Tuesday

Danny shook his head and smiled. “What is the one thing we can’t control? We don’t try to control it, but what is there in our service we can’t control?”
Billy-Bob answered, “How many questions we’re asked.”
“Right,” shouted Danny as he pointed to Billy-Bob. “But, the big difference for us is that if we get another question or two, we answer it. No big deal. It costs us nothing. For Reverend Hamm, every minute he’s on the air cost him about a hundred and seventy dollars. That’s ten thousand dollars an hour and I promise you, Hamm didn’t get an extra ten thousand dollars in contributions for his extra hour tonight. I guarantee you, the bastard went in the hole. Way in the hole.”
“So, Danny, what do you think is going to happen next week?”
“My guess is the Hamm show will just be the Hamm show, just like always. The days of Hamm’s Baptist Episcopal show are over.”
The six were in awe the following week when Hamm was back to his regular format. There was no moving bible reading, no moving sermon, just business as usual complete with his advertisements for books, trinkets and other religious items. . . all for a love offering.
But before Hamm’s show ended, he came on the air sitting behind a desk. It seemed that an “unseen expense” had befallen his ministry and in order to survive on the air he was asking for additional contributions from his partners and supporters. His plea was complete with the sound of a choir in the background and lighting befitting his effort.
“You think he’s gone?” asked Davy.
“No, not hardly. They exposed Popoff and his wife for fraud thirty years ago and he’s back on TV peddling miracle water. Bakker was a crook. The whole world saw he was a crook. They sent him to prison and he’s back on television selling overpriced food and generators for the ‘end time’ to come. Swaggart admitted ‘He had sinned’. No, those people are like cockroaches. You just can’t get rid of them.”
“I wonder why?” said Davy thinking out loud.
“The two-edged sword.”
“Two-edged sword?”
“Yes, forgiveness. It is the blessing of Christianity. It is the curse of Christianity. It’s wonderful to forgive those who should be forgiven. It’s one of the greatest attributes man can posses. But, there are those who know its dangers and are more than willing to use it. The Jim Bakkers, the Peter Popoffs, the teenage child on drugs. They use forgiveness like a great violinist plays a Stradivarius. They have nothing to lose. Whatever they do, they’ll be forgiven, they know it, and they keep coming back for more.”
“Sad.”
“Yes, my friend,” said Danny, “it is sad.”
“Will he be back?”
“Who knows?”
Davy exhaled loudly. “I gave the deacons at Meredith Baptist my notice.”
Danny nodded but said nothing.
“You didn’t have to. Any of us would pick up the slack if you need help.”
“No. That’s not it.”
Danny expected more, but there was only silence.
“Okay, you want to tell me why you quit?” shouted Danny.
Davy looked Danny straight in the eye, said nothing, but only stared. Then, he asked a question. “Do you ever listen to what you say?”
“You mean in a sermon?”
“No, just what you say?”
“You’ve lost me.”
“When we were talking to Green the other night. If you’ll remember, I told him that I thought guilt for gold was a sleezebag way of doing things. I accused him of trying to use guilt to increase contributions.”
“Okay, I remember that.”
“I listened to what I had said, Danny. And that is what I was taught. That’s what my stepfather taught me. Oh, he never said making people guilty would boost contributions, but making people feel guilty was his measure of a good sermon, a good Baptist sermon, the ones I’m always praising. It’s guilt, Danny.”
“Don’t tell me about guilt. You and I were raised up in the mothership of guilt, the Catholic Church.”
“Right, and who owns more banks, companies and industries than anyone on the planet?”
“Let me guess, the Catholic Church.”
“Right, but I don’t care about that, they’ve had two thousand years to guilt people out of their money. What I care about is some people actually measure a good sermon by how guilty the thing makes you feel. Even if you have nothing to feel guilty about.”
“This is upsetting you, isn’t it?”
“Damn right it is. I don’t want to make people feel guilty. I want to make them feel good. People shouldn’t embrace God because they feel guilty or they fear Hell. They should embrace him because embracing him makes them feel good. You have repeatedly told me that my sermons were good. Were they good because they made you feel good or because they made you feel guilty?”
Danny said nothing at first, then he said, “Both.”
“Damn it, Danny, I was doing the same thing as that scumbag Green was doing and even the same things as that piece of trash Hamm. I listened to his sermons. They made you feel guilty.”
“They were designed to. It pumped up contributions.”
“What does the intent matter? A sermon designed to make people feel guilty is a sermon that makes people feel guilty regardless of the intent.”
“I think you’re overreacting.”
“You do? You think God wants people to come to him because they love their creator or because they fear going to hell? Which do you think?”
Danny did not respond.
“Making people feel guilty is crap, Danny. It’s a cheap way to increase collections. It’s sure as hell no way to bring people to God.”
“I’m not going to argue with you.”
“In a way, I wish you would. In a way, I wish you could.”
“Davy, I think what we have now is good. We don’t try to get people to God by threats or ‘if you don’t change, you’re going to Hell’.”
“We don’t, do we?”
“No we don’t.”