Baptist ministers and misplaced priorities

Lots of Baptist ministers email me. Mostly, their messages are chiding. They tell me that I need to be “nicer,” that I have too much of a “hard edge,” that I need to not be so “judgmental,” that I would “get more flies with honey,” that I need to “listen more,” that I could accomplish more if only I wouldn’t “put people on the defensive,” etc. etc. etc. etc. I also get lots of mini-sermons on forgiveness. At first, some of the messages gave me pause – I’m pathologically prone to self-doubt. But lately, Baptist ministers have so overloaded me with criticism that I was finally able to see the cartoonish quality of it. Thanks guys. You’ve done me a favor.

When so many Baptist ministers choose to focus on instructing an outspoken woman in “niceness” rather than on doing something about clergy child molesters, there are some seriously misplaced priorities in this denomination’s leaders.

Along the same lines, another emailer chose to tell me about the “satanic nature of labyrinths” and praised my childhood church for refusing my request for a labyrinth and meditation garden. Of course, I also proposed a small millstone sculpture as a symbolic gesture of support for clergy abuse victims, and that’s very Biblical, but it was rejected as well. So I don’t think the satanic or Biblical quality of my request had anything to do with the church’s rejection. In any event, whatever one may think of labyrinths, surely the far greater evil rests in the reality of clergy child molesters and of those who turn a blind eye.

Though most Baptist ministers have been critical, a few – including Spiritual Samurai David Montoya - have been genuinely kind and helpful. My heartfelt thanks to them.