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He also told this parable to some who trusted in their intellectual acumen that they were cultured, and treated simple-minded evangelicals with paternalistic scorn: “Two persons went up into their respective, preferred religious settings to engage in spiritual exercises, one a female pastor with a Ph.D. in religious studies from Candler School of Theology and the other an RV-salesman from Alabama, a faithful NASCAR fan. The pastor, standing at the podium of a national academic conference on ‘Imaginative Religious Hospitality: Genesis 19 and the Socio-Linguistic Alienation of the GLBT Community,’ pontificated thus:
'Creator, Sustainer, Redeemer, we are celebrating the fact that those assembled here have seen beyond the narrow, petty, doctrinaire perspectives of other men, inerrantists, complementarians, anti-Darwinians, and even ‘single-issue’ evangelicals. We recycle, read The New York Times, engage in inter-faith religious services with local imams, and write letters to the editor about Darfur, AIDS, global poverty, climate change, and healthcare reform.’But the NASCAR fan, kneeling at the front altar of his local Southern Baptist church, would not look up at Brother Jim who was standing beside him praying, but wept bitterly in his handkerchief, saying,
‘Lord Jesus, I know you died for my sins, and I just ask you to come into my heart and be my personal Lord-n-Savior. Amen.’I tell you, this NASCAR fan went to the Sunday potluck meal in the fellowship hall justified, rather than the other. For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, but the one who humbles himself will be exalted.”
