The early 1970s Shiloh Fellowship in East Lansing, MI, was literally a multi-level marketing scheme which preyed on the many to enrich the few

Derek Prince, one of the Ft. Lauderdale Five

 

Jesus inveighed against mammon, and Luther against indulgences, but human nature never changes.

 

My Three Years in a Christian Cult: On leaving the Shiloh Fellowship 

Peter Schwendener

... The message, which came straight from Christian Growth Ministries in Ft. Lauderdale, was this: the “Jesus movement” most of us belonged to was a good thing that had run its course. It was now time to start building the Kingdom of God. The Body of Christ, meaning the church, was more important than the individual Christian. ...

In 1975, the New York Times published an article entitled “Growing Charismatic Movement is Facing Internal Discord Over a Teaching Known as ‘Discipling.’” That was us, and I had by that year moved into the house on Brookfield Drive with three other “brothers.” Discipling and shepherding were the same thing. According to this teaching, the true church was not the usual setup of pastor and congregation but rather a vast network of relationships between sheep, who could be men, women, or children, and shepherds, who could only be men. You weren’t a real Christian unless you were personally “accountable” or “submitted” to a local shepherd who watched over all parts of your life. You also paid tithes directly to this person, who in turn tithed to the shepherd above him in a pyramid whose summit was in—you guessed it—Ft. Lauderdale. ...

I soon had my own shepherd, a Jewish convert named Kim Levinson who answered directly to Erik, who answered to Derek Prince, one of the Five. In Charismatic circles, Derek was a genuine celebrity whose books and cassette tapes circulated widely. His calling card was exorcism, a subject that, like shepherding, divided the Charismatic movement. ...

We were growing as a group, and almost everyone worked and tithed. I worked night shifts full-time at a twenty-four-hour restaurant. A sizable portion of our money went straight to Ft. Lauderdale, but we still had enough to buy the church building from our Lutheran landlords, who moved elsewhere. There was also enough to buy Erik and his wife a house near the church. A key tenet of the movement was “service” to those in authority, and I eagerly volunteered to help Erik with chores around his new house. ...

The group soon had seven or eight full-time shepherds who followed Erik’s lead by using money from tithes to buy houses near the church. Though mostly in their early twenties, they became known as “the elders” and assumed increasing importance at meetings and elsewhere as Erik began traveling, often for weeks at a time, with his mentor Derek [Prince]. The two men (Erik and Derek, as we called them) frequently went overseas to spread the movement’s teachings to London, Paris, Amsterdam, Jerusalem, and elsewhere. It was on our dime, of course, and some of us found it troubling while others attributed all doubts about it to you-know-who. ...

I went up to Erik and told him I had decided to leave the group. “I respect what you’re saying,” he said. “Let’s talk about it.” I was still working the night shift at the restaurant and met him there for breakfast a few days later. After admitting the Fellowship had lately experienced a few problems, he said we were back on track and tried to persuade me to stay. If I did, I would be “discipled” by him personally and would learn exorcism, have access to the group’s money, and maybe meet one of the sisters as a prelude to getting married. ...

As America becomes less Christian its people grow more delusional

Nearly half of Americans think they’re a better person than EVERYONE they know!

In a recent survey of 2,000 U.S. residents, 81 percent say they believe that humankind is inherently good. Three in four believe they themselves are fundamentally a good person. When researchers asked respondents how they would compare themselves to others in their lives, 46 percent went a step further, admitting (in their eyes) they’re “better” than everyone else they know.

Nearly two-thirds of Americans say they’re more selfless than ever before thanks to pandemic

 

64 percent of Americans say 2020 has made them more selfless than ever before. ... Researchers find 74 percent believe 2020 has made them more aware of the needs of others.

Seventy-two percent of those surveyed found themselves caring about the health and wellbeing of others significantly more than ever before. Despite the economic crash, a staggering 87 percent of Americans have donated a portion of their paycheck during COVID-19.

 

The Pharisee stood and prayed thus with himself, God, I thank thee, that I am not as other men are, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even as this publican. I fast twice in the week, I give tithes of all that I possess.

 -- Luke 18:11f. 

The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it? 

-- Jeremiah 17:9

If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. 

-- I John 1:8

A Roman Catholic wants you to believe "sinless Mary" is biblical

Here:

Grace is presented (esp. in Paul) as the antithesis of sin.

