I recently read Douglas Wilson’s Evangellyfish,<\/i> which is the fictional account of a scandal in a mega church. <\/p>\n
Pastor Wilson is a big fan of P.G. Wodehouse, and I tend to appreciate Wilson’s social commentary, so I was hoping for a combination of Wodehousian humor and biting social satire. It’s more of the latter than the former, in my opinion, although I will admit I was not in a very comic-friendly mood when I read the book. Others might find it funnier. <\/p>\n
That’s not the real issue, though. My reaction to the book was similar to my reaction to the song “She’s an Easy Lover.” <\/p>\n
Back in my Evangelical days, I knew some people who were in a rock band “ministry.” They would do some popular covers, mix in some Christian songs and say a few words about Jesus. That sort of thing. They sang the Philip Bailey \/ Phil Collins hit “she’s an easy lover,” and I said “what gives?” <\/p>\n
(Philip Bailey was, at that time, a gospel singer, among other things.) <\/p>\n
“It’s just Proverbs 9,” they told me. “It’s a warning about loose women.” (I suspect Bailey thought the same.) <\/p>\n
I wasn’t buying it. Not everyone listens to song lyrics, and among those who do, few try to get the moral lesson. (Which is usually a good thing!) What they hear is, “she’s an easy lover,” and what they think is, “where is she?” <\/p>\n
Evangellyfish<\/i> is about a mega church that has a huge problem with fornication. The head pastor and half the “ministry team” are rampant offenders, and half the rest of them are complicit in the cover-up. It’s a sordid mess. <\/p>\n
Pastor Wilson wants to point out the rampant sin and hypocrisy and expose mega-church-ism for what he apparently thinks it is — an excuse for almost-converted people to pretend they’re devout Christians. <\/p>\n
I think people — or at least some people — will read it and think, “Gee, how come everyone else is getting so much? Am I missing out? I mean, obviously this sort of conduct is far more normal than I thought. It must not be such a big deal.” <\/p>\n
Pastor Wilson would be horrified at such a result. And maybe I’m completely off base. Maybe I’m the only one wicked enough to have such thoughts. <\/p>\n
But they say that when you sup with the devil, you need a long spoon. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I recently read Douglas Wilson’s Evangellyfish, which is the fictional account of a scandal in a mega church. Pastor Wilson is a big fan of P.G. Wodehouse, and I tend to appreciate Wilson’s social commentary, so I was hoping for a combination of Wodehousian humor and biting social satire. It’s more of the latter than … Continue reading ““Evangellyfish” and “She’s an Easy Lover””<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-368","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/crowhill.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/368","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/crowhill.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/crowhill.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crowhill.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crowhill.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=368"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/crowhill.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/368\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":373,"href":"https:\/\/crowhill.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/368\/revisions\/373"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/crowhill.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=368"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crowhill.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=368"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crowhill.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=368"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}