250 ANECDOTES ABOUT RELIGION

By David Bruce

SMASHWORDS EDITION

Copyright 2010 by Bruce D. Bruce

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

Cover Photograph

Photographer: Darren Green

Agency: Dreamstime.com

•••

250 Anecdotes About Religion

Chapter 1: From Animals to Courage

Animals

• Lawyers aren’t always necessary to resolve disputes between neighbors. When country comedian Jerry Clower was growing up, some cows broke out of a neighbor’s field one night, got into his stepfather’s cornfield, and caused considerable damage. The next morning, Mr. Clower’s stepfather went to the neighbor and said, “Your cows stayed in my field all night.” The neighbor apologized: “I’m sorry. My cows broke through the fence. I didn’t know they were in your field.” The neighbor then said, “I tell you what let’s do. Let’s go get an impartial person living in the community, a member of our church, and ask him to walk over the field to determine the damage. Then he can tell me how much corn he believes those cows ate and I will put that much corn in your corncrib.” That’s exactly what they did. They agreed on a fair and honest man to serve as judge of the damage. He walked through the cornfield, then said, “Twenty bushels is what’s due.” Later that afternoon, the neighbor drove up and unloaded 20 bushels of corn into Mr. Clower’s stepfather’s corncrib.

• In the summer of 1984, a small black dog began to come to the Catholic Church in Uvalde, Texas, where Msgr. Vincent Fecher serves. The dog arrived with its master, then stretched out on the lawn of the church. When the master left after Mass and went home, the dog stayed on the lawn, buried in the tall, cool grass, and it moved only to stay in the shade of a tree. At the end of the day, it went home until the following Sunday. Father Vincent says about the dog, “I always thought that its presence there, facing towards the sanctuary, was a silent sermon to everybody that even a dog had sense enough to come to church on Sundays.”

• Rabbi Stephen Wise met a man who boasted about a horse he had recently purchased. The horse could go as fast or as slow as you wanted. It could do any work to which it was put. It was gentle, but it had spirit. It went when you wanted it to go, and it stopped when you wanted it to stop. It had no bad habits, plus it came immediately when called, and it didn’t run off when confronted with something strange. Dr. Wise admired the horse, saying, “I wish that horse were a member of my congregation.”

• Buddhist texts say that animals should not be slaughtered for food, and Buddhist monks in Tibet make a vow not to kill any conscious being. While in his palace above the Tibetan capital city, Lhasa, the 14^th Dalai Lama noticed people bringing in yaks for slaughter. By buying as many as he could, he saved 10,000 yaks from being slaughtered.

Anti-Semitism

• During the Middle Ages, an anti-Semite falsely accused a Jew of killing a Christian, who had accidentally drowned in a well. However, the anti-Semite said that he would let God decide whether the Jew was guilty. He would write “guilty” on one slip of paper and “innocent” on a second slip and let the Jew choose one. Whichever slip of paper the Jew chose would determine whether he would go free. However, the Jew knew that the anti-Semite would write the word “guilty” on both slips of paper. Therefore, he chose a slip of paper, but he quickly put it in his mouth and swallowed it. “Look at the other slip of paper,” he said. “That will tell you what the slip of paper I swallowed said.”

• Sherry Britton was a Jewish stripteaser. During World War II, an American soldier sent her a photograph of herself that he had taken from a dead Nazi soldier. Ms. Britton says, “If the German had known he was carrying around a picture of a Jewish girl, he wouldn’t have had to be killed. He would have committed suicide.”

• Oscar Strauss was Jewish and rich—and happy to be both. Long ago, while vacationing in Lakewood, New Jersey, he saw a house that rented rooms. In front of the house was this sign: “No dogs or Jews allowed.” A few minutes after he saw the sign, he bought the house and ordered the sign torn down.

• Hadrian saw a Jew, who greeted him. Hadrian said, “Should a Jew see Hadrian and greet him? Cut off his head.” Hadrian’s soldiers carried off the Jew and beheaded him. Hadrian then saw a Jew, who did not greet him. Hadrian said, “Should a Jew see Hadrian and not greet him? Cut off his head.”

