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 III – Rioting for Jesus
Introduction: The following is PART THREE in a six part serial. To read the first two installments, follow the links at the end of this story.
When we left our young Quester previously, he was eating pizza and having a crash course in the Protestant Reformation – from none other than Martin Luther himself. Qoheleth (AKA "Jim") exhales his magical transporting pipe smoke first at Martin Luther, then at the Quester …
I awake – laying flat on my back – on a dirty, crowded street. An angry mob is rushing about with sticks, bottles and guns. Jim grabs my legs and drags me into an old store building. We hide under a table.
“We can't stay here long,” whispers Jim. “It's far too dangerous.”
I peek through a window and see a church being consumed by flames.
“What's going on, Jim? Where are we?”
“Kensington; a Philadelphia suburb. 1844. Right now, the Protestants are trying to run off the Catholics. They’ve been preaching about the dangers of Catholicism while Catholic immigrants are arriving and trying to make a home here … DUCK!”
Jim slams my head to the floor just as bullets shatter through the window and ricochet off the table above us.
“Sweet Ignatius of Antioch! That was close!” exclaims Jim.
He quickly lights his pipe and blows smoke in my face. This time I don’t mind so much.
The smoke clears, the spinning stops, and we are back at the corner booth in the truck stop.
Nervous and shaking, I wipe the sweat off my face with a napkin. I let out a deep sigh, gulp down a Dr. Pepper, and ask, “Protestants and Catholics were fighting right here in America?”
“Oh, it was dreadful! Two Catholic church buildings destroyed by arson; about thirteen people killed. But the Catholics have done their share of rioting, too. And these fights were not just in Philadelphia, but also New York and Boston and . . . ”
“But why? Why here in America where we promise religious freedom?”
“Oh, Quester! Don't you see? 'We' promise religious freedom, but on the terms and conditions outlined by the 'we' religious group in power. This riot you just survived, and others like it, were about the Bible. Catholics could be tolerated as long as they played nicely by Protestant rules. But when Catholics began complaining about not having complete, whole Bibles in the public schools, that their children are being taught falsities . . . ”
“But they were using Bibles in the schools back then, weren’t they?”
“Think, boy, think!” he says, whacking me on the head with his pipe. “Whose Bible do you think was legislated for official use in the public schools?”
“A Bible's a Bible … and back then it was probably the King James.”
“Yes, yes . . . now why did King James authorize his own English version in the first place?”
“Ahhhhhh . . . Because of his break with the Catholic Church! And the Protestants cut out several books from the Bible in the process!”
“Very good. So . . . ”
“So, the Catholics were upset that a sliced-and-diced-chopped-up-version of Scripture was being taught to their kids.”
“Waitress! Please bring the Quester another Dr. Pepper!”
~ ~ ~
The Quester's Odyssey continues next week with …
Part IV – “Thy Will (to Power) Be Done”
in which we might hear Friedrich Nietzsche say, “I told you so!”
Catch up on the first two installments here:
I – The Nature of the Quest
II – The Protestor in the Pub
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