Overheard

Last weekend, I overheard a preacher say, "I've been preaching so hard to them I've just about got them all run off." This was said in a bragging tone. I think he really was proud of the whole tough guy, crack the whip from the pulpit routine.

I've been trying to think how to respond to this without sounding bitter.

I give up.

I remember as a teenager telling a friend that I believed there was a special place in Hell for preachers who abused their power and influence over others. This was well before all the sex scandals hit the newspapers. I was talking about what I saw then (and now) as ego-driven mean-spiritedness.

I always understood that people who say and do things like that are sincere. The preacher I heard bragging about running people away from the church because they couldn't take the "hard truth" he was hurling at them really thought he was doing the right thing. He really thought he was delivering the Word.

I also remember that my grandmother once told me she thought it was a shame that kicking people out of church for wrong-doing had fallen out of fashion. She pointed to unwed mothers as an example of people who would have once been voted out of the church.

One of the things I like best about UBC it that it has no provision for how to get rid of members. One of the deacons told me that they consider kicking sinners out of church to be like evicting sick people from a hospital.

He has a good point.

Even as a child I understood that my biggest obstacle toward spiritual purity was my bitterness toward the church itself. Some habits die hard. This is still my biggest struggle, but I am thankful that I have found a church that is different and that I've learned that some Christians really do see the Bible as Good News.

So I haven't figured out yet how to not sound bitter, but I can say with sincerity, "Father forgive them. They know not what they do."