The parent organization of I Found It is the Campus Crusade for Christ International, Inc. One of its board members posted the bail money for Eldridge Cleaver, who, while awaiting trial, made public appearances on behalf of the group. In one of Campus Crusade's numerous copyrighted pamphlets, "Jesus and the Intellectual," the group's president and spiritual leader, Bill Bright, draws quotes from the Bible to bolster his argument for the "surrender of the will," the same surrender that both Colson and Cleaver testified to in their Born Again stories. According to Bright, the key to becoming a Christian is "the surrender of the intellect, the emotions, and the will -- the total person." Only then, as it is stated in Corinthians, does an individual become a "new creature" in Christ, as "old things are passed away" and "all things are become new." In its similarity to the appeals of so many cult recruiters and lecturers, this traditional Christian doctrine -- and the suggestion contained in it -- takes on new and ominous overtones.
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Is the I Found It crusade a cult? When we began this investigation, we were asked that question by many traditionally religious people, including a number of ardent Born Again Christians. At the time, we dismissed it as an impossible charge, for our initial acquaintance with the crusade revealed none of the prominent features we had come to identify with a cult. Members did not cut family ties or leave school to live in communal homes. They did not work around the clock in cult fund-raising efforts or donate their possessions and life savings to the organization, nor did they engage in arcane rituals and erratic behavior or demonstrate an inability to communicate with the world at large. In our early interviews with dozens of Born Again Christians around the country, we found many of them as amiable as Helen Spates and Martin Young: aware, concerned, delightful individuals who were actively engaged in furthering their communities both socially and politically.
Others, however, shocked us considerably. There were individuals who, at the end of what we thought was an open and genuine discussion, declared flatly that we would be condemned to Hell for the opinions we expressed and the beliefs we held. One young woman implied that our project was foolhardy because it was contrary to "God's plan" -- a keynote of the I Found It philosophy. "It's the intelligent people, like yourselves," she informed us, "who have such difficulty coming to Christ." Another crusader handed us a little booklet written, she said, "just for our Jewish friends." Copyrighted by the American Messianic Fellowship, it excerpted Hebrew scriptures from the Old Testament to verify that the "Messiah Jesus" would cleanse the reader "from all your filthiness." In our travels, we were also astonished to see how many Born Again Christians, most of them I Found It people, had in fact become completely absorbed in their newfound faith, devoting the bulk of their lives, their time, and their money to organizations whose most visible activities appeared to be soliciting donations and recruiting new members.
What is the line between a cult and a legitimate religion? In America today that line cannot be categorically drawn. In the course of our investigation, however, it became clear to us that many Born Again Christians had been severed from their families, their pasts, and society as a whole as a result of a profound personal transformation. It is not in keeping with the purpose of this investigation to comment on the far-flung Evangelical movement in its entirety, but our research raised serious questions concerning the techniques used to bring about conversion in many Evangelical sects. In order to further our understanding of those techniques, we paid a visit to America's foremost Charismatic leader, Holy Roller, and faith healer -- retired.
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Marjoe Gortner was the first Evangelical preacher to blow the whistle on his profession. In his documentary film Marjoe, made in the late sixties, he revealed age-old tricks of the trade and exposed some of the entertainment aspects of the popular movement that have made it big business.
If he lives forever, Hugh Marjoe Ross Gortner will most likely always be "The World's Youngest Ordained Minister." Born January 14, 1944, Marjoe was almost strangled during delivery by his own umbilical cord. The obstetrician told his mother that it was a miracle the child survived, and thus Marjoe -- for Mary and Joseph -- the Miracle Child took his place at the end of a long line of Evangelical ministers.
From the beginning, his preaching skills were meticulously cultivated. Before he learned to say "Mamma" or "Poppa," he was taught to sing "Halleluliah!" When he was nine months old his mother taught him the right way to shout "Glory!" into a microphone. At three, he could preach the gospel from memory, and he received drama coaching and instruction in every performing art from saxophone playing to baton twirling. On Halloween, 1948, at the age of four, Marjoe was officially ordained and thrust into a wildly successful career as the Shirley Temple of America's Bible Belt, the sprawling nongeographic community of strict adherents to the Christian scriptures. In the following decade he preached to packed tents and houses coast to coast, as enthusiastic audiences flocked to see the Miracle Child who allegedly received sermons from the Lord in his sleep. Owing to his mother's careful training, harsh discipline, and indomitable ambition, Marjoe's sermons were flawlessly memorized, right down to each perfectly timed pause and gesture. Frequent Halleluiahs and Amens punctuated his performances, which were cleverly promoted with titles such as "From Wheelchair to Pulpit" and "Heading for the Last Roundup," which Marjoe preached wearing a cowboy suit.
Marjoe's captivating sermons rarely failed to fill the church collection plate to the brim, and his renowned faith healings were miraculous even to him. In his teens, however, Marjoe grew disenchanted with the continued deception of his divine powers. He left the Evangelical movement in search of more legitimate means of employment. He spent some time in a rock band, trying to move with the changing times; then he returned to the Evangelical circuit to make his revealing motion picture. Marjoe is one of those frank films that delves deeply into sensitive areas of American morality that slip over the line into profiteering.
