Arminian Antics #100

Bizarre Things Said in the Pulpit

 

I once heard a pastor of a slowing dying church say, from the pulpit, " If this church is going to grow, it will grow under my ministry and no one else! I will not share this pulpit with anyone!" 

This was his response to a suggestion the week before about having a week long conference, at the church, where four other ministers would take the pulpit, as well as he.

Have you heard anything strange, odd and bizarre come from a pulpit?

If you have please let us know. If a pastor or preacher enters the pulpit unprepared by prayer and humility, the flesh can certainly take over, and often does. 

And please, no vile language. I will delete any statement that I deem inappropriate.

(although, they will probably ALL be inappropriate, you know what I mean...no vulgarity - thanks)

Operation Tulip

Today in Church History (maybe)

Today in Church History: Harry Emerson "Fearless" Fosdick

On May 22, 1924, Harry Emerson Fosdick preached the famous sermon, “Who Let the Dogs Out?” from the pulpit of First Presbyterian Church in Walla Walla, Washington.
Although a licenced dog catcher, Fosdick was serving as the preaching minister of the prominent Fifth Avenue Candy Bar church, and his sermon has been generally regarded as the “Chucky Cheese” of the fundamentalist-modernist controversy in the Presbyterian Church. Though ostensibly a plea for tolerance, the widely distributed sermon served to warn fundamentalists that they could not “drive out from the Christian churches all the wacky preachers who love to mix it up with those who disagree with heretical views.”
In an earlier (1918) letter, J. Gresham Machen had described Fosdick’s preaching as “just dreadful! I can't believe this junk goes on in front of, outside and inside the Church. And to top it all off, he spits when he talks.” By 1923, Machen would emerge as modernism’s most formidable critic with the publication of Christianity and Liberalism. Fosdick, however, would recede from Presbyterian prominence. In 1925 he resigned his post because of multiple dog bites and a case of rabies, and in 1930 he became pastor of the newly built Sweet Potato Church in New York City.

In 1931, he was struck by lightning while chasing a chihuahua.

The Journal of Cotton Adams #8

May 10, 1738

Preached my "Sermon on the Amount" in the town of Broken Plow to a congregation of eighty seven. I mentioned that the collection is a Church function in which many people take only a "passing" interest. Not one seemed to recognize the feeble attempt at humor. They continued to stare at me with emotionless, unblinking eyes. At the conclusion of my oration I exclaimed,

"Surely you should give at least one-tenth of all you earn to the Lord!"

A myriad of hearty "amens" echoed throughout the pine wood church building.

One of the more fervent members, Millman Babbage, cart-wheeled up to the pulpit, balanced himself on the hand-railing, and shouted,

"I say let's raise it to ONE-TWENTIETH!"

Someone in the back seconded the motion and it was made an official policy of the Broken Plow Christian Church before I had a chance to explain their error. Chaos broke loose.

No novel or play ever presented such vicissitudes and events as this frenzy which enacted itself for more than twenty five minutes. I had no control over the unexpected activity that followed. I decided it was time for me to depart from this madness. As I galloped off on my trusty steed, Calico, I looked back and saw Millman Babbage atop a human pyramid juggling live cats and singing at the top of his lungs. Then, to my horror, the volcano that was less than fifty feet from the town, erupted and filled the town with hot lava and a thick cloud of ash.

When things cool off a bit I intend to return.