Another reading for class ...

... that is quite brilliant:

The very news that a fire is on the way — and, above all, that we can be spared by the simple expedient of a belief in a transworldly message ... strikes the contemporary secular spectator as much more incredible than any costumed language in which it might be couched. Change the rites of the Mass from Latin to the vernacular, call on nuns to modernize their habits, introduce guitars and folk music in the Church's worship, address the modern world in tones of respect and hope, praise modernity for its achievements — the core of the message will still seem absurd to the secular mind.

... In the face of this truly mortal danger to the life of the Church, I believe Christians must be evangelized by preachers who deliberately set out to destroy the pretensions of the body snatchers. And to do that they must attack head-on what I regard as the most basic presupposition of the pod people. In my reading of their works, liberal Christians want to make the Christian message easy to believe, and to do so they must first make the New Testament hard to understand ...

- Edward T. Oakes