Why, when I was a boy, preacher sneakers were the ones who’d slip into our bunk beds in the dead of night.
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Yes…and don’t ask how much those jeans cost.
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“God wants a Porsche, and he wants me to drive it for him”
This was a joke in the 80’s.
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Preacher man could have fed 7,000 children for a day instead of adorning his tootsies in pretty footwear.
Who would Jesus kick out of the temple?
And maybe smite.
“### #1: SharetheMeal (World Food Program)
What $0.50 Gives Other : Feeds one child for a day. So, for $10? You could feed a meal to 20 children!
CharityNavigator.org Score : 85.41/100
The United Nation’s World Food Programme created this app (yes, you need to download an app to donate) that allows people to donate small but meaningful amounts of money with the tap of their finger, starting at $0.50.”
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Crack is wack. (And, hot, too!)
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I expect conmen to con. I’m more offended that they have conned all that money from dupes and they waste it on stupid looking sneakers.
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It occurs to me that most people can likely recognize a Lamborghini – but do they actually have people in their audiences who can recognize high-priced sneakers? I would not normally associate megachurches with such a demographic.
I reckon it is an amusing spectacle when someone tries to justify the need for $3,000 in orthopedic support – and someone out there has probably attempted as much by now.
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Heart. This is so good.
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Cult of Mammon, then.
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“And as ye go, preach, saying, The kingdom of heaven is at hand. Heal the sick, cleanse the lepers, raise the dead, cast out devils: freely ye have received, freely give. Provide neither gold, nor silver, nor brass in your purses, Nor scrip for your journey, neither two coats, neither shoes, nor yet staves”
— Matthew 10:7-10
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Yep. It’s the only kind of bullshit framework in which this makes sense.
Well, presumably, since they could. (Otherwise they wouldn’t have wasted money on them.) Plus you don’t buy shoes like that without the expectation that the people who see them will recognize their value, because otherwise what’s the point?
The demographics of megachurches are weird and often wide.
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“For it is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle, than it is for a Mega-pastor to last an hour without the comfort of a pair of $4,500 sneakers.”
@PugsBuddy For, verily, 'tis thee crack of doom.
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Strangely enough, Mark Foster of Foster the People used to attend a Christian high school. Though, it had a strict policy against pumped up kicks as part of its uniform policy.
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It’s not a good sign about our society:
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I sort of get people collecting rare things and assigning them high value. But people don’t wear stamps or comic books on their feet.
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This brings up an interesting cultural phenomenon for me. I became a part time Methodist pastor last July and one of my congregants commented repeatedly on my shoes. They aren’t anything special, just some Skechers dress casual slip ons, but she was rather focused on the fact that I did not polish them. It got to the point where she said she was going to bring in her polishing kit and would shine my shoes during church if I didn’t do it myself. Eventually, it was just easier to give them a quick shine and make sure I kept them clean for Sunday morning so she would stop bugging me about it. Then she just moved on to trying to get me to wear a tie tack (still fighting that one).
Now, to be clear, at 43 I am by far the youngest person in this church. It is a small country church that doesn’t even have indoor plumbing, but at least this one elderly member thought that the shoes on the pastor’s feet were important. This makes me wonder about the thought process that goes through the minds of the megachurch pastors when they consider their wardrobe. I don’t think that justifies purchasing insanely high priced shoes, but when so much of our society places value on appearance, it does become a little more understandable.
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For the prosperity gospel hucksters that I mentioned above, it’s performative: they want their suckers to see their fancy gaudy shoes or bling or cars, and don’t care about outsiders criticising them.
For the others, though, it’s a mixed bag. Some of them are genuinely clueless, and may spend the money on overpriced designer clothes because they think or are told that “that’s how rich people spend all that money” and are genuinely unaware that people are noticing (this Instagram thread might change that behaviour for some). Others think that their congregants won’t notice the difference between a typical pair of sneakers and one that cost 10x as much (a foolish assumption in the age of social media and a sneaker industry that has to rely on superficial appearance as a price-justifying differentiating factor).
[as an aside, I’m assuming you’re aware that you’re in a losing and endless fight with that lady on wardrobe issues. In this case she’ll probably settle for a tie clip before moving on to French cuffs.]
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