CAREFUL AS YOU LEAVE -- Just a Minute for 9-22-08 Monday

It’s Monday – and a whole new week before us!

 

Right in the middle of a Wall Street week another area of contention presses into the national scene. The Washington Times – opposite number to the Washington Post in the nation’s capital – has run a book review. It’s a book written by the Time’s chief religious writer Julia Duin (pronounced Deen) entitled “Church Quitting.”

 

Most everyone knows the voting bloc (really not much of a bloc because there’s no preeminent leader or even group of leaders) of the so-called ‘evangelical vote’ is urgently sought after by both parties because it could represent the winning margin especially in some crucial states. Ms. Duin’s book published within the month by Baker Book House, indicates there is trouble within the evangelical community. Her research and reporting – admittedly somewhat thin because it seems to be mostly a one reporter show – which she describes as trouble with the churches more than with the members who are leaving.

 

It does not seem to be exactly a mass exodus so much as a change of methods or preferences among the worshipers.  This has been noted in other places – even among some of the mega-church leaders. Ms. Duin has experienced some of the difficulties first hand and points to teaching that stops at the basics, and churches that are so big and diffused there isn’t much of a sense of community. Also since she is a single mom she finds some difficulties on that score.

 

But it’s one more set of factors complicating the outlook on what promises to be one of the most difficult to forecast elections of recent memory.  In any case for at least part of one day we got your mind and attention off Wall Street and back to main street.

 

Cordially, IN HIM

Jack

 

http://www.jebcovoice.net/audio/jama09-22-08.mp3

 

http://www.jebcovoice.net/scripts/jamt09-22-08.doc

 

 

“JUST A MINUTE”

CAREFUL AS YOU LEAVE

Just A Minute – The ­Washington Times chief religious writer Julia Duin (Deen) writes a book published by Baker Book House called, “Quitting Church.” There she chronicles a major exodus from ‘evangelical’ churches according to Terry Eastland’s Wall Street Journal book review – right at the crucial time when both candidates are angling for the ‘evangelical’ vote.

Ms. Duin’s (spelt DEEN)  “church-quitting” (not splitting - another problem another time) is an epidemic. She says the problem isn’t with the members, but the character of the churches they’re leaving. "Something," she says, "is not right with . . . evangelical church life."

In 30 years of journalism she’s worked for five newspapers and is now based in D.C. -- the world’s largest journalistic collection. Her observations: There’s less a feeling of community among the members, teaching stops at the basics and women in particular are often asked to do too little.

My experience is a bit different – but then I don’t write books. You can get a copy of this script from WMUU-FM or from “justaminuteradio.blogspot.com”

<> I’m Jack Buttram

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