Although fundamentalists love sermons on sin of the outrageous and titillating variety, they very often lack any openly practicing sinners in their midst. This results in the odd circumstance of pastors preaching entire sermons on a topics that ostensibly apply to nobody who is listening; it’s like  a sort of  National Geographic tour of the wastelands of iniquity so curious Christians can be suitably shocked.

Perhaps you too have enjoyed the pleasure of sitting in a youth group consisting of three pastor’s kids, one youth pastor’s son, and one child of a visiting missionary.  Not at all deterred by the apparent squeaky cleanness of  his audience, the speaker will still treat those present to a forty-five minute tirade in which the speaker insinuated that most of those present were probably 1) practitioners of witchcraft 2)drug addicts or 3)passing notes during the sermon instead of paying attention.

Yet somehow in the throes of condemning those not present, the real sin in the camp goes unnoticed. Given the average audience in a fundy church it would seem that sermons on gays,  ganja, and gambling would give place to more relevant sermons on things like gossip, gluttony, or greed. But it’s just so much easier to convince those who are already converted.

image found at sacredsandwich.com