don't mind me

[rone]

You shouldn't be burning anything in a church, because it's God's house, not yours.  Unless He sets it on fire himself, then it's OK.

Comments

[vspope.livejournal.com]

Once in a blue moon when we visit my in-laws, we'll accompany them to church. It's a pretty moderate Methodist bunch, more about the community aspects than hellfire and brimstone, so I can generally withstand an every-couple-of-months-or-so dose of it.

A past pastor (HAR! I kill me) there was a bit of a wackjob -- the kind who was once a biker and a druggie and a fornicator and all that good stuff, but he found Jeebus so WHAM! he's a source of moral authority now, right? He was in charge when my wife and I got married there, and the pre-wedding meetings were hysterical. At one point, he had us fill out a #2-pencil-form compatibility quiz to see how well we really matched up, for cryin' out loud...

During the wedding, the best man and I were tucked away in his study for a few minutes, so as not to see the bride before the Big Moment. While looking around, I noticed his rack of videotapes, one of which was all about the sinister bar code system -> Number of the Beast -> Antichrist trying to bring about One World Government connection. We laughed our nuts off, and it took extreme willpower for either of us to keep from pocketing it -- I figured that being busted for petty theft during my own wedding wouldn't look good in the photo album.

I have a fascination with that kind of lunatic fringe, and someday I'm going to get a P.O. Box and see how many of their mailing lists I can get on, just to see what kind of stuff shows up. But I digress. Anecdote with relevance approaches.

This guy was nearing the end of his stay at the church, didn't like the fact that he sensed a fair amount of hostility from his flock regarding his messages, and decided to go hardcore while he still could. One Sunday that we were there, he went off for about an hour on a long rant about how "you're not out there to like me or like what I have to say, you're out there to hear the TRUTH about the Word of the LORD." He ranted about abortion. He ranted about moral relativism. He ranted about SOFTWARE PIRACY and MP3S and NAPSTER and how they were all inherently sinful. The undercurrent of laughter in the room rose slowly as his sermon went on and on.

Finally, he'd talked himself out, and he decided it was time for a closing hymn before everyone left. The organist went over to the organ... and CRAK! A loud zapping sound was heard, and a small cloud of black smoke was seen. Yes, LIGHTNING had hit the church's organ.

Nobody was hurt, so we all left, and we _howled_ with laughter all the way home about how God had just expressed a "Fuck you, I _love_ P2P" opinion with a bolt from the blue.

[deirdremoon.livejournal.com]

Gawddamn, that's funny! Great story.

Rone, I think we have permission to burn, say, candles and incense, yes? Prior consent and all that? And now that you mention, why *don't* we have a bush set aside in every church just in case God wants to dial us up? He's already used that method, you'd think we'd try to make it easier on Him. Planted in, y'know, some asbestos planter in a nice open space up front. Like the famed Red Phone in the White House.

[ronebofh.livejournal.com]

Hmmm. Maybe i should set Bush on fire and claim i did it because God wanted to talk to me.