At the Grammys in March, English singer Sam Smith put on a center-stage performance that glorified satanic rituals, wearing a skin-tight leather outfit as he sang his song, “Unholy.” It not only shocked the Christian world, but also many in the secular world.
After watching what took place at Pastor Michael Todd’s Transformation Church in Tulsa, Oklahoma, last Sunday morning—Resurrection Sunday—Pastor Marcus Rogers isn’t so sure that he wasn’t watching a repeat performance.
In an Easter play called “Ransom,” which has gone viral across social media, songs were sung that have shocked many, perhaps some in Todd’s congregation as well. One song was from secular performer Ke$ha called “Die Young.” Other secular songs were performed, and actors wore dark clothes and makeup with fire and red lighting to set the stage to actually look like a frame in hell, as Charisma News reported.
During the play, “demons” danced and compared their physical features to one another saying, “I don’t have a fatty.” Use your imagination to decrypt that one. And to top it all off, a part of the service included demons pulling Jesus off the cross.
The senior pastor at Firehouse Church in Chicago, Rogers says this display from Transformation Church is completely unacceptable to the surrendered Christian.
“This looks just like the Grammys,” Roger told Charisma News’ John Matarazzo in a recent video interview. “Something just didn’t feel right in my spirit. I felt that the production was just off, not even from just watching it and saying, ‘man, this looks like the world.'”
One disturbing thing that Rogers said he noticed over the past week is that people were coming to both Todd’s and the church’s defense, saying that people were taking the video clips out of context.
But, Rogers says, there are some things that are simply straightforward and non-defensible.
“At some point in the play, after they got done, they had the ladies up there talking about their bodies and talking about yams, which was very inappropriate,” Rogers says. “The Bible talks about not causing your brother to stumble (1 Cor. 8:9). The Bible talks about modesty, and you’re talking about your body. You’re putting thoughts in people’s minds whether you want to admit that or not. …
“So, my argument is that, if I open up my church and I say, ‘hey, I’m giving out free liquor to everybody that comes and then oh, surprise, I’m gonna give you the gospel,’ that doesn’t make what I did OK. If I make a video on Instagram and I use a pornographic image to get the attention of men and then surprise, I’m going to give you the gospel, that doesn’t make what I did ok. … Jesus died for my sins and that doesn’t make the other stuff ok.”
And what does this production by Transformation Church say to the brand-new Christian, one that is just learning about Jesus and about the virtues and truth of the Bible? Rogers says it could be extremely detrimental to such individuals, who may still not be able to distinguish between the kingdom and what the world offers.
“There are a lot of Christians who are new, and in this internet world we are living in, you see so many different things,” Rogers says. “You see so many opinions about everything. So a lot of people are wondering like, ‘what is the real deal Christianity?’
“You’ve got Mike Todd over here doing this. To me it looked like the Grammys. You really couldn’t tell the difference. Then you have people like me, or other men of God, saying maybe the opposite of what we’re seeing and that it’s wrong. The reason I do what I do is that I’m very mindful and aware that you have people that are at different levels of Christianity, and they really don’t know.
“What I think is dangerous about what Mike Todd is doing is that … people will look at this and say, ‘why would I want this sort of religious Christianity when I can have this kind of thing that’s just like the world?’ They use influence music from like Beyoncé, who has been known to disrespect the Bible. I mean, her lyrics disrespect Christianity.”
But for the seasoned believer, Rogers says discernment must be employed. Christians who know the Bible but maybe need to know it a lot better must discern with the help of the Holy Spirit, what the enemy is trying to do to keep people in the world and away from Jesus Christ.
“John 16:13 says that the Holy Spirit will lead you and guide you into all truth,” Rogers says. “It will show you the truth if you follow it. So, for me, when I first saw the production, it was like, I got a thumbs down in my spirit, like something is off. And what I want to stress to people is that you ask the Holy Spirit about everything. The Holy Spirit will tell you if something is a little bit off.”
Rogers says he is someone who likes to “do his research,” so he wasn’t going to simply make a judgment off the video he saw from Sunday’s Transformation Church Service. “Before the play, Mike Todd’s pretty much saying, ‘hey, we’re going to do everything short of sin in this play.’ I thought that was a very interesting and weird thing to say like, you know, we’re gonna really push the envelope, we’re gonna make religious folks upset.
“And then, you also have to look at the history of some of the things that Mike Todd has said and done as well. The Bible says you will know them by their fruit. So this isn’t just like one incident that we’re looking at and like, oh, let’s jump on this guy because you want to have grace with people; may they were just off that day and they made a mistake. But there is also a history of him doing and saying some questionable things.”
Judgment? That’s for God and God alone. But the Resurrection Sunday production performed by Transformation Church looked an awful lot like the world. And as the Bible says, “He who is in you is greater than he who is in the world.” (1 John 4:4).
Charisma News attempted to reach out to Michael Todd for comment but did not receive a reply. {eoa}
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Shawn A. Akers is the online editor at Charisma Media.
