I’m guilty of this. As twisted as this is, I actually just let a woman fall back one time because she would do the same stupid thing every sermon and she would purposely get in front of someone because she was certain someone would catch her. Well...she was certainly wrong that time.
Well one thing is certain, she sure showed everyone how holy she was!
I remember one time an elder of a church started speaking in tongues. She then started to interpret them and then started to speak as if she was god. It started out praise him to praise me. love me worship me etc.
I thought how lame is this. (I was actually a believer at the time) God is performing a miracle right here and now and saying nothing at all but is on a ego trip. Why is he not giving us the cure for cancer or saying, John it would be better to help your neighbor clean their floor before tomorrow or they will slip and hurt themselves, it would be a better use of that time than playing with yourself while fantasizing about Fred wife like usual. Or buy a lottery ticket with this number and start a soup kitchen. You know, useful stuff. Instead "God" bored us with an ego trip. I walked out of that church that day with more skepticism.
Church? Can't say I've been in many churches. The ones I have been inside of are more conservative regarding worship. The preachers just seemed more like hypocrites with little to no life experiences outside their church. I must admit I have chuckled and laughed when someone has fallen or tripped.
This made me LOL just picturing it. I did not have this experience in church, but I imagine my impulse would be to help if someone suddenly started falling. My arms would just reach out before I realized what I was doing. If I knew they had a habit of this for attention though....I might just let em look foolish.
I remember during my videography career I was hired to document some book-hawking bigwig preacher (just picture that one end-times televangelist who is almost perfectly spherical and you'll have a good mental image of this guy -- what is it about these guys that makes them so freaking ROUND) and he was doing this bit of you need your "fresh oil of the holy spirit" and was touching people who then fell over backwards. Problem, some of his followers were in the same physical shape as the reverend and his assistants were having a harder and harder time catching them. This was one after another, touch forehead, roly-poly cultist falling over backwards, increasingly red and sweaty minions struggling to lower them safely. I just stood there and filmed it. Laughed my ass off the whole way home.
Religious ecstasies are somewhat common in certain Protestant denominations. First time I saw one was at a tent revival--yes, they still have these--where the preacher was on a roll, and an elderly woman was 'overcome by the spirit.' I thought she was having a seizure, and feared for her safety, but I was told she would be fine. She came out of it after a few minutes, and seemed not to have been aware of what had happened. An interesting psychological study, these religious ecstasies, and this behavior is supported in the New Testament.