Rotten Fruit of the Spirit

My hometown newspaper has a "SoundOff Line." This is a fancy answering machine where the local pissed off people who haven't discovered blogging leave messages that can't be deleted later like a blog post. The newspaper then publishes these comments. It's actually not a bad idea, except it is a bad idea. Because yet have I heard someone call in and say something that actually needs to be heard. And rarely are anonymous comments very helpful to foster true dialogue and community. Just like anonymous commentors here, these callers tend to flame and blame and have pointless conversations that go on for weeks and finally degrade into a second grade match of, "Teacher, he hit me!" and "But she hit me FUHRST!

This week's Soundoff column is just ripe! It's begging to be picked upon. A commentor managed to encapsulate everything that is wrong with the typical aura of Christianity that surrounded my small rural community. I'm not going to deconstruct it for you, or even make generalizations. Just read the comment below, and you'll see the short sighted faith that I grew up with. I'd link to it, but for some reason my hometown paper is concerned that people might read the paper online and not subscribe to the pithy print edition. So now, it's only available online if you subscribe in print. How ridiculous is that?

Here's the quote:

"To the person or persons who stole the safe at west End Baptist church: We might never know who you are, but I can tell you that God knows who you are and you will pay for what you did. It's bad enough that you stole but to steal from a church is lower than anything else. I know that the people at that church are praying for you and asking God to forgive you for what you did. The human side of me has asked God to bring his wrath down upon you and that it scares and bothers you so much that you ask for forgiveness and you repent and get saved. But also as a Christian I have asked God to forgive you too."


I hope Jesus kicks your ass, and I hope God forgives you. Too bad you're not perfect like me.