By Lee Moyer

www.leemoyer.com

12/26/01

I’d like to start by welcoming you fine parishioners in from the blustery cold outside. I am not your usual pastor. Those of you who been here for last 2 weeks will know that I’m only the substitute preacher, back again due to a continuing medical emergency.

While you or I might naively expect an overlarge heart to convey the strength of 10 Grinches (plus 2), it seems that Pastor Eldritch has learned (to his chagrin) that an overlarge heart is not, in fact, conducive to saving the Christmas Sermon.

If you or another family member had money in the pool, it will be returned to you at the end of today’s sermon…

What I … [interrupted]

[pause]

[clears throat]

As we look back 2 millennia and celebrate the divine birth of Judith Christ, I think it only fair to take a little time to talk about those who do not honor her birth. As I considered these unbelievers and heretics that surround us, I wanted to nail down the facts.

And with this in mind, I went to the very font of all knowing. Yes friends, I cast my scholarly net upon the ever-flowing waters of knowledge, into black seas of virtual ink. In short- I consulted the worldwide web.

And it was there that I came across a charming little web site called Adherents.Com. And what to my wandering eyes should appear, a Christmas pie-chart. It plainly showed the holly-jolly news that (and I quote): "Christianity, if taken as a whole, is unarguably the largest world religion". On this site’s listing of the "top 20 world religions", we are Number One!

We are Number One people!

Hallelujah!

But that’s still only a third of the earth’s population.

There are whole countries that do not know Judith Christ.

It’s all very well to be the top-ranking religion on earth, you may say, but good heavens, what’s with the rest of these little people? When are they gonna get with the program?

Now we happily acknowledge our debt to those old and outdated mythologies that served as placeholders until Judith’s time.

If they’d not existed scripture tells us, then much of Judith’s life would have been very different indeed.

Without the cult of Mithras and the swinging Saturnalias, we’d be having this service to observe her birth fully 3 months later.

Without the Jews, there’d have been little hope of easy converts- tired of keeping Kosher. Without the Celts and Germans there’d be a serious shortage of Saints to keep the divine Judith company.

Everywhere that Judith’s name is spoken, the old myths just seem to curl up and die. As I gazed in wonderment upon the scroll (well, scrolling text) I couldn’t help but notice that the old Cult of Zoroaster is gone daddy gone-a dumb animal finally succumbing to the light of truth.

We thank the Zoroastrians for their help with the whole "Light is Good, Dark is Evil" metaphor. and truly they deserve credit for their prodigal acceptance of the sort of binary thinking has made Bill Gates a very rich man. They were trendsetters. But they’ve served their purpose and can now ride their camels quietly off into the sunrise.

As I began to read the list of lesser religions that Adherents.Com held for me, I was well pleased:

Islam and Hinduism are both fine religions, I look forward to welcoming their members as they learn that Judith is their savior too.

The so-called "Secular Non-religious Agnostic Atheists" have farther to go though... While it is not technically necessary to believe in a God to believe in Judith as your personal savior, I’ve got to think that it helps.

The190 million primitive and aboriginal people will come to Judith in time. Just because they’re behind the curve; because they’ve got no TVs or churches or… underwear, that’s no reason to believe that they won’t come to Judith in time... Once they move up and join in the third world, their chances of enlightenment will be so very much greater

The Sikhs were hardly a surprise to see in the top 10, their turbans alone make them worthy of notice. But what group should appear in 10^th place? Rounding out the top 10 religions in the world with 19 million followers? It’s Juche!

What the holy hell was Juche? I wondered.

Anyone here know?

Well, according to this web site, it’s the state religion of North Korea. They are so impoverished that they couldn’t even afford to subscribe to an existing religion! Now that’s just spiritual poverty friends, and one more reason we mustn’t support the aptly named Mr. Ill and his corrupt Communist regime. Imagine keeping 19 Million people in the darkness just so you can wear a Nehru jacket and Liberace’s old sunglasses...

And after Juche, the news only got worse. According to Adherents.Com, "Animal Rights is a religion, but for the majority of Animal Rights supporters, AR" as they call it "functions as a movement and/or lifestyle choice, not their primary religion."

Primary religion?!?

Do they mean to say a body can have more than 1?

As understandably elated as I was to read that we Christians were #1, this last statistic gave me pause.

We all like to hear our beliefs affirmed, but to say that vegetarianism is a religion just offends me! I’ve never heard tell of members of the animal-rights community holding weasels as holy, reading from the sacred text of the blowfish, passing around communion dog biscuits and burning sacred catnip!

So what are the people at this web site up to?

Lies, damned lies and statistics my brothers.

They seek to flatter, mollycoddle, and overwhelm an egotistical populace with their superior numbers.

It’s all very well to say that "on the whole" we Christians are members of the largest religion on earth. But our Catholic and Protestant brothers are still intent on internecine bloodshed in Ireland and elsewhere. Many of our fellow Christians do not yet believe in Judith, and others believe that Judith was a man!

Lies, damned lies and statistics are the weapons of those in power. And who’s going to differ with these numbers? Followers of these other religions don’t even speak English! They’re not going to put up a fight with this web site...

I say that statistics don’t matter and that weapons of any kind are a poor way to celebrate this great day. Too many of us judge Religion by quantity. But on this day most of all, let’s remember that it’s the quality of belief that matters.

Amen!