Oct. 29, 2010
For Immediate Release

By Caleb Harris, student news writer

CAMPBELLSVILLE, Ky. — “In this life, if God loves you he punishes you.”

The Rev. Jamey Ragle, president of Life Building Ministries of Pooler, Ga., spoke to the students, faculty, staff and coaches in the weekly chapel at Campbellsville University. The message of his sermon was the negative side of religion and church.

Ragle, an evangelist, singer and comedian, used his multiple talents to relay his message to the Campbellsville congregation.

Ragle told the audience, “We are doing church all wrong.” He stressed Christians today are not respecting the house of God as they should; he also said that church is not all good, it has its disadvantages.

“Church is filled with fake phony people,” Ragle said. To add sustenance to his statement, Ragle said a lot of the overall populations of churches around the world are people who lead ungodly lives. He said they spend their Saturday nights at either a bar or a club drinking heavily and in many cases using illegal narcotics. The women dress provocatively and carry themselves in very loose manners. Ragle said these same people who spent their weekends living in a secular manner then wake up on Sunday morning hung-over and go to church.

Ragle also addressed the subject of religion. “Here is what I know about religion, I hate it,” Ragle said. “Religion focuses on everything on the outside but nothing on the inside.” He also said that religion teaches people things that it does not model. Instead of constantly talking about what is wrong with the world, he said, we as Christians should make valid attempts at solving the problem. “We should go to church to be challenged to do something in the outside world,” Ragle said.

He explained that another problem with religion is that it focuses too much on ‘birth.' Instead of birth being the main focus, redemption, which focuses on ‘new birth,' should be addressed more. Ragle reminded the congregation that it is the redemption in life which truly brings you closer to God.

Ragle said God wants you to do better so when you make a mistake he will punish you so you do better the next time around. He does this because he cares about you, he said.

All chapels are open free of charge and are televised live on WLCU (Comcast cable channel 10) and are streamed live on the Internet.
Go to Campbellsville.edu, click on the media tab, select WLCU-TV and follow the prompts to live video streaming.

Campbellsville University is a widely acclaimed Kentucky-based Christian university with over 3,000 students offering 63 undergraduate programs, 17 master's degrees and five postgraduate areas. The website for complete information is Campbellsville.edu