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Yep. I’m goin’ to hell!

mcjesus

We went to church yesterday.

Yeah. Heh. I know. I kind of expected it to disappear up its own belfry like that house at the end of Poltergeist, too, but we sat in the back and it was very uneventful. This was the last of our premarital Tests of Courage.

Poor Uncle B didn’t recognize a single hymn from childhood. All the King James in the service was wiped away and replaced with easyspeak.

I’m not sure which bit was more painful, the part where everyone shook everyone’s hand (and I do mean everyone and everyone; we all milled about the church shaking random hands like sleepwalking Fuller brush salesmen), or the part where we sang the Lord’s Prayer to the tune of Kumbaya.

That really happened. I swear.

I’ve worked out why the CofE is bleeding customers: this was like all the thing British people are least comfortable doing, rolled into one socially awkward hour. I’m surprised they’re hanging in as well as they are.

Take it from an atheist, O ye witch doctors: you vary your schtick at your peril!

Religion is in the business of selling ancient, immutable, bedrock, absolute truths. A big dose of the traditions of our fathers, with a touch of the secret answer to absolutely everything. Any time a religion “modernizes” itself, it admits that parts of its creed are negotiable. The honest-to-God secret answer to absolutely everything isn’t going to be negotiable, is it?

Plus, the CofE lacks a certain snake-handlin’, foot-washin’ something.

January 19, 2009 — 8:47 pm
Comments: 49