We found Marjoe in Hollywood last year, where he now resides on a secluded hilltop estate in Laurel Canyon. After we drove up the winding dirt road that leads to his lofty home, Marjoe greeted us cordially and ushered us into his sunken living room, where he pointed out some familiar features of the sprawling southern California landscape visible through his wall-sized picture window. We told him that we had come to hear about his miraculous powers of "saving" and "healing," trade secrets that neither his film nor his subsequent biography unraveled satisfactorily. Tall, handsome, with lion-colored curls and a penetrating stare, even in T-shirt and faded jeans Marjoe had an air of power about him. From the outset of our talk, however, he squashed all notions we might have had that his talents were in any way extraordinary.
"I don't have any power," he started off, just to set the record straight. "And neither do any of these other guys. Hundreds of people were healed at my crusades, but I know damn well it was nothing I was doing."
Yet, Marjoe admitted, he remained somewhat baffled by the thousands of souls he helped to "save" and the numerous illnesses he seemed to have cured. His own insight into his preaching skills was on a decidedly earthly level. Based on his years of training and experience, he located the source of his divine power squarely out among the flocks who assembled to receive his gifts.
"You start with a guy who obviously has a problem," he explained. "You've got to begin on that premise. Things haven't worked out for him, or he's looking for something, or whatever. So he goes to one of these revivals. He hears very regimented things. He sees a lot of people glowing around him -- people who seem very, very happy -- and they're all inviting him to come in and join the clique and it looks great. They say, 'Hey, my life was changed!' or 'Hey, I found a new job!' That's when he's ready to get saved, or Born Again; and once he's saved, they all pat him on the back. It's like he's been admitted to this very special elite little club."
Marjoe downplayed his own role in the proceedings. As he saw it, the real show was in the audience; he served primarily as a conductor.<
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"As the preacher," he said, "I'm working with the crowd, watching the crowd, trying to bring them to that high point at a certain time in the evening. I let everything build up to that moment when they're all in ecstasy. The crowd builds up and you have to watch it that you don't stop it. You start off saying you've heard that tonight's going to be a great night; then you begin the whole pitch and keep it rolling."
For Marjoe, who has seen it a million times, the divine moment of religious ecstasy has no mystical quality at all. It is a simple matter of group frenzy that has its counterpart in every crowd.
"It's the same as a rock-and-roll concert," he asserted. "You have an opening number with a strong entrance; then you go through a lot of the old standards, building up to your hit song at the end."
The hit song, however, is spiritual rebirth, the product of a time-tested recipe for religion to which the preacher and every member of the audience contribute some small but active ingredient. Then, according to Marjoe, the only fitting encore to the overwhelming moment of becoming saved is a personal demonstration of the power of that newfound faith. This is the motivating factor that prompts speaking in tongues, also known as the "receiving of the glossolalia." As Marjoe explained it, this well-known Evangelical tradition requires even greater audience participation on the part of the tongues recipient and the entire audience.
"After you've been saved," Marjoe continued, "the next step is what they call 'the infilling of the Holy Spirit.' They say to the new convert, 'Well, now you're saved, but you've got to get the Holy Ghost.' So you come back to get the tongues experience. Some people will get it the same night; others will go for weeks or years before they can speak in tongues. You hear it, you hear everyone at night talking in it in the church, and they're all saying, 'We love you and we hope you're going to get it by tonight.' Then one night you go down there and they all try to get you to get it, and you go into very much of a trance -- not quite a frenzy, but it is an incredible experience.
"During that moment the person forgets all about his problems. He is surrounded by people whom he trusts and they're all saying, 'We love you. It's okay. You're accepted in Christ. We're with you, let it go, relax.' And sooner or later, he starts to speak it out and go 'dut-dut-dut.' Then everyone goes, 'That's it! You've got it!' and the button is pushed and he will in fact start to speak in tongues and just take off: 'dehandayelomosatayleesaso . . . ' and on and on."
Marjoe paused. Flo was dumbfounded by his demonstration, although he hadn't gone into the jerking, trancelike ecstasy that is commonly associated with the tongues moment. I'd seen the classic version in his movie, yet even in this restrained demonstration, Marjoe appeared to be triggering some internal releasing or babbling mechanism. I asked him how he brought it about.
"You'll never get it with that attitude," he joked. Then he went on to explain the true nature of the experience. His perspective showed it to be a process that required a great deal of effort to master.
"Tongues is something you learn," he emphasized. "It is a releasing that you teach yourself. You are told by your peers, the church, and the Bible -- if you accept it literally -- that the Holy Ghost spake in another tongue; and you become convinced that it is the ultimate expression of the spirit flowing through you. The first time maybe you'll just go 'dut-dut-dut-dut,' and that's about all that will get out. Then you'll hear other people and the next night you may go 'dut-dut-dut-UM-dut-DEET-dut-dut,' and it gets a little better. The next thing you know, it's 'elahandosatelayeekcondelemosandreyaseya . . . ' and it's a new language you've got down."
