WASHINGTON \u2014 Whenever a preacher starts getting personal, picky and downright pushy, Bible Belt folks like to say he has quit preaching and \u201cgone to meddling.\u201d<\/p>\n\n
A lot of folks have been saying that, and much more, about the Rev. Reggie White lately. The Green Bay Packer legend recently offended legions of people with a sermon to Wisconsin lawmakers that attacked abortion, called homosexual acts sin and offered up a colorful series of ethnic anecdotes, while arguing that all racial groups must see each other as part of God\u2019s image.<\/p>\n\n
As if that didn\u2019t make enough people mad, this week White stood up in the nation\u2019s capital and said God wants to start messing with the ordinary day-to-day sins of people who think of themselves as conservatives. The man that many call the greatest defensive lineman ever even had the audacity to sack a purple dinosaur.<\/p>\n\n
\u201cHow many of you wives have a hard time getting your husband\u2019s attention when he\u2019s watching TV?\u201d, he asked, drawing nervous laughter at a luncheon in which he and his wife Sara were honored by the conservative Family Research Council. \u201cHow many of you husbands have a hard time getting your wife\u2019s attention when she\u2019s on the telephone?\u2026 How many of us can get our children\u2019s attention when they\u2019re watching cartoons?<\/p>\n\n
\u201cWhy are Barney and Mickey so much more popular than Jesus? Because the world is trying to feed us \u2026 and trying to get us to idol worship.\u201d<\/p>\n\n
White didn\u2019t back down on the issues that caused the Wisconsin firestorm and he drew cheers by saying that journalists keep mangling his religious convictions and images. He also came out swinging at CBS, accusing the network\u2019s executives of yanking an on-air job \u2014 which he said was worth $6 million \u2014 when faced with pressure from gay-rights groups. CBS denies this, while the superstar\u2019s supporters have begun talking about a lawsuit.<\/p>\n\n
But the ordained Baptist minister focused most of this sermon on subjects closer to pews and family-room couches. He talked about heterosexual sins, how many parents are failing in the moral education of their children and how racial and denominational divisions among believers stunt their public witness. He even blamed the church, in part, for the negative role he believes the news and entertainment media play in American life.<\/p>\n\n
White recently completed a two-week juice fast and, during this time of intense prayer, he said God gave him yet another vision. \u201cI\u2019ve been ripped because of this,\u201d he said, and then spoke to the media personnel in the room. \u201cYou\u2019ve got your cameras on? God spoke to me. He said this. He said that what the enemy does is he communicates his evil message, he distributes his evil message and then he gives the resources to those whom he has influenced to promote his evil message.\u201d<\/p>\n\n
In other words, said White, Satan is a media mogul, the \u201cprince of the power of the air,\u201d who has mastered the art of communicating through television, radio, music, movies and newspapers. But this doesn\u2019t mean mass media are automatically evil or that the church hasn\u2019t made it\u2019s own media mistakes. Simply stated, religious believers are now suffering the consequences of decades of decisions to flee from the world of mass media.<\/p>\n\n
\u201cWe said it was of the devil, when it was of God,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n
It\u2019s time to stop running away and to get involved, said White, noting that Korea\u2019s most powerful evangelical church has begun publishing a major daily newspaper. Religious believers need to begin putting more movies, television comedies, radio programs and music into the marketplace and be more aggressive as consumers, he said..<\/p>\n\n
Many of his critics celebrated when his job with CBS fell through. But what this media acid bath taught him, he said, is that it\u2019s impossible to ignore the cultural role played by mass media. Now he wants to try to do something positive about that, although he declined to discuss the details of this vision just yet.<\/p>\n\n
But he did issue this challenge: \u201cI\u2019m tired of the devil pushing us around. \u2026 God is trying to give people some guts to speak out on truth.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
WASHINGTON \u2014 Whenever a preacher starts getting personal, picky and downright pushy, Bible Belt folks like to say he has quit preaching and \u201cgone to meddling.\u201d A lot of folks have been saying that, and much more, about the Rev. Reggie White lately. The Green Bay Packer legend recently offended legions of people with a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":610,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1027","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\n