When It Comes to Church Names, ABCNews.com Hasn't a Prayer

Photo of Ken Shepherd.
By Ken Shepherd | May 5, 2008 - 10:40 ET

Former President Bill Clinton pinged ABCNews.com's Political Radar on a pulpit-pounding campaign swing through the Tarheel State just two days before the North Carolina primary. But it appears the alphabet network's Web site not only got the name of an Asheville, N.C., church wrong, but it misspelled, three times, the name of a denomination within Protestant Christianity (emphasis mine) in this May 4 blog post (screencap below fold):

ABC News' Sarah Amos reports: Former President Bill Clinton spent time in two western North Carolina churches this morning, speaking more from his heart than any sort of political handbook.

"I didn't come here to ask you to vote for my wife," said Clinton, addressing the congregation at Church of the Pentacostal in Asheville, N.C. "I came here to ask you to pray for her. And to vote. Do whatever you want. Show up. Our country is in dire distress.

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"I just want you to pray for her and to make your voices heard," he added. "Do whatever you think is right. But don't sit this out, because we are being called upon to return to our true purpose."

Clinton spoke of his long relationship with the Pentacostal church, thanking them for all the support they have given him over the years.

The small but enthusiastic congregation, whose church is nestled between the mountains of Asheville, listened attentively as Clinton told stories of his relationship with the church over the years. Clinton even spoke about how Barbara Streisand was inspired to record her first spirtual album after listening to a Pentacostal singer who performed at Clinton's mother's funeral.

The proper spelling, of course, is "Pentecostal" as in the feast of Pentecost at which the early church was empowered by the Holy Spirit to proclaim the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

It also seems Ms. Amos and her editor(s) at ABCNews.com failed to get the name of the church Clinton visited correct. Carol Motsinger of the Asheville [N.C.] Citizen-Times wrote about Clinton's campaign swing in the May 5 paper:

While at the 10 a.m. service at the Church of Pentecost in Asheville, his second church service of the day, Clinton told the congregation, "I didn't come here to ask you to vote for my wife. I came to ask you to pray for her."

Screencapture from ABCNews.com | NewsBusters.org

—Ken Shepherd is Managing Editor of NewsBusters

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ABC very confused

Clinton told the congregation, "I didn't come here to ask you to vote for my wife. I came to ask you to pray for her.

 . . and turn her into Cameron Diaz."

According to ABC, Clinton later spoke at St. Andy the Devine and shared the pulpit with Sister Mary Elephant.

ROFL

That's hilarious.

I'm Pentecostal and have to admit, a lot of people spell it wrong or mispronounce it. But you'd expect better from a news network.

Wow, this stuff still

Wow, this stuff still happens in the age of editors and spell check.

...and I got to admit one line from Clinton I agree with, pray for Hillary...after all Jesus said to pray for your enemies that persecute you. You can be she will if she wins the thing.

"They need to have a course in college called common sense and everyone should take it. Problem is there isn't too many people that could pass or teach it." -my grandfather

Agreed. Should pray for all

Agreed. Should pray for all people in positions of authority.

Did they botch the name on

Did they botch the name on purpose so the church would not lose its tax free status?  Dumb question, it was a democrat and more importantly it was Bill Clinton.  Let a Republican address a church congregation in church...........

I never knew David McSwane

I never knew David McSwane worked at ABC!

The Rocky Mountain Collegian: Illustrating Idiocy

Well we knew Billy could

Well we knew Billy could speak in tongues, forked ones specifically.

I'm not upset about the

I'm not upset about the spelling, but I am upset that Bill was allowed to cast his shadow on what I consider my town. Asheville is a very liberal city so having Bill show up is not totally unexpected. Step outside the city limits and you will find fairly normal folks, so please don't think badly of the rest of western NC. 

If Bill had gone to one of the Pentacostal Churches further out in the mountains, he would have stood a better chance at getting bit by a rattlesnake. Yes, there are a few of these churches left that do the whole snake handling thing during their services.

"Abstain from McCain"

LOL clear

Yeah we Pentacostals have a real problem with snake handling....

 

candance... My

candance...