Except that, according to Marjoe, it's not a real language at all. Contrary to most religious understanding, speaking in tongues is by no means passive spiritual possession. It must be actively acquired and practiced. Although the "gift" of tongues is a product of human and not supernatural origin, Marjoe displayed tremendous respect for the experience as an expression of spirituality and fellowship.
"I really don't put it down," he said. "I never have. It's just that I analyze it and look at it from a very rational point of view. I don't see it as coming from God and say that at a certain point the Holy Spirit zaps you with a super whammy on the head and you've 'gone for tongues' and there it is. Tongues is a process that people build up to. Then, as you start to do something, just as when you practice the scales on the piano, you get better at it."
Already, we could see the difference between Marjoe and some of his modern-day tellow preachers and pretenders. Unlike many cult, group, and Evangelical leaders, Marjoe has always held his congregations in high regard. During his years on the Bible Belt circuit, he came to see the Evangelical experience as a form of popular entertainment, a kind of participatory divine theater thai provides its audiences with profound emotional rewards. Marjoe realized that his perspective would not be shared by most Born Again Christians.
"The people who are out there don't see it as entertainment," he confessed, "although that is in fact the way it is. Those people don't go to movies; they don't go to bars and drink; they don't go to rock-and-roll concerts -- but everyone has to have an emotional release. So they go to revivals and they dance around and talk in tongues. It's socially approved and that is their escape."
Within that context of social entertainment, Marjoe took pride in his starring role as a traveling evangelist.
"It was my duty to give them the best show possible," he said. "Say you've got a timid little preacher in North Carolina or somewhere. He'll bring in visiting evangelists to keep his church going. We'd come in and hit the crowd up and we were superstars. It's the charisma of the evangelist that the audience believes in and comes to see."
What got to Marjoe, he explained, and eventually drove him out of the business were many of the same disturbing aspects of the Evangelical movement we had noticed in our own travels and interviews.
"When I was traveling," he said, looking back on the old days, "I'd see someone who wanted to get saved in one of my meetings, and he was so open and bubbly in his desire to get the Holy Ghost. It was wonderful and very fresh, but four years later I'd return and that person might be a hard-nosed intolerant Christian because he was better than anyone who drinks and better than the world because he had Christ. That's when the danger comes in. People want an experience. They want to feel good, and their lives can be helped by it. But then as you start moving into the operation of the thing, you get into controlling people and power and money."
Marjoe shook his head sadly. Indeed, he didn't strike us as the type of person who would be comfortable in that role. In the sixties, while he was exploring new outlets for his talents, he watched his former profession grow to vast international dimensions. Since then, he has followed the curious rise of America's religious cults, among them Reverend Moon's Unification Church.
"Moon is doing the same thing I do," said Marjoe, "only he's taken it one step further. He's suggesting to people that he is the Messiah. In my religion, the old-time religion, it's total blasphemy to suggest that. Moon has gone too far, but that's a very heavy number on people, because everyone wants to meet a Messiah."
Marjoe was quick to point out that Moon's preaching powers, like his own, are by no means divine or even innate. Marjoe acknowledges that his power over an audience derives primarily from the skills he perfected as a child, techniques of rhetoric and public speaking that have been passed down to us from the Greeks. These tools have long been in the public domain, and they make up the stock-in-trade of everyone whose work involves personal contact with other individuals and groups.
"It's the same whether you're a preacher, a lawyer, or a salesman," he told us. "You start off with a person's thought processes and then gradually sway him around to another way of thinking in a very short time.
Although Marjoe no longer consciences the use of his preaching talents For evangelical purposes, he still uses his skills in areas that have nothing to do with religion.
"I was campaigning for Jerry Brown when he was running for gove
rnor," he said. "I gave speeches when he couldn't show up. This was a whole different kind of speech for me, because I didn't know the people and the whole thing was political. One time I was supposed to go to a rally for a thousand AFL-CIO workers in San Francisco, and I thought, 'Oh, no, how am I going to talk to these guys?' I needed a hook to get the audience, because I knew a person's mind is usually made up within the first minute or so. If they like you and you say the right things at first, then you can take them on to other things they might not ordinarily agree with. But all I had to go on was that, and structures of speech I knew from preaching."
He paused again, allowing us a moment to consider his predicament.
"When I got there they were a little hostile," he continued, "and I was very nervous about it. There was a podium with two flags on it, an American flag and a California state flag. I walked up -- it was very quiet -- and as I was walking up there it just came to me, I don't know from where. I grabbed the American flag and I crinkled it in my hand. I looked at it and sort of gave it a little toss back against the wall and said, 'I remember when Betsy Ross made that flag. Today it's made in Japan.' Well, a roar went up as that struck a chord in those workers, and I was God from that moment on."
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