Who You Calling Latent?

Writing in the April 21 "Christian Century" (in an article not available on line), seminary professor William Brosend says that if pastors want to be listened to, they need to take their listeners more seriously and also be more interesting. He also offers reflections on those who are barely interested or uninterested in matters of faith:

Do you have a hobby, maybe an unusual one? Some odd thing you collect or passion you pursue? That is Christianity in America to the uninterested -- some weird thing we do with our time that, as long as we keep it to ourselves, doesn't really concern them. Worship doesn't matter to them. They did not read Paul Tillich's The Dynamics of Faith in college and don't know they are supposed to have a latent religious impulse.

He writes that a friend once told him, "Never forget that half the congregation almost didn't show up."