Great Gladness or Great Guilt?–A Closer Look At Beulah Baptist’s May 5, 2025 Sermon

📍 About Sunday Specials

Every week across the South, churchgoers hear sermons that shape how they think about truth, morality, and meaning. Our Sunday Specials take a closer look—analyzing real messages preached in real pulpits right here in Boaz, Alabama. Using The God Question’s Core Philosophy—which values evidence, reason, historical awareness, and emotional integrity—we critically examine the theology, logic, and emotional impact of what’s being taught.

These are the messages shaping minds. We think they deserve to be questioned.

Sunday Special – May 5, 2025

Series: A Critical Lens on Local Sermons
Church: Beulah Baptist Church, Boaz, Alabama
Speaker: Pastor Tony Holcomb
Sermon Title: “Great Gladness”
Text: 1 Chronicles 29:10–22
Method: The God Question’s Core Philosophy

🙏 The Sermon in Summary

Pastor Tony Holcomb delivered a heartfelt message centered on the phrase “great gladness,” drawn from King David’s worship at the end of his reign. The core idea was that genuine joy comes from genuine worship—worship that springs from humility, conversion, and total surrender to God. Throughout the message, Pastor Holcomb emphasized that:

Everything belongs to God.
True worship is an act of the heart, not a routine.
Great gladness flows from recognizing God’s sovereignty and giving sacrificially in response.
Salvation is initiated entirely by God; human beings are incapable of seeking Him without divine intervention.
A “genuine conversion” will produce “genuine humility,” which leads to authentic worship and giving.

The sermon included anecdotes, emotional appeals, and references to tithing, stewardship, and upcoming capital campaigns at Beulah Baptist.

🧠 What’s the Problem?

Viewed through The God Question’s Core Philosophy—which prioritizes evidence, reason, and human dignity—this sermon reveals several theological and philosophical red flags:

🔍 Claim-by-Claim Critique

1. “God is always pleased with himself.” This anthropomorphic claim, repeated with confidence, reimagines God with human emotional states like self-satisfaction. It’s a curious assertion: a being who is “always happy” and “never frustrated” yet still demands worship. If God is so fulfilled, why does He need constant praise and offerings?

2. “We are strangers, sojourners, enemies of God.” Pastor Holcomb repeatedly reinforces the idea that human beings are naturally wicked, undeserving, and alien to God. This messaging primes listeners to feel unworthy, making them more susceptible to accepting harsh doctrines. Framing people as “enemies” of God unless they’re born again is not just spiritually manipulative—it’s psychologically damaging.

3. “Genuine worship requires genuine humility, which requires genuine conversion.” Translation: If you’re not a Christian in the precise mold defined here, your worship doesn’t count. This is theological gatekeeping—salvation and joy are claimed to be conditional, available only to those who submit to a very specific belief system.

4. “You can’t do anything to be saved—God must do it all.” This view strips people of agency. It redefines justice as arbitrary divine selection. If you’re saved, it’s because God picked you. If you’re not, He didn’t. There’s no moral clarity in this—only fatalism and guilt.

5. “The tithe is outdated—but give even more.” After dismissing Old Testament tithing as irrelevant under the New Covenant, Pastor Holcomb calls for even greater giving, described as “sacrificial” and “joyous.” This is a classic bait-and-switch. The law may be gone, but the obligation remains—only now it’s spiritualized and moralized.

6. “Everything is God’s—especially your money.” Repeated refrains that “everything is God’s anyway” create a theological framework where generosity is expected not as a choice, but as a duty. When paired with a capital campaign and plans for a new tabernacle, the spiritual message becomes entangled with a material one.

7. “You must be born again, or your humility is fake.” Pastor Holcomb asserts that non-Christians are incapable of true humility. This is a baseless and insulting claim. Millions of atheists, agnostics, Jews, Muslims, Hindus, and spiritual seekers demonstrate genuine humility every day. This doctrine promotes Christian supremacy by excluding others from basic human virtues.

8. “Worship is love—not obligation.” Ironically, after dozens of appeals to duty, sin, judgment, and unworthiness, we’re told love should be the motive. But if you don’t respond? Eternal separation awaits. That’s not love. That’s coercion disguised as compassion.

📣 Final Thoughts

This sermon, like many in the Bible Belt, wraps emotional storytelling, capital campaign momentum, and doctrinal fear in a single package. It’s inspiring on the surface—but beneath that surface lies a pattern:

You are broken.
God can fix you—but only if you submit.
If you don’t, it’s your fault.

This isn’t harmless inspiration. It’s theology that disempowers, divides, and devalues human reason and autonomy. Through that lens, “great gladness” starts to look more like “great guilt” covered in praise music.

🧭 The God Question’s Invitation

If you’ve heard sermons like this and walked away feeling small, unworthy, or afraid—pause. Ask why. Ask who benefits from a message that demands your humility but not your critical thinking.

You are not broken. You are not God’s enemy. You don’t need to be “converted” to find joy, humility, or purpose.

You need only begin asking questions. The right ones. And we’re here for that.

