After lunch, the salesman for the Giant Baptismal Fonts left. Pastor Bob said “I’ll stay here a few minutes and finish my coffee.” I had known Pastor Bob for many years. He had been my minister before I became a Catholic, and we’d remained friends. I took my coffee to the adjoining table and joined him, “The salesman spoke so loudly I couldn’t help overhearing.”
As I sat down, Pastor Bob shook his head, sadly. “I’ve been a minister almost 40 years. Our denomination is divided. Now, our leaders ordain people as ministers and bishops whom we would have excommunicated when I started. My church is dying, right before my eyes. Every year, there are fewer children. Couples in their twenties, thirties, and forties are going to the mega-churches that already have the Giant Baptismal Fonts.”
“It’s hard to compete with showmanship like that.”, I agreed.
“It’s worse than you know. This (he gestured at the open brochure’s pictures of Giant Baptismal Fonts being used in mega-churches as big as baseball fields) sort of charade is replacing theology. Do you know how bad it is?”
I shook my head.
“This isn’t the only sales presentation about Baptism. Another crackpot Marketing Plan teaches that the best Baptism uses a low-pressure fire hose to “blast the sin away”. The only thing the “Pray and Spray Baptism” and the “Giant Baptismal Font” companies have in common is that they both ship in water from The River Jordan. I hear about new ways to produce Perfectly Purified Protestants 3 or 4 times a year. The whole business is absurd. But if I don’t keep up with some of it, I look more behind the times and lose even more members.”
“I didn’t realize things had gotten so bad.”
“You’re in The Church that doesn’t change. In our denominations, changes came so slowly we barely noticed. Now, there’s nothing we can do. Well, I could do what you did.”, he said, looking intently at me, “I could become Catholic, but what about the people I leave behind? Am I to throw them to the wolves?”
There were no words to recognize the great sadness of realizing that his church’s bright beginnings were quickly coming to a sad, sad end.
Later, a thought occurred: “Catholic Bishops must know what’s going on. Could they, by some miracle, bring some of these dying denominations and their pastors and flocks into The Church? Could some ministers be Deacons? Must they have only emptiness and death ahead of them?”
