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Deep breaths
Posted on September 25, 2017 by David M Willis
Hot on the heels of my Bloomington appearance, I'm gonna be in public a second weekend in a row (oh jeez), this time in my hometown of Columbus, Ohio. Cartoon Crossroads Columbus (CXC) is this week, and The Laughing Ogre has asked me to be their table artist guy this Saturday, September 30, from 2:30-6pm. This is at the downtown Columbus Metropolitan Library, and there's no entry fee or badges or nothing. It's just a library, albeit one that's gonna be jampacked with otherĀ artist folks (who are all sweet-ass hot shots far above my station). So head on down to the library this weekend in Columbus!

615 thoughts on “Deep breaths”

  1. Ana Chronistic

    looks like time to add a frame to the collection

    1. Doctor_Who

      May have to flip this one left to right to get the right effect, but otherwise it will be a great addition.

      1. chris2315

        Don’t you mean a fine addition?

        1. Doctor_Who

          It’s very late, but I tried.

        2. Koms

          It’s very nice

    2. Undrave

      Do you have the one from the Slipshine story? :3

    3. Ana Chronistic

      (I woulda done this sooner but I was asleep)

      1. Jamie

        Holy god almighty well done.

      2. Nobody

        The shock is palpable

      3. Needfuldoer

        Nice! Reminds me of Squigglevision, or that old “[x] never changes facial expressions” YTMND meme.

    4. Chronos

      That’s…oddly hypnotic. Poor Joyce looks like she’s about to have an aneurism.

      1. N0083rp00F

        I did notice that with each proceeding iteration there is more teeth and then gums being revealed.
        In the end we will end up with http://media.omaketheater.com/4koma/2012-07-08.jpg

  2. BeatleJWOL

    starwarsemperorgoodgood.jpg

  3. AnvilPro

    I don’t know enough about the different kinds of Christianity to get this joke. I only know Catholic and this looks decently normal

    1. bejouled

      Same, I’m Jewish/atheist and I have no idea what’s going on in this comic. I know that Catholic is different from Protestant because Catholics have the Pope… and that’s pretty much all I know.

      1. C.T Phipps

        American fundamentalist Christianity has a strong anti-Catholic streak which rivals it’s hatred for Mormonism. If you want to understand the joke, it’s basically, “The people American fundamentalist Christians dislike most are not atheists or Muslims but other Christians.” It can get surprisingly vicious despite two centuries of peace in America.

        1. bejouled

          Thanks for explaining! I guess it sort of makes sense. I went to a wedding once and someone asked me if being a Jew was like being a Jehova’s Witness. I said no, Witnesses are Christian. And the guy was like “ARE they, though?” Which completely baffled me. From a Jewish perspective, anyone who believes Jesus is the Messiah is Christian. That’s like… the defining trait.

        2. C.T Phipps

          One thing to note is certain branches of Christianity in America are people which define Christianity narrowly. They don’t believe in salvation by works but by faith. I.e. You are saved because you’re a Christian, everyone goes to hell. Which is based on a VERY ambiguous line of Jesus’ which people have twisted all to hell in order to justify the cult-like control and exclusion of outsiders. They are generally smug bastards and kind of assholes which I can say because I used to be one of them and know the attitude behind it–the very un-Christian Christian attitude it’s better to be righteous than good.

        3. Solenoid

          say it with me, everyone: P-H-A-R…

        4. Yumi

          Pharmacist?

        5. Dave M

          Pharlap?

        6. Kamino Neko

          -I-S-E-E, find out what it means to me.

        7. Br44n5m

          …A-O-E

        8. Jamie

          Here’s the thing about a definition. The thing that’s being defined is a LINE. The line marks a BOUNDARY. The boundary divides US from THEM.

          To an American fundamentalist Christian, that distinction is really important because that’s how they know who they are. That’s not true in your case. Frankly, it’s probably not that different in orthodox Judaism, but I don’t know enough to give a useful example.

          For liberal Christians, they basically agree with you.

