Bar sues Church

[andyf]

A bar called Drummond's (in Mt Vernon, Texas ) began construction on an expansion of their building, hoping to "grow" their business.

In response, the local Southern Baptist Church started a campaign to block the bar from expanding - petitions, prayers, etc.

About a week before the bar's grand re-opening, a bolt of lightning struck the bar and burned it to the ground!

Afterwards, the church folks were rather smug - bragging about "the power of prayer".

The angry bar owner eventually sued the church on grounds that the church... "Was ultimately responsible for the demise of his building, through direct actions or indirect means."

Of course, the church vehemently denied all responsibility or any connection to the building's demise. The judge read carefully through the plaintiff's complaint and the defendant's reply.

He then opened the hearing by saying:
"I don't know how I'm going to decide this, but it appears from the paperwork that what we have here is a bar owner who now believes in the power of prayer, and an entire church congregation that does not."

[LorrB]

Hi Andy, I love that story! Could not help but laugh out loud.
(How often do we do that these days .. in a nice way).

Whilst that story is most amusing, it does throw up a few questions for me to ponder upon.

If those church people were praying with all their might for a negative outcome for the bar, why should they not be held culpable? The intention was there whether God was involved or not.

One might even call in scientists these days to affirm that thought does affect matter. ie the experiment is affected by the people performing it.

Thank you for sharing that story. Must try and track the results of the court case to see what the outcome was.

Cheers, Lorr

[paul]

I suspect that this is more a festive board story than a court report.

[LorrB]

Yep - checked it out on Snopes - in their words "The story isn't supposed to be read as relating something that happened in real life; it's a modern day admonition to churchgoers not to allow transient secular needs to get in the way of their faith. What a person believes or will stand up for shouldn't change because there's a monetary factor involved; otherwise, it's not true belief. As the fictional judge points out, there is something untoward about a congregation so willing to put worldly matters first that it denies it believes in prayer.

While the tale is an exaggeration of its underlying moral, that overstatement is a way of prompting folks to measure the contents of their hearts against those of the fictional congregation to see if they themselves aren't at times engaging in a bit of religious distancing. Do they set aside their faith, and their pride in it, when faith becomes inconvenient? Or do they stand up for their beliefs and proudly proclaim them, even when doing so is to their disadvantage, financial or otherwise?

Barbara "standing order" Mikkelson
www.snopes.com/humor/iftrue/prayer.asp

Perhaps the various Orders in Freemasonry might like to measure the contents of their collective hearts ... ? Recognition etc.