About a year ago, I decided I would try to be Lark News. This is one of the results.
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A lamb-themed restaurant at a Matoon, IL megachurch is the subject of bleats of protest from the flock.
Sheep farmer Emmett Abel.
The restaurant is located in the market quadrant of the main campus of the New Heavens, New Earth Community Church, between the coffee shop (Holy Grounds Beanery) and intimate apparel boutique (Victorious Secret). Gerard Helpfley, one of the 13,000+ member congregation’s 70 shepherds, says that the restaurant–christened The Lamb of God–was meant to showcase the work of parishioner Emmett Abel, a farmer who raises sheep. The menu features gyros, kabobs, and kafta among more familiar fare like lamb chops with mint jelly.
Bob Cain, a deeply disgruntled member of the fold.
One member, who wishes to remain anonymous, complains, “I dunno. It’s just the Bible says we’re sheep. Isn’t this sort of like cannibalism?” Another member, Bob Cain, is fuming mad. “Lamb of God? That’s blasphemy!” But Abel is undaunted. He shrugs off Cain’s protest as a case of jealousy. “Look, he’s just mad because the shepherds turned down his offer to put in a vegetable stand from his home garden and chose my restaurant, instead. I can’t help it if they had no regard for Cain’s offering.”
Westboro Baptist Church’s predictable response to the flap.
I am an ambivalent Southerner, born to Church-o-Christ trailer people in North Alabama at the crack of the 1980s. For lack of a better description, I refer to my religious inclinations as High Church Stone-Campbell Mennonite, with a wink at the contradictions such a descriptive contains. Acknowledging contradiction is a nod to honesty. My only boast is, "Jesus loves me, this I know, for the Bible tells me so." My personal convictions, which may not be as important as I think they are, can more or less be summed up as follows: The earth is the LORD's, and everything in it. God's redemptive activity is a continuation of his creative activity. History is a theologically-charged category. God's wrath is perfected in mercy. Judgment doesn't have to be the final word, it can be the opening of a new chapter. Jesus doesn't solve the problem of sinners in the hand of an angry God, God solves the problem of Jesus in the hands of angry sinners. The triumph of God's people is determined by Cross and Resurrection. Discipleship demands non-violence. We cannot live free from anger or lust, but we can be part of people with a vocation so compelling we are free not to dwell on them. The church is a letter from Christ--our actions determine whether or not it's hate mail. If judgment begins with the household of God, then justice must begin in the household of God. Congregational autonomy preserves tradition, and that doesn't have to be a bad thing. Tradition and variety can embrace and kiss one another. Believer's baptism is a good idea for reasons similar to why we don't let infants marry. We can only be ourselves in community. True freedom depends on interdependence. Responsibilities are prior to rights. Freedom is a skill, not a right. To live free requires virtues. Humor may be the best virtue besides charity. The farmer is the man who feeds us all. This land was made for you and me. Take the humanities out of education, and the society becomes less humane. Usury is sinful. War is mass murder and eats away at the cake of society, leaving us fragments and crumbs. Never vote for anyone with a snowball's chance in hell of winning. Never trust a male politician without facial hair. Beards are modest.
Aaauuggghhh! You had me going until “had no regard for Cain’s offering.”
The real news is just that weird, and it sucked me right in.
Very funny, Jeremy.
Well, jack–they say truth is stranger than fiction. My truth is stranger than most.