Sects from A to Z

By R.S.Gwynn

High Anglicans (or C. Of E.)
Are numerous far over the sea.
They ring a small bell a lot.
Read T.S. Eliot,
And burn incense in no small degree.

The Baptists put stock in immersion
And loudly will cast the aspersion
That a ritual that stops
With a few sprinkled drops
Is merely a watered-down version.

The blue-eyed Episcopal ladies
And gentlemen look like the Brady’s.
Their children are blond
And they are all quite fond
Of the Escalade and the Mercedes.

Fundamentalists think it’s apparent
That the Bible is strictly inerrant.
When one asks, once again,
“Well, so who married Cain?”
The claim Yahweh was, singly, her parent.

A.J.W (Jehovah’s Witness)
Should never be asked in to sit. Nes-
tle in, bolt your door
or you’ll let in a bore
Who will point out your soul’s lack of fitness.

The Mormons once had a hegemony
In Utah, allowing polygamy.
With their bearded heads hung,
The men thanked Brigham Young,
Who responded, “Yes, wasn’t that big of me ?”

The Oneidans detected sin’s essence
In all symptoms of manly tumescence,
So their men they unmanned,
Crying, “Take sin in hand!” –
A religiously planned obsolescence.

The Quakers possess inner lightning
And refrain from all feuding and fighting;
They enter their meetings
With “Bless Thee” for greetings,
But the service is hardly exciting.

The Shakers thought sexual activity
Was a wasteful sinful proclivity :
“No more sleeping in pairs !
Go make tables and chairs !
Sublimate and increase productivity !”

Unitarians pray, but they never
Say to whom, and thus claim the endeavour,
While it’s heavenward sent,
More precisely is meant
To address someone known as “Whoever.”

The number of folks who use X’s
In spelling out Christmas perplexes.
It’s truly inanity
(Just think, Xianity ! ) –
A small matter, I know, but it vexes.

Most zealots are eager to tell us
That their God is bad-tempered and jealous.
They go on for hours
Describing His powers
With a zeal that’s excessively zealous.

Comment : The limericks made me smile, and I’ve always been partial to an attempt to poke fun at organised religion and zealots, hence I had to run this poem on the blog. - Zen