• Soviet Jews suffered from anti-Semitism. In one underground joke, several Communists go to Heaven, form a party cell, and then discuss who should be the secretary. One of the Communists nominated God, but another Communist objected, “We can’t elect Him! He had a son in Israel!”

Baseball

• Sandy Koufax was a great Jewish major league pitcher. Umpire Tom Gorman was shocked to learn that Gene Oliver had hit .330 against Mr. Koufax, since Mr. Oliver was a left-handed hitter with a .220 batting average. He asked Mr. Oliver how he had managed to get so many hits against Mr. Koufax, and Mr. Oliver answered, “I’ll tell you, but it’s a secret. Don’t tell anybody. He thinks I’m Jewish.”

• Tim Burke was both a New York Mets pitcher and a Born-Again Christian. In 1991, he was asked about Jesus and his career. He replied, “If Jesus were on the field, he’d be pitching inside and breaking up double plays.”

Censorship

• While Maury Maverick, Jr. was a member of the Texas House of Representatives in the 1950s, a bill came up advocating censorship in the Texas schools. Remarkably, an organization of Texas schoolteachers came out in support of the bill—after having been bought off with a pay raise. This scared Mr. Maverick, who was knowledgeable about bookburning by the Nazis and who wrote, “When that starts happening, that’s the beginning of the end. That’s when someone is going to start killing Jews, or Presbyterians, or Methodists, or conservatives, or liberals, or whatever. Somebody’s going to get killed if that doesn’t stop.”

• Nancy Garden is the lesbian author of Annie on My Mind, a young people’s novel portraying lesbian characters in a positive manner. Religious groups in Kansas attacked the book, which was in school libraries, and a fundamentalist preacher even burned a copy of the book in public. However, students, parents, and librarians protested when Annie on My Mind was removed from school libraries. One boy and his friends even checked approximately 3,000 books out of school district libraries to show how empty the shelves would be if controversial books were removed.

• In the former USSR, members of the secret police attended church services to check the content of the sermons. Cardinal Wyszynski used to start his sermons by saying, “Brothers in Christ and delegates of the government….”

Charity

• Rabbi Meir Shapiro of Lublin often said that he had learned from a beggar how to collect money for charity. A beggar had appeared at his door, and the good Rabbi had given him a generous handout, but the beggar asked for more. Someone present said that he was surprised that the beggar had asked for more money because the beggar had often accepted much smaller sums of money without arguing. The beggar replied that when he was given a small amount of money, it wasn’t worth arguing about because what he would get if he won the argument? Another small amount of money. But a sizable amount of money was worth arguing about because if he won that argument he would get another sizable amount of money. Rabbi Meir Shapiro said, “Whenever I ask a donation from a wealthy man and he gives me a sizable sum, I tell that story.”

• Hei-zayemon was a wealthy philanthropist who tried to live his life in accordance with the insights gained by ancient sages. By using his money wisely, he relieved much of the hunger and misery of the poor people in his part of the world. One day, a monk showed up at his doorstep. Having heard of Hei-zayemon’s philanthropy, the monk requested money to build a gate for his temple. Hearing this, Hei-zayemon laughed, and then said, “I help people because I cannot bear to see them suffer. What’s so bad about a temple without a gate?”

• Entertainer Eddie Cantor put his knowledge of human nature to use while raising money for charity in what was reputed to be a tough town for fundraising. He did it by appearing to get sicker and sicker just before the fundraiser, even calling to see if someone could host the event for him at the last minute—which of course no one could. Because the people of the town thought Mr. Cantor was dying and was making his last request, he succeeded in raising $450,000 in a town where he normally would have been lucky to raise $150,000.

• Andrew Carnegie was a very wealthy man who had a reputation for donating money to charitable causes. Mark Twain wrote him to say that he wanted to buy a $2 hymnbook, pointing out that “I will bless you, God will bless you and it will do a great deal of good.” Mr. Twain then added a postscript: “Don’t send the hymn-book—send me the two dollars.”

