A couple days ago, we wrote about how St. James Church used a quote from Satan as their website tag line. Church Marketing Sucks has been following the story, and has posted this comment from the pastor of St. James:

…the pastor of St. James UCC pointed out to me that this all could have been avoided if the original blogger who noticed the wrong quote had just let them know instead of broadcasting to the world. He compared it to seeing pie on a friend’s face and telling the whole room before you tell your friend. Sometimes we’d rather point and laugh than actually help somebody fix something.

The problem with this take on the issue is that this isn’t some simple mistake that anyone could make. This is all too indicative of the cluelessness of the average church in regards to what the Bible actually says. It is equivalent to a tacit admission that not one person at St James — not even the pastor — has actually ever read that chapter of Luke in context, or bothered to check the quote. Instead, they’ve fully subscribed to a half-assed “Notable Quotable” style of Christianity. It is indicative of the state of intellectual laziness inherent in Christianity today, where organizations of faith choose ignorance, moral pomposity and blind faith over study and introspection. It deserved to be widely ridiculed, not covered with a tactful hiccough.

St. James Church – we made fun of you, and we’re not sorry. With the resulting controversy and embarrassment now surrounding your church, maybe someone there will actually bother to read the book they are trying to get others to change their lives for.

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