HOW ABOUT A LITTLE SUNDAY SERMON FOR THE FIRST METHODIST CHURCH OF GLENWOOD SPRINGS FROM THE RIGHT REV HOWIE?

Dostoevski is probably my all-time favorite writer and BROTHERS KARAMAZOV is, at minimum, tied in my mind for his best book (with CRIME AND PUNISHMENT). Nietzsche pronounced him the only psychologist from whom he ever learned anything. I'd like to recommend him to the good and pious folks of Glenwood Springs, Colorado, in particular the fine folks of the First United Methodist Church in "downtown" Glenwood Springs. (Isn't this the church that advertises on TV that they want everyone and anyone, even gays and colored folk?) Well, looks like they found someone they don't want: a grief stricken mother of a dead American soldier. Yep, they turned away Cindy Sheehan. So why Dostoevski? And BROTHERS KARAMAZOV is so loooooooooooooooong. How about one small part of BROTHERS K then? Let's just read the chapter called "The Grand Inquisitor," which I think you can even by like a novella. I'll come back to our friend Torquemada in uno momento; let me fill you in on the news first.

Cindy was scheduled to speak at the church on September 16. The church’s hierarchy voted Thursday evening against letting Sheehan appear there and she's been told she isn't welcome. Some of the church members had threatened to leave the church in Cindy was allowed to speak, a prospect that would have hurt the church financially. One of the congregants who had gotten permission from the pastor and then helped arrange for Cindy to speak at the church, Dean Moffatt, was dismayed and points to a "neoconservative" faction within the church. “They ignore the fact that she’s a mother of a fallen soldier, a grieving person. They buy into the conservative media and the talk shows and the conspiracies — you know, that she’s a front for various organizations, etc. It’s a real threatening thing, and they completely forget the Bible, they completely forget what our faith is based upon, and they react and this is what’s happened. Our church should be for peace and for an open dialogue for discussing issues that affect us all, and hearing things firsthand. We should be an open society and continue to strive for that,” says Moffatt. He describes a situation at the church, a mainstream church by the way, not one of those fundamentalist snake-handler pseudo-churches, where it appears some of the members are consumed by fears and may be delusional. "They see the direct links between 9-11 and Iraq. They start to equate Bush with Jesus. They feel that their church is their last refuge in many ways, that things are falling apart all around. They’ve reacted very, very emotionally to Cindy Sheehan.”

Back to BROTHERS K. Dostoevski's Grand Inquisitor, a later-day Torquemada, as the representative of the power of the all powerful Church (in those days a power backed with more than just the full faith and credit of the State). When Torq and his guys said you were a bad guy they didn't just make you say some "Hail Marys;" ostracism and banishment would have been a blessing compared to the torture and burning at stakes which were commonplace. So who shows up-- the middle of... I don't know... 15th Century Spain? Jesus... Christ. Yeah, him (Him). "Oy," thought the whole Church Hierarchy; "just what we need! (not) Get Torq down there... pronto." And Torq is no meek lamb, let me tell you; this guy is one smart Rove-type character, that's for sure! "What do you think people really want?" he asks... kind of rhetorically. "Do you think that what they want is what they say? They say they want freedom and they go to wars under the banners of freedom and liberty. But don't you understand that men really dread freedom, that they will do anything to escape from freedom, that they want nothing more than to be free of freedom?" (I can hear the cheers from Pennsylvania Avenue all the way out to Glenwood Springs First United Methodist now.) "Nothing is more seductive for man than his freedom of conscience but nothing is a greater cause of suffering." Man fears nothing more than the torment of free choice. CNN and Fox "News" are gonna always be a lot more comforting than Cindy Sheehan (or Jesus).