Children

• During a session of a junior church league, the preacher, Edwin Porter, was delayed, so he asked his oldest daughter, Janette, who was about 10 years old, to begin the session without him. The session started well, with 15 young children singing, “When the Roll is Called Up Yonder.” Next came individual prayers, spoken out loud, during which Reverend Porter arrived in time to hear one young girl pray about his daughter Janette, “Dear Jesus, make that preacher’s daughter quit stealing my sweetheart—and send him back to me.” Another little girl prayed about one of Reverend Porter’s young sons, “You know I need a husband—give me Edd Porter for my own.” Yet another little girl—the daughter of two prominent members of his church—prayed, “Dear God, do keep Mama and Papa from fussing so much of the time.”

• Abraham, the first Jew, was the son of Terach, a maker of clay idols. When Abraham was a boy, he sometimes watched the shop while Terach was away. One day, while Terach was away from the shop, Abram (who was later called Abraham) broke all the idols. When Terach returned, he asked Abram what had happened. Abram said, “It was terrible. The smaller idols got angry and began fighting, then the bigger idols got angry and began fighting, and finally all the idols broke each other into bits.” Terach said, “Idols don’t get angry, and idols don’t fight. They’re made of clay—they just sit there.” Abram replied, “So why do you worship them?”

• A woman used to say “God!” whenever she was annoyed, which was several times a day, so her son—a regular attendant at Sunday School—decided to teach her a lesson. He called out, “Mommy!” She responded, but then he did not say anything. He did this five times in one day, and finally his mother said, “You don’t have anything to say, so why do you call me all the time?” Her son replied, “Mom, I called you five times, and already you have lost your patience. Each day, you call ‘God!’ more than five times. I wonder whether God has lost His patience with you.”

• Mrs. Miriam Pincus was a Rabbi’s wife who used her histrionic ability to teach her young Hebrew School students Bible stories. While telling about David and Goliath, she used deep growls for the giant’s voice and the voice of a hero for David. She also sang comic songs to keep her young students entertained. One Monday, three tots rang the Rabbi’s doorbell. When the Rabbi came to the door, they asked, “Can Mrs. Pincus come out and play?”

• Quaker unprogrammed meetings frequently include long periods of silence. A small child who was attending his first meeting sat quietly for a while, then he asked his mother, “Why are they all sitting so silently?” The mother hushed the child, but a Quaker rose and said, “Our first speaker this morning has put before us a most important question.”

• Mary Farwell’s five-year-old son was playing with his Speak-and-Spell computer. He typed the word “G-O-D” into it, but was surprised when the computer told him, “Word not found.” He tried it again, only to meet with the same unsatisfactory result. He then looked at his computer and said, “Jesus is not going to like this!”

• A little boy had been naughty, so as punishment he was sent to bed after supper and was not allowed to watch his favorite TV program. His mother told him as he went to his room, “Pray to God so you can be a good boy tomorrow.” “Why?” asked the little boy. “What’s on TV tomorrow?”

Christmas

• In Philadelphia, the Old First Reformed Church, United Church of Christ, always has a Christmas program in which a newborn baby from the congregation portrays the baby Jesus in a scene set in the manger. If a woman in the congregation gives birth to a girl, then Jesus is portrayed by a girl. If an African-American woman in the congregation gives birth, then Jesus is portrayed by an African-American baby. If a Hispanic woman in the congregation gives birth, then Jesus is portrayed by a Hispanic baby. One year, a woman in the congregation gave birth to twins, so Jesus was portrayed by twins.

• Comedian Lou Costello enjoyed trimming the Christmas tree by himself late on Christmas Eve after his children had gone to bed. One year, he arrived home very late on Christmas Eve because he had been detained at the radio station where The Abbott and Costello Program was produced, and he saw that the butler had decorated the tree. Mr. Costello was so disappointed that he went to his bedroom and cried.

• A Sunday School class taught by Rolf E. Aaseng participated in a Christmas program that celebrated Jesus, the Light of the World. Four members of the class were supposed to carry large cardboard letters on stage to spell out the word STAR, but they got mixed up and displayed the letters in reverse order: RATS.