To be full of such grace (simple logic) is to be without sin.

Mary was proclaimed by an angel as “full of grace” (Lk 1:28); therefore, she is without sin.

You will search in vain for the translation "full of grace" in Luke 1:28 in the King James Version, the New King James Version, the New Living Translation, the New International Version, the English Standard Version, the Christian Standard Bible, the New American Standard Bible, the New English Translation, the Revised Standard Version and the American Standard Version. Most of these say Mary is "highly favored".

Evidently the translators of these editions all must have been either a bunch of dummies, or a pack of anti-Catholic Protestant heretics to a man to get it so wrong, for so long.

The birth narratives of Jesus in Matthew and Luke were most likely composed to counter the calumny (to Christians) that Jesus was born of fornication (John 8:41). This became a bone of contention once Jesus' reputation had risen above mere "prophet" to deity. The solution to the charge of being a product of fornication was a miraculous birth to a virgin involving no human father at all.

But, of course, Mary then becomes the problem. She herself participated in sinful human nature, did she not, and therefore must have communicated it to her son, did she not?

So in Catholic theology a sinless Mary becomes necessary to stop the communication of sinful human nature to Jesus, based on tenous arguments such as above.

But then how did Mary escape the great chain of being? And if she did why was the birth of Jesus even necessary?

The whole thing quickly descends into more absurdity.

Organs of the liberal media showcase anti-Christian progressive Christians preening and calling Trump anti-Christian

Tutt Tutt . . . looks like bullshit

The Rev. Ann Kansfield, smoking, cursing, lesbian preacher employed by the FDNY (church and state issue anybody?), sure knows how to get her name in the newspapers, here, where however you never learn from the Christian Science Monitor that she's a smoking, cursing, lesbian:

Rev. Ann Kansfield, the minister of proclamation at Greenpoint Reformed, isn’t sure how much the congregation’s recent surge can be attributed to a “Trump bump.” More people voted for Bernie Sanders in Greenpoint, after all, than any other area of New York City in the Democratic primary last year, and Reverend Kansfield noticed a simmering political energy going back to 2015.  

Up to then, the church had plateaued with about 35 adult members. On Sunday, there were more than 60, including children. “We were already established as the progressive church in the neighborhood,” she says, noting that LGBT inclusion and its soup kitchen and food pantry were its primary ministries. “But with this new energy, we’ve been doing some deciding over who we are and what we do, and what following Jesus should look like in our context.”

As it happens, this Christian Science Monitor story links to an Atlantic story here from last December which is in fact skeptical of the surge in attendance, but where, lo and behold, another guy pops up who also manages to work the organs of the liberal media by being outrageous, namely the devil-denying Timothy Tutt, except the Atlantic never tells you that Timothy Tutt denies the existence of the devil:

While a number of pastors spoke about their parishioners’ feelings of pain, they also spoke of a newfound sense of mission. “I am finding the coming Trump presidency … to be clarifying,” wrote Timothy Tutt, the senior minister at Westmoreland Congregational United Church of Christ in Bethesda, Maryland, in an email. “As a liberal Christian preacher it helps me find my voice. It helps me know who I am called to be. And helps our congregation know who we are—and who we aren’t.”

"Progressive" Christians such as these, the Atlantic informs us, imagine that Trump is "the antithesis of everything Christian".

Written without the slightest hint of irony.

Pope Francis thinks about temptation and faith like a Marxist, not like Jesus

Pope Francis, quoted here:

“Temptation is always present in our lives. Moreover, without temptation you cannot progress in faith,” he said.

If temptation is necessary to advance in faith, in vain do we pray "lead us not into temptation" as Jesus taught his disciples to pray, for then we would be praying not to make progress in faith according to the pope.

Only a Marxist would make faith and temptation antitheses from which a new synthesis of greater faith would ensue.

Well, I guess if I were really a Pentecostal and not a Southern Baptist . . .

. . . I wouldn't tithe to my Baptist church, either.

See, everything can be explained.

Is Ted Cruz a phony baloney plastic banana Christian because he didn't TITHE?