        9. C.T Phipps

          Oh, I used to be a fundamentalist with all the nasty homophobic monstrous beliefs that it was important to hate on other people. I had an honest-to-God miracle happen to me, though, when I had a vision of God outside a church and the Lord said unto me, “Stop being an asshole, Charles.”

          I’m not making a joke here either. That actually happened and has defined my life since then and why I identify now as a Christian-Jedi since I clearly need to stop taking things so seriously.

        10. SalmonMax

          Man, can God do a cc to…like…everyone on that? Stat?

          I mean, no pressure or anything, God…ineffable plans and all that…but still.

        11. Arianod

          Yeah, that’d be a really cool thing of him to do.

        12. Jaime

          @C.T Phipps: I love you. That is all. *virtual hugs if you want them*

        13. Mephron

          We need more miracles like yours.

          Maybe you need to write it as an article.

        14. Sudden Clarity Clarence

          Matthew 22:37-40 Jesus replied: ā€œā€˜Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.ā€™ This is the first commandment. And the second is: ā€˜Stop being an asshole, Charles.ā€™ All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.ā€

        15. Deanatay

          So, God believes in Wheaton’s Law? NIICE.

        16. KingoHrts

          As another Charles, I certainly hope to God this is true. I try and live that way, anyway, hoping someone is noticing.

        17. SeanR

          At least he didn’t strike you with hysterical blindness. Or make you mute.
          Still. Cool.

        18. Bruceski

          The only lines I know for Judaism is that Orthodox pretty much follows all the old laws (aside from things negated by the destruction of the Temple, we’re talking Rabbinic/Talmudic Judaism here which is already more than most goys are aware of), Reform says “we don’t need all those things to be Jewish” and Conservative says “maybe, but we kinda like some of them”. Then in those large groups there are sects like the Hassidim (ultra-Orthodox) or Chabad (actively seek to convert “lapsed Jews” back to Orthodoxy). Maybe folks in more heavily populated areas have enough Jews to draw lines more defined than that, but I grew up in a small town where we all had to get along anyway or we’d lose a minyan. Led to a very “this is what works for me, it doesn’t have to be what you do” philosophy that I found a big jarring when I got into the real world and found out it wasn’t universal.

        19. vacantVisionary

          In my experience, it depends on the Orthodox Jew – there isn’t a party line on whether the less observant sects are “really” Jews, and often an individual’s answer won’t be clear-cut.

        20. Beef

          Yeah coming from a muslim background that really baffled me. Especially seeing people from both sides saying Catholics aren’t Christians

        21. Creatrix Tiara

          You know the whole Sunni vs Shia thing in Islam? And then how even in say Sunni Islam there’s all these mazhabs and people thinking one mazhab is better than the other?

          It’s like that.

        22. Beef

          Yeah but even hearing people from the various groups say other groups are doing Islam wrong I’ve never heard them say that the other groups aren’t Muslim, and I’ve *certainly* never heard somebody say something like “No I’m a Shia not a Muslim”

          Whereas I have heard a few catholics say “I’m Catholic, not Christian”.

        23. Galdan

          A Catholic would never say that. They probably were pulling your leg, or are people from a Catholic family but who are de facto non-religious and know nothing about Catholicism.

        24. Tim

          Actually Galdan, if I were still Catholic I would say that. I was born and raised Catholic in St. Louis (went to Catholic grade school and high school and it was–aside from the Pro-Life thing– a fairly modern/liberal version of Catholicism. I was taught that evolution happened (though God set it all in motion, I guess that was a precursor to Intelligent Design?) and the Bible, particularly the OT was not to be taken literally (but we do believe in transubstantiation!). When I went to Tulsa for college I was quickly introduced to Christians that believed in Young Earth, literal interpretations of the Bible, and even had an anthropology class with a girl that believed the entire class was fictional. They considered my beliefs heretical that I was not a Christian. I embraced it, not wanting to be confused with such small minded people. So yeah, I was _Catholic_. Not Christian.

