More people in need of Insensitivity Training

I never can predict how things I write will affect people. I assumed yesterday’s piece for Inside Catholic would get a mix of a) people denouncing me for my crude superstition because I take seriously Catholic warnings about the devil; b) a few denunciations from people who object to associating the devil with Their Favorite Grave Sins; and c) assorted other commentary.

Instead, I get this heart-wringing complaint (both in the combox and in my private email):

Years ago, I heard a Black Pentecostal pastor in Spokane talking about a time he and some other local non-denominational pastors

I suppose all the other people in the story are Red. The Mans Color has nothing to do with the story-Racism. Please remove this from your site you are hurting people.

The header on the gripe at Inside Catholic charmingly shouts, “Please remove the RACIST STORY”.

And people wonder why nobody likes Professionally Aggrieved Grievance Professionals, just because they go around recklessly performing the verbal equivalent of arson on people’s reputations while being too ignorant to inform themselves of the meaning of common English words like “niggardly” or “picnic”.

Clues for the clueless:

“Black Pentecostal” is a sociological term, no more “racist” than “German Lutheran”, “Dutch Reformed” or “Irish Catholic”. Really. You can find whole works on American religious life by actual scholar types which use the term right in the title if you’d just take, say, a couple of milliseconds to Google before setting fire to somebody’s good name with reckless, ignorant charges.

Moral: A choice to be ignorantly offended on your part does not constitute a crisis on my part.

Note to Arsonists of Other People’s Good Names: Get a dictionary and learn what words mean and where they come from, if you aren’t too niggardly to spend the money. The only thing behavior like this manages to burn to the ground was my respect for your integrity and intelligence.