Some people think so, evidently, as reported here:

'According to personal tax returns released during his 2012 Senate bid, Cruz contributed less than 1% of his income to charity between 2006 and 2010 — a far cry from the 10% most evangelical leaders believe the Bible demands. ... “He was never particularly religious as far as I knew,” said one aide who worked for him in the Texas solicitor general’s office. “I’m not even sure he went to church.”'

A Methodist imagines a more demanding form of discipleship would look like the church of the post-war

You know, when families were bigger, more people went to church, more came weekly, more prayed, perhaps at least at every meal because families ate together then, more attended Bible study or Sunday School, and more tithed of their time if not of their treasure.

Now all that looks like an impossibly lost ideal.

Seen here:

"Discipleship has some built-in defining characteristics that are much more demanding than occasionally showing up. People who haven’t shared in public worship for two years should not be called disciples. Those too busy to pray, who have no time to meet with other Christians for accountability and spiritual practice, who neglect a sacrificial commitment of time or money should not be called disciples. Those who do meet to debate carpet colors, criticize the pastoral leadership, snipe over music styles, and decide who isn’t welcome are not disciples. Those who only pay attention to the parts they like and that make them feel comfortable and lovable are not disciples. Come on! Why would anyone want to be a disciple if the key qualification is breathing?"

There's that dying vision of discipleship, at least in America, and then there's discipleship, the kind Jesus taught which the church has from the beginning safely stored away in a box reserved only for its true believers, its fanatics.

"So you cannot become my disciple without giving up everything you own." -- Luke 14:33

When you drop this first demand, all the other dominoes fall . . . eventually. 

Are Americans really generous in their charitable giving when they give just 2.68%?

Are Americans really generous in their charitable giving when they give just 2.68%? And 2.68% is really stretching it, since that includes all the money given by the heavy hitters among the rich, the corporations and the foundations.

Charitable giving came to about $335 billion in 2013, according to the story here citing Giving USA statistics. That's still more than 4% lower than the amount given in 2007, adjusted for inflation, but rising since the end of the intervening depression.

Consider that total disposable personal income in 2013 was $12.505 trillion, according to the latest GDP report from the Bureau of Economic Analysis of the US Department of Congress here. That means everyone, from individuals to corporations and foundations etc., gave just 2.68%.

So what's with all the Christians, many of whom preach tithing, which is giving 10%?

75% of the country claims to be Christian of some sort after all. If 75% of just the $6.7 trillion in net compensation in 2013 were tithed on by the Christians they would be contributing over $500 billion to charity. And tithing on 75% of the total disposable income would come to a whopping $938 billion.

Of course we can't really say that 75% of either sum is what the Christians actually make.

A closer approximation of that would start with the sometimes heard claim that 9 out of 10 people sitting in the pews make less than the senior pastor. The high end of the scale for senior pastors is currently almost $88,000 per year, which puts them in the 90th percentile of income in 2013. In other words, many of them are rich. Net compensation for everyone making below $90,000 a year in 2013 totaled $4.06 trillion. Taking 10% of 75% of that yields $305 billion in theoretical tithes expected from the Christians in 2013. Typically, however, only about a third of total charitable contributions go to specifically religious institutions and organizations, so we're talking about roughly $110 billion in specifically religious contributions in 2013, a giving rate of about 3.6%, not 10%. Of course the rate could be much higher than that if the Christians are also supporting non-religious charities at higher rates than they support their own, but how likely is that?

Overall it must be said the Christians are more generous than the overall rate, but fall rather short of their oft-stated goal.

Well, don't we all.

The inspiration for Paul's refusal of table fellowship with sinning Christians is in Pharisaism, not in Jesus

"The Pharisees were a Palestinian holiness movement of laymen whose aim was the ritual sanctification of everyday life in the Eretz Israel, such as was required of priests in the sanctuary."

-- Martin Hengel, "The preChristian Paul", in Lieu, J., et alia, THE JEWS AMONG PAGANS AND CHRISTIANS IN THE ROMAN EMPIRE (Routledge, 2013), p. 37.

'"Perisha" (the singular of "Perishaya") denotes "one who separates himself," or keeps away from persons or things impure, in order to attain the degree of holiness and righteousness required in those who would commune with God (comp., for "Perishut" and "Perisha," Tan., Wayeẓe, ed. Buber, p. 21; Abot iii. 13; Soṭah ix. 15; Midr. Teh. xv. 1; Num. R. x. 23; Targ. Gen. xlix. 26).

