Potpourri

CHEERS and jeers to local church leaders for their work -- or lack of it -- in hoping to defeat the West Virginia table games legislation.

Cheers to Seth Polk, senior pastor at Cross Lanes Bible Church, who preaches against the expansion of gambling in West Virginia -- right from the pulpit! Gasp! He even plans to put inserts into Sunday bulletins highlighting the dangers of institutionalized gambling! Egad!

Then, there's Paul Ronk, minister at King's Way Christian Church in Nitro -- who could do more. He said in a recent newspaper article "... you have to be very careful on how you say it. I do it more on an individual basis." That's because some of his parishoners favor the legislation, and he doesn't want to offend anyone. Yeah. Jesus didn't either.

Finally, jeers to Dennis Johnson, senior minister for Charleston Baptist Temple, who allows those opposed to institutionalized gambling to post things on the church bulletin board, but that's it. "I really think in many ways the steam's kind of gone out of this issue for a lot of folks. It comes down to a matter of personal choice at this point." So does salvation, incidentally.