wfn.org | George Will tells gathering now is the time to 'serve the soul'

[PCUSA NEWS <PCUSA.NEWS@ecunet.org>]

Note #6567 from PCUSA NEWS to PRESBYNEWS:

9-June-2001
GA01010

George Will tells gathering now is the time to 'serve the soul'

by Bill Lancaster

LOUISVILLE, June 9- Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist George F. Will told a
large gathering at the Presbyterian Lay Committee event Friday night on the
eve of the 213th General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), that
"this is a good time to be alive" in the terms of economics and medicine but
that now is the time "to serve the soul."

"There is nothing wrong with material goods.  There is nothing wrong with
economic growth.  It funds the good life; it funds institutions, hospitals,
schools, and churches.  I am not belittling this.  It's a wonderful time to
be alive in terms of medicine," he said.  "We have done much to preserve the
body.  All I am saying is it is now time for us to do as much to serve the
soul."

	Will, who is author of Statecraft as Soulcraft, spent much of his hour
speech discussing how government "by the laws it passes and the values it
enunciates and incarnates" has "a shaping effect on the culture and the soul
of the citizen.  And it is that about which Americans are worried today."

	Will, who supports President George W. Bush's faith-based initiatives by
which government would fund programs carried out by religious institutions,
is the second big-name speaker the Lay Committee has brought to the
Assembly.  Last year they sponsored William J. Bennett, former U.S.
secretary of education.

	Parker T. Williamson, executive editor of The Presbyterian Layman,
presented Will, a big baseball fan who peppered his talk with baseball
anecdotes, with a Louisville slugger baseball bat at the end of the speech.

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