Blowing the Gospel

Published: Sept. 25, 2008, 2:26 a.m.

b'In his sermon for the patronal feast of St Matthew\'s Glynn Cardy brushes away the blow flies to take a look the church.\\n\\n"Like blowflies to a carcass of raw meat, religion always attracts an unsavoury element. Ideologues, legalists, and the narrow-minded swarm in turning ancient sayings, customs, and understandings into ecclesial laws and moral dictates, submerging the spiritual beneath their own needs to control and be controlled. Reformers like Jesus spend a lot of their time trying to swat them away.\\n\\nIt is amazing that the carcass of religion survives and can be taken, cleaned, prepared, cooked, and served to feed the spiritual desires and hopes of normal people."\\n\\nFull text at http://www.stmatthews.org.nz/nav.php?sid=447&id=879.'