A “Free Thinker” Is Kicked Out Of The Vegetarian Church

SATIRE

Stake President: Welcome, Brother X, thank you, please come in.

Brother X: Thanks, president.  OK, let’s get this over with.  How does this thing go?

Stake (“steak”?  Better try “carrot”) President: Brother X, we need to meet in order to discuss some things you’ve been publicly advocating that are contrary to the established doctrine of the church.

Bro. X: Fine.  I’ve got nothing to hide or be ashamed of.  My ideas are just as valid as yours, and I believe this church is big enough to fit all the ideas in it that anybody wants. 

Stake Carrot President: But Brother X, this is the Church of Latter-day Vegetarians, and you insist on teaching people that they should eat meat instead of vegetables!

Bro. X: Of course!  Look, I totally have a testimony of the whole vegetable thing, I just also feel strongly that you can eat meat and still be a faithful, active vegetarian.  I don’t see the problem here.

President: Really?  You don’t see the contradiction there?  That if you really know that vegetarianism is true that you can’t also eat all the meat you want? 

Bro. X: [snorts] Man, you have been so brainwashed by all those lame Sunday School classes.  There are cookbooks out there that you don’t even know about, that the church hides and censors like crazy.  Did you know that there are reliable reports that our first prophet sometimes soaked his broccoli in a pork-based marinade?  I mean, obviously that’s a green light for us to interpret our doctrines in the worst light possible and use it to justify our own convenient choices! 

President:  Brother X, we love you and want you to find happiness in life by living the way that we all know to be true, the one approved way to God, and I hope you do.  But in order to remain in the church, you have to stop trying to convert people to personal views that oppose those of the church. 

Bro. X: Hey, man, stop judging me!

President: Um, nobody’s judging you.  In fact, I think you’re a pretty decent guy.  But your behavior is inappropriate and you know it.  If you don’t accept the authority of the church to determine its own doctrine, anyway, then why do you want to stay a member?

Bro. X:  Like I said, I understand this church way more deeply than you do.  I get vegetarianism at levels that would blow your mind.  I’ve studied the agricultural manuals in the original Sanskrit, and I can tell you that there’s some weird stuff in there.

President: Stuff that explains how someone who feels the spirit of vegetarianism can eat five pounds of ham and bacon a day?

Bro. X: Hey, man, stop judging me!

President: [sighs] Brother X, I think we can still work together to improve your testimony.  For the time being, I don’t think it’s necessary to excommunicate you from the church.

Bro. X:  Uhhh…are you sure?

President: I thought that’s what you wanted?

Bro. X: Yeah, but…it’s just…getting kicked out would give me a ton of killer street cred with all these anti-vegetable rebels I’ve been hanging out with lately.  They’re really cool and I really want to impress them.  Couldn’t you, um, you know, do a guy a favor?