Insanity in the Pews

Have you ever been sitting in church almost overwhelmed by the urge to loudly proclaim the hypocrisy of the church? Just me? Well, apparently me and the crazy lady in the church Lenten concert last night.

At first it started out small. She would loudly say things like, "If it be your will, Lord" at the end of prayers. She insisted on clapping in between cantatas. I figured she was just full of the Lord's goodness or some such thing. Then right at the end the pastor says, "In this, God is not only reminding us of what has been done for us, but challenging us..." He was then cut off by the lady standing up and yelling, "I challenge you, sir! Have you ever been in prison like Paul?" The entire church of mostly elderly people just sat there, looking at her, mouths agape. (ps- How happy are you that you aren't that pastor right now?) Then she starts saying that the whole service was just a concert, not a dedication to God or his purposes. At this point in time, she's got my attention. She doesn't sound so crazy as, well, right. Then her friend tries to hush her up. Crazy admonishes her by saying, "We understand a prison more than they do. We understand this faith better than they do. Who knows more about bursting out of a grave to real life than we do?" This also seems true, given that she is verifiably insane. She scolds her friend by saying that she won't take the "Devil pills from Dr. Soandso" just to shut her up. Then she goes off into some trite religious fanaticism about homosexuality and prostitutes which I am pretty sure doesn't really apply to the people she was yelling at. Her final remark was that she was heading down to the Catholic church.

What was the pastor doing this whole time? He just finished saying what he was supposed to (as per what was written on the page) and then waited for her to finish so we could end the service. The real irony? His sermon that morning had been on what happened to the church that used to be so controversial, so dangerous, so scary. He said it was sad that the church was now a place for nice, calm, well rounded people.

So, was she crazy? How many prophets, etc have been called crazy in their day? How on earth do you tell the difference?