The late Fred Craddock was a Disciples of Christ minister at Cherry Log Christian Church in Georgia and also a seminary professor: he was a teacher of preachers. Fred was a storyteller par excellence for a generation of Christians.
He once told of being at a high school football game in a town where he had recently been a guest preacher. A woman sitting a few rows behind him in the stands yelled down, “Fred! I was telling my friend here of what you said in that sermon Sunday and that story you were telling, and I’ve forgotten the punch line. Would you tell her how that story went?”
He then shared how, in the context of prayer and hymns, of scripture reading and devotion, he had bestowed a Christian message. She wanted him to yell it up several rows over popcorn and hot dogs and beer. He responded, “I’m sorry, I cannot.”
He wrote: “I’ll be honest with you. I have heard profanity in the street, and I have read profanity on public restroom walls, but I know of no profanity lower than screaming over hot dogs and beer the word that was nestled in the sanctuary.”
A friend of mine was upset about a Saturday radio program he had heard on a local station. He asked me if I had ever heard it. He asked because he knows me as a retired minister. About a week later on a Saturday morning I was driving and listening to the radio, scanning stations and came upon a clear signal. After a few minutes of listening, I was sure this was the program about which my friend had inquired with concern.
At first, the program sounded like one from a now-deceased, bombastic radio host/provocateur of years gone by. The host and his fellow broadcasters were offering a critique of a political party that they were evidently not members of. In my opinion, they were abusive, humiliating, disgraceful, harmful and hateful. They described other individuals and their ideas as “crap,” “deceit,” war mongers, “dimwit,” and “absolute joke.” Then someone gave their opinion that the Catholic Pope was also a joke and a communist. Whew… This is what set my theological wheels in motion: after this grating dialogue that made my finger begin its movement toward the radio turner, they said it was time for the morning devotional. My finger paused and returned to the steering wheel. I listened to the “devotional.” It included a three or four sentence “revival prayer” and concluded with a proof-texting conglomeration of scripture sentences from four different letters of the apostle Paul. Even though the sun was shining brightly that morning, for a short while in those minutes, my world seemed to have turned darker. Why? The beautiful words of the Bible nestled in profanity.
I’ve heard a few, and seen most of the names, of the local businesses that appear as sponsors of this program or of stations on which it is broadcast. I have since wondered if they have ever listened to the program at all. Is it something they really endorse and feel in their hearts, or is it just sanctioned selfishly because of obvious money concerns? Do they also pray, read the Bible or attend church?
I cannot help but close with one other word of divine instruction from the dear Fred Craddock; words that I am sure he shared advisedly with his students: “If in reading the Bible you find justification for abusing, humiliating, disgracing, harming or hurting, especially when it makes you feel better about yourself, you are absolutely wrong. It’s possible to get an A in Bible and still flunk Christianity.”
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