Today in the church bulletin:

Take Christians. I am surrounded by Christians. They are generally speaking a pleasant and agreeable lot, not noticeably different from other people - even though they, the Chrisitans of the South, the U.S.A., the Western world have killed off more people in recent centuries than all other people put together. Yet I cannot be sure they don't have the truth. But if they have the truth, why is it the case that they are repellent precisely to the degree that they embrace and advertise that truth? One might even become a Christian if there were few if any Christians around. Have you ever lived in the midst of fifteen million Southern Baptists? (of course you have, you're from Alabama.) No doubt the same might be said of Irish Catholics and Miami Jews. The main virtue of Episcopalians is their gift for reticence. Seldom can an Episcopalian (or an Anglican) be taken for a Christian. Perhpas that is what I like about them. A mystery: If the good news is true, why is one not pleased to hear it? And if the good news is true, why are its public proclaimers such assholes and the proclamation itself such a weary used up thing?
- Walker Percy, "The Second Coming" 1980