This gem of a solicitation mailing arrived at our apartment last week.
Any idea what this letter is demanding? Me neither.
The front of the envelope reads, in black lettering with red underlines,
This very old church loans this to you to bless someone connected with this home. Then, it must go to another family that desires God’s blessings. See letter inside … YOUR HOME FIRST!
There is no return address and the addressee is “Resident – To a Friend.”
Click through for the back of the envelope.
After a threat like that we didn't dare open it!
Across the black of the envelope, again in black lettering with read underlines, there is text reading:
God is doing great things in answer to prayer. Log onto www.AboutSaintMatthewsChurches.com and www.BiblicalPrayer.com to read testimonies of answered prayers.
Dear Jesus,
We pray that you will bless someone in this home spiritually, physically & financially. And please dear Lord, bless the one whose hands open this letter. Make good changes in this one’s life and give them the desires of their heart. We pray over and bless this letter in your holy name. Amen.
It’s easy to make fun of this mailing’s excessive use of underlining and bolded text, and the thin grasp of coherent sentence structure. And it seems fairly obvious from the external packaging (we didn’t actually open the envelope; speculation was much more fun!) that the people behind the mailing are hoping to make money in some way through encouraging people to imagine that the letter will in some way “give them the desires of their heart.”
I’m struck by the inclusion of “financial” blessings, as well as the emphasis on the “desires of their heart.” These prompt me to think that the organization behind the mailing is likely influenced heavily by recent prosperity gospel teachings, that eschew the more traditional evangelical Christian suspicion of worldly wealth and “sins of the flesh,” or more earthy pleasures in exchange for righteousness and assurance of salvation. While I’m not myself of the Christian faith, what I know of the historical Jesus and most of the Christian theologians and practitioners I admire leads of me to believe this is a deep, deep perversion of the best of Christianity’s teaching.
You nailed it. The message is: Give money. Don’t ask questions.
I’m just glad you’re not opening Jesus’s mail, Anna. That would be a federal offense.
And Jesus went into the temple of God, and cast out all them that sold and bought in the temple, and overthrew the tables of the moneychangers, and the seats of them that sold doves, And said unto them, It is written, My house shall be called the house of prayer; but ye have made it a den of thieves.
– Matthew 21:12-13
Oh man, I totally got one of these this morning. I have opened it and it is *definitely* the wackiest piece of junk mail that I have ever received. It has several pieces of paper in it:
1) a letter about how I am instructed to use the enclosed “prayer rug” to pray for whatever it is that I need, then mark off things I want them to pray about for me (eg, “my soul”, “less confusion in my home”, “a new car”), send them the prayer rug back, and perhaps enclose a “seed gift to God’s work”.
2) the aforementioned prayer rug, which is piece of paper printed to look like luridly violet and orange oriental rug with Jesus’ face in the middle.
3) a sealed piece of paper with a portrait of Jesus on the cross that reads “you are holding AWESOME POWER in your hand with this SEALED PROPHETIC WORD which is PART OF THIS LETTER to you that you just read”. The prophecy it contains is (surrounded by a couple of paragraphs on either end), “I SAY UNTO YOU THAT ALL THINGS YOU HAVE FEARED ARE UNDER MY CONTROL. REJOICE AND BE GLAD FOR I WILL BRING YOU TO THE FOREFRONT IN ALL THESE MATTERS.”
4) A brochure containing testimonials about the power of prayer, featuring two people with aggressively ’80s hair, and an offer for a free “collectable [sic] Bible Cross”, cf http://biblicalprayer.com/Page007_Cross.htm
Seriously, though. Wackadoodle.
Oh, man, we’ve gotten a few of these since about 2006. My favorite part is that they’re very specific about how many years old the church is… and that number never changes from year to year.
@baraquiel – Does the Jesus on your “prayer rug” (i.e. 8.5×11″ office paper with printed border) do the thing where his eyes are closed, but if you stare at them long enough, they open? SO CREEPY.
@baraqiel: I thought only godless heathen Muslims used prayer rugs. But hey, a sales op is a sales op.
Y’all are making me very thankful we decided not to open the envelope and receive the blessings therein!
http://www.saintmatthewschurches.com/StMatthewsChurchPrayerRugLetter.aspx
“Question: Do I have to have a St Matthews Church prayer rug letter to be able to pray to God?
“Answer: No. A Saint Matthews Church prayer rug letter is simply a tool for inspiration, an encouragement to get you down on your knees and praying to God.”
I got one of those when I lived in Kansas. It was like Baraqiel’s with the paper prayer mat, and the Jesus with the closed/open eyes like GGeek describes. Creepy!
Wow. I feel blessed by the universe that I have *never received one of these letters*!
I’m still confused by the junk mail we get for people who haven’t lived in this house for 10+ yrs.
Ha ha, that looks like something I would get from one of my relatives. They are horribly good at the creepy Christian stuff.
*HEADDESK*
Just got this today…did not get very good vibes from it, especially after having a spider scurry across the dash of my car before I arrived home to check my mail…I looked up the zip-code 60402, Berwyn, Illinois, just about 5 miles west of Chicago…just some general creepy trivia.
Hey! I just got this in the mail today. Jesus loves me, too. Or something.
It’s funny because I would usually toss something like this, my life though is humbleing me, on all fronts. I’ll give it this, it got me on my knees and
Praying somewhere I haven’t been in a few years. : )
I just got this today, as well. I’m stuffing the return envelope with the rest of the days junk mail and sending it to them, since they were thoughtfull enough to provide a postage paid envelope! I am deeply offended by this as a Christian. On behalf of all Christians, I apologize for this atrocity!
I have been receiving this mailing, every so often, for several years. Got one today, and it’s my 3rd or 4th. This scam must work at least well enough to pay for postage costs!
On the back it says Tulsa, OK. But the ‘non-profit’ stamp is 60402, Berwym, Illinois.
Non profit! What? This may be more of a scam than appears.