Friday, January 05, 2007

Was Washington Post fair to The Falls Church?

No, writes Mary Katharine Ham at Town Hall:

I'm not a member, but I attend regularly, along with about 2,500 other worshippers, including Alberto Gonzales, Fred Barnes, and Porter Goss. It's a conservative, Bible-based church that thinks Jesus is "the way, the truth, and the life," and doesn't cotton to the "evolving" teachings of the Episcopal Church that aren't so sure about that whole Jesus thing, which is the entire basis of our faith.

It is a lovely church that welcomes people of all denominations, or no denomination in my case.
. . .
I have been going to The Falls Church regularly for over a year, and I have NEVER, EVER, ONCE seen anything even remotely close to anyone speaking in tongues in that congregation.

When I read the lede, I had to check to make sure he was talking about my church, so far off was it from my own experiences. If anything, the congregation at The Falls Church is achingly normal, with its merino wool V-neck sweaters, and Vera Bradley diaper bags, and 2.5 children per family-- shaggy-haired, flip-flopped teenaged boys and dirty-blonde pre-teen girls flipping their first sets of highlights.

But noooo, in the Washington Post, the church is something else indeed. . . .

(Via Instapundit.)

Perhaps Fred Barnes will weigh in.

But in the meantime, you have wonder where she gets her information on "the 'evolving' teachings of the Episcopal Church that aren't so sure about that whole Jesus thing, which is the entire basis of our faith."

If it's homosexuality she's got in mind, Jesus said nothing on the subject and in action he excluded no one. And his summary of the law was very to the point: love God wholeheartedly; love your neighbor as yourself.

Perhaps she's got in mind some in TEC who are willing to allow that they do not have the whole truth, that God is bigger than whatever we may be able to imagine -- and that God's plan may include multiple religions peacefully coexisting and teaching each other about God.

Andrew Sullivan, though, projects more onto Fall Church from the WaPo piece than is there. Is Falls Church full of church-shopping fundamentalist Wahhabists? Come on Andrew.

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