Word: sermonizer
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Presbyterian Blake launched his sensation, appropriately enough, in an Episcopal church: San Francisco's Grace Cathedral. The occasion was the Sunday sermon at the beginning of the annual meeting of the National Council of Churches. A congregation that included some of the biggest wigs in Protestantism filed out 90 minutes later, whispering excitedly. For Presbyterian Blake had made a bold proposal-that the Episcopal Church and Northern Presbyterians together invite the Methodists and the United Church of Christ to form a new Christian church...
Along with all the hustle came the annual vociferous difference of opinion on whether all this is good or phony. Says a National Council of Churches official: "One of the things every minister dreads is preaching a Mother's Day sermon. Those with courage don't." Some women would just as soon forget the whole thing. Says New Yorker Betty Carter, mother of five: "Hell, I feel like Mother India all year round. I see no point in being reminded of it once a year." Recalls Actress Florence Eldridge (Mrs. Fredric March): "When my two children were young...
...some would say, that she speaks too seldom. Rather, she speaks too often and on too many subjects." This was the unlikely counsel of outspoken Manhattan Methodist Ralph W. Sockman, minister since 1936 to a congregation now numbering some 500,000 on NBC's Radio Pulpit. "Churchmen," his sermon continued, "act as though they feel they have to pontificate on any problem and, having spoken, tend to assume that there is little more to be said. This is boorish behavior as well as bad theology. It leaves little alternative for those who disagree but to stay away. Thoughtful members...
...Cathari built no churches; they worshiped in private houses without the sacraments (being material, they were evil) or the cross (because Christ had no real body and died no real death). They read the Scriptures-especially the Gospel of John-listened to a sermon, said the Lord's Prayer (in native Languedoc dialect rather than Latin) and shared a common meal. The clergy wore black robes-until Pope Innocent's crusade began...
...being born into the world are not and never will be Christian. The population's mobility goes against it; a mobile Protestant population can't sink profound religious roots. And the intellectual communication necessary to Protestantism is being drowned out by the bombardment of mass media-a sermon is lost in the other words of the week...