When I became too old for Sunday School, I had to learn to sit through sermons. At first I doodled hearts and flowers on the church bulletin. When I was too old for that, I turned my attention to analyzing the sermon. Depending on the preacher, I waited for Freudian slips, clichés, logical fallacies (“no true Scotsman”), and flights of magical thinking—flaws I found quite amusing. Yet the quickest way to lose my interest and respect was to traffic in the soggy old object lesson.  […]