For the past few days, Christian hate-preacher Greg Locke has been hosting a “National Deliverance Training Conference” at his Global Vision Bible Church in Mount Juliet, Tennessee. Deliverance, in fundamentalist parlance, means saving people from demons.
That implies that attendees all believe demons are actual, literal beings that cause people to do very bad things… and that the right set of magical Christian incantations might rid them of the demons inside… and that they can all be trained to become Christian demon magicians. Or something like that.
But that’s not even the issue here.
Even if you set aside the bizarre belief in demons, a couple of the speakers spoke about masturbation in ways that suggest they have no idea how it works… or how often most people do it.
Consider Daniel Adams, who said masturbation opens a portal to demons… before adding a very specific complaint: “If you look at porn long enough, or if you masturbate long enough, the thing you’re imagining becomes in the flesh.”
As many, many Twitter users pointed out, years of celebrating Palm Sunday did not result in the supermodels or actresses of their fantasies (or Jason Momoa) showing up in their bedroom.
He wasn’t alone, though.
In a separate sermon, Vlad Saychuk claimed the demons inside people are hungry for ungodly things. The demons of pornography, for example, needed to be fed “every single three weeks”… and once you cast them out, “you no longer have those cravings.”
Three weeks. As if people look at adult content once every three weeks.
It’s just an oddly specific number. Definitely not a personal admission…
Incidentally, most people take self-guided tours waaaaaay more often than that.
Before this weekend, I thought the worst take on hand-to-gland combat came from abusive pastor Mark Driscoll, who called it a form of homosexuality because “it is a sexual act that does not involve a woman.” (He didn’t have much to say about women touching themselves because, I assume, that would require him acknowledging that they enjoy the practice.)
It’s bad enough that Locke’s circus tent event was premised on the idea that demons are real and that the congregation can destroy them. It turned out to be a conference on sex miseducation.