The greatest boon of religion, in my view, is the sermon. It is a formal, regular forum in which to shore up the values required for a stable, law-abiding society. Those values—patience, forgiveness, and self-discipline, among others–are not religious values, they are human values; religion merely appropriates them and claims them for its own. But secular society has not evolved a counterpart to the sermon in which to articulate and strengthen its core moral components.
For a smart woman whose writing is about uncovering myths and deceptions, she certainly missed the obvious on this one.
You are the sermon, Mrs. Mac Donald, as is anyone who preaches the values of patience, forgiveness, and self-discipline from a virtual pulpit.
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