By Bobby Ross Jr. | Religion Unplugged
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I read the preacher’s words once — and then again — and tried to make sense of them.
In a Florida TV station’s report on a church promoting the COVID-19 vaccines, minister Charlie McClendon was quoted as saying, “Each week I emphasize it from the pool pit just before I preach.”
The pool pit?
I’ve covered religion for two-plus decades, but I hadn’t come across that term. Strange.
Later, my eyes popped wide open in the middle of the night.
Suddenly, it hit me.
“Pulpit.”
I burst into laughter, much to the chagrin of my sleeping wife.
After I posted on Twitter about the mistake, reporter Gretchen Kernbach offered a gracious mea culpa and corrected the wording.
Even before her tweet, I made clear — amid humorous responses and more serious calls for better religious literacy in journalism — that I wasn’t casting stones. In 30 years of news reporting, I’ve made plenty of doozy mistakes myself.
I just thought this particular one was funny. If you don’t believe me, feel free to ask my wife.
This column appears in the online magazine Religion Unplugged.
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