        25. Sudden Clarity Clarence

          The Catholics-are-not-Christians thing seems to be an American thing. I’ve met Christians of many flavors in my travels and the only ones who do not include Catholicism as a subset of Christianity are Americans.

        26. Galdan

          That’s messed up. Catholics everywhere else in the world consider themselves the “true” Christians, and that other denominations are deviations…

          Actually, I’m quite sure NOT considering the Catholic Church Christian goes against Catholic dogma…

        27. thathat

          I have a tendency to say that I try to be a good Christian, but I’m a lousy Catholic. But yeah, Catholics tend to consider Protestants “not real Christians” (although that has loosened up a bit over the years, depending on where you are), and there are Protestants who think Catholics are Not Christians, usually because of all the saint-praying and statuary and what-not.

          And then there’s Pentecostals…hoo boy…

        28. Wright

          Well, I think it boils down to the fact that each group thinks that the other group has got God completely backwards.

          Say, Group A thinks that Jesus came to save everyone, despite what that person believes.

          Group B thinks that Jesus came just to save the people who believe in him.

          Group C thinks that Jesus came just to save around 100,000 people, so you better REALLY believe in him.

          Group D thinks that Jesus came to save only the people who go through extreme sacraments and continuously get their sins wiped away by a priest.

          Group E thinks that Jesus came to America and worked with an advanced civilization several thousands of years old and will one day give their followers their own planet.

          Group F thinks that Jesus is a state of being, that God is the God within us all, and that Hell and Heaven are metaphors.

          … you can start seeing where one group might think that the other group doesn’t share the same religion.

        29. Sudden Clarity Clarence

          > Group A thinks that Jesus came
          > Group B thinks that Jesus came
          > Group C thinks that Jesus came

          Group Z thinks that Jesus faked it.

        30. a/snow mous/e

          with mayonnaise

        31. Krystallkitty

          I grew up Mormon, so o couldn’t tell you which one is any one else, but the second I read E I knew. That one probably seems like the craziest on the list to anyone unfamiliar with Mormonism.

        32. BigDogLittleCat

          But you see, JWs aren’t True Christians ™.
          You were lucky to be talking to a True Christian ™ who could have told you that Mormons, Catholics, Episcopalians, and every other Protestant church in town are not True Christians ™. The great thing about a lot of Christian sects (40,000+) is that only they are True Christians ™, so they can warn you against all the Not True Christians ™ who worship demons and make Baby Jesus cry.

          The Episcopal Church is one of the most inclusive, openminded branch of Christianity. On the other hand, Joyce’s family church probably preached that the Pope has Satan on speed-dial.

          So yeah, you understand what a “Christian” is far better than the T.C. ™ you were talking to.

        33. CJ

          I don’t know about how they practice their faith. But their church, its trappings and the clothes it’s officials wear look very close to catholic to the uninitiated (I wouldn’t be able to spot the differences).
          So poor Joyce will be busy with breathing for fear of the Antichrist being near and won’t be endearing herself or Sarah to Jacob.

          Concerning all the “who’s the real whatever faith”: it seems to be a common trait of literal interpretations of any religion (with all this “each word it total and unchanging truth” idea attached – at least to the words that someone wants to promote). I don’t see any difference between Christians, Muslims and Jews there.

        34. Sunny

          While I generally agree with you, I must vehemently dispute one of your points. Joyce WILL be endearing, that is one of her most defining traits.

        35. FairyGothMama

          Episcopal churches have been called “Catholic lite.” A lot if the same ceremony, traditions, and trappings, but a lot more liberal. I attended one a few times because Mother Kathleen was awesome.

        36. Deanatay

          Considering that Episcopal churches are offshoots of the Anglican church, and that the Anglicans are basically Catholics that allow divorce, this should not surprise anyone.

        37. Arquinsiel

          This is one of those weird things where Anglicans believe they are Catholics and while the Pope disagrees nobody really wants to murder anyone over the argument anymore.

          And let us not forget that to me, an Irishman raised in the Catholic tradition, American Catholics are batshit crazy conservative about it all.