A Closer Look at Sardis Baptist’s Easter Sermon

What Are Sunday Specials?

Every Sunday, we take a closer look at a sermon preached in a local church—usually right here in the American South, where religion saturates culture and identity. These aren’t distant hypotheticals or abstract doctrines. They’re real messages, delivered this week, to real people. Our goal isn’t mockery or hostility—it’s clarity.

We apply The God Question’s Core Philosophy: evidence over assumption, logic over tradition, and clarity over emotional manipulation. We listen closely so we can think critically—and help others do the same.

Date Analyzed: April 13, 2025 (Palm Sunday)

Speaker: Pastor Mike Goforth

Church: Sardis Baptist Church, Boaz, Alabama

Series: Sunday Specials – A Critical Lens on Local Sermons

Method Applied: The God Question’s Core Philosophy

🎙 The Sermon in Summary

Pastor Mike Goforth delivered a Palm Sunday sermon titled “The Easter Parade,” drawing from Ephesians 4:17–24. He used the metaphor of “putting on new clothes” to illustrate what it means to become a Christian—contrasting the “old man” (non-believer) with the “new man” (born-again believer). The message celebrated the resurrection of Jesus, emphasized substitutionary atonement, and described the moral failings of those outside the Christian faith. It ended with an altar call, inviting listeners to “put off the old man” and join the family of God.

🧠 What’s the Problem?

While the sermon was passionate, rhetorically smooth, and aligned with traditional evangelical teaching, it raises serious concerns when viewed through the lens of The God Question’s Core Philosophy—a method that values evidence, logic, historical awareness, and emotional integrity over inherited dogma.

🔍 Claim-by-Claim Critique

1. Jesus died for our sins.

This foundational claim assumes a divine economy where sin is a transferable debt and blood is the only acceptable payment. But this view of justice would be ethically outrageous in any secular context. The notion that one person can be punished for another’s wrongdoing isn’t just illogical—it’s morally troubling.

2. Jesus rose from the dead.

The resurrection is framed as historical fact, yet the sermon provides no evidence beyond personal belief. The Gospel accounts of the resurrection are contradictory, and Paul—our earliest source—never mentions an empty tomb. Without independent corroboration, this claim rests on circular reasoning.

3. The tomb is empty.

Again, asserted as fact but supported only by internal Christian texts. An empty tomb, even if verified, wouldn’t prove a resurrection—it would raise more questions than it answers.

4. Salvation requires a combination of intellectual belief and heartfelt trust.

This framing subtly blames nonbelievers: if you don’t accept Christianity, it’s because you either don’t understand it or don’t feel it deeply enough. It’s an immunized argument, closed off from honest challenge.

5. Nonbelievers are blind, hardened, perverted, greedy.

This is not description—it’s demonization. The “old man” is painted in disturbingly dehumanizing terms. Apparently, if you’re not born again, your mind lacks perception, your heart is like stone, your soul is perverse, and your lusts are uncontrollable.

But is that true? Millions of thoughtful, moral, generous people reject Christianity—not because they’re blind or broken, but because they’ve critically evaluated the evidence and found it lacking.

6. Believers are honest, generous, self-controlled, and aware of sin.

These are admirable traits, but they are not exclusive to Christians. Suggesting otherwise creates a moral superiority complex. Plenty of believers fall short, and plenty of nonbelievers live principled, compassionate lives.

7. Eternal separation from God awaits the unsaved.

This is classic fear-based theology. The threat of eternal punishment is held over the listener’s head as the cost of doubt. This is emotional coercion disguised as spiritual invitation.

8. Hearts are harder on Sand Mountain than in foreign countries.

This statement reflects a colonial mindset: locals have rejected the gospel too many times and are now spiritually calloused, but “untouched” people elsewhere are more receptive. It’s the same logic used by missionaries for centuries to justify invading cultures and undermining native worldviews.

🧱 What This Reveals

Pastor Goforth’s sermon isn’t just a celebration of Easter—it’s a well-oiled delivery of evangelical fundamentals, complete with insider language, guilt-based motivations, and fear-driven appeals. When stripped of its emotional packaging, we’re left with a theology that:

Punishes unbelief more than it rewards reason
Exalts faith over facts
Uses metaphor to manipulate (e.g., “old clothes,” “hardened heart”)
Divides humanity into saved and lost, righteous and reprobate

📣 Final Thoughts

This sermon is a perfect example of why critical thinking about religion is essential—especially in places where it dominates cultural identity. If you heard this message and felt uncomfortable questioning it, that’s no accident. It wasn’t designed to be questioned. It was designed to be believed.

But belief without evidence is not a virtue. And doubt, when paired with reason, is not a weakness. It is the beginning of clarity.

🧭 The God Question’s Invitation

If you’ve grown up hearing messages like this—messages that define you as lost, unworthy, or broken unless you accept a specific belief system—we invite you to pause. Think. Examine. Not just what you’ve been told, but why you were told it.

You are not broken for asking questions. You’re brave.

Let’s keep asking.