THE ADVICE COLUMN

I read the Christian Advice Column this morning, which is not something I normally do.  But I had read all the news and finished the crossword and still had half a cup of coffee left, so I decided to probe a little deeper.

This woman wrote to Reverend Popeman and told him that some time ago she had stolen an undisclosed amount of money from her company.  Nobody was any the wiser, but she came to accept Jesus as her personal lord and savior and put the money back, with interest, into the company because it seemed the Christian thing to do.  Again, nobody was any the wiser.

She asked Popeman if she should tell her employer what she had done.  The good reverend told her that although God had forgiven her for her sins, she needed to ask the forgiveness of the person she had wronged, that being the employer.  I guess the concept of “no harm, no foul” was out of the question.

It occurred to me that he didn’t give a damn if she lost her job as a result, and if she did, he’d probably hand her some line of crap about how all of this was God’s will.  Sure as hell he had no intention of paying her mortgage while she was out of work, and he would never admit that he had given her bad advice and that she was an imbecile for taking it.

So Popeman sits there on his saintly ass, sips his coffee and tells people what God wants them to do.  I suppose those who listen to him have a painful lesson to learn, presuming that they are capable of learning.