CHATTANOOGA (TN)
Times Free Press
September 3, 2020
By Ron Hart
My great-grandfather was a Methodist minister with a sense of humor. His rural congregants loved him. When a parishioner suggested that he ask God for rain to relieve a drought, Great-Grandad told him he would but that he was in sales, not operations.
Today it seems that the era of the humble minister is long gone, replaced by televangelists and mega-church “charismatics” with big hair, hot wives and impossibly white smiles. They seem to be losing touch with those of their followers who are not zealots. Religion has been Swaggart-ed, Haggard-ed, Bakker-ed, Bishop Eddie Long-ed, pedophiled and, as a result, demeaned.
Sex scandals among the clergy seem all too common. This also explains where those Bibles left in all those hotel rooms come from.
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