• Michael Moore, the director of Roger and Me, went Christmas caroling in 1998 at the homes of the CEOs of the top tobacco companies. He took along with him the Awful Truth Choir, whose members have lost their voice boxes (aka larynxes) because they smoked.

Church

• As a young pastor, William Woughter wanted to set new attendance records at his church. Therefore, he got hold of a number of old vinyl records and promised that whoever brought the most visitors to church on Sunday could publicly break a record over his head. Things went well for the first four Sundays—attendance was booming, and the records broke easily (pun definitely intended). On the fifth and final record-breaking Sunday, a young boy proudly led 27 visitors into the church. However, when the young boy took hold of the record and tried to break it over Pastor William’s head, the record refused to break—despite the boy’s several valiant attempts to break it. Later, a bruised Pastor William discovered that this particular record had been made with an unbreakable metal core.

• The Second Ponce de Leon Baptist Church in Atlanta, Georgia, used to have a problem with parking. Nearby were two other places of worship: the Catholic Cathedral of Christ the King and the Episcopal Cathedral of St. Philip. Parking was hard to come by, and since these two churches met for worship earlier than the Second Ponce de Leon Baptist Church, the Catholics and Episcopalians used to park in the parking lot of the Baptist Church, resulting in a lack of parking spaces for the Baptists when they arrived for worship. Fortunately, the Second Ponce de Leon Baptist Church was able to solve the problem. Members of the Baptist Church simply put these bumper stickers on all the cars in its parking lot: “I’m Proud to Be a Southern Baptist.”

• Lots of people complain that churches don’t have the facilities to compete with worldly entertainments, but country comedian Jerry Clower remembers offering to let his 14-year-old daughter (Sue) and one of her friends go with him on a trip to Hollywood, where they could meet celebrities Lorne Greene, David Janssen, Dinah Shore, and Mel Tillis. She told him, “Daddy, I love you and I’m so glad that you would arrange it to where me and one of my friends could go on this trip, but daddy, there’s something going on at the church activities building I don’t want to miss. I won’t be able to go with you this time.” When Mr. Clower heard his daughter say this, tears came to his eyes and he said, “Praise God from Whom all blessings flow.”

• A Vermonter was the only person to show up for early morning church services, so the minister asked the Vermonter what they should do. The Vermonter replied, “When I take a load of hay out into the field to feed the cows, and only one cow shows up, I don’t turn her away hungry.” Hearing this, the minister preached to his audience of one a sermon well over an hour long, and then he asked the Vermonter what he thought of the sermon. The Vermonter replied, “When I take a load of hay out into the field to feed the cows, and only one cow shows up, I don’t make her eat the whole load.”

• According to Quakers, speaking in unprogrammed meeting is not something that can be planned; instead, it is a matter of divine inspiration. John Warren attended a meeting in Maine, where people expected that he would speak. However, he didn’t feel the Holy Spirit calling him to say anything, so he remained silent. After an hour in which no one spoke, the meeting was over, and Mr. Warren started walking out of the meetingplace. He overheard one boy tell another, “Didn’t that beat the devil!” Mr. Warren turned around and told the boy, “That is what it is intended to do.”

• The Quakers, aka Friends, perform social (and religious) service as well as attend religious meetings. They often hold unprogrammed meetings in which people are silent unless someone feels moved to speak. A person who knew nothing about Quakers attended a meeting and waited and waited for something to happen, but everyone remained silent. Finally, he nudged a Quaker and asked, “When does the service begin?” The Quaker replied, “The service begins when the meeting ends.”

• Mark Twain attended the church of his friend, the Reverend Joseph Twichell, and he became very interested in the sermon. After the church service was over, Mr. Twain told Reverend Twichell, “Joe, this mustn’t happen again. When I go to church, I go for a good rest and quiet nap. Today I haven’t been able to get a single wink. I tell you it won’t do; and it must not happen again.”

