The Freedom from Religion Foundation is suing the federal government, saying that the tax break it gives pastors is, in the words of co-president Annie Laurie Gaylor, “not constitutional, … not fair, and …  not necessary.” In fact, she told The Tennessean, “We think the law is rotten at the core.”

The federal government allows churches to pay part of their pastor’s salaries in the form of a housing allowance. Pastors can save thousands of dollars on taxes because the housing allowance is tax-exempt. This policy has been in place since the 1920s and has already survived one challenge in 2002, after a similar court case led Congress to step in and save the housing break.

Dan Busby, head of Evangelical Council for Financial Accountability, told The Tennessean he thinks Congress would still save the housing break:

“I don’t think this lawsuit is going anywhere,” he said. “Both houses of Congress don’t want to touch this.”

A PDF copy of Freedom from Religion’s court complaint is here.

On a recent Sunday I heard a man from the pulpit admit that he had blown off his wife’s interruption because he was busy. This, I would say, is normally a good and commendable and godly thing to happen in a pulpit, and quite edifying for the congregation, especially if you have come from a church where the pastor never admits to sin at all.

But confession can become a shtick. It’s very hard to say this, and I know it must make me sound curmudgeonly and impossible to please. After all, you would think that when we have confessing pastors, we have attained the ultimate in piety and church life. But somewhere along the line I realized, to my horror, that it is possible to get trapped in a routine of forever confessing and never changing. One almost gets the feeling, after a while, that all there is to the Christian life is the moribund recital of botched examples of moral failure. Such recitations have a semblance of humility and godliness—the first thousand times. But if that’s all there is, if that’s the most progress we ever see in our leaders, then we settle into an unconscious melancholia. We develop very low expectations of the Christian life. Our constant parroting of words about the “already” and “not yet” provisions of Christ’s atonement become a convenient theology for explaining and excusing our powerlessness.

I would like to hear a preacher stand up and, rather than reap approving feedback from the Amen section for his forthcoming confessions of daily lacks of courage and love and obedience, tell us how he had a great week of victory and liberty in serving the Lord and walking in His ways—of finally overcoming a besetting sin, of finding power in prayer and fasting against a longstanding temptation, of learning the secret to contentment, of discovering the power of God in the midst of severe weakness. I will not think such a man proud or arrogant. I will take notes, and I will walk out of church slightly elevated from the ground as my soul is transported by a testimony of the living God.

To hear commentaries by Andrée Seu, click here.

On June 17, 2002, the Red Deer Advocate in the Canadian province of Alberta published a letter to the editor written by Stephen Boissoin, then head of Alberta’s Concerned Christian Coalition. The letter starts with an expression of compassion for people suffering from an “unwanted sexual identity crisis.” It then goes on to decry the “militant homosexual agenda,” specifically for introducing homosexual teachings into public schools, encouraging children to believe that “same-sex families are acceptable,” and that “men kissing men is appropriate.”

Darren Lund, then a teacher at Red Deer’s high school, filed a complaint with the Alberta Human Rights and Citizenship Commission. Lund had recently launched an anti-prejudice program at the school, and his argument against Boissoin was that his letter represented a hate crime.

In December 2007, the commission ruled in Lund’s favor, saying that Boissoin had violated human rights law by exposing gays to hatred and contempt. Boissoin and the coalition were prohibited from publishing any “disparaging remarks” about homosexuality. They were also ordered to issue a written apology to Lund and to pay him $5,000 in damages. Boissoin appealed.

Last week a judge overturned the ruling against Boissoin saying, among other things, that the order to refrain from making “disparaging remarks” was illegal and not enforceable.

Reaction on both sides was predictable. Lund expressed concern that the ruling would put gays and lesbians at risk. Boissoin called the entire process, which lasted seven-and-a-half years, “a waste of time.”

While I can’t speak for Alberta’s school system, I believe that here in the United States there is an agenda at work in sex ed curricula in many schools, introducing students to all kinds of sexual behaviors that go against traditional Judeo Christian teachings, including homosexuality. I probably would have written a different letter than Boissoin’s. But without question this most recent ruling is a victory for free speech.

Is it ok for pastors to download sermons instead of writing the sermons themselves? The Minneapolis Star Tribune reports that online sermon caches are making it easier for pastors to download examples, outlines and even entire sermons. Some people say it’s unethical, dishonest and cheating. Some say it’s fine — just like a lawyer looking at a case study, or trading ideas face to face: “Some preachers see it as a compliment. Even seminaries have a love-hate relationship with it.” Our own Tony Woodlief has said, “I’m inclined to welcome efforts to recycle good sermons, as opposed to inventing lackluster, meandering, poorly reasoned ones.”

I was actually talking about a recent sermon I heard and telling someone it felt “canned” to me — like the pastor had gotten the outline from a study guide and fleshed it out with his own examples. Then I read this article indicating that’s not such an unlikely possibility. It’s an interesting debate especially given the controversy in the Christian community over Christian leaders who rely on ghostwriters without giving them proper credit.

What do you think of the ethics involved here? Is it like a high school student  downloading someone else’s term paper, or like two teachers trading lecture ideas?

“Come and hear, all you who fear God, and I will tell what he has done for my soul” (Psalm 66:16).

We have all been asked now and then to give our “testimony,” by which is usually meant our conversion story of 30 years ago. It gets a little old. It somehow reminds me of Jimmy Durante singing, “Oh, I’ll never forget the day I read a book. . . .” Yup, I’ll never forget the day I trusted God.

