My response to Keith’s post of last week about the preacher who encouraged his hearers to deploy self-deception as a means of self-help would be that it isn’t all that surprising. Evangelicals routinely fudge about the number of people attending their church or that are on their membership rolls. Sermons in our churches also frequently decry the evils of society, but say nothing about the evil in our own hearts — allowing us to think that we are practically perfect in every way. We all know that only Mary Poppins is “practically perfect in every way”, and the rest of us are just deceiving ourselves if we think we are. So, yes Keith, it is an outrage. Turn off the bad preachers and turn on some opera or something else more edifying.

Posted in Pastoral Ministry |