He would have heard a lot more lame jokes, like this one
“So with Phinehas God begins what we sometimes call the Aaronic Priesthood… Not to be confused with the Ironic Priesthood, that was a mediorce sketch comedy troupe from Winnipeg circa 1993″
See, It might be painful to listen, but no one is going to replay it on CNN.
Now that the hype has died down a bit, I do have two cents to contribute to this conversation. I am a pastor. I get up in front of people every week and I talk to them for around 25 minutes. I often ask questions and have a bit of conversation, but I’m driving the thing. Week in, week out, I talk. I don’t know that it’s the best way to do things, but it’s what we’ve got for now so I do it. Over the course of a lifetime of preaching we say stupid things. You hope that over a lifetime the non stupid outweighs the stupid and that you’ve gotten out of the way enough to let God speak. I don’t say that to excuse Wright or any of his boggling opinions but I empathize.
The other part, and anyone who’s been a real part of a church knows this, is that a church is more than the sum of it’s pastor. There is the breaking of bread and prayer and holding things in common and giving to people who have need praising God and sharing life with people with glad and sincere hearts, and when all of those things are there sometimes you ignore the teaching. You realize that there is something bigger and more powerful happening here than just what is coming out of the mouth of the guy up front.
I’m a Canadian so I don’t have to decide who I want to be the next U.S. President. It’s sort of like caring what girl your more popular, athletic older brother is going to date. He doesn’t ask your opinion, and if he does, he really doesn’t care. But if a president could sit with a group of people, looking up at a central important figure, and realize that what is happening within us and among us really isn’t about that central important figure, but is about the people down here and the Spirit of God that fills us, well, I think that that person might make a decent central important figure him or her self.
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