        38. thejeff

          My understanding is that American Catholic bishops are batshit crazy conservative, while their congregations are much less so.

        39. bucket

          I grew up Catholic, and was in a Boy Scout Troop sponsored by an Episcopalian church. At one camping trip the pastor from the Episcopalian church did a Sunday service for the troop. Through my 12 year old eyes at the time, I couldn’t tell the difference. So when my father asked about it (since if it wasn’t a Catholic mass it meant that I missed Mass, therefore I would need to go to confession before I could get Communion again), I said yes, yes it was. Seemed the same to me at the time.

        40. Philturn

          Episcopalians and Roman Catholics are really similar, but they aren’t in full communion, so technically it wouldn’t count. I don’t think God particularly cares though.

          I’m Roman Catholic, but I’ve been considering the Episcopal church on account of the whole bisexual thing.

        41. Gesc

          As a former Jesuit, I’m fairly certain those are among the most inclusive.

          But they all are subjected by dogma in one way or another and I just can’t stand that shit.

        42. Solarn

          Basically, all christians believe that their religion is based upon two core tenets( that there is only one God who either literally or symbolically did all the things attributed to him in the Bible, and that Christ was his son, the Messiah and the ultimate authority on Christian teachings), but there are some disagreements as to whether certain beliefs mean the person holding them disagrees with one of those tenets. The major ones are:

          – whether the existence of saints makes a church polytheistic,
          – whether the existence of an authority figure who can influence dogma (the Pope for Catholicism, Joseph Smith for the LDS) constitutes an attempt to usurp Christ’s position as ultimate authority,
          – and whether you can attain salvation through works or faith.

          That last one is also tied to a bunch of dogmatic disagreements that date back to the beginning of Christianity and were in some form behind almost all of its schisms, and could be (really imprecisely) be summed up as “is God indivisible or not?”

          If God is indivisible, then:
          – the Holy Trinity are just him in different forms,
          – which means that Christ was just a manifestation of God born through a human woman,
          – which means that all of his tribulations were essentially performative and part of his teaching of how to attain salvation,
          – which means that to attain salvation through works, one must be exactly like Christ,
          – which is impossible for a regular human, and being short of Christ by a little is the same as being short by a lot, so there is no way to attain salvation through works.

          On the other hand, if God is divisible, then:
          – the Holy Trinity are literally God split into three,
          – which means that Christ was a human born with the spirit of God,
          – which means that his tribulations were preparing him to be suitable for his role as a sacrifice for all of humanity, and thus not part of his teaching,
          – which means that you don’t need to be exactly like Christ to attain salvation through works, you just need to follow what he said (which involved a lot of “just do your best”),
          – which is possible for a human to do, so there’s a way to attain salvation through works.

          Again, super simplified.

          So yeah, anyway, people on either side of those three disagreements think that people on the other side are violating one of Christianity’s base tenets.

        43. Jamie

          There was that time JFK was elected… and then shot…

        44. Marsh Maryrose

          Over the last decade or so, there have been a lot of public figures (both in and out of politics) who have talked about America being “a Christian nation.” It totally cracks me up every time.

          In early America (say, early 1600s to mid 1700s), you have the Pilgrims, who believe that the Anglicans are hell-bound heretics, never mind the Catholics.

          You have the Puritans/Congregationalists, who believe that the Anglicans are maybe salvageable, but are probably hell-bound heretics.

          You have the Anglicans, who believe that the Pilgrims/Puritans/Congregationalists are hell-bound heretics.

          You have the Quakers, who everyone else believes are hell-bound heretics and they return the favor (in their very peaceable and generally tolerant way).

          And you have the Catholics, who everyone else believes are hell-bound heretics and they too return the favor.

          The notion that the founders of the US conceived of themselves as all being part of some larger Christian community is…let’s just say, ahistorical.

      2. Rheinman

        Episcopal’s are usually as close to Catholic as Protestantism gets.

        1. Ferdinand Rosenthal

          What about Anglicanism

        2. Ferdinand Rosenthal

          O, apparently they’re the same thing.