'The Pharisees formed a league or brotherhood of their own ("ḥaburah"), admitting only those who, in the presence of three members, pledged themselves to the strict observance of Levitical purity, to the avoidance of closer association with the 'Am ha-Areẓ (the ignorant and careless boor), to the scrupulous payment of tithes and other imposts due to the priest, the Levite, and the poor, and to a conscientious regard for vows and for other people's property (Dem. ii. 3; Tosef., Dem. ii. 1). ...

'A true Pharisee observed the same degree of purity in his daily meals as did the priest in the Temple (Tosef., Dem. ii. 2; so did Abraham, according to B. M. 87a), wherefore it was necessary that he should avoid contact with the 'am ha-areẓ (Ḥag. ii. 7).'

-- Jewish Encyclopedia, "Pharisees", 1906.

And it came to pass, as Jesus sat at meat in the house, behold, many publicans and sinners came and sat down with him and his disciples. And when the Pharisees saw it, they said unto his disciples, Why eateth your Master with publicans and sinners? But when Jesus heard that, he said unto them, They that be whole need not a physician, but they that are sick. But go ye and learn what that meaneth, I will have mercy, and not sacrifice: for I am not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.

-- Matthew 9:10ff.

Historian Phil Jenkins discovers that Christianity is the grandmother of Bolshevism

Here and imbedded links (he hasn't really yet thought through it):

"Engels had something like a love for the early Christians, and he imagines talking to them as fellow-sufferers who came from exactly the [same] kind of setting."

Attacked in the comments at one point, he responds:

". . . the early Christian movement was very diverse in its theologies. By the way, one common explanation for the ebionites was that they were the remnants of the original Jewish followers of Jesus, including the bulk of the Jerusalem church, who never accepted Paul's innovations."

Keep it up Phil! You are on the right track! Too bad you didn't train in philology . . . it wouldn't have taken you this long to figure out that Pauline Christianity is a double-edged sword leaving us with two forms of materialism which now war for our imaginations, even though you'll probably become bored and get side-tracked away from this also.

Jewish Christians renounced the material, as did Jesus, believing the kingdom of God was coming down to earth from God, right quick like, as they say in the holler. Paul's Gospel by contrast baptized entrepreneurialism and made free-enterprise and Judaism safe for the world. Hence the tithers of today, and the spread of the congregation on the synagogue model.

Historians would be better engaged figuring out what went wrong there with Paul. Albert Schweitzer figured out what went wrong with Jesus.

All His Ways Are KRISIS, A Sundering Of Right From Wrong

"The Rock, his work is perfect; for all his ways are justice. A God of faithfulness and without iniquity, just and right is he." (Deuteronomy 32:4)

θεός ἀληθινὰ τὰ ἔργα αὐτοῦ καὶ πᾶσαι αἱ ὁδοὶ αὐτοῦ κρίσεις θεὸς πιστός καὶ οὐκ ἔστιν ἀδικία δίκαιος καὶ ὅσιος κύριος

"Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for you tithe mint and dill and cummin, and have neglected the weightier matters of the law, justice and mercy and faith; these you ought to have done, without neglecting the others." (Matthew 23:23)

οὐαὶ ὑμῖν γραμματεῖς καὶ Φαρισαῖοι ὑποκριταί ὅτι ἀποδεκατοῦτε τὸ ἡδύοσμον καὶ τὸ ἄνηθον καὶ τὸ κύμινον καὶ ἀφήκατε τὰ βαρύτερα τοῦ νόμου τὴν κρίσιν καὶ τὸ ἔλεος καὶ τὴν πίστιν ταῦτα δὲ ἔδει ποιῆσαι κἀκεῖνα μὴ ἀφιέναι

Joel Miller Shouldn't Blame Luther For Attacking Tradition. He Should Blame Jesus.

Joel J. Miller here says Luther bears the blame for everything from religious factionalism to individualism and moral relativism, as if Protestantism's "dangerous idea" had no basis in the Bible itself. (Why John Wycliffe and Jan Hus get a pass is anyone's guess.)

Against this the antitheses of the Sermon on the Mount immediately leap to mind, but so do the moral critiques of the prophets against Israel and Judah. In fact, Matthew's Jesus displays a moral vision so redolent of the critical spirit which animates the prophets that it is inconceivable to imagine his oeuvre as collected in the gospels apart from it.

