Excerpts

There is so much contained in this story and the prefaces, that it would be easy to share with you the entirety. However, that would take far too much typing, and could possibly break some copyright laws, unless it's passed into public domain. So, it's probably better to pick a few selections and leave the rest of the tale for your reading pleasure.

...the conversation soon turned on the sermon we had just heard, the topic of which was "selfishness".
"What a change has come over our pulpits", Arthur remarked, "since the time when Paley gave that utterly selfish definition of virtue, 'the doing good to mankind, in obedience to the will of God, and for the sake of everlasting happiness'!" ...
..."At that time," he went on, "a great tidal wave of selfishness was sweeping over human thought. Right and Wrong had somehow been transformed into Gain and Loss, and Religion had become a sort of commercial transaction. We may be thankful that our preachers are beginning to take a nobler view of life."
"But is it not taught again and again in the Bible?" I ventured to ask.
"Not in the Bible as a whole," said Arthur. "In the Old Testament, not doubt, rewards and punishments are constantly appealed to as motives for action. That teaching is best for children, and the Israelites seem to have been, mentally, utter children. We guide our children thus, at first: but we appeal, as soon as possible, to their innate sense of Right and Wrong: and, when that stage is safely past, we appeal to the highest motive of all, the desire for likeness to, and union with, the Supreme Good. I think you will find that to be the teaching of the Bible, as a whole, beginning with 'that thy days may be long in the land', and ending with 'be ye perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect'."

This following passage struck me, as many of the prominent preachers today fit this so well. Not all of them by any means, but I've turned the radio off in disgust many times after starting to listen to one of the men "preach", some of the preaching I heard last year at conventions fit this, and I won't even mention most of the television guys.

"...I must say that our preachers enjoy an enormous privilege--which they ill deserve, and which they misuse terribly. We put our man into a pulpit, and we virtually tell him 'Now, you may stand there and talk to us for half-an-hour. We wo'n't interrupt you by so much as a word! You shall have it all your own way!' And what does he give us in return? Shallow twaddle, that, if it were addressed to you over a dinner-table, you would think 'Does the man take me for a fool?'"

I think that's enough for today. What do you think?

(taken from "Sylvie and Bruno" by Lewis Carroll)