Actscelerate.com

Da Sheik

Insensitive Preaching

Acts Enthusiast Posts: 1865 **2/7/17 4:22 pm**

(disclaimer: I'm am not saying we should change the Gospel in any way so as to make it less offensive to sinners- I am only talking about extra-biblical comments from the pulpit)

I can remember sitting in church services as a young boy in the South. I am the product of an interracial marriage. At the time, it was much less socially acceptable. I vividly remember hearing the preacher use texts from the Old Testament about "marrying from within your own tribe" as evidence that "blacks and whites shouldn't marry". My dad who was not a Christian at the time, left Church altogether for many years. Only as an older man did he come to faith in Christ and return to attending church.

I harbor no ill will towards that minister, because I know his remarks were in ignorance. But I wonder if any of you have similar but different experiences. I have heard preaching that makes me cringe; comments about people's weight/body types, comments about people with disabilities and handicaps, etc.

roughridercog

You can't win those you alienate

Acts Mod Posts: 25305 **2/7/17 5:22 pm**

At the same time if we don't supply an offense, the enemy will create one. Why go out of our way to supply him with ammo.

There have been many harsh words flow over our sacred desks. One man, a respected teacher who had large portions of the Bible memorized, looked over a camp meeting crowd and uttered scathing remarks.

"I'd rather sleep with the hogs than worship with an independent."

"Worship with an independent? Why I'd sooner drink a cup of cold pus."

Yes, there were independent people in that huge crowd. But do you think they heard any words other than those? I think not.
_________________
Doctor of Bovinamodulation

Cojak

01000001 01100011 01110100 01110011 Posts: 24285 **2/7/17 7:26 pm**

My dad had an opinion of many Camp Meeting Speakers. He said pick a hobby horse like lipstick, pants on women and Long hair and you have a shouting service.

I have quoted my dad here before on this subject. I was supposed to be in bed. Back when the evangelist ALWAYS stayed with the pastor, dad and the evangelist would sometimes sit over milk and cake and talk. That night was DIFFERENT. My dad told the young preacher, if you don't have any better material than tonight. The church will pay you and I will finish the revival. WE had three women in church tonight, I was so glad to see them, they were new. They were wearing lipstick, and they knew, I knew my church knew you set your sights on them. Jezebels, paint on a barn, it is still a barn and all that junk. YOu had no scripture for it son. We will probably never see those ladies again, that is sad."

Yes we do alienate folks we should be trying to win.

Politics from the pulpit. I was in a large Baptist church. I told my wife, he must not have a Democrat in his church. If he does, they may be down the street next week. He constantly used the term Demorats, devil crats.

Yep I have seen and heard in my lifetime plenty of insensitive, ignorant preaching. Embarassed

_________________
Some facts but mostly just my opinion!
jacsher@aol.com
http://shipslog-jack.blogspot.com/

diakoneo

Golf Cart Mafia Consigliere Posts: 3382 **2/7/17 9:02 pm**

Funny thing, I remember more the women preachers preaching on hair, pants, make-up etc., than men. I am not saying that men did not, it is just more vivid when the ladies preached on it.

As to sensitivity, I think biblical ignorance played more of a role than sensitivity with most. They(like the young man Cojac spoke of) were just parroting what they had heard. Others just wanted to whip the crowd into a frenzy.

If our motives in preaching are not proclaiming the gospel of Christ or exalting Christ, perhaps we are truly being insensitive regardless.

Cojak

01000001 01100011 01110100 01110011 Posts: 24285 **2/8/17 12:02 am**

Old Time Country Preacher

Acts-pert Poster Posts: 15570 **2/8/17 12:22 am**

Member ole James Poe Jackson? I heard him preachin one night when I was a little feller. He seen these three women come in an set on the back row. They all had short hair. He immediately commenced preachin on short haired women an kept on till the three got up an left. When they left he said, "Bless God the Devil's gone, we can have church now." Nope, no joke, I heard him.

wayne

Cojak

Acts Enthusiast Posts: 1274 **2/8/17 9:32 am**

wayne

Acts Enthusiast Posts: 1274 **2/8/17 9:36 am**

Old Time Country Preacher

Acts-pert Poster Posts: 15570 **2/8/17 10:24 am**

Quiet Wyatt

[Insert Acts Pun Here] Posts: 12817 **2/8/17 10:41 am**

I had an evangelist some time back who, for some reason felt the need to preach on other denominations a bit, and how if we were going to be Church of God, we ought to be Church of God, not Baptist, Methodist, or anything else, etc. I had heard him preach several times before, and he usually was a good preacher, but I had never heard him express such feelings against other denominations before. It was quite obvious from his tone that he had nothing but disdain for anything not CoG. We happened to have a Methodist lady visiting in that very service, who was at the time looking for another church. I felt so embarrassed by the stupid comments the evangelist made that night. The Methodist lady has not come back, and as far as I know, she does not attend anywhere. All because of some ignorant comments that never should have been said from the pulpit, which completely alienated a visitor.

diakoneo

Golf Cart Mafia Consigliere Posts: 3382 **2/8/17 11:23 am**

Da Sheik

Acts Enthusiast Posts: 1865 **2/8/17 12:02 pm**

wayne

Acts Enthusiast Posts: 1274 **2/8/17 12:09 pm**

Old Time Country Preacher

Acts-pert Poster Posts: 15570 **2/8/17 12:39 pm**

Mat

Acts Enthusiast Posts: 1994 **2/8/17 6:27 pm**

Cojak

01000001 01100011 01110100 01110011 Posts: 24285 **2/8/17 9:07 pm**

Link

Acts-perienced Poster Posts: 11849 **2/9/17 1:42 am**

"Tell it like it 'aint" preachers offend for no good reason at all. The Gospel is offensive to some. Let it be offensive. We shouldn't be extra offensive for no reason at all.

