Case #3: Mike Murdock,
Founder and Senior Pastor of The Wisdom Center in Ft. Worth, TX
The previous posts on Steve Anderson disturb me, but deep down I know he’s just whack. Something’s not right with him. Mike Murdock, however, is a smart, educated, calculating guy who is deceiving a lot of people. I have a feeling that the holy anger I feel toward him is echoed and probably magnified by my Creator.
I first came across Mike late one night. My wife and I couldn’t sleep and were flipping the channels at about 3am. We came across the Christian channel and Mike was preaching. Here’s what we saw: For the entire hour, he never preached about Christ, he kept craftilly and strategically building up to a “faith challenge”. I sat stunned, intrigued and upset while watching an entire sermon that was designed to ask people to give to his ministry.
His whole sermon was a build up to a challenge to have 1000 people each give $1000. Do the math: that would be 1 million dollars, folks. Because I’m such a Dave Ramsey fan and try to live by his principles, I really got infuriated when he said (and I’ll paraphrase): “Some of you are in debt and don’t have a thousand dollars to give. God wants you, by faith, to put the $1000 on your credit card.” – Say what? That’s just plain wrong. I was shouting at the TV. Friends, God does not want you to go into further debt by putting $1000 on your credit card for Mike Murdock.
My pastor just recently preached on how too many people misinterpret what the Bible means by “wealth”. Wealth is meant to be spiritual. There are wealthy people all over the world that own nothing and have no money saved up. At the same time, there are rich people that are spiritually poor. Mike Murdock and his money gospel are impotent. In my final “Impotent” blog post I’ll share my thoughts on the true Gospel and how it contrasts his teaching. What are your thoughts?