 Assembly preacher: Presbyterians need to become 'awestruck and slack-jawed' By John H. Adams The Layman Online Wednesday, May 28, 2003
Pastor of the 11,000-member Peachtree Presbyterian Church in Atlanta – the largest in the denomination – Pentz wondered aloud what had happened to the kind of full-hearted awe that Scottish Presbyterians brought to America. The title for his sermon during the Tuesday morning worship service for the 215th General Assembly was "Hallowed or Hollowed Be Thy Name" – with "hollowed" reflecting the Scottish brogue. Pentz is a student of the Scottish Presbyterians and their enduring populist contributions to American culture and language. They were rough-hewn "rednecks," the inventors of the log cabin, people who said "whar" for where, "critter" for creature and "widder" for widow – who always were "fixin' to do something" and whose "young'uns growed up." "They were easy to provoke into fighting," he said, "and that part of our heritage we still have." "The next time you tune in a country-music station, that's Merle Haggard channeling your Presbyterian heritage." But he said their greatest legacy to Presbyterians was their enthusiastic - slack-jawed and awestruck – worship of God. Pentz worried that Presbyterians have lost that sense of awe before God, just as they no longer are enamored with such things as traveling by airplane. "In the 1950s and '60s, people used to dress up because it was such a privilege to fly in airplanes," he said. "We'd take pictures and say, 'Hey, kids, you want to see how the clouds look from the top? Come see a picture of the wing. Wow! The wing.' Today, we don't want the window seat. We want the aisle because there's more leg room." He compared that decline in the zeal for air travel to Presbyterians in worship, repeating the old joke: Why are Presbyterians sure to get in heaven? Because the dead shall rise in Christ. "We come to worship like sophisticated travelers," Pentz said. "We know the routine. Ho hum." But that wasn't the way it was among our Scottish forebears, he said. "They dipped deeply into the emotional resources," Pentz said. "Billy Graham simply is building on what Presbyterians brought to this country. … Scottish Presbyterians were front and center in the Great Awakening." What can be learned from the Scottish zeal for God? "What we need to carry forward is that old rugged cross of God's salvation … We need to move out that plastic," he said. "What's lacking in our worship is that little word 'O' – the intensity of amazement," Pentz added. "Can you remember how you felt when you first grasped the wonder of God? The message we have to proclaim is that there was one who stretched out his hand and wiped off the 'X' from our lives." |
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