The nature of my job leads me to read several local weekly newspapers. Because I am a church geek, I usually read the church news in these publications. (For those of you without benefit of rural newspaper, these are chatty little blurbs about area congregations, usually written by a layperson therein.)
Anyway, I'm reading this particular church-news page, when I come upon the contribution by a local Lutheran church.
It began: "The fountain of youth and cytogenetics are false hopes, man dies because of sin. Yes sin! A word denied by many." Hmmm, I thought, taking my former-professional-proofreader's red pen to the punctuation issues.
The article continued, "Christ is the 'Living Water.' The Samaritan woman at the well gave Christ water; Christ told her about her personal life, so she knew he was a prophet. This “Living Water” is faith. The spiritually thirsty need Christ for the forgiveness of sins. The church is not just a building, but the congregation. Those who are inactive need these living waters."
It sounded like scribbled sermon notes reconstituted by a non-English major. Oh, cut the person some slack, I told myself. They're doing the best they can with what they have.
Then my eyes fell upon this sentence:
"The Jews felt they were the master race, not the Masters’ race."
What? WHAT???????????
My stomach went into full churn. Oh. My. God.
Thanks, sir or madam, for sending Jewish-Lutheran relations back 500 years. What were you thinking? WERE you thinking?
And the sad thing is, there are readers in my neck of the woods who probably think this was quite a clever theological insight.
Oy gevult.
5 comments:
Dear God, LC, your stupid Christian posts are awfully scary, both of 'em.
Sorry you were benched by the ice storm for your sermon opportunity, but glad you and FT enjoyed a wonderful Sunday dinner.
It was from the WELS.
*phew* That op-ed was so garbled that I'm not sure whether I'd want to just go in with a red pen or go all out with a flaming sword. Maybe I'm just desensitized, but I can see the statement in itself being incomprehensibly offending... in context, though, it's just like "oh, kook."
Which, granted, doesn't make Lutherans look any better... I don't know. Maybe it'd just be worth seeing what the fallout is.
Have you seen the website Fundies say the darnedest things.... It's an ongoing collection of the crazy quote from the wingnut Christian crowd.
Caritas. Excellens populus propinquus suum oculi. Caritas.
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