Praised be the Lord, though we know not why

Founded in 2010 by the charismatic preacher, Pastor Flower, with only a handful of followers, the Church of the Permanently Bemused has gone from strength to strength. These days it is standing room only in the little village hall of Bonking On The Heath, where the squashed devotees hang on the Pastor’s every word.

Wilton Flower was born into a devoutly religious family, his father being an elder of the Jehovah’s Presbyterian Baptists -a particularly evangelical sect- and Elder Flower saw to it that his son was schooled most rigourously in the ways of the Bible. By the age of sixteen the budding young Flower had bloomed into a magnetic and captivating preacher in his own right and become something of a celebrity within the church. But, despite enjoying this popularity, Wilton became increasingly troubled by a seed of apprehension growing in the back of his mind.

Although Flower had always accepted and embraced the words of the sacred book, he had also become increasingly aware of the irrationality of them and he started to think more and more about what that might mean. Then, one crisp winter’s morning, just two weeks before his twenty first birthday, it came to him in a startling flash of insight: It didn’t mean anything. This changed everything for Flower and the truth lay before him like a path of pure light; the source of enduring faith in the Lord was to be found in his very implausibility. The more the improbability of God, the greater the proof of his existence.

Flower now set forth with unstoppable zeal. He buried himself in all the writings of Richard Dawkins he could lay his hands on and emerged with a faith so unshakeable it made the old Elder Flower look like an atheist, by comparison. There was no turning back now and within just five years the movement had grown into something to rival The Pious Shepherds of the Bleak Moorlands of the North, a nearby sect made up predominantly of intellectually challenged but sincere members of the hill farming community.

The uninitiated observer might find the service at the Church of the Permanently Bemused somewhat unconventional. Once the congregation is in place and settled, Pastor Flower emerges from behind a screen, known as the Curtain of Misunderstanding, and, in a raised voice, asks the gathered flock, “what do we believe?” To which, in response, comes a mass shrug along with the reply, ....“don’t know”.

Then the words, “why are we gathered?”

What is our mission?”

On completion of the short opening ritual it is straight into twenty minutes of hymn singing, a particular favourite being, “Give us no clue, Lord, we’d rather not know.” The service always ends with the Pastor delivering a short sermon, although even just ten minutes of listening to someone droning on about nothing in particular, regardless of how much charisma they may have, can seem much longer.