• Ballerina Margot Fonteyn seldom attended church as a child, because her mother believed in letting children go to church only when they wanted. Why did Margot’s mother believe that? Because when she was a little girl, she had been forced each Sunday to attend church three times. As a grownup, she went to church only for weddings.

• A Sunday School teacher asked her class, “What do you think about when you see the church doors open to everyone who wants to worship God here?” An African-American student answered, “It’s like walking into the heart of God.”

• After first arriving in Philadelphia, Benjamin Franklin attended a silent Quaker meeting. He fell asleep and did not wake until someone roused him when the meeting was over.

Clothing

• Reb Simcha loved and admired his father, Reb Elchanan. When Reb Elchanan’s shoes wore out, he gave his young son money to buy a new pair. When his son returned with the shoes, Reb Elchanan put them on and walked about. Seeing that his father looked perturbed, young Simcha asked what was wrong. Reb Elchanan replied, “My son, the laces upset me. I usually don’t wear shoes with laces. Now I will have to spend time lacing my shoes, unlacing them when a lace breaks, tying them in the morning, untying them at night; they will require precious time that could be used instead for learning.”

• A very stupid man had trouble getting dressed every morning because he could not find his clothes. One day, he had the idea of writing down where he put his clothes when he went to bed. The next morning, he looked at the writing, found his pants and put them on, then he looked at the writing again, found his shirt and put it on, and so on. But when he was dressed, he said, “But where am I? Where in the World am I?” He looked and looked, but he could not find where he was in the World. According to Rabbi Hanokh, we are like this man: We cannot find ourselves and we do not know where we are in the World.

• Angelo Giuseppe Roncalli (who became Pope John XXIII) spent much time as Papal Nuncio in France, where he was often invited to dinners at which many women dressed fashionably but immodestly. Plans were made to ask the women to dress more modestly, but he rejected them, saying, “I have found that on such occasions it is not so much the woman at whom the crowd is looking but at me to see my reaction.”

Cold Weather

• In Rankin, Illinois, Al Karlstrom’s father was the pastor of Grace Lutheran Church. Each Sunday morning, he would remind his children to shine their shoes in preparation for church. One very cold Sunday, his children were running late, so to save time shining their shoes, they used Vicks VapoRub instead of shoe polish. This worked out very well, as it made a nice shine. However, the steam radiators were running on high that Sunday to keep the cold out of the church, and the fumes coming off the pastor’s children’s shoes cleared up the heads of the congregation.

• Rabbi Israel Salanter and two friends stayed at an inn in the midst of a very cold winter. He observed a serving girl drawing water and carrying the buckets in the cold, and when it came time for him and his friends to wash their hands before eating, he used very little water although his friends used lots of water. When asked about this, Rabbi Israel replied, “One should not be over strict in his observance of the law at the expense of someone else.”

Collections

• Art Linkletter’s first public appearance was in church. His father was an evangelist whose income depended on the contributions the congregation made. Therefore, he would dress up his son in clean but patched clothing, and then send him out to collect the offering while he told the congregation to “dig deep, brothers and sisters, for the good work.”

• Rabbi Stephen S. Wise took up a collection in his synagogue, and he told the worshippers, “Friends, tonight is the Sabbath when it is forbidden to carry money. Empty your pockets and put the money in the collection plates.”

Compassion

• Kamala Masters, who teaches Buddhist meditation, sailed with some friends in Hawaii. She felt seasick on the boat, so her friends urged her to get into the water. Because she didn’t have a life vest, she didn’t want to, but her friends persuaded her. She and some of her friends got in the water, a squall started blowing, and it blew the boat away from her. She started to panic, so her friends asked her to remember her Buddhist teachings, saying, “Kamala, what if these are your last moments? What do you want right now? Don’t you want more love in your heart? Don’t you want more compassion? What do you really want?” Kamala was very honest, and she admitted, “What I want right now is the boat!”

