Dusting off its occasional "This Week's Words" series, the religion section for the December 27 Washington Post chose a Christmas sermon that sounds, at least to conservative Christian ears, more like the Gospel according to Stuart Smalley --I'm good enough, I'm smart enough, and gosh darn it, God likes me -- than anything by Matthew, Mark, Luke or John. The sermon series has previously served to highlight liberal messages from the capital region's pulpits.
In "Living Up to Our Divine Potential," the Post excerpted the Rev. Dr. Anne Gavin Ritchie's Christmas sermon, who insisted that the lesson of Christmas was that:
However quick we are to see the moral deficiencies in others, God annoyingly seems to see the good in every soul.
[...]
This Christmas, we adore the Holy Child who came to Earth in a cold and drafty stable. As we look into the manger scene, if we look closely enough, we'll see something even more amazing: the love of God born in us.
Now, a secular newspaper is hardly the place to expect theological precision and it's not well-suited for the advocacy of any particular religious creed or confession. Nevertheless, the choice of this sermon seems to convey that the religion section's editors feel Gavin's homily is representative of what D.C.-area Christians are hearing proclaimed from their pulpits this Christmas.
In truth, the Episcopal priest's views are representative of what Washingtonians in attendance at liberal mainline churches may be hearing. Post subscribers who attend conservative evangelical churches are more likely to hear that Christmas is a celebration of God's faithfulness to His promise to provide a Messiah, a Savior, who will save sinful men from their wickedness, not help them realize their own goodness.
But it could be that the Post just likes to add it's "Amen" to a liberal social gospel, judging from other entries in the "This Week's Words" series. Take, for example, the Post's October 18, 2008 sermon, "God Is Not Pleased With How Some Obtain, Use Wealth," in which Rev. Artie L. Polk cited the Epistle of St. James to sound class warfare talking points:
With many businesses moving to overseas locations to take advantage of cheap labor, wages at home are driven down. Globalization is one popular method used in exploiting labor.
Another question Wheeler asks is, "Do we hold idle assets that might be used to help those in dire need? Can we defend our share of benefits and burdens of society as just and equitable?"
Although there is a wide disparity in wealth being held by individuals in this country, it is safe to say that most of us have some idle assets that might be used to help those in dire need. Most Americans would find it very difficult to defend our share of benefits and burdens of society as just and equitable.
It is James's conviction that to concentrate on material things is not only to concentrate on a decaying delusion, it is to concentrate on a self-produced destruction.
