UnBeliefable

Oh, the United Church of Canada! Are they just wankers, or are they apostates? A vexed question, I guess, as they are clearly both. It is worth noting, though, that their wankerdom has finally come to be directly proportionate to their apostasy. The Globe and Mail reports today:

The United Church of Canada is launching the largest advertising campaign ever by a Canadian church in an attempt to spark debate about religious issues and encourage people to come back to the pews.

The series of advertisements poke fun at some traditions and tackle controversial topics such as sex and gay marriage.

One includes statues of two grooms on a wedding cake and asks, "Does anyone object?" Another features a can of whipped cream with the question, "How much fun can sex be before it's a sin?" Still another depicts a bobble-head Jesus on a car dashboard and asks, "Funny. Ticket to hell. What do you think?"

Reverend-cum-Marketing-Executive Keith Howard explains the United Church’s reasoning for undertaking a campaign whose monetary cost must be at least as considerable as the toll it takes on good taste:

"We have become aware that particularly for people in the 30- to 45-age group, many of them do not even know that the United Church exists, much less what we stand for."

A simple enough problem, Reverend. People don’t know that the United Church exists for the rather simple reason that, really, it doesn’t. Or it does, but its quality is so nebulous, so diffuse, so insubstantial, as to constitute more of a religious gas. A kind of post-Christian flatus: intangible, but somehow still offensive.

That people don’t know what the United Church stands for is rather easily explained by the fact that it doesn’t stand for anything. Or, strictly speaking, I guess that isn’t true. But what it does stand for is entirely superfluous given its, erm, target market ...

Check dis out, aight?!

Let me hear all y’all 30- to 45-age group holla back, yo!

We love gays and are totally down wit’ recreational sex! We watch Friends too; see how irreverent we can be ‘bout a bobble-head JC (da S o’ G)! We belidat all y’all should just be allowed to chillax—not worry ‘bout some chuch tellin’ all y’all what to believe. We just want to provide all y’all wit’ a forum in which to discuss issues of a deep and personal nature; things you don’t get to talk about otherwise. Like global warming and whether or not Madonna is a saint.

... But it seems to me that there isn't a lapsed Christian, Jew, Muslim etc. that isn't already at least a, as it were, spiritual member of the United Church. It would be far more in keeping with the miracle of its conversion, then, that the United Church not seek to fill the seats of its own, now defunct, churches, but itself move to its natural place of worship: the rec room of an age-restricted condominium.