When I was a kid, I remember standing next to a sixty year
old woman in church. She was holding the hymnal up so that her elderly mother
and she could share it. At one point, as the song moved to another verse, the
mother reached up and pointed at that verse on the page, as if her daughter might
not know. That image stuck with me. It’s an image I often think of when I see
people trying to be everyone’s mother.
One of the bad side effects of moralism (the idea that our
good works earn us God’s love) is that the moralist thinks he should run
everyone’s life.
