Eugene Peterson

This is the introduction to the book of "James" written by Eugene Peterson for "The Message". I know he is not any more inspired than you or I are. But I sure appreciate his wisdom and the spirit in which he writes.


"When Christian believers gather in churches,
everything that can go wrong sooner of later does.
Outsiders, on observing this, conclude that there is
nothing in the religion business except, perhaps
business – and dishonest business at that. Insiders
see it differently. Just as a hospital collects the
sick under one roof and labels them as such, the
church collects sinners. Many of the people outside
the hospital are every bit as sick as the ones inside,
but their illnesses are either undiagnosed or
disguised. It’s similar with sinners outside the
church. So Christian churches are not, as a rule, model
communities of good behavior. They are, rather,
places where human misbehavior is brought out in the
open, faced, and dealt with."



What do you think of his conclusions?