baby, what's in that satchel?

last night at work, there was this bunch of asian students who were the last to leave the shop before we closed up for the night. and because it was so silent in waffletown, i managed to eavesdrop a bit and realized that this one guy, presumably the cell group leader, was talking about how God has a plan for all of us, and he died on the cross 2000 years ago, not for us to fuck it all up and go to hell*, but so that we would have a 2nd chance at redemption etcetc. then, just before they left, they gave this booklet to parsa entitled "this was your life".

this publication is from the same people who brought us the same gems that were handed out at o-day this year. the gist of these booklets is:

a) even if you are a good person, if you don't embrace God you will go to hell.
b) going trick or treating means you are a pagan, and therefore will go to hell ... unless you embrace God before you die
c) all muslims are the tools of the devil. and therefore they are going to burn in hell for all eternity

on the other hand, if you praise and worship and thank God for everything all the time**, you will go to heaven. also, if you condemn/denounce muslims and everyone who is not in JC's posse, you will most definitely go to heaven. amenpraisethelordhallelujah.

and on and on in the same vein, making sweeping statements and generally trying to start the crusades again. that kinda thing. not terribly christian at all.

so anyhoo, this made me remember the time that stu and i were talking about new fangled churches, with their "non-denominational" evangelisation of God's word. we were marvelling at the number of people they managed to convert, how they can afford to build new church that bears more than a passing resemblance to the guggenheim (new york, not bilbao), and would survive a nuclear holocaust because it's clad in titanium. also, we were incredulous at how they managed to raise a gazillion dollars to build that church.

and then we thought, how difficult could it possibly be to come up with our own denomination of non-denominational christianity, converting as many people as we can (but mostly the rich ones, hopefully) to our own brand of christianity? answer: not to hard. so we came up with a basic scheme of what we could do:

loosely based on catholicism (let's call it catholicism-lite), we'd be called the Bestest United Church of the King and Saviour - or BUCKS - and with such a prosperous name, hopefully we'd rake in the dosh. i'd be high priestess/head pastor/whatever (since i was the one who came up with the idea), my stupid loser girlie friend would be the grand chancellor, and my partner-in-many-crimes stoo would be the head of the security ministry, also be known as the k枚mmiss盲r. we'd all have tastefully designed robes and sceptres, but the k枚mmiss盲r would have a tazer at the end of his sceptre so that any hecklers we may encounter would be miraculously "slain" by the spirit.

we'd come up with plausible interpretations of the bible, and combine doctrines from other churches and make a happy hybrid for our own, preach free will and welcome everybody who wishes to join us. any questions outside of our comfort zone would be answered with "Such is the mystery and awesome power of God". we would have tithing machines (like the reverse of an atm), and look like we're offering people the best time of their life by joining us. our services will be like massive rock concerts, with appropriate pauses for spotlight-shining-down-like-a-stairway-to-heaven moments, to adequately overwhelm our audience wtih emotions. the word "awesome" would be used a lot so that we give the impression of being contemporary and with it.

and then we'd build a church and clad it in leather. that way we'd always smell of opulence (it's the riches from heaven! He has showered his blessings upon us!), and we'd raise funds by getting some b-list celebrity to be on our pastoral council, and marketing the album that he/she released.

and checkout our fancy crest:


for the Lord said, "take up your cross and follow me".

how easy it would be to sell this religion to people who equate giving more money with receiving more blessings? and who doesn't love the instant gratification of an awesome feel-good church?

yes, we would do all this if we weren't so certain that on judgement day, we'd be the goats (as opposed to sheep), and cast out to the fiery place where there will be wailing and gnashing of teeth.

* liberties taken with actual phrasing

** because all the time God is good, God is good all the time