Spirit in the Sky

Yesterday, I received the strangest thing in the mail. It was a think envelope printed on the outside about Jesus, a mysterious church, and the power of prayer. Now, I am not going to lie, my consistent curiosity about religion got the best of me and I opened it.

The contents were even more strange than I could have imagined. Inside, it contained a paper prayer blanket with an optical illusion of Jesus that opened and closed its eyes, a prayer checklist that would tell the church what you needed, a sealed prophecy, and elaborate instructions as to how to make all your worldly desires come to you.

It was asking me to pray while kneeling on the rug and then sleep with the rug under my bed before sending it back to the church in a prepaid envelope so that the rug, now filled with the power of prayer, could be sent on to another needy person.

Okay, I am not stupid enough to believe the testimonials (I was blessed with $46, 888.20 after using a Saint Matthew's Prayer Rug), but I really wanted to know what this was all about, and I was tempted to return it just to see what happened next. Also, the 20 cents was a really nice touch.

I am sure that this isn't the decision that would bring on the bolt of lightening, but today I failed to rely on God and Googled it to find that there is no Saint Matthew's church, no clergy to receive my prayers for health and wealth. Turns out that this letter is a lucrative scam run by a man named Ewing who has made over $26 million dollars by playing on people's superstitions. And on top of that, all of his income is tax free because all income is by donation only. Although my letter never mentioned a monetary "seed" to prove my faith, apparently the next few letters send other useless trinkets such as wafers, wool, and scraps of cloth for which "God" expects a great and pricey foundation to answer your prayers.

If using people's emotions isn't horrible enough, Ewing uses address databases to target the poor and uneducated.

And yet, in the end as I shake my head and think, what kind of devil could use these conditions to his personal advantage, I know that it isn't that far from legitimate churches today. Joel Osteen might even be able to pick up a few tips.