Early Personal Considerations

When I was a child, growing up in an independent Baptist church, I thought God dropped pastors down from heaven, at least something like that.  Even when I was in high school and college, I regarded these men with reverence.  God was infinitely higher and greater to me, of course, but they topped everyone else.  As I became a pastor myself, despite still highly regarding the office, I held lower estimation of the men in the office.

For one, when I became a pastor, I knew for sure pastors weren’t dropped from heaven.  I knew I wasn’t.  Then spending more time with several other pastors in closer relations, I had to reevaluate my lofty estimation.  I don’t write this to engender any disrespect for the man or his office.  I still love pastors and have a better understanding how difficult the job.  Many pastors are friends.

Pastor As Sunday Afternoon Meal

The idea of fried preacher relates to a Sunday afternoon meal.  In the spirit of fried chicken, a church family after church instead serves up a delectable main entre of “fried preacher.”  I read someone explain: “My mother would always say we were having fried preacher for dinner.”

If you grew up in church, maybe you fried your preacher sometimes for Sunday afternoon dinner.  My parents never did.  I never heard one foul word about a preacher in my home from my parents.  It amazes me, because my parents had negative things to say about people.  Their preacher was never one of them.  It happens though.

The Apostle Paul himself became fried preacher by the Athenians in Acts 17:18:

Then certain philosophers of the Epicureans, and of the Stoicks, encountered him. And some said, What will this babbler say? other some, He seemeth to be a setter forth of strange gods: because he preached unto them Jesus, and the resurrection.

They called Paul a “babbler.”  This portends a great pastime of criticizing a preacher and his preaching.  I don’t think Paul was bad.  Maybe no better preacher ever existed.

Pastors Say and Do Wrong Things

Prove All Things Preached

People might say true things about a preacher and his preaching.  They are sometimes right about him.  He did things and said things wrong.  Preachers also sin.

When someone hears preaching, he should consider whether it is true.  To do that, he judges it.  Paul commands this practice in 1 Thessalonians 5:21-22:

21 Prove all things; hold fast that which is good. 22 Abstain from all appearance of evil.

What To Do with Error

When someone tests or proves the preaching and finds something bad, what does he do next?  Does he criticize the preaching to others, maybe at home at Sunday dinner?  No.  Scripture reveals a certain way to deal with the error of someone else.  The goal is restoration or reconciliation (Galatians 6:1).  You help someone get it right, when he’s wrong.  That’s God’s will.

If bad preaching becomes the pattern, this necessitates a stronger reaction.  The deficient preaching should be obvious.  Very bad preaching occurs all over today.   Probably more bad preaching exists than good.  When I say good, I’m talking about when in general the preaching is good with a small minority of duds or awful preaching mixed in.

Dealing with Bad Behavior

Every preacher will also behave badly.  Hopefully that’s not normal for him.  1 Corinthians 13:7 says love “beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things.”  You hope the best.  The goal isn’t to let a preacher get away with doing something wrong, but it is to believe the best about him.  That approach doesn’t tend toward frying the preacher.  Fried preacher doesn’t sound like love, does it?

It is hard to talk to certain pastors.  Like many other men, they don’t take it very well.  They could go further than that and say it’s mutiny, worthy of church discipline, heresy, or dishonor.  Some might try to destroy the critic, like Diotrephes, cast him out of the church, even without any due process.

Preachers Frying Preachers

Conference Cuisine

Preachers are also notorious for fried preacher.  No one can fry a preacher like another preacher.  Maybe the experience of frying prepares him to fry so well.  Preachers conferences can provide a kind of industrial sized instrument of frying.

I know another preacher who in recent days attended a preaching conference.  When he returned, he reported to another preacher friend of mine that the conference was a major and constant frying session of a non-attending man.  It was long, high temperature frying of this third party. They disintegrated him — “for the Lord.”‘  This kind of gang-style muckraking, one could even call, ganging up on someone.  Fifteen to twenty on one pouncing on him in a dark alley.

In Absentia

The crispified pastor wasn’t there to enjoy the benefits of this “helpful” criticism.  It was all out of his presence.  His critic preachers sat at meals doing so, identifying him by name.  It was all very fun and entertaining.  Sinful, but at the same time, in public they gave the impression they were in special alignment with God.

The conference attendees didn’t say anything to the preacher.  I know the preacher they fried.  He had no opportunity for self-defense.  He wasn’t there.  Fried preacher only occurs with the preacher gone.  Every preacher knows that.

The Prayer Request

In the fried preacher recipe book, the best chefs call fried preacher a prayer request.  Pray for preacher so and so, because he’s blah-blah-blah-blah-blah.  “Help me with my prayers.  What else can you say about him?”  Nothing to see here, they’re just praying for the guy.  Nothing to smell like fried foods.  You can smell that aroma from three blocks away.

Getting Caught

Fried preacher is a whole lot of fun in a conference setting.  The closer proximity brings a bonding among the participants, what some call a benefit.  If you can’t find doctrinal or practical unity, you could find a common enemy to bring everyone together.  It take just one person to report in order to cool the fry temperature.  Everything just turns soggy then.  Maybe you try to find out who reported to make the subject of your next gathering.

Accuser of the Brethren

One might wonder if anyone needed to say anything negative about someone who wasn’t present.  Scripture says a lot about the habit of this.  Everyone does it at some point.  Sometimes, people need to talk about a problem with another person.  When it spreads to an all-out gossip convention, this requires a commercial kitchen for such a fry fest.  This cannot, is not right.  Ever.  It requires at least a food service license in most states.

Revelation 12:10 says:

And I heard a loud voice saying in heaven,, Now is come salvation, and strength, and the kingdom of our God, and the power of his Christ: for the accuser of our brethren is cast down, which accused them before our God day and night.

Who is the “accuser of our brethren”?  God doesn’t need any “help” from the accuser.  This is Satan obviously.  Satan is the master chef of fried preachers.  To mix my metaphors, nothing is gained by backing up the dumpster and practicing demo-day on an absent fellow brother, stripping him down to the studs.

What Is Fried Preacher?

What is “fried preacher”?  About one hundred percent of this cuisine is personal aggrandizement.  It accomplishes lowering of the one fried and the supposed elevation of the fry chef.  Psalm 52:4 says, “Thou lovest all devouring words.”  Words are the oil in which a fried preacher fries.

The nature of the flesh, it loves hearing the scoop about someone when he isn’t there.  The flesh of someone loves gossip, except when it’s about him.  Then it’s something insidious or evil.

Is it ever wrong to say anything critical or negative about a preacher?  People must say the truth at times in a certain setting and in a particular way.  It usually starts with trying to help the man with whatever they think worthy of frying him.  Warning of the danger of a man or his teaching could come if a man is dangerous.  He should have heard about the kind of danger he is, first, at least from someone.

Men can expose false teaching in a public presentation.  They review the material and point out the error.  So then it becomes two people with public positions, who both interacted in public. Both are now open for review, which includes criticism.  No one is anonymous. This isn’t fried preacher.

For talk to be gossip, it must be without the target of the gossip present.  If he’s there, then it isn’t gossip.  That would be something akin to admonishment or exhortation.  Also, saying nice things about someone isn’t gossip.  Only disparaging comments about a missing person fit into the definition, even if they’re true.  That’s Fried Preacher.