I was looking on Rick Warren's site because I knew that he had sermons there. I would like for my sermons to be more applicable to life today. That, I think, is my weak point: specific application. And I think those on the more evangelical side than I am tend to focus their sermons more on facing today's problems. So, I thought I would read a few of Warren's sermons. While I was there, I noticed a sidebar link "For the Pastor's Wife". I clicked on it and found first Kay Warren's work with AIDS in Africa (Hurrah, for her by the way). Then I found videos and so forth for pastor's wives to encourage them in their ministry as a pastor's wife. I remember reading "The Purpose Driven Church" in seminary and Warren's focus on the husband in evangelizing. If you got Saddleback Sam, Saddleback Sally would follow (at least that's how I remember it).
So, what does that make me, chopped liver? Are women in Warren's mind just adjuncts to their husbands? (I suppose that is Biblical.)
In other news, I was listening to Mississippi Public Radio this morning. There is a small town in Mississippi which has a ballot measure to legalize sales of beer and "light wine" in the village (or county, not sure which). I think that hard liquor is presently sold there. The pastor of the local Baptist church (which has taken out ads against sales of beer) was on saying that he just wanted the village to follow what scripture says about drinking beer.
Now, I could be wrong; I haven't read the entire Bible from cover to cover since I was twelve, but I sure don't remember anything in the Bible about beer. And as I recall, Jesus' first miracle, according to the Gospel attributed to John was turning wine into water. (One explanation I have heard is that it was nonalcoholic wine.)
I did spend lunch today with a parishioner talking about how we need to focus more on our own shortcomings than criticizing others. (She was actually talking about it more than me. I like having lunch with her because she is interesting and talks the whole time.) Oh well.
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My undergrad adviser grew up in the Church of Christ, which is teetotal, and being a precocious child he noticed all the times wine is mentioned in the Bible. When he asked his Sunday school teacher he was told that every time Scripture says wine it really means grape juice. He immediately came back with "But why would the Pharisees criticize Jesus for being a glutton and a grape-juice-bibber?"
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