I think faith cannot accept the premise that the Gospel is irrelevent at any time to any community. Communicated poorly. Resisted fiercely. Never irrelevent. What is in danger is that my skill set that I’ve invested my youth in developing becomes irrelevent, and by implication, so do I.

I recently reflected that more lies were told me in Sunday School than at any other time, by any other group in my life, including politicians and used car salesmen. There is a tendency in grass roots christianity that if something ought be true, then it is presented as true. The context which gave meaning to the stories told me in Sunday School was often as not fabricated from whole cloth — its validation being that it facilitated getting the story told.

That attitude toward truth, so evident in the American political leadership of our time, is not what any would call post-modern. They might call it evangelical. And it is far more dangerous than anything coming out of graduate schools of humanities and social sciences.

A puff away from 3 packs a day