Totally Heinous, Dude!!!!!!!!

I read something so infuriating in the Des Moines Register yesterday that I had to blog about it:

Imagine yourself an older Christian gentleman of Missouri-Synod Lutheran leanings whose wife has passed on. You're sad. You've tried attending church but worshipping isn't the same without her. You drift away from the church for a couple of years and then...wham!!!!!! The congregation is sending you letters telling you you'll be kicked out since you've not taken Communion. On top of that, any plots you've "leased" in the church cemetery would be "forfeited" and returned to church property. Apparently, the rule is that if a member has not taken Communion in two years, they are summarily kicked out, and not be allowed to come back and have Communion after expulsion, or have their funeral there--and any children they have are not welcome, either. Also, donation of money is apparently a mandate of this particular church, not a free-will thing.

Granted, I am not a practicing Christian, let alone Missouri Synod Lutheran, but this scenario is so full of spite, greed and hatred that I could just about hack-n-spit a thousand loogies at the people who made up this idiotic rule. It's a rule that's not even "on the books" in the national Missouri-Synod policy--it is all centered in Trinity Lutheran in Conroy, Iowa...and what's worse, the minister there seems to want to back it up, instead of confronting his congregation about how UN-Christian the rule is. Mom says it sounds like a power-play by the kind of folks who have tight-fisted emotional control over the people in the congregation--and no one is willing to challenge the control freaks. In the article, the man was upset enough about the whole deal--as he should be--that he went ahead and moved his wife's body over to a public cemetery in Marengo.

Let's face it: I grew up a Methodist preacher's kid. And while my family and I have encountered our share of people who craved to have that kind of absolute sway, based on erroneous and twisted ideas of who should or shouldn't be allowed to be confirmed or even who the minister should or shouldn't visit in the hospital, the Methodist Discipline does not deny ANYone the chance to come back and worship even if they've been away for a while. I don't even think the Catholics have such a stringent rule as Trinity Lutheran, even if the Vatican's rules about Holy Communion, in connection with the act of Confession and Catholicism's concept of sin, also seem a bit stodgy and un-Christian.

When I first read the article about the man turned away from Trinity Lutheran, my first thought was of a song from the 1970s musical 'Godspell,' --"Alas! Alas!", whose chorus and bridge go something like this:

(Sung by Jesus)
"You snakes! You viper's brood!
You cannot escape being devil's food!
I send you prophets, and I send you preachers;
Sages and ages and rages of teachers--
Nothing can mar your mood!"

(bridge)
Blind guides! Blind Fools!
The blood you've spilt
on you will fall!
This nation, this generation
Will bear the guilt of it all!"

But no matter what tune you sing to ridicule a hypocrite, an un-Christian act or thought is STILL an un-Christian act or thought. The very fact that this episode got written up in the Des Moines Register and made it all the way to the front page should shame the congregation of Trinity Lutheran, because their actions and attitudes have shown the ENTIRE state of Iowa what the congregation's priorities are: not actions of love and charity in a man's time of sorrow, but hate, spite and an insane hunger for power and control over others just because they might think that's what Jesus would want.

Umm, reality check, folks. That ain't what Jesus was about. To turn away a man in his time of need just because he had not participated in Communion or donated money in two years?

...In the words of Bill and Ted: "Totally heinous, dude!"

It is my sincere hope that the aggrieved human souls who were at the mercy of the poisonous vipers in that congregation will find peace in a gentler place of worship.

Blessings,
Rev. Kat ^.^