• In the early 20^th century, Rabbi Aryeh Levin was walking in a field with Rabbi Abraham Isaac Kook. When Rabbi Levin plucked a small flower from the field, Rabbi Kook started to tremble and told him that he refrained from plucking anything living unless some benefit could be gained from so doing, since every living thing, including plants, had a guardian angel looking out for it. From this experience, Rabbi Levin learned from Rabbi Kook to be compassionate toward all living things.

Confession

• Songwriter Grant Clark brought a priest to see the great American scoundrel Wilson Mizner. Mr. Mizner told the priest, “Hello, Father. I went to confession yesterday, and the priest left in the middle of it.” Surprised, the priest asked, “Where did he go?” Mr. Mizner replied, “For the police.”

• A woman went to confession, but instead of saying, “Bless me, Father, for I have sinned,” she absent-mindedly began to say a common table prayer: “Come, Lord Jesus, be our guest ….” Fortunately, the priest had a sense of humor and asked, “What’d you do, bring your lunch?”

Courage

• In Poland, Irene Gut Opdyke witnessed Nazis shooting unarmed Jews, and she prayed to God to ask Him “to give me responsibility, to bring me the opportunity to help, even if my own life should be taken.” She helped many Jews, and she even hid several Jews at the villa of the elderly German major for whom she worked. (The architect of the villa had realized that war was coming, so he had built a hiding place under the gazebo. Much of the time the Jews were hidden there.) Unfortunately, the elderly German major discovered that she was hiding Jews. However, he said that he would protect her secret if she would become his mistress. She did. After the war, Ms. Opdyke said, “It was a small price to pay for the many lives.”

• At the trial by the Inquisition of Joan of Arc by biased judges who knew ahead of time that they would find her guilty no matter what defense she made, her judges asked her trick question after trick question. One example was this question: “Are you in God’s grace?” If she answered that she was, her answer would be evidence that she was guilty of the sin of pride. If she answered that she was not, her answer would be evidence that God had rejected her. However, she was very intelligent—as well as justifiably defiant—and she answered, “If I am not, may God bring me to it; if I am, may God keep me in it.”

• St. Athanasius tried to escape from some assassins by rowing a boat on a river. As he was rowing in one direction, the assassins approached him in a boat going in the other direction. When the assassins saw him, they cried out, “Where is the traitor Athanasius?” He avoided lying by answering, “Not far away,” continued to row, and escaped the assassins.

Chapter 2: From Death to Movies

Death

• According to Deuteronomy 6:5, “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy might.” When Rabbi Akiba was about to be unjustly executed, it was the time of the Jewish prayer known as the Shema. (Shema is the first word of the Hebrew sentence which means “Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is One.”) His disciples asked why he was reciting the Shema at this time. He replied that he had interpreted the verse “with all thy soul” to mean “even if He takes away your life” and he had always worried about when he could obey that commandment. Now that he had the opportunity of obeying the commandment, he would do so.

• Entertainers were not always regarded with respect; long ago, they were regarded as wicked people who needed to repent. Jean-Baptiste Lully became very ill, and thinking he might die, he sent for a confessor. The priest told him, “In view of your stage-life, I want you to do penance by sacrificing something very dear to you.” The priest then suggested that Lully allow him to throw into the fire the manuscript of a new opera that Lully had composed. Lully agreed, and the manuscript was burned. Instead of dying, Lully recovered. A friend remarked to him that it was a pity that the opera had been burned, but Lully told him, “Oh, that’s all right. I have a copy of it.”

• A general swept through a region during wartime, creating havoc and terror wherever he went. He entered a temple and was surprised that the Zen master was not terrified of him. The general asked the Zen master, “Don’t you know that I can run this sword through your body without batting an eye?” The Zen master replied, “Don’t you know that I can have a sword run through my body without batting an eye?” The general bowed to the Zen master, and then left him in peace.

• Martin Luther King’s mother, like himself, died because of violence. On June 30, 1974, while playing the organ in church, she was shot and killed, as was a church deacon. The murderer was Marcus Wayne Chenault, a mentally disturbed African American who said that he had killed them because they were Christians. He was tried, found guilty, and sentenced to die. However, the King family opposed the death penalty, and the sentence was later reduced to life in prison.