ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Sunday, January 21, 1996 TAG: 9601190023
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 1 EDITION: METRO
COLUMN: The Back Pew
SOURCE: CODY LOWE
Being snowbound can drive the human mind to hazardous extremes. In the dementia of cabin fever, there is no telling what crazed thought is likely to burn behind the eyeballs, trying to get out.
Take the strange case of Wanda ``X.''
The pure, white, blanket of snow somehow pushed her brain into the dangerous territory of attempting to understand church traditions.
``Why is it,'' she asked when she called me during that snowy week, ``that so many churches have their only Sunday worship service at 11 a.m.?''
Well, uhhhh...
Well, it's traditional, you know? Sing a hymn, hear a sermon, get baptized, eat lunch.
There is a certain logic to it.
OK, really I don't know.
I assume that churches decided to accommodate working folk by letting them sleep a little later on Sunday mornings, but wanted to get services over before lunchtime - when some parishioners would leave anyway as soon as their stomachs started grumbling.
What do you think?
We want to hear your best explanation. If anybody has a serious one, that's fine, but we'd really like to hear your best shot at a humorous rationale for the 11 o'clock service.
When I was a kid, I thought we finished up church at noon so we'd be out in time for ``The Little Rascals'' on TV. It was a rush to get home in time, and depended on how many verses of ``Just As I Am'' that we sang.
Sometimes Pastor Billy Rivers would just insist that somebody ``walk the aisle'' to make a profession of faith for baptism before we got to go home to fried chicken and TV. Rededications - which, for you non-Baptists, means to walk down for a chat with the pastor to recommit oneself to his or her original profession of faith - didn't count on those Sundays.
In any case, if we'd started any later, growling guts would have made a mockery of the closing hymn.
Send your explanation by Jan. 29 to The Back Pew, P.O. Box 2491, Roanoke 24010, or e-mail them to cloweroanoke.infi.net.
No subject in this column in the last year has drawn as much response as my query to you about whether Atlanta television preacher Charles Stanley should be able to keep his pulpit despite his pending divorce.
Here's an update on that situation.
Stanley has asked for a jury trial in the case in which his wife of 40 years, Anna, is seeking a divorce. Stanley, who believes the Bible allows only men to be ordained, has taught for years that divorce should disqualify a man from the pastorate or deaconate. The congregation voted last fall to keep Stanley on, but he has said he will quit if the divorce becomes final.
You may recall that Stanley's son, Andy, quit his job as pastor of his father's satellite church in North Atlanta when Charles Stanley refused to step down. Attendance at the North Atlanta church reportedly has dropped to about half of its usual 4,000.
Now, however, that congregation seems ready to accept a new pastor, Ike Reighard, a popular 45-year-old pulpiteer from nearby Fayetteville, Ga., who many see as a likely prospect for president of the Southern Baptist Convention some day. He also is seen as a likely successor to Charles Stanley at the main downtown church whenever Stanley leaves the pulpit.
Charles Stanley's divorce trial was postponed from last November and may begin in April. Though he continues to say he wants to reconcile with his wife, from whom he has been separated since 1992, she says there is no chance of that.
LENGTH: Medium: 70 linesby CNB