Bene Diction and others pick up on the website of St James U.C.C. in Limerick, Pennsylvania, noting that the scripture quote in the site’s header is a rather strange choice, to say the least. Some of the blogposts and comments have been less than charitable about the reasons for this, which is a bit sad. My first thought was that it must be an odd sort of publicity stunt. If I’m right, it has worked! The site’s stats show an average of 276 visits per day, pretty respectable for a church site I reckon. Today, they’ve had 976, with over 200 in the last hour. I’ve tried to ring the church’s pastor to hear what he had to say. On his answerphone message he sounds like a very pleasant man, but there was (I thought) a slightly beleaguered tone in his voice, so I won’t pursue it. But all events at the church yesterday were cancelled, which suggests that Pastor Jim and his church need our prayers.
{ 8 comments… read them below or add one }
Bene Diction 02.13.06 at 8:50 pm
I would have enjoyed corresponding with St. James, I wish them well.
The events at the church were probably cancelled because the the east coast of North America got hit with a major blizzard, and knowing that area of Pennsylannia, people are wise enough to stay off the roads.
That was decent of you to give them a call.
Chuck Currie 02.13.06 at 9:01 pm
I understand that the church will be offering a statement soon on their website explaining that someone hacked into their system and put up that piece of scripture.
J 02.13.06 at 9:30 pm
Which could be the case, since I looked at the site and didn’t see any scripture quote. What was it?
Richard 02.13.06 at 11:21 pm
If it was down to a hacker I’m sure all those who made smart-alec comments about “liberals” and “biblical illiteracy” will be making gracious and fulsome apologies soonest. Glad to see that they’ve sorted it out. Maybe some good will come of it - some of those extra visitors the publicity brought in *must* have been impressed with the “10 reasons…” statement, surely?
BD - Snow, of course! I didn’t make that connection.
J - the scripture quote was Luke 4:7
Clearly, whoever was behind it thinks of themselves as a Christian. At least, they seem to know their scripture - just like the one quoted in this verse!
gavin 02.13.06 at 11:43 pm
i wouldn’t say it was hackers, but possibly someone disenfranchised with the church who did some of their website. what hacker would take the homepage graphic of a church site and then put in a matching font color with scripture. plus, it never got fixed up till the mass of hits. most hack jobs i’ve seen people have taken over complete homepages or sites, it’s pretty much noticable as they want you to know they were there.
oh, i was much impressed with the ‘party’ church.
Bene Diction 02.14.06 at 12:19 am
Rev. James Roth of St. James responded to my email.
Man, he didn’t have to, given what his congregation has been through weather wise and web wise. (the denomination doesn’t exist in Canada that I know of)
He took the time, and he was gracious, kind, embarrassed, thanked me and let me know it was fixed.
This was not of their doing.
I hope you get your call returned, given what I’ve seen today on a couple of US blogs with their puffery and biblical literacy pontificating, a kind voice from a follower of Jesus Christ in Wales might do well to touch an embarrassed and grace-filled heart in Limerick Pennsylvania.
J 02.14.06 at 4:12 am
Richard - thanks for the answer. Just for fun, I typed worship into the search engine at Crosswalk, and the Matthew version was the third verse that it listed (Lu 4:7 was 8th). I wonder if someone was supposed to come up with a verse for the site, did a search, and picked that one without hitting the “show context” key first. I see the beginnings of a great sermon about why we should all read the Bible more…
Richard 02.14.06 at 7:30 am
Hacher, or hacked-off insider: I still think there are apologies owing.