        3. Luzahn

          Episcopals are the Anglicans when not in areas affiliated with Britain. Can’t have Revolutionary-era Americans with the British monarch as head of the religion.

        4. tim gueguen

          The Episcopal Church is the American branch of the Anglican Church.

        5. Dana

          Episcopalianism is part of the Anglican Convention. Couldn’t exactly call it the Church of England anymore after the states broke from the UK though, hence the difference in name.

        6. C.T Phipps

          Mind you, Espiscopals are also incredibly liberal too which makes the irony all the more intense. Mind you, I take special pride the Presbyterian church would cause John Knox to rise from his grave like the Crow and try to kill us all if we hadn’t bound him with ancient sorcery taught to us by Solomon.

        7. Sionyx

          Episcopals are essentially liberal Catholics. That’s one of the reasons my grandmother converted when she married my grandfather. Having been to services for both Catholics and and Episcopals, there is very little difference between the two. Gotta say, I don’t remember seeing a crucifer at the Catholic services, though that might just be the church.

          Anglicans are rather diverse. There’s a brand new schism brewing due to the views on women ministers and homosexuals.

        8. Positron

          As someone with a hyper conservative Anglican grandmother I can confirm that not all Anglicans are left wing

        9. ewx

          In the UK, the Church of England is sometimes referred to as ‘the Conservative Party at prayer’, with good reason…

        10. BP

          More liberal Catholics? FINALLY, a religion I can call myself!

        11. BP

          (note: raised Catholic, too lazy to actually convert or care, still identify as Christian but if I were hard-pressed to pick a faith other than that I’d probably go Unitarian or Buddhist)

        12. Tim

          As a Catholic Altar Boy, I can tell you yes, we carried a Crucifer. Usually only on Sunday Mass (or Saturday Evening). The daily church goers don’t care for that kind of pomp, they want to get in and out quickly. We would process from the rear of the church. One altar boy (the tallest) would carry the crucifer, two others would flank it with large pedestal candlesticks. The priest would follow.

          We would process the same way out after Mass.

        13. GLaDOS

          To me (a high-church Anglican) the crucifix is what you carry, and the crucifer is the one who carries it.

        14. Janu

          To go one step further

          Crucifix is from Latin cruci fixus (affixed to the cross) and designates crosses with an image of Jesus.

          Crucifer has the -fer ending from Latin ferre, to carry. So the crucifer is the person carrying the cross.

          Smiling acolyte is just holding a (quite ceremonial) cross.

        15. Zakrael

          Episcopal is a branch off of the Church of England, which was basically just Henry VIII saying “just keep doing whatever the fuck it is you’re doing, but I’m in charge and not the pope. Also give me your land.”

          We then alternated between extreme Protestant and extreme Catholic kings and queens until the C of E ended up somewhere in the middle of the two. Technically it identifies as both (“both Catholic and Reformed” is a big part of the ideology that causes debate between parishes as to which side it should lean more towards)

        16. Freemage

          The key difference between the Anglican/Episcopal Church and virtually every other Protestant Church is that it was purely political break (rather than the theological differences that sprang up on the main continent of Europe). As a consequence, they felt no need to abandon most of the trappings of the Catholic faith–and, in fact, felt that keeping those trappings would help make them retain legitimacy in the eyes of the populace.

          Episcopalians specifically note that the Anglican Church sought to sustain the line of Apostolic Succession. (For those not briefed in the terminology: The doctrine of Apostolic Succession states that Christ anointed Peter as the first leader of the Church [Peter means “rock”, so the line in the Gospel, “Though art Peter, and upon this Rock I build my Church,” is essentially a pun.]. Furthermore, it claims that he then ordained all the other Apostles, who then ordained their successors, and so forth. Thus, according to the claim, there should be an unbroken chain of the Sacrament of Ordination that goes from the most recently anointed priest all the way back to Christ himself.

          Henry just suggested that there was no reason for a specific individual to be the sole leader of the church (though, of course, he sought to bring it under his rule, he was not ordained in the normal sense).

