A Really Bad Day in Church

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A Really Bad Day in Church
By Marion Aldridge

My brother Edmund and I went to the mountains this Veterans Day weekend to watch a football game and to enjoy the fall weather. I walked six miles. I fished and caught a couple of two-pound bass. We ate well. We slept well. We won the game.

Since going to church is in our family DNA, we crossed the highway from the cabin where we stayed and went to the local Baptist church on Sunday morning. The experience was a case study in what is wrong with some factions of the Christian faith in America.

The first part of the service was patriotic, acknowledging the Veterans Day weekend. We pledged allegiance to the flag of the United States of America. We sang America the Beautiful and My Country ’Tis of Thee. I’m a patriotic American and I’m glad to participate in such demonstrations of loyalty to my country.

When I was a pastor, I almost always paid attention to the secular calendar as well as the sacred calendar. We not only celebrated Christmas and Easter, but also acknowledged New Year’s Day, Thanksgiving, Independence Day, Mother’s Day and Father’s Day. I’ve even written a book (The Pastor’s Guidebook: A Manual for Special Occasions) about these special times. In that volume I warn that, when we are in church, we have to be careful about letting the secular overwhelm the sacred. We are, after all, a Christian church gathered to worship God.

On this weekend, the preacher used the sacred hour to deliver a racist, anti-Obama tirade instead of a sermon. For one hour, on a Sunday morning, in a Christian church, Jesus was never mentioned. Never. Not once.

What was I to do? Do I challenge the ill-informed preacher who doesn’t understand the difference in God and country? Should I interrupt him with an old fashioned prophetic rant? Do I walk out? I did none of these. My brother, who is a veteran and a good-hearted fundamentalist Christian, far more conservative than I am, later said, “Whatever that was, it was not worship.”

Amen, brother.

For his text, the preacher read a single verse from the Psalms, then never referred to it again in the course of a 30-minute diatribe. He would probably tell you he “preaches the Word of God.” Not on this Sunday morning.

When the preacher said, “We have the power,” he was not referring to the Holy Spirit. He was speaking very specifically about the weaponry of the United States. He was emphatic that we should use military muscle against our enemies. God’s sovereignty was not a part of his sermon.

At the beginning of the church service, the preacher indicated a desire to grow the congregation numerically, but apparently it wasn’t working. The congregation was smaller than on my previous visits over the past decade. I’m positive he didn’t want any blacks in the congregation since he told two stories that were openly hostile to the NAACP in particular and people of color in general. I’m absolutely sure he wanted no gays as part of his faith community. He made that explicitly clear. My brother and I also observed that anyone who leaned left politically would not be welcome. God help any feminist who showed up. I’m not convinced that people who want to follow the literal words of Jesus would be beloved by this guardian of civil religion. He would view them as troublemakers in the temple, irritants to an already aggravated preacher. If he knew anything about the Jesus movement of the past 20 centuries, it was not evident.

Maybe we were experiencing a bit of a Bible story after all.

Compassionate theological or political disagreement is different than hateful belligerence. I value people who are compassionate and fair, who make good sense, who inspire me and/or who stretch me about matters of faith. This angry proclaimer of Bad News did none of that. His enemies were Muslims and democrats. I’m sure there are others who infuriate this man, but the sermon wasn’t long enough to denigrate everyone with whom he disagrees. Because he was loud and emphatic, I wondered if his congregation thought he was a good preacher.

The preacher kept reminding us that he was giving his own opinions. When I lead a worship service, I am guided by the notion that the Sunday morning sermon is not the forum for opinions. It is good for me to have people in the congregation I know will differ with almost anything I say. That forces me to think carefully about my utterances. I try to eliminate the chaff. This man made no such effort.

Oh, well, I know I’ve preached bad sermons, so I need to find grace for this angry, sad soul. In fairness to him, men and women who actually preach about Jesus might find their churches shrinking as well.

Marion Aldridge is a former Pastor and Former Coordinator of the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship of SC. Freelance Writer.