Greetings to all,
I thought I would send you off a quote I used in my sermon on Sunday, entitled "Being a Person of Substance and Solid Character."
(If I've sent it out before please forgive me, though it is worth another read even if I did!)
It's a word to all believers (and the organized church in particular). Though it appeared in Fortune Magazine in January of 1940 as part of an editorial (no author mentioned), I trust you’ll see that it applies as much today (if not more today) than it apparently did then.
It seems to be written by a non-believer (as it speaks from the perspective of an outsider) who does believe people look to the church for moral and spiritual guidance. It deserves your earnest consideration. Enjoy.
“So long as the church pretends or assumes to preach absolute values, but actually preaches relative and secondary values, it will merely hasten the process of disintegration. We are asked to turn to the church for our enlightenment, but when we do so we find the voice of the church is not inspired. In the voice of the church today we find the echo of our own voices. When we consult the church, we hear only what we ourselves have said. There is only one way out of the spiral and the way out is the sound of a voice, not our voice, but a voice coming from something beyond ourselves, in the existence of which we cannot disbelieve. It is the duty of the pastors to hear this voice, to cause us to hear it, and to tell us what it says.”
(Cited in Sherwood Eliot Wirt's book "A Thirst for God" which is also worth your consideration as a good read.)
Dr. Jeffrey F. Evans
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