One thing about interracial marriage I notice in the Bible is that I can't find any laws against different tribes of Gentiles marrying with each other. Israelite men were allowed to marry women from distant tribes who weren't from the seven nations, at least before Ezra, and at least if they were prisoners of war. I'm assuming it was allowed otherwise.
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Link

Cojak

01000001 01100011 01110100 01110011 Posts: 24285 **2/4/22 11:29 am**

I do miss Da Sheik! and was it Lord Chancellor(?) I was thinking of that I miss.
Wayne was a good 'un also.
I am glad RR is still around. I was just going thru the past, and liked this post. It is very important TODAY. Cool

_________________
Some facts but mostly just my opinion!
jacsher@aol.com
http://shipslog-jack.blogspot.com/

FLRon

Acts-celerater Posts: 787 **2/7/22 10:29 pm**

My ex father in law, a now deceased ordained COG pastor, once told me that blacks were under a curse and always would be because that’s how God ordered things. I couldn’t stand that man after that.
I’ve heard so many ignorant and hateful things said from the pulpit that it’s a wonder anyone would want to be saved. Who would want to be a part of that?
If I’m being honest, I hear it nearly every week in my own church, and I’ll just leave it there.

Surely the Lord must weep at our lack of love for souls.
_________________
“Hell will be filled with people that didn’t cuss, didn’t drink, and may even have been baptized. Why? Because none of those things makes someone a Christian.”
Voddie Baucham

Aaron Scott

The "Amen" Factor

Hon. Dr. in Acts-celeratology Posts: 6042 **2/16/22 11:55 am**

I have heard very little of hobby horse preaching, at least in the Florida Camp Meetings. This is not to say that we didn't sometimes take a "quick shot" here and there.

Part of it, I think, is the desire to gain "street cred." Because back in the day, the main people coming to Camp Meeting were those who were willing to endure Florida summer temperatures (almost 300 degrees!). Further, it was typically a very conservative crowd, on average. Even the people who weren't conservative back home tended to walk the line. And a woman wearing jewelry would stand out completely. (In time, this slowly relaxed until, today, it's about the opposite of then.)

But saying something like that would build rapport with the crowd. If you said something like "Time have changed, but it's still true that without holiness no man shall see the Lord!" And you'd get a good amen.

Some preachers did that, I think, just for a little playfulness. Larry McDaniel, who came behind no preacher in his ability to preach, had a playful moment when he was speaking about a primpy little poodle with painted toenails...then interjected and said "It wasn't a Church of God dog." That was done in play--and the congregation laughed aloud. I think those are the kind of statements that probably would never offend anyone--even if they were wearing nail polish.

Also, "holiness" was kind of a lifeline, of sorts. If a sermon wasn't firing on all cylinders, you could say something about how worldliness has invaded the church or, as I remember one guy saying (I don't remember who), "When some of the pastors of foreign churches came to visit in the states, they said, 'We're telling our people to take it off, while in America you folks are putting it on!"

BUT THE WORST ISSUES, TO ME, ARE AS FOLLOWS:

1) Not really having a sermon, and doing the verbal equivalent of acting like you're shouting in order to get everyone else caught up in it. To be fair, some new preachers have simply never been exposed to much else beside that sort of preaching, so they preach what they "know." Until they know better.

2) The competition to be the hardest line preacher. In the very conservative side of our denomination--where I was raised and probably where I feel most comfortable--what used to be standard preaching against worldliness has now evolved into the desire to preach sermons so hard that you are seen as the "real thing." Or can lay claim to being the "gold standard" of holiness preaching. It can be where it's not about preaching sound doctrine and depth, but about who can "burn the hides" of those in the pews.

3) Lastly, often no one in the congregation is even guilty of what is being preached on! It's terrible enough to get your inspiration to preach based on who attends that service (i.e., so you can preach against whatever it is, then act like you are a hero for "running off the devil"). But to make matters worse, preacher will preach on outward adornment even when NO ONE in the church is wearing outward adornment. If someone shows up wearing it, then all the better...but if not, they'll preach it anyway.

I can handle a service or two, but not much more than that.

Paul L. Walker was notoriously "liberal"--at least in comparison to the Florida Camp Meeting crowd--but the preaching was so wonderful that even if people might not have liked what he and his wife allowed, they could not help but be blessed and encouraged.

When my dad was evangelizing, he and my mother determined to dress and preach in a way that would allow them entrance to all sorts of churches. They dressed (and lived) in such a way that conservative churches were happy to have them (of course, back then most churches were conservative). Yet his preaching was not the clothesline variety, so less conservative churches would call on him too (in fact, it was what some would call a liberal pastor who helped my dad get his first church).

Kudos to Cojak's dad for being straight enough to tell the evangelist the truth...and yet to give the evangelist the chance to change. I hope all turned out well for him, Cojak.