39-Religion Police

Did you know that dressing up as a ghost or goblin and asking for candy door to door is evil and possibly influenced by the devil. Did you know that if your teenage daughter rehearses a church dance routine without wearing a headpiece, it could mean she's a prostitute. Oh yeah, it's all true. Just ask the religion police. I'm jimpoulling and this is my view from the middle. In this episode, I'm likely to step on a few toes, but trust me when I say, I really don't mean to. But what the heck? I've stepped on more toes during this podcast series than a centipede with tap shoes, So what's a few more. But hey, it's my podcast, and I'll gripe if I want to. You would gripe two if it happened to you. But I'm just pointing out some absurdities that I have encountered over the years. I grew up a Catholic, but don't hold that against me. Dealt with priests and nuns whose job it was to keep Catholic school kids on the straight and narrow, usually through guilt. The Catholic Church, especially under Vatican One, probably had more rules and taboos than almost any other religion, with a possible exception of Judaism, but I wouldn't know, since well, I'm not Jewish. We always had rules about not eating meat on Friday, a practice they gave up on enforcing except during Lent. When Vatican two came in. He had to fast and even go to confession before you could receive communion. When I attended Catholic school in the first, second and third grades, I remember my mother having to pack a breakfast for me as well as lunch on days where we went to Mass in the morning because we couldn't eat anything for an hour before receiving communion at the service. Women had to wear something on their heads when attending church, and men were forbidden to wear any kind of head covering, but the women had thing went out with Vatican two, I think because when I was getting out of hand, or maybe out of head, I guess you could say women were getting a little too creative when it came to the headgear. I remember sitting in the church on a Sunday not being able to see what's going on at the altar because the woman in front of me was wearing a giant fruit laden bonnet on her head with flowers and bananas sticking out On the flip side of that, others would pin what looked like a doily on their head that you could barely see. So enforcing that rule became unwieldy and wound up in the trash heap of Vatican One regulations. My mother was a devout Catholic and went to Mass every week. My dad stayed home. I think he only went to church when he had to, like my confirmation or first communion, that sort of thing. They never really talked about it. My mom didn't seem to mind that Dad didn't go to church with us, so it was just part of the normal Sunday routine. I had to dress up in a suit every week my Sunday go to meet and clothes. My mother would put on a dress and the requisite hats of the church walls wouldn't crumble upon entry. We had to be sure to eat breakfast early because the rules said you had to fast at least one hour before receiving communion. Now that rule evolved over the years. Originally you were supposed to fast from midnight on the night before receiving communion. Then in nineteen fifty seven they changed it to three hours before. Then in nineteen sixty four, one hour before. Now, I think you can munch on a HOGI Minnesota on your way up the aisle. Well maybe not, but you get the idea. Anyway, my mom and I would head off to Mass and leave my dad reading his Sunday newspaper in the living room. When Vatican two came in, many things changed. During the Catholic service, guitars and drums appeared on the platform. I remember my mother's comment, after attending your first Catholic Mass after the rules changed, they I was singing like a bunch of Methodists, she said. I guess I was never clear on where those rules came from to begin with. I presume the Bible or someone's interpretation thereof. But if that was the case, then how did they justify changing the rules. It's not like they can go back and rerun the Bible, or can they. Well, apparently some are still trying even today. Some members of the LGBTQ community, those who like to weaponize their beliefs in lifestyle against those who don't agree with them, have actually gone in and tortured scripture verses to legitimize their lifestyle and smack the rest of us in the face with it. We watched the documentary on Netflix recently that was touting an opinion that the ancient texts of the Bible were incorrectly translated in the Book of Romans by homophobes who wanted everyone to believe homosexuality was a sin when it really isn't. Uh huh Okay. Now, let me just say here, I have absolutely no issue with people in the LGBTQ community in general. The vast majority of them are not radical activists bent on tearing down people who don't buy into their beliefs. But I do have a problem with the select few who want to admonish the rest of us, calling as racists or bigots for what we believe in that's taught in the Bible. It's like they want to preemptively sit in judgment of us before we have a chance to judge them, even though most of us have no intention of judging them, at least I don't. That's not for me to do, and those who do need to go and review what Jesus said in Luke chapter six, verse thirty seven. Judge not and ye shall not be judged there's more to that verse. But this isn't a Bible study. Go look it up. So I guess if rewriting scripture makes them feel better about things, then they should go for it. But don't go pointing to your rewritten verses, wag your finger at us and say, see, you're all bigots. All right, Let me climb down off this soapbox before I get a nosebleed here. It seems that throughout the generations, people have interpreted holy texts, whether it be the Bible, Koran, Webster's Collegiate Dictionary, Mad magazine, whatever, to conform to their own agenda. Radical in Islam, for instance, will tell you the Koran tells them to kill all the infidels, something the non radical followers of the religion will tell you is nonsense. This is what precipitate to the nine to eleven attacks. All this is to say that I was no stranger to the religion police. These are the people who take it upon themselves to enforce the rules of the church or of the particular religion you're dealing with. But as I became an adult, I encountered other religion police. As I switched denominations, into the Methodist Church. After I moved out of my parents' house