The Finch at the Feeder

Free tip: If you're in the mood to get angry, browse any site that offers daily Christian devotionals. You may find a good one or two, but you'll soon run across one like this:

(Don't let the length intimidate you. As is the case with most craziness, it's a quick read.)

Manipulation is witchcraft!

1 Kings 21:25—But there was none like unto Ahab, which did sell himself to work wickedness in the sight of the LORD, whom Jezebel his wife stirred up.

Jezebel manipulated Ahab every day of his life. Manipulation in marriage works this way. A wife can manipulate her husband with sex. It says, “If you buy me what I want today, the bedroom is going to be exciting tonight. And if you don’t, I’m going to be like an iceberg until you cave in. It’s your choice, Bubba,” That’s witchcraft. You can manipulate through moods. “Give daddy what he wants, or he’ll get mad.” That’s witchcraft, and you’ll be giving into it till the day you die.

I’m talking about the spirit of witchcraft evidenced by manipulation. In the home, children will try to manipulate the parents. Many times a rebellious child will try to divide the parents, getting the father to stand against the mother, and vice versa. That’s witchcraft, pure and simple. When the child gets older, her or she will threaten to run away if they don’t get their way. I’m speaking from experience here.

I was raised in a very strict German home. If I told you how strict, many of you would think it was child abuse. It was strong. No movies. No dominoes. No Monopoly, because it had dice and my mother didn’t want her son to grow up to be a gambler. That’s how strong it was. So one day I got the idea that I’d just leave home. I’m 17 years old and bright as the noonday sun. And I came in and told my German mama, “I’m leaving. I’m getting out of here.” She said, “Fine.” Then she pulled my suitcase out of the closet and started throwing my clothes in it and telling me goodbye. I got a revelation that I wasn’t going to be there to eat supper. Mother wasn’t upset at all. She was telling me about Traveler’s Aid whenever I ran out of money and things like that. It took me about five minutes to start eating humble pie. I said, “I’ll do anything you want me to, just let me hang around and eat another meal.”

Is your home divided because your children are manipulating you? Parents, you stop it. You get together and you make those little tortilla snappers jump up and do what you want them to do. You’re the leader at your house, they’re not. Listen up, teenagers. Your parents do not owe you a perpetual good time. If you’re bored, get up off your duff and dust the furniture, vacuum the rugs, make the beds, wash the clothes, go outside and cut the grass, clean the windows wash the family car and then go back inside and straighten up your room before you leave to straighten out the world.

When children grow up, many mothers try to manipulate their grown children with guilt. Some of you are forty years old and can’t cross the street without your mother’s permission. That’s not good. Mother’s manipulation goes something like this. “I just want you to remember that I almost died giving birth to you. I slaved to feed you. I took clothes off my back to clothe you. I begged and borrowed to give you a big wedding. An now you won’t do what I want you to do.” That’s the spirit of Jezebel; that’s witchcraft—stop it!

Devotion taken from Pastor Hagee’s book 12 Sunday Mornings Volume 3 – currently unavailable



Where to begin, where to begin...how about the fact that Pastor Hagee's understanding of how women talk seems to have been learned from spam email about penis enlargement? "The bedroom is going to be exciting tonight?" Did she install a disco ball?

You've got misogyny, obviously. That's an easy one--sort of a staple in ill-advised Christian messages. It bothers me that this fictional woman calls her husband "Bubba," but it bothers me more that--in the same paragraph about sexual manipulation--Hagee includes the priceless: "give daddy what he wants, or he'll get mad." Let's leave your weird role-play stuff out of this, Padre.

Apparently most of Hagee's readers consider a home without movies, dominoes, or Monopoly an abusive one. I guess I can understand that, because Monopoly kicks ass. But referring to children as "tortilla snappers" is either one of the more racist things I've ever heard, or Hagee was suffering from word salad, and the person he was dictating to didn't want to correct him.

If Hagee thinks his domino-less home was borderline child abuse, than what would he call the slave-labor he suggests for teenagers? I'm all for children helping out around the house, but he's listed every chore that people don't want to do. What are the parents doing during all this, watching Fox news?

The worst, predictably, is the crux of his argument. In what is surely meant to be "Hagee getting personal," he opens up, sharing a childhood story about how, in a fit of rebellion & witchcraft manipulation, he threatened to run away from home. He then explains that his mother, in her wisdom, simply pretended not to give a damn, which made him come to his senses and go set the table.

What is more manipulative than a mother pretending she doesn't care that her son is skipping town!? He raises this tactic up as the perfect way to make someone eat "humble pie," (another method: tell them it's lingonberry) but she's the worst offender of all.

I've got news for you Pastor: your mom's strict rules may have kept you from a life of gambling and vagrancy, but--if your theory is correct--she was also a real-life witch.