But Protestants continue to try, which is the real problem with Protestantism, not to say Christianity generally. Today's Protestants prefer to emphasize the Pauline compromises, like living at peace with all men, rather than taking seriously the Jesus they claim to worship, the one who upset the tables of the moneychangers and came to set the earth of fire. Today's Protestants don't seem to be simply ignorant of the teaching of Jesus as Paul seems unaware of it. Protestants today generally pretend the Jesus of the gospels doesn't even exist. And the reason for that is that he represents a threat to the status quo of their church in the world.

The value of Luther's rediscovery of the Scriptures is that this opened the discussion anew about why there is such a difference between what the Scriptures teach and what we mistakenly imagine to be God's kingdom.

The more things change the more they stay the same. Catholics didn't like it then, and now Protestants don't. It's a family tradition.   

The Kingdom of God in Pictures

mostly empty real estate

fat pastors

the tithers who pay for it

Do not your alms before men, to be seen of them

The headline at mlive.com/news/grand-rapids reads:

For third day, strangers anonymously spend thousands at Kmart to pay off lay-away items.

Who Knew? The Mormons Are Into Tithing BIG TIME.

As discussed in amusing detail, here:

Ernest D. Wilkinson . . . upon assuming the presidency of BYU in the 1950s, was outraged that some BYU professors paid only a partial tithing, and some paid none at all.

The Tithers: Today's Version of the Circumcision Party

Against those Jews who required circumcision of the Galatian Christians, Paul was quite adamant in his letter:

For I testify again to every man that is circumcised, that he is a debtor to do the whole law (5:3).

I would they were even cut off which trouble you (5:12).

Against those who would shame the faithful to pay the bills, or oblige contributions as evidence of faith, Paul would have none of it:

. . .  not out of sorrow or out of necessity . . . (2Cor.9:7).

Owe nothing to anyone . . . (Romans 13:8).

For all you folks out there in Literalville, that's : Nothing, nada, zip; to none, nobody, no one.

Think about it.

Tithing: 58 Percent of Evangelical Leaders Say It's Not Required

"42% of evangelical leaders believe the Bible requires tithing, while 58% do not."


Find the complete story here.

Woe Unto You, Pastors! Hypocrites!

All their works they do for to be seen of men:

they make broad their diplomas on their walls, adorned in oak and glass, which they do use to command a higher salary but prove every Sunday from the pulpit, that they are worthless;

and they seek ever to enlarge the size of their ride, which they do wash and polish until gleaming but inside is full of dead men's bones;

and love the choicest spots reserved for them in the parking lot;

and to be visited by the sheep which was lost, in a large private office in the church, during office hours only;

and greetings in the restaurants, and the country club, and at the boat dock;

and to be called of men, Reverend, Doctor.

Woe unto you, pastors, hypocrites! for ye extort the tithe and devour women's houses, and for a pretence make long prayer for the poor, and the sick, the unemployed and the homeless: therefore ye shall receive the greater damnation.

Woe unto you, pastors, hypocrites! for ye compass sea and land to make one convert, and when he is made, ye make him twofold more the child of hell than yourselves, while the beggar on thine own street do ye refuse and turn away, and teach men so to do.

Woe unto you, pastors, hypocrites! for ye build excess square footage at great expense, which lies vacant and warm most of the day, and mistake its desolation for the kingdom of God. You have your reward.

Woe unto you, pastors, hypocrites! for ye bind on men heavy mortgages, grievous to be borne, and then do run away to take another call.

Woe unto you, pastors, hypocrites! for ye shut up the kingdom of heaven against men.    

Against the Tithers

The preacher man on TV last night kept saying how false teaching is destructive to one's immortal soul. I couldn't help but reflect on the irony of that statement because nine years ago a good blast of false doctrine had worked wonders on me. It functioned like smelling salts, waking me to a clearer-headed assessment of where I had been. Not because the false teaching was in any way true, but because it was so blissfully, wonderfully, ignorant and out of place. That a Lutheran pastor actually fell for it showed me that his Lutheranism had been no match for it. It was a "peace that passes understanding" kind of moment.