and then entered into my twenties, I did what many twentyish year olds did. I stopped going to church on Sunday. But in my defense, I had a very good reason for not going to church on Sunday. I didn't want to. But of course I didn't tell my mother that the rules said you must go to church on Sunday or else. Not sure what the or else actually entails, but my guess is it's a dry heat. In an earlier episode of this podcast series called The Pope Died and No One Called Me, I talked about how when Pope John Paul the First died, I didn't know it until my mother called me on the phone and asked how my church handled the Pope's passing at Mass. Of course I didn't go to Mass that Sunday, or any Sunday for that matter. Whoops busted. But I got married at age twenty nine, and my wife's mother had been attending a local United Methodist church in Orlando, Pinecastle United Methodist Church. So in the couple of years before we were married, we started to attend services again, and we were actually married in that church in nineteen eighty six. My wife was part of the drama ministry there, and I eventually became part of it as well. Now, the Methodist Church is a little looser than the Catholics, or at least it felt that way. Anyway. The services were less scripted and more dynamic, and I actually got a lot more out of the sermons that I ever did attending Catholic Mass. Now let me just say here, for the benefit of my Catholic friends, I have nothing against the Catholic religion. When I visit my brother, still a devout Catholic, I attend church with him. Actually, I enjoy the nostalgia of it all. Also only visited the Vatican in nineteen ninety seven and attended a Mass there where my wife was actually singing in the choir. It was also it's kind of nice to be part of a Catholic service again. But by that time it had been at least ten years since I had attended a Catholic Mass, and I still remembered all the responses and could anticipate what the priest would say. Nothing had substantially changed in the verbuage of the Mass, so I guess I didn't miss anything. But just because I was now a Methodist doesn't mean I didn't encounter the religion police. You'd think, after going through all the rules and rigs of the Catholic Church, that I would have heard at all, But I was dead wrong about that. I still attend the same Methodist church that we were married in in nineteen eighty six, but now instead of it being a United Methodist church, it is now a Global Methodist church and was renamed a few years ago to Bellisle Community Church. Now, if you don't know the distinction between United Methodist and Global Methodists, do a Google search. It's more Bible interpretation stuff. The United Methodist started rewriting or maybe just ignoring certain portions of Scripture to become more politically correct. Our church, along with hundreds of others, affiliated and either joined the newly formed Global Methodist denomination or went non denominational. But the United and even Global Methodist Church can have its share of religion police. These are the folks who love to point out what they honestly believe is appropriate and not when it comes to church worship and attendance, whether you ask for their opinions or not. Now I don't fault these folks for this, nor am I calling them out for it. It's what they grew up believing and it's all they know in some cases. But like the Catholic hat thing or the fasting before Communion thing all religions. In fact, Christianity in general still has some odd rules that really aren't enumerated in the Bible, or the references to them are vague at best and open to interpretation. But still these rules are enforced by the religion police. For example, when I came to Pinecastle United Methodist Church, I was surprised by their perception of Halloween. I had always thought that Halloween was a night they get dressed up and go door to door in the neighborhood candy period, end of story. When I was a kid, it was a fun night where you could go all dressed up as something and come home with a truckload of candy, all ready to drive your mother crazy with the sugar trip you will most certainly be on for the next week. But I was shocked to learn that some people in the church actually consider trick or treating to be evil. It's like you're worshiping the devil or something. It honestly never even occurred to me that Halloween was a night of evil, anti Christian devil worship until some church people brought it up. Some people in the church refuse to let their kids dress up for Halloween because of all this. As a result, some churches have fall festivals or trunk or treat events where people decorate the trunks of their cars and let the kids dress up, not in anything ghostly or gross, of course, and go trunk to trunk and collect candy. Okay, so that's nice. I guess it actually is safer to do it in a controlled environment, but I'm in favor of it for that reason, not because Beelzebub is somehow intervened and infected the holiday. I still think the only way Halloween could even be considered as something evil is because some over zealous church people made it that way. Otherwise no one would ever think in those terms. I know. I never did another thing that shocked me when I first joined the leadership of the church as its staff parish chairman now staff parish in case you don't speak Methodists, is the volunteer committee or team that oversees the paid staff of the church. I remember needing to meet with a member of my committee, a female, and I suggested we go to lunch. A frozen silence came over the room and people looked at me like I had six heads. You can't do that, I think it was the comment, well why not, I asked, Well, you can't go to lunch alone with a woman. Huh what? What in the wide wide world of sports are you talking about? Two people of the opposite sex can't go to lunch together for a business meeting. I was stunned. I had never heard of such a thing. I had been in management for several decades in the radio business, and I always went to church with women for business and for socializing. My wife went to lunch with men for the same reason. So what's the big deal? Well, I guess if you analyze it and examine all the sordid possibilities, I suppose there are some people who could use these lunch meetings as a way to do something debaucherous and inappropriate. But if you don't have the self control to meet alone with a member of the opposite sex in a public restaurant for