Last weekend I stood in front of a church full of people and lied many, many times. It was my big day of becoming a godfather and despite Louise's cries of double standards and hypocrite ringing in my ears I stood their and professed by belief in god, jesus and the holy spirit. Then I got to repent all my sins and renounce evil.
"Do you renounce evil?" was the question. What do they really take us for? Who's honestly going to say no? And as a character guide it's about as effective as stopping terrorists getting into the country by issuing ID cards. But nevertheless, despite thinking of myself as something akin to a fundamentalist atheist, I stood there and lied and lied and lied.
And before you start criticising... Molly goes to a catholic school, she might go to a catholic secondary school and she believes in god. But she also believes in Father Christmas, The Tooth Fairy, The Easter Bunny and god knows what else. A wonderfully fantastical figment of society's imagination with a good backstory is fine art this age. I still wonder what's going to go first - the big bloke with the white beard in the red costume or the big bloke with the white beard up there in heaven. Personally I hope it's the latter, but I have my doubts. I am quite certain that at some point all of these nice childhood imaginary myths will disappear.
However, it does mean that I'm the proud godfather to a lovely little baby boy. I have no idea why the parents chose me but I'm very honoured they did. What they don't realise now is that I'm busy planning exactly what comics young godson is going to get for birthdays and christmas.
Surely to renounce evil you must have previously embraced it? Isn't this a bit of a "when did you stop beating your wife" question?
ReplyDeleteExactly what I was thinking. Love the fact that the church seems to think we all start off from a position just past Ming The Merciless or Hitler on the Evil scale and have to work our way back.
ReplyDeleteBless their tolerant little hearts