I read the article this morning (Aug. 11) in The Democrat on preachers being trouble makers.

Rarely do I respond to articles that I read, whether or not I agree or disagree with the content, however I cannot let this one go.

Now, I do agree that there have been preachers who have started trouble and do start trouble, but I would venture to say that there are a lot more newspaper columnists like the one who wrote this article that start way more trouble than preachers do.

You see my dad was a preacher, and not only a preacher, but a pastor for 65 years. He helped countless people just like the ones the writer referred to in the article,that couldn’t put anything into the offering plate. Now to his credit he did say that not all preachers were troublemakers, and that he had known some dedicated men and women of the cloth whom he had respect for.

Now as for the two examples in his article, I’m not so sure they were causing trouble, but only preaching truth. Sometimes speaking the truth results in trouble.

As for the evangelist who was preaching on demons the first night of the revival he attended, whether or not he (the writer) had not been real big on the entire notion that demons exist or not does not make them any less real. I can assure you they do exist, not because I believe they do, but because the Word of God says they exist.

As to the second night when he said some fine folks got hurt by the evangelist’s preaching about giving the tithe or a love offering to the Lord, the teaching in the Bible says that we are to give sacrificially and we are to give from what we have been given. Maybe it wasn’t the preacher’s message that brought the lady to tears, but conviction from the Holy Spirit, (Mark 12:43-44).

Now as for the statement he made in his article that he would rather be in hell than to be in Heaven with people like that evangelist, that’s insanity or else he does not realize what a horrible place hell is. I sincerely hope he didn’t mean that.

Now for the second illustration he spoke of in the article about the pastor who married him and his wife and how he made him lie, that too is just not true, because no one can make someone lie. You do that of your own free will. I hope that somewhere along the way he has seen the light or one day soon he will see the light before it is eternally late.

So to the writer of the article on trouble-making preachers, I do agree that there are sometimes some trouble makers in the pulpit but there are a whole lot more sitting in the pew.
Steve Strebeck

Natchez resident