The Devil made me say it

"If you will but worship me, all will be yours." — Luke 4:7

Apparently, if you're going to quote the Bible, you should have actually read it first.

The St. James United Church of Christ of Limerick, Pennsylvania, recently posted the above Bible verse on their website, surely with the intention of steering sinning websurfers right into Jesus's outstretched arms.

Only one problem — the above verse is a quote from Satan, spoken by him to Jesus during the 40-days-in-the-desert-temptation scene right after Jesus's baptism.

In the fourth century and again in the 13th and 14th, gnostics and later the Albigensians / Cathars were burned at the stake for the heresy of suggesting that Jehovah was really the Devil, the God of "this world," and that a higher God ruled over Him.

St. James' church retracted and apologized for the error later on their website, but not before a few bloggers noticed the, uh, misquote.

To their credit, and in spite of their lack of Biblical reading ability, St. James sounds like a cooler-than-usual church, judging from their top ten list, which touts their variety and their acceptance of alternative lifestyles. They call themselves "God's Party Church."

United Church of Christ | Bible | Gnosticism |
Albigensians | Cathars | Gnostics

Beelzebob artwork courtesy Papa Joe Mama