Since when does evangelical preaching constitute news? Since The Denver Post decided to pander to the evangelical movement, I suppose:
New Life Church embraces prophecy
Church legions learn “seeing” is believing
By Electa Draper
The Denver Post
Article Last Updated: 04/30/2008 06:08:17 AM MDTCOLORADO SPRINGS — The pastor of New Life Church — Colorado’s highest-profile megachurch — is teaching its 10,000-member congregation how to become modern prophets in their own lives.
“I want all of us here tonight to hear God’s voice,” Pastor Brady Boyd told the several hundred gathered Monday night. “You’ve all been uniquely hard-wired to hear the voice of God.” …
The Holy Spirit can give people direct guidance from God on everything from their marriages to their jobs if they learn how to hear it, Boyd said.
The article goes on like this for 591 words. The article presupposes the existence of God and allows for not a single word of criticism or skepticism.
Draper does include one interesting line: “New Life Pastor Jeff Drott… said that God rarely speaks to people in an audible voice, often sending a thought, vision, dream, image or scriptural insight.”
Isn’t it conceivable that these “thoughts” and “insights” are coming from some source other than God? For instance, if you have a problem and start “thinking” about it or reading the Bible (or any other book offering moral guidance), mightn’t you come up with something useful? Do such thoughts and insights really require a belief in God? Or is it possible that non-religious people also get thoughts and insights (and maybe even dreams, images, and the like) when they’re contemplating a problem?
And isn’t it possible that Electa Draper might, you know, interview somebody for her “news” stories who offers a perspective other than the one that we’ve been “hard-wired to hear the voice of God?” Alternatively, she could simply cover real news.