any chance of somebody from CMS being able to contact somebody from the church to have them explain what it means?


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  • Dan
    February 13, 2006

    One suggestion for this church — Try reading, and following, what the Bible says.


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  • Danny
    February 13, 2006

    Kevin, you think the site is “progressive”? How about apostate? I think they know exactly who was speaking in Luke 4:7.


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  • Joe
    February 13, 2006

    When you pick and choose which parts of the Bible you want to believe and which parts you want to discard it doesn’t matter who you quote.


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  • Kevin D. Hendricks
    February 13, 2006

    Danny, I’m giving them the benefit of the doubt. I don’t know this church, nor do I know anything about them, so I’m trying to keep an open mind rather than deciding they’re a bunch of satan worshippers.
    I do disagree with some of the theology of the UCC, but even if I did agree with it, that still wouldn’t explain the verse. I’m just trying to understand something from their perspective before going completely nuts on them.


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  • Kent Shaffer
    February 13, 2006

    If it is by accident, it is a good reason why we should all check the context of a scripture after searching it on http://www.biblegateway.com.
    This post merits a big “WOW!” from me.


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  • Keith Plummer
    February 13, 2006

    I just found out from Milton Stanley that the church has deleted the text. The phone number, which was previously hard to find, stands in its place.


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  • Bene D
    February 14, 2006

    The site was hacked.
    I wrote the minister when I posted he got back to me yesterday.
    Rev. Chuck Currie in the US managed to reach the church.
    Take a look at their site meter, they not only have the intrustion to deal with, they have a blog swarm.


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  • Art Gelwicks
    February 14, 2006

    No hack was involved here…although it makes for good reading on an RSS feed. The unfortunate quote was taken out of context from a Biblical quote engine on the web. As soon as we were told about the error we fixed it.
    We are in the midst of a site redesign so I apologize for the fragmented nature of the site right now. We’ve upped the timeline due to the blog flurry that has decended upon us so I encourage you to check back again.
    This should be two lessons for everyone:
    1. ALWAYS proof your writing more than once.
    2. NEVER take the truth in a story for granted.
    Art Gelwicks
    Webmaster
    St. James UCC


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  • bob
    February 15, 2006

    Honest mistake?
    Ok, sure.
    Shocking lack of biblical literacy on the part of a community who could look at their website and not see this?
    Yes.


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  • Accentuate the Positive, 2.0
    February 16, 2006

    The tipping point

    Basketball, the “Blog Boomers,” and Pandora’s Big Bad Box.


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  • wayne
    February 16, 2006

    interestingly, the theology of the quote sounds quite similar to the “name it and claim it” preaching that’s been so popular these days…


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  • Ken Kniskern
    February 21, 2006

    Yeah, it is incredible to me that such an oversight can be made… Makes me want to go back and re-proof all my sites!
    Being From Tulsa, OK I understand full well the Blab it and Grab it phenomenon… and often wondered about the correlation to this verse… but don’t go shouting that at one of their services… that’s all I can say!


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