one hour in the middle of a work day, then you have bigger problems to deal with than just lunch seek counseling. But like the Halloween thing, I would never have thought of this practice to be inappropriate until these folks brought it up. And some people in the church have a tendency to weaponize things from scripture when it suits their own personal agenda or really isn't necessary. We had some young girls who were going to dance as First century girls during a church production. First century women were always supposed to wear head coverings when in public, and the girl's costumes came complete with the head pieces that they were planning to wear for the main production. But this one particular, the girls were rehearsing their dance number and opted not to wear the head pieces. During the rehearsal. They were promptly admonished by the religion police for not wearing the head pieces. These young, impressionable girls were told that only prostitutes didn't wear head coverings in public. Huh, what, it's a rehearsal. It's also not the first century anymore, shsh. And then there was the time when some young guys on our tech team came in wearing hats baseball caps. The religion police got a hold of one of them and gave them a good talking to you about being disrespectful in church. Huh what Hey, at least these young people were actually coming to church. That's more than I can say about a young Jim Polling when he was that age, and I didn't wear baseball caps, still don't. Anyway, when I told a senior pastor about the dressing down the tech boys received or wearing the caps in church, he went out of his way the following Sunday to wear a baseball cap as he preached on the platform. I think that might have sent a message. Another time, during our drama ministry, one of our original scripts we were intending to use made a casual mention of the word wizard. The script wasn't referring to actual wizards who cast spells on people, if you believe that sort of thing. It was a one off comment something like, well he's a real technical wizard or something like that. Well, the religion police got a hold of the script and forced us to change the line says wizards are evil and we should never use the term, even in a casual sense without offending someone. Again, shsh WWJD. What would Jesus do if you read your Bible, or know anything about the life and times of Jesus, you have to know that he was constantly at odds with church leaders about so called taboos. Most of the time he was rebelling against rules that the leaders themselves conjured up, maybe by torturing scripture verses in such a way that made the rules seem biblical but were actually pure nonsense. Again, though, I don't want to criticize these religion police too harshly. The guys that criticized the boy with the hat were older, and that's just the way they were brought up. They were also military veterans, and hat wearing was heavily regulated in many branches of the service. They simply didn't know any better, but why they felt it was their place too, if you'll pardon the expression, dressed down. The guise for wearing hats in churches beyond me. It's hard enough to get young people to be interested enough to attend church. Then you have people who torment them with the hat nonsense or the head covering thing. I don't think that encourages them to continue coming to church. But the religion police are not just policing the local church. Dallas Jenkins who is the creator and director of the Amazon Prime television series The Chosen. Found this out. The Chosen is the story of Jesus and his disciples in episode form. The program is becoming more and more popular around the world and scores of languages. My wife Melody and I signed on to be extras in the filming of season six of The Chosen. We talk about that in my view from the middle episode entitled On a Mission from God. But Jenkins, in one of his webstream commentaries, was talking about some of the criticisms coming from some who have watched the series. Now, if you haven't seen it, it's different than most religious depictions, and that it's all done in present day vernacular, and Jesus is portrayed is well someone we could all assume. He was a man, a man who laughs, cries, jokes around with his disciples, gets hungry, gets hired, and dances at weddings, but loves God, his father, and preaches the word of salvation and the New Kingdom to come to everyone in ear shut. But some people on the religion police Force are there to offer such criticisms as a reference to align Jesus, says woman referring to one of his disciples, Andrew, and his attempt at dancing, which he's terrible at. Jesus says, even I couldn't fix that. Well, the religion police took offense to that comment. You see, Jesus can fix anything. It's a joke. People, get over yourselves. So there was a scene in which John the Baptist or John the Baptizer as he's called in the series, argues with Jesus on some things. The religion police were offended that anyone would argue with Jesus, as if there was anyone who didn't argue with him again, I say, sesh oh. And there was criticism about a scene in which some kids told a fib to their parents about what they were up to. The religion police were appalled. Kids in the first century were angelic and never would disobey or lie to their parents. Yeah. Right, if you believe that I have some ocean front land in the Everglades, you might be interested in buying. My wife produced many different biblical productions at the church over the years, Easter Cantata's, Christmas musicals and such. Quite often she'd get criticism from some self proclaimed religion police officer over something that was said or done that offended them. During the production, my wife would politely suggest that they volunteer their time on the next production to avoid such horrors from happening again. Somehow the wiping stops, and no, they don't show up to volunteer. So there I was in the middle, just trying to go to church and be a good church leader. But somehow, out of nowhere come these rules that on the surface seem well, shall we say, a little out there. Sometimes I can picture Jesus himself doing spit takes as these things are brought up, torturing scripture versus, as the religious leaders of the first century did to form arbitrary rules, a fistful of scriptures in one hand, a wagging finger on the other, as they fulfill their roles as the religion police. I'm jimpouling, and that's my view from the midd