Using Protection

(Safe Theology)

Four times in the last seventeen years

Harold Camping predicted the end of the world.

He keeps making the same mistake—

claiming something that’s easily tested.

Most Christians know better.

Our long-time preacher friend

accepts that there was an Adam and Eve,

but it’s a mythological pair in a mythological garden,

a story he can safely claim is true.

Tennessee innkeepers play

“And He walks with me and He talks with me,”

but it’s an inner place where no one suggests

you can see Him walk or hear Him talk.

A guest of the inn, an entertainer turned singing pastor,

does George Beverly Shea proud before breakfast

when he belts out “How Great Thou Art”

with sentiments that can’t be denied.

Every week congregants recite creeds,

affirming beliefs as far removed from observation

as the Psalmist’s east is from the west,

nicely tucked behind walls of the unknowable.

The Reverend Canon Brian Mountford,

vicar of the University Church of St Mary the Virgin

validates theologies of aesthetics, morality, and community,

welcoming atheists into the conversation about meaning.

And the judges have reached their decision—

the safe theology award,

the metaphorical-God award,

the stick-to-your-feelings award,

the show-Mr-Camping-how-it’s-done award,

goes to….