Rick Guinness wrote an article for today’s New Britain Herald about a former member of the Latin Kings who has since reformed and found God, but whose plan to serve meals to the needy while preaching gospel over loudspeakers was rejected.

Amen.

OK, seriously. It’s not an idea that would work well. The feeding people part is admirable and it alone would have gone swimmingly, but the bit about preaching over the loudspeaker would have been…let’s say ineffective…at best. Assuming that most people are believers (not such a leap) and assuming that most of the believers go to church every Sunday (kind of a leap), just think about the sermon you go to hear on Sunday. Why do you go to the church that you go to, and not another one? Probably because you are cool with one philosophy over the other. Would you want to hear the other church’s message broadcast on a loudspeaker that’s sound penetrated your living room? Not likely.

This guy’s proposal was to give food to some but to force his sermons on many, and the many are likely to already be believers who know the message or seek it out on their own each Sunday morning. The message won’t be what drives up attendance at his church, the free food will.

That’s the problem I have with this proposal, and that’s why I’m glad it was denied. I am an atheist, but I live down the street from a big church. The bells are quite nice, but if I woke up on Sundays to the sound of a preacher instead…yuck! From what I can tell, the church is well attended (though nobody has to park near my place and walk except on Christmas and Easter) and I don’t think that broadcasting sermons on loudspeaker would increase the attendance or the effectiveness of the message. Besides, no preacher’s loudspeaker is going to be outdone by the car stereo systems of New Britain, which keep me up to date on popular music in brief snippets that find their way from the intersection to my apartment.

Praise be to the Board of Police Commissioners for rejecting the proposal!