Word: sermonizer
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...solemnly declare before God and my parish that I have committed adultery," announced Pastor Bastianus Gerardus Andries van der Wiel from the pulpit of the Reformed Church of Elburg in The Netherlands. The congregation listened in thrilled silence; then the chief elder rose to deliver a thunderous, hour-long sermon on guilt, as Van der Wiel sat beside his wife with head bowed. Many in the congregation cried, and they sang six psalms for a sinner restored to grace...
...rigid, righteous Christians of Elburg were concerned, justice had been done, and the case was closed. "Ministers are sinners, like you and me," said one elderly fisherman, contentedly. "We are all sinners, day and night." Another Elburger, who last week heard Van der Wiel deliver his first post-confession sermon, commented: "It was wonderful preaching today. I felt fine, as we all did, and we sang with joy." But Van der Wiel was emotionally shattered by his ordeal. The provincial synod, when it heard about the pastor's punishment, was so shocked that it ordered an investigation...
...pursuit of those ideals of human dignity in which he believed and whose course he so brilliantly illuminated." A shop-window placard in New York's Times Square proclaimed: SALE! COLLECTOR'S ITEM. KENNEDY HALF-DOLLAR. 880. Boston's Richard Cardinal Gushing prepared a sermon for a special Mass that said: "He became the voice of mankind to interpret the issues of the day and to help lead our generation to higher levels toward an era of relaxing tension, humane hopes, and peace on earth. We thank God, however, that we had him, even for less than...
...parish roster-he believes that the church can learn from the contemporary stage. "The real experienced truth about man himself" is often better expressed in the "theater of the absurd" than in the Prayer Book, he says, and he puts drama into his unconventional Sunday services. Instead of a sermon, St. Clement's may feature a scene from Beckett's Waiting for Godot. In addition to readings from the Epistles and Gospels, the service has a "contemporary epistle"; last Sunday it was a passage from John Steinbeck's East of Eden. Actors are not the only ones...
...fire breather, he begins his 25-minute sermon by telling a few mild, clerical jokes and asking the congregation to take a deep, tension-easing breath: "Relax-give yourself over to God." Like Norman Vincent Peale, he spends more time analyzing modern ills than expounding theology, his chatty sermons are lightened by references to such contemporary phenomena as booing cricket umpires, which he deplores, and cosmetics, which he endorses ("God made women beautiful, and they should develop this talent"). When he recently took his text from the Sermon on the Mountain"Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit...