The Rest of the Story

Not Really It

Somebody dragged the little white church from a pocket in the farmer's field, alongside the highway, to a spot across from Fogel's Store. What had been a Mennonite Church became a Lutheran Church of sorts. I say, "of sorts" because the pastor--"Parson"--was always uncomfortable with genuine Lutheran churches, as they were with him.

It was there, in that uncomfortable little Lutheran church with a wood stove and an attitude that I became what I am today: confused and contrary. Parson didn't like regular Lutheran Sunday School materials, so he found something safely to the right of Philadelphia. I recall that someone would occasionally distribute religious pamphlets from the American Tract Society. Even as a child, I knew they were sanitized of liberal thought and centrist drivel: they were safely situated on God's right hand.

Just today, I read a list of what I suppose one might call the biggest rip-offs among charitable organizations; a good number of which were religious groups. The most wasteful, using 68% of its income for administrative expenses, was the American Tract Society. It was called, "the most inefficient in the country". It is headquartered, of course, in Texas.

I dread to think what I would be like today had the American Tract Society not used most of its money on itself. What if they had been genuinely effective at making me a little fundamentalist? Sometimes, when I am alone at night, thinking about all of that, I pour myself another drink, and like John Boehner, cry at what a great country it is that has made things turn out as they have! I will bet John Boehner read those tracts, too.

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