I had been teaching my students at my church Paul's "authentic" letters, in chronological order, when the incident occurred. A fund raising campaign was getting underway for a building expansion and all classes were being asked to interrupt their curricula and incorporate some stewardship components to support the effort. The materials we were asked to use openly advocated tithing, arguing for it on the basis of mostly Old Testament precedents. The pastor himself one Sunday announced his intent to tithe, and actually blurted out the amount in dollars and cents from the pulpit. Proud of his title, the Rev. Dr. apparently took degree exams which hadn't covered such trivial matters as the command of Jesus from the Sermon on the Mount "to give in secret and your father who sees in secret will reward you," let alone Paul's argumentation in the Letter to the Galatians against becoming debtors "to do the whole law." At the very least one would think that a real Lutheran would have some affection for the ideas of Paul, and that it would therefore occur to such a person that tithing speaks the very language of what Paul calls "necessity" or "compulsion," not the language of Christian freedom in the spirit, which we find so forcefully expressed in Paul's early letters. It turned out that the pastor's M.Div. was Lutheran, but his D.Min. was not.

Under such circumstances, about the only avenue open was to point out how tithing hardly even represented an intellectual category in early Christianity. One can see this in volume two of Luke's history of Christianity, The Acts of the Apostles, and despite the skepticism which sometimes attaches to this source, the broad picture it paints on the subject of money is clear enough and coheres with Paul's own testimony.

Paul's conversion to the Way occurred at a time when the followers of Jesus in Jerusalem were experimenting with a form of communism in which "no one said that anything he had was his own." Pooling of resources made it possible to supply the wants of a growing number of poor, dependent on the generosity of the Christians, both Jew and Greek. This distribution for the poor no doubt contributed greatly to the early success of the Christian sect, but the weakness of this arrangement was exposed by the famine in the land in the mid 40's, and the dispensers of aid themselves soon became in need of help.

It is at this juncture that Paul's role as a kind of entrepreneur comes into focus. Although entitled to compensation from the churches he had founded, Paul instead chose to self-fund his various missionary travels throughout the eastern Mediterranean from the proceeds of his own leather business, which he combined with his role as apostle to the Gentiles. This decision was taken in part to prove to the leadership of the church at Jerusalem that his conversion from violent persecutor to follower of the Way was genuine, but also to remove suspicions about the nature of and motivations behind his law-free gospel to the Gentiles and, indeed, to remove suspicions about the authenticity of his appointment as apostle by the risen Jesus. Paul's own testimony from his letters shows that he was not entirely successful in quelling these suspicions, and he operated under a cloud which seemed to follow him everywhere.

So instead of taking compensation from his various churches, Paul frequently had urged them to collect and set aside monies for the relief of the community at Jerusalem, "every man according as he purposeth in his heart." It is a pledge of support such as this, made freely and voluntarily by the church at Corinth, which for some reason had subsequently gone unfulfilled and which prompted Paul's comments about money in the correspondence which comes down to us in the two Corinthian epistles. Far from addressing such issues as how or even whether the local churches were to fund themselves, Paul's comments about money are instead focused on this "collection for the saints" at Jerusalem. It was the peculiar problem of the Corinthians that they had lost their sense of urgency about the suffering of their fellow believers and had become self-absorbed, which gives Paul's epistles to the Corinthians some of their special edge.

Paul's ultimate success with this collection must have been considerable, a tribute to his powers of persuasion. But the trouble which subsequently fell upon him in Jerusalem, when after many years of missionary activity he at length delivered the monies there, cannot have been due solely to such things as his reputed relaxation of circumcision rules for the children of Jewish converts to Christianity. Somehow the magnitude of the alms and offerings he had presented had become known outside Jewish circles, since after his arrest the Roman governor Felix kept Paul under confinement for two years hoping "that money should have been given him of Paul, that he might loose him." It would seem likely that Paul had bypassed the Temple administration in bringing his "alms and offerings" and had delivered the funds directly into the hands of James and the elders. Knowledge of this must therefore have leaked out of Christian, perhaps Greek, circles within the church. We can well imagine how anger and jealousy over this must have stirred up the hubbub against Paul in the city, and it helps explain one line of Paul's subsequent defense of himself, that "against the temple he had not offended at all."

A scrupulous person like a tither doesn't get into this kind of trouble.