My guess is that the Psalmist here is not dusting off his anecdote about coming forward at a summer youth group retreat in the 1960s. He has fresh evidence of God’s greatness, and he is bursting to tell it. We are given hints in the Psalm that a breakthrough, or some display of God’s power, came through a season of intense soul sifting, in which the man rode that tiger for all he was worth:

“For you, O God, have tested us; you have tried us as silver is tried. You brought us into the net; you laid a crushing burden on our backs; you let men ride over our heads; we went through fire and through water; yet you have brought us out to a place of abundance” (vvs. 10-12).

It’s not only the suffering but the holding on through the suffering that creates a testimony. Any fool can suffer.

In my opinion, Sunday preaching would be much improved if the exposition of the Word of God were illustrated by testimonies from the preacher’s life. The most encouraging preaching I hear is of that variety. Jesus told stories. Stories are powerful. I don’t think we were ever meant to keep recycling only the stories of faithfulness of Abraham, Moses, and Daniel.

To hear commentaries by Andrée Seu, click here.

A few weeks ago we brought to your attention proposed legislation in Arkansas that would allow churches to decide whether or not congregants can carry concealed weapons into their sanctuaries. Yesterday the bill stalled after a voice vote in the Arkansas Senate’s Judiciary Committee, killing it after it had passed earlier in the House.

Rep. Beverly Pyle, the bill’s sponsor, said she might bring the bill up again, and Gov. Mike Beebe has said he would sign it if it passed

“This is not a gun question, it is a question of religious freedom,” Pyle said.

Debra Carl Freeman, pastor of Westover Hills Presbyterian Church in Little Rock, disagreed, saying the bill “would fundamentally change the perception of sanctuaries in this state from places of safety, peace and openness into those of fear and suspicion.”

Arkansas lawmakers are debating a bill that would allow churches to decide whether or not congregants can carry concealed weapons into their sanctuaries. Under the current law, holders of concealed weapons permits can take guns anywhere in the state except bars and houses of worship.

John Phillips, the pastor of Ward Chapel Church in Little Rock who was shot twice at the end of a service 23 years ago, opposes the bill. He said that passing it “would disturb the sanctity and tranquility of church,” adding that if a church decides to opt out, “Do you want ushers to stop you at the door and frisk you?”

Other pastors support the bill, including a group of 40 who presented a petition to legislators. “It’s not about gun rights, it’s about church rights,” said one of those pastors, Nathan Petty of Beech Grove Baptist Church in Fordyce. “Is it right for the state to make that decision for the church?”

ADDENDUM: Speaking of guns and churches, people lined up early at a Columbia, S.C., church this morning to take part in the local police department’s “Gun for Roses” program. Those turning in a shotgun or a rifle got a rose and a $50 gift card to Best Buy. If they brought in a handgun, they got back a flower and a $100 gift card. There was no amnesty for those turning in their weapons. All guns were checked to see if they were stolen or used in a crime.

There are over 300,000 churches in America, and 52 Sundays in a calendar year. This means that roughly 15,600,000 sermons are annually composed and delivered to expectant flocks. That’s a lot of pressure on a pastor, and so perhaps it’s not surprising that resources like SermonCentral and Pastor’s Helper have emerged to make their jobs easier. The result in some cases is called “pulpit plagiarism,” which seems to infuriate congregations more for the fact that a pastor passes off the sermon as his own than the fact that he didn’t make up the words himself.

Public speaker by training, writer by practice, and analytical by curse, I’ve found many sermons lacking in one of those dimensions, and frequently in all three. When I do the math and see that over 15 million sermons are delivered each year, I can’t help but cringe. As a result I’m inclined to welcome efforts to recycle good sermons, as opposed to inventing lackluster, meandering, poorly reasoned ones. I remember reading that in the first centuries of the Church, in fact, at least one Archbishop implored the priests in his domain to read texts from greats such as John Chrysostom, rather than string together their own stultifying messages.

One might retort that it’s never the words of man that convict a heart, but the inspiration of God speaking through man. Yet none of us would tolerate, I suspect, the delivery of a sermon in pig Latin. At some level, we concur that the quality of the message has something to do with its effect, or at the very least, that the messenger ought to strive to deliver the best message — one most consistent with the Word and working of God — that he can. And in some cases (perhaps many) this might very well mean reading sermons prepared by stronger writers and thinkers.

Yet what would happen, I wonder, if pastors began to openly do this? I suspect a great many congregations would be up in arms, a consequence of our increasing tendency to view them as service providers and we the customers. Yet while we may be tempted to view pastors as existing primarily to lecture us from pulpits, many of them are far stronger at shepherding and ministering to a flock than lecturing at it. So why not give them license to deliver valuable messages prepared by someone else, thus freeing up their time to work where their gifts are strong? Maybe sermon borrowing is a practice that will catch on.

On the other hand, perhaps even bad sermons have a purpose. As Jayber Crow, the eponymous narrator of the novel by Wendell Berry observes:

“In general, I weathered even the worst sermons pretty well. They had the great virtue of causing my mind to wander. Some of the best things I have ever thought of I have thought of during bad sermons.”

I recently spent nearly three years on a pastor search committee, and God blessed our congregation for our patience by sending us a wonderful man who faithfully preaches God’s word in season and out of season. During the search process our committee saw a variety of creative ways prospective pastors would present their credentials as they sought out a call—DVD presentations, family photos, humorously written bios—but we didn’t see anything quite like what this man and his family have put together on eBay.

HT: Tim Challies

Abraham Piper (John’s son) is encouraging pastors to blog, and he gives six reasons why they should:

1. …to write.
2. …to teach.
3. …to recommend.
4. …to interact.
5. …to develop an eye for what is meaningful.
6. …to be known.

Piper, who fleshes out these reasons here, points out, “It will give you access to your people’s minds and hearts in a unique way by giving them a chance to know you as a well-rounded person.”

My pastor blogs (or at least he has a blog, but he hasn’t been posting much lately!), does yours? And for all you pastors out there, what are your thoughts on blogging or not blogging?