Comments for A Sonny Disposition http://sonnycable.com Just a few things I want to say Mon, 13 Dec 2010 21:24:23 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.5.1 Comment on The Gospel According to Huckleberry Finn by Sonny http://sonnycable.com/2010/12/08/the-gospel-according-to-huckleberry-finn/comment-page-1/#comment-7748 Sonny Mon, 13 Dec 2010 21:24:23 +0000 http://sonnycable.com/?p=1605#comment-7748 Billy Sunday, Spurgeon, William Booth, Smith Wigglesworth, Dwight Moody were just some of the more well known preachers that were around during Twain’s time. I don’t know if he actually knew or heard any of them. It is well known that Twain did not have much respect for institutionalized religion but from his writing he seemed to have some idea about what Christ was all about.

Some people think that Huck’s story is racist and it has been in and out of favor in school curriculum because of the disagreements. When I read it just for entertainment when I was a teen I did not see what I saw this semester in college. Twain actually wrote a novel a few years after slavery was abolished that directly condemned the institution of slavery for what it was. As you know, we still have racists and other such tiresomeness, to borrow Huck’s words, in the church today. It is sad.

The population of “those souls needing to be saved” would be drastically reduced if we were to truly learn how to love people. Thanks for the comment. I guess I let the blog lie dormant for too long. And Happy Anniversary to you two.

Love you both.

]]> Comment on The Gospel According to Huckleberry Finn by Shannon http://sonnycable.com/2010/12/08/the-gospel-according-to-huckleberry-finn/comment-page-1/#comment-7744 Shannon Mon, 13 Dec 2010 14:19:33 +0000 http://sonnycable.com/?p=1605#comment-7744 Great essay. It definitely critiques the tendency in many of our congregations of overly focusing on inward piety at the expense of transforming how we treat others. We oftentimes hear such when persons speak of others simply as “souls needing to be saved” rather than people needing to be loved. As one minister shared with me years ago, “I can tell how much you love God by how much you genuinely love people in a Christ-honoring way.” I’ve learned this to be true in my life.

It’s much easier simply to quote scripture, learn songs, dress up, learn appropriate jargon, etc. while remaining self-centered. Loving others requires vulnerability, investment, conflict, give-and-take relationality, all of which is at great risk to oneself. As we’ve discussed many times before, such love resembles God, who exemplifies (in Jesus) what it means to pour himself out in behalf of the other.

Curious. Who were some popular preachers during the time of Mark Twain?

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