Easter Sunday

Like a lot of heathens, I got dragged to church on Easter Sunday. This one, in the small Midwestern village where I grew up. The place was packed, even though I know that normal attendance is low enough to worry about the church's future. Since it took three adults and two children to drag me, I suspect the dragged heathen count was insufficiently high to explain the variable. Most likely garden variety lazy Christians made up the difference.

Somewhere through a much too long, pedantic, and dismal sermon -- something topical about having to ask forgiveness for dreadful sin -- an auditory flapper jostled me fully awake. Something to the effect of, 'You have to ask forgiveness! I should know; I'm a dreadful sinner! I've broken every one of the 10 Commandments!' I turned to my cousin sitting next to me and whispered, "Your minister has broken all ten of the 10 Commandments? That's a little alarming." She whispered back, "Given the rest of the sermon, I doubt he knows what the Ten are."

I'm not certain which is more disconcerting, that Christian standards have gotten so low that churches are hiring parentally disrespectful, murderous, thieves as preachers, or that these sin hounds don't know even know the 10 Commandants.