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Megachurch’s Super Bowl-Themed Service, Which Includes Punting Bible, Ignites Online Uproar

Christian News Commentary

One of America’s largest and fastest-growing churches is Crossroads Church. A multisite megachurch with locations in Ohio and Kentucky, Crossroads is led by Brian Tome and has nearly 40,000 members. It’s also the cause of a massive online fight, as its Super Bowl-themed service attracted the attention of many who thought it was inappropriate and showed a lack of deference and respect for God’s glory.

Particularly, a portion of the annual Super Bowl service, which included pastor Allie Paterson punting the Bible drew the attention and scorn of many online, with videos of the event flying around X and raising eyebrows as they did so. The shocking scene confirmed, in the eyes of many, that megachurches focus more on fun and attention than worshipping God.

One such person to criticize the Super Bowl service was Jon Root, who said, when captionining a video of the event, “Super Bowl themed church services are bad enough but this may be the worst. This woman kicks off the Bible…” Replying, one commenter said, “In what world does something like this occur, and the entire crowd doesn’t rise and exit the premises? This seems to be the unfortunate reality of a significant portion of evangelicalism.”

Another commenter added, “Brother, I used to sing on the worship team of this church. I actually sat here and cried watching this. To physically kick the Word of God while there are Christians dying over smuggling the Bible into their countries. It’s unreal. I am so glad the Lord saved me from the false doctrine this church teaches. Thankful for you & @D_B_Harrison for playing such an instrumental role in establishing solid doctrine in my life.”

Similarly, another commenter opined that videos such as the one at issue show that the church has forgotten the Gospel’s message, saying, “This the result of a church that’s forgotten the gospel. “We’re all good, so let’s just have fun.” A church with the gospel in their sights is closer to tears than cheers.”

Still another commenter argued, “Blasphemy. People bled and died so that we could have the holy Word of God in our language. These people are literally turning it into a game. What even is the thinking here? ‘People will finally repent and follow Jesus once they see us drop kick a Bible.’ And we wonder why no one takes Christianity seriously.”

Watch the shocking incident here:

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Another clip of the shocking service showed that not only did they punt the Bible during the service, but the pastors made an WWE-like entrance for a “preaching contest” during the same event. Commenting on that and posting a video of it, Protestia said, “This is wild. Pastors at Crossorads Church make their entrance into the auditorium to have a “preaching contest” for their Super Bowl-themed church service.”

Watch that clip here:

Featured image credit: screengrab from the embedded video