Charismania

Today I discovered a blog post by the young, self-styled ‘Deep South Liberal’ Ashton Elijah, How The Ramp’s anti-gay ministry changed my life. In this post, he exposes the rather horrifying world of “self-anointed ‘prophet'” Damon Thompson’s ministry for young people, The Ramp, which he once viewed as ‘the perfect antidote to the religious stagnation old-time religion had wrought’. Ashton first heard Damon Thompson preach in January 2008 and admits to being enthralled by him:

He was preaching of a God that was actively guiding my generation to a place of spiritual renewal that no generation had gone before. I admit now that I was more enthralled with the idea that my generation might have a unique God-ordained purpose than I was with whatever that purpose was.

Ashton continues:

But when I heard Damon again mere months later at the same church, things had changed. I had already begun to lose hope that the promises he had made would ever manifest in reality and, this time, he was unable to stoke the flames and excitement within me as he had before. Even as he made proclamations of divine destiny, I found myself disenchanted. And then, when he started railing against “queers,” I lost all hope that he was any better than his suit-and-tie counterparts.

“Yeah, I said queer,” he reaffirmed. “It’s time we started calling sin for what it is and stop trying to make it sound nice!”

I knew that there were people in that sanctuary that very night who were gay. I knew that there were people there that very night who were lesbian. I knew that there was at least one person in the church that night who hurting from self-loathing.

But Damon didn’t, or if he did, he didn’t seem to care. There was no love in his heart for the ‘homosexual’ (as he otherwise called them). In some ways, hearing preachers like him constantly talk about ‘homosexuals’ was even worse than hearing him use the word ‘queer;’ while his enunciation of the word ‘queer’ truly dripped with disgust and revulsion, ‘homosexual’ just sounded cold. Scientific. Devoid of humanity.

Ashton picked up a DVD of the event on the way out – how slickly professional these organisations can be – and, much later, posted an edited version of it on YouTube (view here).

The clip begins with Damon Thompson preaching:

God has not nor will he ever coexisted [sic] with the devil. And God’s not gonna come live in there with you and your homosexual devil.”

Ashton writes:

Damon called upon those who were struggling with homosexual demons to come to the front and be “set free from sin.” He and members of The Ramp began to work the crowd into a frenzy as they labored to draw people out of the closet and onto the altar. At first, only a few guys and girls came forth. But, aided by music, the ministry leaders continued to pluck at the heartstrings of every struggling gay kid in the audience, promising that if they would only make themselves known, God would grant them the deliverance they so longed for.

Damon Thompson is obviously highly skilled at manipulating a crowd of young people. At one time, aware of the emotional impact of what he is doing, and how to raise it even further, he gestures to the band: ‘Pick it up! Just pick it up! Pick it up!’

At one point, Thompson calls out ‘If you’re battling with homosexuality I want you to come up here right now!’ and a number of young people come to the front and fall to their knees.  Ashton writes of his concern for these young people, effectively outed in front of their peers in a stoked-up emotional frenzy:

Every person in the room was spellbound by the spectacle. Every single one of them seemed to believe that these kids had truly been ‘delivered from homosexuality.’ Every person but me. As I stood by watching as if from a distant land, I knew in my heart that these kids would only hate themselves even more a week later when they caught themselves still averting their glance from a member of the same-sex.

The word ‘Charismania’, which I have used as the heading of this post, is taken from Ashton Elijah’s piece. He says:

I knew then that my days of giving any credence to the world of charismania (as I like to call the Christian charismatic movement) were long over.

Please read Ashton’s piece and watch the video so you can make up your own minds.

It is difficult not to view the behaviour of people like Damon Thompson as motivated by hatred. There is nothing in his approach to the problem which demonstrates any understanding of the human issues, or indeed the human beings, caught up in this struggle. For those of us who love and want to serve God, but are gay, to hear the words “God’s not gonna come live in there with you and your homosexual devil” does not have the impact Thompson would desire: because we know them to be untrue. God does live and work with us, as he does with you. Other people’s words cannot change this. Saying something does not make it so.