Should the communion wafer be placed directly in your mouth by the priest, or should the priest just hand it to you and let you chomp it? After decades of debate and millions of pages of theological discourse, the Pope has decided to risk cooties by sticking it directly in your mouth. Don’t make us adjudicate this a second time.
Frothing at the Mouth Protected by the First Amendment
The Texas Supreme Court has ruled that exorcisms, no matter how gnarly they get, constitute protected First Amendment speech and you can’t circle back later and say you were battered or abused by the demon-casting process, even if your head spun around several times and caused spinal damage. The test case involved a 17-year-old girl named Laura Schubert who was freed of demonic influence during a marathon session in 1996 at Pleasant Glade Assembly of God in Colleyville, Texas, but later claimed false imprisonment and mental distress leading to the need for professional psychiatric help. The Supreme Court held in a 6-3 decision that, if a church could be sued every time someone gets driven insane by doctrine or practice, then it would have a chilling effect on the willingness of ministers to beat people up for Biblical reasons.
Shifty Shiflett
The Reverend Charles Shiflett, destined to be known as Shifty Shiflett, was pastor of Calvary Baptist Church in Culpeper, Virginia, from 1988 to 2005, but that started to unravel when he got charged with cruelty to children, including six (!) assault and battery convictions, at his church-operated school. Last week he was back in court, pleading guilty to 20 fresh felony counts involving his checkbook, including obtaining money by false pretenses from the church, filing a fake workers compensation claim (says he hurt his back “unloading a pony”), insurance fraud and tax fraud, all of which could add up to 310 years in prison and $50,000 in fines, if the district judge is not inclined to mercy. He has until October 8th to round up some character witnesses willing to say his sticky fingers didn’t interfere with his ministry. One of the charges involved his failing to report proceeds from the sale of livestock as income, but the livestock apparently consisted of camels that were maimed by attempts to thrust them through sewing utensils.
Let the Preacherman Preach
The Alliance Defense Fund, the original religious right legal outfit founded by James Dobson and the religious broadcasters in 1993, is searching for a church that’s willing to endorse political candidates from the pulpit so they can get arrested and fined, then challenge the constitutionality of the Internal Revenue code that prohibits churches from getting involved in politics. I support this effort, and predict victory, mainly because free speech should be universal and unrestricted, and you shouldn’t be denied the chance to speak just because you’re a pastor speaking on Sunday morning. Americans United for Separation of Church and State disagrees, saying that charitable contributions should not be used for politics, but that’s more the French model–no religion in the public square–as opposed to the American model of equal access for religion and non-religion in the public square. I know that when my father ran for the school board, he visited virtually every black Baptist church in Pulaski County, Arkansas, most of them during a religious service, to speak specifically about politics, and nobody much cared. They considered voting part of doing the right thing, and doing the right thing part of their religion, and that’s their right. If AUSCS truly believes in mere separation, and not anti-clericalism, then they’ll enforce the rights of the church side just as ardently as they do the rights of the state side.
