The humourist Irma Bombeck once included a sad piece in her newspaper column describing an experience in church when she had watched a small child who kept turning around and smiling at everyone. His mother finally jerked him around and in a stage whisper said, ‘Stop that grinning! You’re in church! Then she gave him a belt, and as tears rolled down his face she said, ‘That’s better,’ and returned to her prayers.
Irma concluded by saying, ‘What a fool, I thought. Here was a woman sitting next to the only light left in our civilization – the only hope, our only miracle – our only promise of infinity. If he couldn’t smile in church, where was there left to go?’
Sadly, I think there are many versions of that story. It’s the same sort of perverted religion that crucified the Son of God. The good news, though, is he still lives on, despite it.