Diana Butler Bass: Speaking for the Soul
I saw a link to this post by Diana Butler Bass on the website Beliefnet.com. She posted some words about the Tucson shooting that are fitting for those that preach as well as those of us who listen. A paragraph or two with a link to the entire post.
Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords: Speaking for the Soul
Diana Butler Bass | January 8, 2011 | BeliefnetThe Sunday after Martin Luther King was assassinated in 1968, my husband’s family attended their Presbyterian church. They went with heavy hearts, expecting the pastor to help make sense of the tragedy. The minister rose to preach. The congregation held its breath. But he said nothing of the events in Memphis. He preached as if nothing had happened.
At their best, American pulpits are not about taking sides and blaming. Those pulpits should be places to reflect on theology and life, on the Word and our words. I hope that sermons tomorrow will go beyond expressions of sympathy or calls for civility and niceness. Right now, we need some sustained spiritual reflection on how badly we have behaved in recent years as Americans–how much we’ve allowed fear to motivate our politics, how cruel we’ve allowed our discourse to become, how little we’ve listened, how much we’ve dehumanized public servants, how much we hate.