My introduction to this practice almost gave me a heart attack. About 15 years ago I went to meet a client for lunch on a Monday. He suggested a better restaurant than the one i had picked and he offered to drive. He cleared some stuff off of his front seat and told me to hop in. As I got in I noticed a bag on the floorboard so I just straddled my feet around it. Driving down the road I noticed the bag started to move and I asked the client about it. His only comment was "whooops". Then he stopped the car, grabbed the bag, and proceeded to put the bag in his trunk. When he got back in the car he told me he had left the bag there from the previous nights church service. I found out over lunch that he was a Pentacostal preacher and the bag had rattlesnakes in it.

Needless to say, I was very leery about getting back into his car. 

"Abstain from McCain"

well

It's a Pentacostal thing in some places but also a Babtist thing and a nondenam thing in other places too. That bizarre practice is not embraced by true Pentacostals in any way.

Mark 16:18

It comes from Mark16:18. You hear of them handling snakes but you never hear of them drinking arsenic. They say all the danicng and shouting scares the snake. I am not going to try it. There is some going on in NC and TN but the most are in WVa and KY. If you hear of the Church of Christ (God) with Signs Following, that is them.  

"A pharisee is hard on others and easy on himself, but a spiritual man is easy on others and hard on himself." A.W. Tozer (Pharisee=modern day liberal)

lol rick

Trust me, I know aaallll about snake handlers. Some of my family in eastern Kentucky got mixed up in that mess and tried their best to explain it to us. They take God at His word that you can pick up a snake without it hurting you, but they fail to blend it with God's warning not to tempt Him. We tell our children that we'll always protect them, but if they wander off and jump in the pool unsupervised it's not our fault.

I've also seen footage of people drinking poison. Then they hold a candle up to their throats so the heat can loosen the muscles. Creepy stuff.

As a devout Pentecostal it saddens me the way my denom is used to promote such garbage. I don't blame Catholics for the Inquisition and I don't assume all Mormons are polygamists, but when people find out I'm Pentecostal they always ask if I play with snakes.

 

I have been a

I have been a Southern Baptist all my life. It saddens me to see what has happened to the Baptist. I know people in our own church that think Hillary is great. They don't see her as a type of Jezebel.  

I know that you don't play with snakes or drink the tainted kool-aid.

"A pharisee is hard on others and easy on himself, but a spiritual man is easy on others and hard on himself." A.W. Tozer (Pharisee=modern day liberal)

We SB in Texas have that

We SB in Texas have that problem.  It stems from the worldy men who were taking over the SBC in the 70's and 80's.  They did a lot of damage until God took over again.  In the 90's the seminaries had to be purged because of the professors who did not tow basic the theological and dogmatic line that is the SBC.

Nuke em til they glow then shoot em in the dark.

Is this the Roman Empire?

Now everybody is getting in on the act.  Amazing.

Its ok for Dims to be Baptists, Pentacostals and all but let a real Baptist or Pentacostal say what they believe and they are "scary" fundametalists. 

The hypocracy is deafening. 

Whenever I hear anyone arguing for slavery, I feel a strong impulse to see it tried on him personally.”  Abraham Lincoln 

There was a time that the

There was a time that the pentacostal denominations like the Pentacostal Holiness, The Chuch of God, The Assemblies of God, etc. would have never let a man like Clinton in the door to speak.

Many a church has left its first love so that is what we have today.    

"A pharisee is hard on others and easy on himself, but a spiritual man is easy on others and hard on himself." A.W. Tozer (Pharisee=modern day liberal)

The same is true of Baptist

The same is true of Baptist churches too, but that time is no more and I speak as a Baptist. I know some old school Baptist deacons that wouldnt even sit on the same pew with him.

There is none so blind as they that won’t see. Jonathan Swift 1667-1745

Without a doubt, Clintoon

Without a doubt, Clintoon has had a long association with churches. For example, all those churches that burned down when he was growing up . . .

WE are being called???

The required "I didn't come here to ask you to vote for my wife." is followed by "But don't sit this out, because we are being called upon to return to our true purpose."

I thought BHO was the "Chosen One"