Spewing from the pulpit while being held captive in a pew

For lack of a better word, the biblical ignorance of some of columnist Dr. Bill Cummings readers is amazing. Cummings, in his earlier writings, suggested that believers satisfied with their present faith should forego his column and dwell on adherence to whatever religious path they have chosen. Albeit, why stir the pot of religious controversy if you're already well grounded in your chosen belief, unless it is for the purpose of proselyting what you have? On the other hand, if I may borrow from the music of Randy Travis, if you really want to learn more about the Holy Bible and how it evolved the last 2,000 years or so, Cummings is the educator who can help you with that. He is able to weave the poems, parables, analogies, fables, comparisons and generalities that make up the fabric of our Holy Bible better than anyone I have ever read.

I always find his column interesting and informative, and it usually causes me to reflect on some of the pastoral verbiage that has been spewed on me in the past while I was held morally captive in a church pew. Once I heard a man of faith preach that God was returning to earth soon, and his coming would happen in the very pulpit where he now stood. That was 70 years ago and the last time I was on the street where that church stood, it had been demolished and a fire station occupied the space. Coincidence or a little of God's gospel humor?

In a recent edition of The Telegraph, columnist Charles E. Richardson opined that George Orwell's novel "1984" defined "Doublethink" as an ability to have two opposing viewpoints on a subject and believe in both of them. A simplistic example of doublethink could be found in the baptismal rites that the Baptist and Methodist church practiced when I was a child. The former held to the church doctrine that a total immersion of a candidate's body was required to wash away all sins, but the latter professed just as loudly that a simple sprinkling of water on the head accomplished the same thing. On more than one occasion I have been psychologically shackled to a pew while some pastor cited biblical passages that anything short of a full dunking during this sacrament guaranteed the candidate a paved road to hell. My torture would've been lessened had the pastor been acquainted with doublethink.

Perhaps if more believers here used doublethink in evaluating biblical passages we would have a better religious understanding of each other. Maybe we could begin by applying doublethink to John 14:6, comparatively our personal pathway to the hereafter and the pathway of those who never heard of Christ or follow another God. Hopefully Cummings will write each Sunday for The Telegraph for many years. We have the option to read or skip his column. Learn from his studies or turn a deaf ear. Accept, question or deny what he has to say. Cummings will be the first to tell you he does not have all the answers about God and life, and rest assured those who criticize him are just as clueless on the subject.

John G. Kelley Jr. is a resident Macon.

This story was originally published March 28, 2016 at 9:16 PM with the headline "Spewing from the pulpit while being held captive in a pew ."