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| photo by Marie Longhin / flickr |
Brett Younger is a talented preacher-writer. He writes this terrific (that is if you are not right wing) article on how the Pressident hijacked his home church in Mississippi. Read his words. They are great. Many of us could say the same thing about where we grew up and the place where we first found our hearts "strangely warmed." Funny I don't remember any American flags lining the walks outside my church in the fifties. We did not drag politics into the Sanctuary even though later I knew we were silent on some issues (like race and injustice). Yet despite it all one day I read Paul's words written to that troubled, troubled church at Corinth--he reminded them that "we are not peddlers of God's word like so many..." (II For. 2.17), He did not stop there. Paul also reminded that fledgling congregation that "we have this treasure in clay jars so that it may be made clear that this extraordinary power belongs to God and does not come from us." (II Cor. 4.7)
The late great Carlyle Marney used to say: "Boys, (this was before we opened the door to women reverends--which is a good thing) if they ever learn Jesus was a Jew we're going to be in bad trouble." And I would add: "If many churches realize that Jesus and his disciples were not Republicans we too, are going to be in a mess of trouble."
I miss Bill Coffin. I wonder what he would say about all those fat Evangelical preachers surrounding Donald Trump the other day and praying for this serial adulterer, this serial liar and this thin-skinned man that has yet to lead this country. Nary a negative word would they say about him. Years before Trump became our King, Coffin wrote: "It behooves us North American Christians to realize what the German churches learned too late some forty years ago: it is not enough to resist with confession, we must confess with resistance."
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| photo by ART4TheGloryOfGod / flickr |
--Roger Lovette / rogerlovette.blogspot.com
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