The President and his non-church decision
The decision for the President and his family to forgo attending a church of their personal choice in Washington, D.C. could very well have been a difficult one.
I can only relate how my parents would feel when making the decision not to attend church on a particular Sunday. Most of the time it was due to the fact they were going to take the sixty minute drive “down the country”; down the country being either to my fathers’ or mothers’ home in Virginia to see their parents and other relatives. They felt one churchless Sunday was not an act condemning their souls to the eternal fires of hell. After all, they read portions of the Bible every Sunday at dinner and going to the country was not going to make a difference.
However, when my parents did attend church, there was not a media pool camped outside and church members did not have to run past a gauntlet of reporters to get inside only to find, Sunday after Sunday, perfect strangers sitting in their favorite seats and most of them white!
In newspapers before a given Sunday, my parents did not have to read an article questioning portions of the Ministers’ sermon delivered the Sunday before or the musical background of the organist. Nor did they have to see on television a “just obtained” copy of the next Sunday church program and listen to somebodys' Biblical analysis of the sermon to be preached.
Further, they would have been embarrassed to learn the church was behind one month in its mortgage payment and the minister and his wife drove automobiles not yet paid for and how much they cost and where the ministers’ wife shopped for her clothes and the little morsel that one of the Church Deacons use to be a numbers runner back in the day and had been twice arrested.
I so glad that when my parents decided to take us "down the country” it was not due to fears and embarrassments of attending church and receiving “Child, did’ya hear…” phone calls from other members of the congregation. If the Obamas made the intelligent but heart-wrenching decision to let sleeping dogs lie, I could not agree with them more. Sad.
As always,
BB
P.S. I know a lot of ministers were shaking in their boots when the Obamas moved into town. "Oh, no Lord! Please, please, PUL---LEEASE!!"
I can only relate how my parents would feel when making the decision not to attend church on a particular Sunday. Most of the time it was due to the fact they were going to take the sixty minute drive “down the country”; down the country being either to my fathers’ or mothers’ home in Virginia to see their parents and other relatives. They felt one churchless Sunday was not an act condemning their souls to the eternal fires of hell. After all, they read portions of the Bible every Sunday at dinner and going to the country was not going to make a difference.
However, when my parents did attend church, there was not a media pool camped outside and church members did not have to run past a gauntlet of reporters to get inside only to find, Sunday after Sunday, perfect strangers sitting in their favorite seats and most of them white!
In newspapers before a given Sunday, my parents did not have to read an article questioning portions of the Ministers’ sermon delivered the Sunday before or the musical background of the organist. Nor did they have to see on television a “just obtained” copy of the next Sunday church program and listen to somebodys' Biblical analysis of the sermon to be preached.
Further, they would have been embarrassed to learn the church was behind one month in its mortgage payment and the minister and his wife drove automobiles not yet paid for and how much they cost and where the ministers’ wife shopped for her clothes and the little morsel that one of the Church Deacons use to be a numbers runner back in the day and had been twice arrested.
I so glad that when my parents decided to take us "down the country” it was not due to fears and embarrassments of attending church and receiving “Child, did’ya hear…” phone calls from other members of the congregation. If the Obamas made the intelligent but heart-wrenching decision to let sleeping dogs lie, I could not agree with them more. Sad.
As always,
BB
P.S. I know a lot of ministers were shaking in their boots when the Obamas moved into town. "Oh, no Lord! Please, please, PUL---LEEASE!!"
posted by BB at 4:00 AM
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