Happy Reformation Day!

Advice from a Religious Con Man
Brought to you by WORLD MERIT BANK
“lifting people out of debt and hell for 20 centuries”

Chapel Address: Illiana Christian High School
October 31, 2008: Speaker: Fr. Johnny Tetzel, employer of the year 1517


I’ve been sent by the financial powers that be to give advice to you Americans today. It seems your economy is in a financial crisis. Well I was around during “the big crash” back in ‘17. 1517 that is. The whole land, not this one (we were just starting to chop down trees and Indians over here), the land that you call Europe was served by one centralized bank. Our headquarters was down in Rome and we ran an operation entrusted to us by God himself. We were the World Merit Bank and business was booming.

We specialized in a currency called penance. No, not pennies, not pence. Penance. Townspeople gave us chickens or candlesticks or quarters to pay their way out of punishment for petty sins. We had financial brokers called priests in every town collecting this penance and sending it to Rome. It was quite a lucrative enterprise. Until the great crash. Yes. The ‘R’ word devastated our bank. No, not Recession. Worse. The Reformation.

They say there were clues it would eventually happen. The trustees of our bank had been, over the centuries, getting a bit desperate to raise cash. One of the earlier Popes needed to maintain a huge military budget and recruit more soldiers to wipe out the heathens in the Middle East. So he invented a penance gift card that moms could give their sons for Christmas. Boys had a much easier time going to war if they could pocket this promise: “Dear GI Joe, when you die in this Crusade, you get to skip afterlife punishment in purgatory for your big-time mortal sins. You’ll earn a path straight to heaven, just like those Muslims think they are doing. Sincerely, Pope Urban and God.” Now tell me you can buy a future as valuable as that on your Wall Street!

The Pope also had to make hefty payments on his real-estate takeovers and high-rise cathedral developments, bonuses to his bishops, and bribes to various government princes and emperors. Selling fake pieces of Noah’s ark, and finger bones of the saints at all the Relic Flea Markets just wasn’t hauling in the cash like he had expected, so he set up 7-11s on every Main Street to mass market a new religious product line. “Buy a car magnet, (or indulgence as we called them) and we’ll give God the thumbs up to let you in heaven. Buy 10 wristbands to help out your dead uncle who didn’t have enough money to earn his way out of the 30 years of purgatory he is suffering through.” I was one of the more popular traveling salesmen during a special building fund drive in 1517 called the Jubilee Indulgence. You may have heard of me, Johnny Tetzel! My gimmick was a catchy jingle, just like your tv commercials have, to sell more stuff: As soon as the coin in the bucket rings, another soul from purgatory springs. As soon as the dollar in the bucket lands, another person in heaven stands! I was so good, I was selling indulgences for sins that hadn’t happened yet!

Well this troublemaker Martin Luther ruined it all. He was a Merit Bank accountant in Germany keeping track of his own ledger of sins and penances. He was one of few people educated to read Latin, the exclusive language of our bank’s constitution. He was studying sections called Romans and Galatians, and he accused the Merit Bank of ignoring an important constitutional amendment: that God discarded the merit banking business model when Jesus Christ died and rose again. The World Merit Bank, as Luther saw it, was a fraud run by executives who made their fortunes on people’s fear of purgatory and hell! He posted a note on his Facebook wall, (with a hammer the old-fashioned way) where everybody would read it. He publicly announced that the Christian God is not a banker, so any bank posing as the World Merit Bank is a worthless place to buy relics or invest in eternal futures.

It was a mess. People stopped buying thorns from Jesus’s crown of thorns, stopped buying hay from Jesus’s manger, stopped investing in futures. The market crashed and somebody needed to take the heat. The first person to fire was this Luther character. And in those days getting fired really meant something: rope, fire and a charred body. He had powerful friends who staged a kidnapping and hid him in a castle. Unfortunately, a new invention called the printing press helped his writings spread all over the empire. The Reformation was upon us—and the end of the world as we knew it.

Here is my advice to you: if you want to be successful leaders, bring stability back to your world, exterminate heathens in other lands, and have beautiful new church buildings and school properties and a thriving market for religious commodities: Encourage people to stay so busy and frantic that they have no time to really read Romans or Galatians. Persuade them to purchase countless Christian romances, family-values movies, self-improvement devotionals, and morally uplifting music from the local religious bookstores. Make sure they give money to every faith-based fundraiser within 30 miles. Let them get buried in debt to cover their financial obligations to church budget, school tuition, and a house in the latest new Christian-populated subdivision. The people must believe that God is a banker and that you, as a wise leader, can be trusted to collect all their money, time, energy, guilt, and possessions in exchange for assurance that their investments will earn them a nice retirement condo on the golf course in that eternally appreciating real-estate market of heaven.

Beware of traitors like this Luther. He ditched the LSAT and law school to take a vow of poverty. He wrote books that got his butt kicked out of church and his face stapled to the Wanted bulletin board at the sheriff’s office. He asked disrespectful questions like this one when he finished his youth group mission trip achievement of climbing a famous stairway in Rome on his knees: “Is this all a bunch of religious BS?” (I paraphrase). He told the people that their revered leaders were con-men in a giant financial scam for personal comfort, power, and wealth. He’d want you Christians to accept the life-denying risk of announcing good news to the poor, freeing captives and helping the oppressed. Come on! Where’s the money in that line of work?

He said the craziest thing of all, something that absolutely must be silenced if you Christian Americans want an economy that fairly rewards those who work for the wealth they deserve. Read along carefully so you know what to watch out for:

“Friends, believe the good news. Because of Jesus Christ, the Merit Bank is boarded up. Throw away your Purchase Love checkbook, cut up that Earn Salvation credit card. Sit down and rest in the new economic reality called Un-Merited Favor, where the King, President and CEO hands out grace, love, acceptance and joyous futures to all. For free.”

Don’t let this so called “good news” get popular. Believe me, it turns the world upside down.

By the way, anybody want to buy a bone from St. Jack’s skeleton? Five bucks. Guaranteed protection from any demons who bother you this eve of All Hallows Day.