Marjoe

 

Having repeatedly encountered references to Marjoe Gortner in various Pentecostal and ex-Pentecostal writings, I finally decided to see for myself what all the fuss was about.  I purchased a second-hand copy of the 1972 Oscar-winning documentary Marjoe from Amazon and watched it.  I found it quite fascinating.

Of course, the name Marjoe Gortner is still quite recognizable, more than thirty years after his dramatic departure from the Pentecostal revival circuit, but these days, most know him only vaguely as the child preacher who turned out to be a phony.  While this is not an inaccurate characterization, the documentary reveals that Marjoe is much more than this, and his story is far more complex than most Pentecostals today would guess.

 

Marjoe was born in 1944 and ordained as a minister at the age of four.  He was bright, cheerful, and precocious.  His father was a minister and quickly discovered that his son's talent for imitating preaching could be turned into an act that was highly popular and extremely lucrative.  Marjoe's mother trained him intensely to memorize sermons and to perform them sensationally.  Marjoe's antics were charming enough to earn millions for his parents, but for Marjoe himself, the story is far more tragic.  He tells of being forced to memorize until his young mind was exhausted and then his mother brutally punishing him when he couldn't do well enough.  He remembers the tricks that his parents used to wheedle more money out of the crowds, and then bitterly recounts how his father absconded with all of the money earned from Marjoe's own hard work and memorization, leaving him penniless when he was a teenager and was no longer as useful as a child star.

 

The film itself is the ultimate ex-Pentecostal revenge.  Marjoe returned to the revival circuit in his early twenties, and then brought in a film crew.  He carefully coached the crew to appear to be a Christian group filming a positive documentary on revivals.  In reality, they were breaking the story of scandal and deception and greed within Pentecostalism. 

 

Interestingly, although perhaps even the filmmakers themselves were mostly unaware of this, Marjoe himself seems to address the film mostly to Pentecostals, not to the general public.  He states that he wishes Pentecostals would see that they need not live under such fear.  He openly admits his own scams, and allows the film crew to tape him counting the money that he has fleeced from the flock.  He preaches at the crowds and slays people 'in the Spirit', and then explains to the camera backstage that it is all an act and that his supposed 'anointing' is merely well-rehearsed emotional manipulation.  He asks at the end, "Can God deliver a religion addict?"

 

Of Marjoe as a person, much can be said both good and bad.  He is talented and very bright.  He is very likeable.  But he is certainly no angel.  Still, it is difficult not to be sympathetic to a man who grew up abused and manipulated and paraded in front of crowds like a trained dog to earn money for others.  It is easy to understand how he would feel justified in conning for a little while those who had so used him, and then finally exiting after inflicting the maximum damage possible with a tell-all documentary.  But sympathy for him is mixed with sympathy for his victims, who came to his meetings searching for God, and fell into the hands of a calculating con-artist, who, for all his fiery preaching, declared openly to others that he had never even believed in God.

 

Still, whatever we think about the man himself, the film carries the harsh truth to Pentecostals even today--that Pentecostal manifestations having nothing to do with God and everything to do with emotional manipulation and greed.  In the documentary, we see the crowds clamoring to be near Marjoe and falling out under his 'anointing', and then we see him later counting his money and joking about how he has fooled them all.  The lesson could not be more clear.