There was a perfect fundie story in today’s Guardian, at the end of the World cup section. Not online, so I shall type in the par I loved.
It came from an interview with the 22 missionaries of the Northwest Bible Tabernacle Church, from Dallas, Texas: “We like to greet people as they come to the gound and talk to them. We also have a lot of free gifts to give away, including some videos and a booklet. The Ultimate Goal . The booklet contains quotations from the Bible, and also testimonies about Christ from some of the world’s greatest soccer players, including Brazilian defender Lucio and Liberian goalkeeper Louis Crayton.”
In an ecumenical spirit, I offer my rules for enjoying religious services, drawn up over eight years of compulsory christianity in skool, and then too many years writing about God as a journalist.
- Take notes. Almost anything you write will be more interesting than what you see or hear
- Think about trout. Concentrate very hard on a beautiful stretch of river. How did it smell? How did the fish shift in the light? What were they eating? What did you do wrong?
- Read the hymn books. Try and find the most banal modern hymn. This can take some time.
- Anything surviving from the seventeenth or eighteenth centuries will probably be worthwhile poetry. Savour it.
- See! It’s almost over already.
But none of this explains why most Anglican sermons are like hearing the vicar read his blog entries out aloud.