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Sick of Sermons

Chronic critique of sermons is an illness. But we can recover.

Never watch a medical drama with a medical professional. At least not unless you're ready to hear why it's all wrong. Sure, those actors can pronounce necrotizing fasciitis, but sooner or later they'll hold the stethoscope wrong, and that's when your medical friend will make a guttural noise, followed by "that's not how you're supposed to do that." It's probably true. But it doesn't help me connect to the story.

Expertise makes it easy to spot imperfection. I've wanted to tell my show-spoiling friends that the inability to see beyond imperfections might be symptomatic of a sickness. The technical term for the malady is expertitis. It's an inflammation of the expertise cortex, that, when unchecked, can lead to a chronic overstimulation of the pompous gland.

I know because I have it.

The symptoms

In graduate school and as I entered the ministry, I found that I and many of my friends became afflicted with expertitis either while ...

March
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