Go to the 36-second mark in this scene from Martin Scorsese‘s The Last Temptation of Christ, and particularly the moment when Willem Dafoe‘s Yeshua, sitting on the edge of a rocky cliff, says “I know what God wants…he wants to push me over!”
The question is, what did God say — what kind of taunt or message or challenge did he convey to 21-year-old James Orsen Bakker and his 19-year-old wife Tammy Faye Bakker (formerly LaValley) when they first decided to leave college and become “itinerant” evangelists back in ’61 or thereabouts?
How did God express Himself? What exactly did He say? “Jim and Tammy…we know I am about love and only love, but you can’t spread my message if you’re poor…no one will listen unless you’re flamboyantly wealthy so that’s what you need to do…make money hand over fist…become synonymous with wealth and then and only then with the people listen…”