(Via Susanna at Cut on the Bias) The MinuteMan says I Am Going Straight to Hell:
There's a silver lining - it should mean a break from the cold weather.Is checking your brains at the door a prerequisite for studying theology these days? As for dealing with the bishop, when someone barfs in your lap, maybe it's a sign that God wants you to move.
Let me get started. Last Sunday the minister at our church devoted the sermon to war and peace. Now, on the one hand, this takes a bit of courage, since we are an Episcopal congregation in the heart of "Country Club Republican" Connecticut. On the other hand, the crowd does not generally jump ugly: last year we had an Anglican Bishop visit us just a few months after 9/11, and a few weeks after we had completed the last of the memorial services at this church for the local dead. The Bishop's message, which provoked a bit of rustling in the congregation, was that 9/11 might reasonably be interpreted as a warning from a God angered by our indifference to third world poverty. I kid you not. And although a number of people (yes, I among them) took a few moments after the service to tell the Bishop what we really thought, there was no tarring and feathering, and few raised voices.
So, I know where the bar is set for this sort of sermon. But I sat through it, and the minister was kind enough to e-mail me a copy of it, which I post below. With just a little bit of commentary. But "Fisking" a sermon? I'll be damned.
