"A pastor of one of the largest churches in this area used Proverbs as a way to rebuke modern America and indicated that the founders were almost God like… [H]e left the impression that people back then were more perfect than we are today."

From retirement, Thomas Jefferson addressed this sort of sentiment, ridiculing those who "ascribe to the men of the preceding age [the founding generation] a wisdom more than human, and suppose what they did to be beyond amendment."

I suppose that sort of thing could be less harshly condemned if, as is so often the case, it’s born of an overzealous and misguided notion of patriotism. I haven’t heard what was said in this particular case, so I can only speculate, but that you say the pastor in question was condemning contemporary America suggests, to me, a much less forgivable motive, his need to use his position to peddle reactionary politics. That’s completely inappropriate—it amounts to appropriating the authority of god himself and throwing it behind your own all-too-human opinion of some momentary political squabble—but, unfortunately, it’s all too common in many churches.

What are our preachers preaching? Sometimes, it’s some pretty damn terrible things.

I think that a lot of us ought to get in on this didcussion.Most of what the preachers preach goes un- challenged. A pastor of one of the largest churches in this area used Proverbs as a way to rebuke modern America and indicated that the founders were almost God like. It seems that he should have felt some duty to reveal that Solomon was far from perfect and that the founders were also men of clay feet, that they and we struggle for perfection but have never obtained it. Instead he left the impression that people back then were more perfect than we are today.