B. U. G. S.

Presbyterians, Lutherans, United Methodists, they all laughed at the “holy rollers.”

But my father would point out to them that THEY began the same way. John Calvin and John Knox were shouters who brought their audiences into terror and tears. John Wesley yelled for sixty years, and even the hardened Welsh coalminers were rolling and crying.

I seriously doubt that Peter and Paul limited themselves entirely to quiet, sermonic reasoning in their hey-day.

My analysis of religion begins precisely where the theologian’s should end. My analysis of religion or any other ideological institution is pure heresy to most adherents of the Faith, because I know that most of it, be it Christian, libertarian or Communists, is exactly the same. CS Lewis said there was only one required Christian belief, the Resurrection. Thought JRR Tolkien was very upset at Lewis for becoming a Catholic after Tolkien had had so much to do with his conversion from atheism, the fact that the pope require belief in the Immaculate Conception for Salvation in 1870, after saints had argued over it for so long, was enough all by itself to keep Lewis outside the Pope’s jurisdiction.

Theologians qualify for their jobs by knowing all about the Old Testament, the Igubrian language translation of the Vermillion and the Syphilitic Monstrance.

According to Gospel, Jesus knew all that crap when he was twelve years old. Twenty years later, when his mission was serious, he was out reducing things to parables. Yes, he did say ONCE that he did not come to supplant the Law and the Prophets, so the Church put them on the same par with the Final Truth. Had Jesus said anything else, he would have been stoned to death n the spot.

And when his enemy’s asked him about paying Roman taxes he said that the right of Caesar to his property was as important as God’s right to his – if you translate his words the way the churches do on the Testaments.. Same reason: anything else and he would have been stoned on the spot.

So why are professional theologians so nuts about the Old Testament? Because you would have a hard time making a living out of what JESUS said. It is no accident that it was the Old Testament theologians who got him crucified.

All ideologies and all religions are ninety-nine percent the same. That is MY area of expertise, the development of HUMAN institutions, HUMAN politics. Theologians would like to lynch ANYBODY who exposed that fact the way Christ did.