          That break has, on the other hand, caused doctrinal differences to spring up over the centuries since, as there were no Papal decrees that were deemed ‘infallible’ as in Catholicism. (Popes are actually restricted in what they can do by the canonical law established by their predecessors, since declaring that a prior Papal decree was mistaken would also undermine their own claim of infallibility. This is why the RCC remains so conservative, even in the face of pressures to moderate some of its views on a wide swath of issues.) Lacking such an anchor, the Anglican and Episcopal Church is able to allow for the idea that God might allow his followers to come to a better understanding of his will over time.

        17. Needfuldoer

          So they’re basically Diet Catholic?

        18. Deanatay

          Just one calorie!

        19. Deanatay

          Of heat, I mean.

          When you’re burning in Hell.

        20. MatthewTheLucky

          That’s not so much burning as touching a piece of wood that’s been in the sun.

      3. Larkle

        I’m agnostic, but to my understanding catholic christianity has more ornamentation and protestant christianity rejected that. So probably the fancy staffs are what’s bothering Joyce.

        1. C.T Phipps

          The Eucharist is also an issue and thousands of people died over it, to the point Johnathan Swift thought it was the blackest most funny joke he’d ever heard.

        2. Freemage

          Several aspects of Roman Catholic and Anglican/Episcopal worship are explicitly regarded as idolatry in fundamentalist Protestant churches. As noted, both the Eucharist and the Crucifix are considered examples of this, as is all the genuflecting. On a superficial level, the two also treat the Virgin Mary with more status than Protestant churches do, though in actual practice and theology, she’s a much bigger deal for Catholics than for Episcopalians.

        3. steve

          Yeah, at the type of Protestant churches Joyce (and I) grew up going to they have done away with most of the iconography you see in this strip. Images of Christ on the cross are out because they as seen as brushing up against idolatry, and the concept of priests has been done away with altogether because every Christian is supposed to have a direct relationship with Jesus. Churches tend to just look like rec centres with a big lowercase t behind the podium and the pastor is just a boring old guy in a suit (or an excitable young guy in sport jacket and jeans if he’s the youth pastor). The ritual is scaled way back, too. But in terms of what a service looks and sounds like Anglicans/Episcopalians are much more Catholic-like, a fact that would be pretty confusing to a kid like Joyce without much experience with other denominations.

      4. BigDogLittleCat

        N

      5. segnosaur

        The main difference between Catholics and protestants is that Catholics believe in the authority of the pope, whereas protestants believe authority derives from the bible.

        Initially, pretty much all of Europe was catholic. However, many thought the catholic church was becoming corrupt. (Much of that was due to the church selling “indulgences”… basically “get out of hell free” passes.) So, Martin Luther (who was a professor/monk/priest) tried to reform the church; the pope pushed back, and eventually christianity in western Europe was split into catholics and protestants. Eventually more and more protestant churches split off (Lutherans, Methodists, Baptists, etc.)

        The Anglican church was formed in Britain (basically when King Henry VIII wanted to get divorced and the pope said no, so he said “Screw you, I’m going home”, and he started his own protestant church. The Episcopalian church that Jacob goes to is the American offshoot of the Anglican church. It is protestant, but with similar trappings to the Catholic church.

        1. Wright

          Yup, pretty much. From Joyce’s perspective, the Catholic church isn’t dangerous because of all of its fancy trappings; its because that faith continuously followed the Bible PLUS the word of the popes, who added things like praying to saints and praying to Mary, which mostly looks like so much idolatry to a protestant.

        2. Jamie

          Fun fact: in high school, I had a really nice conversation over lunch with a Catholic friend where I tried to explain that he was a heretic and we ended up getting a dictionary to try to figure things out. I don’t remember how that turned out, but our friendship survived it, at least.

        3. Wright

          Wow, that’s amazing. And that reminds me of conversations I had as a little snot in middle school.

          By the way – anyone know who the grumpy face is on the avatar next to my name? And how to change it? I don’t wanna glare at everyone. šŸ™

        4. Sefe

          I believe the avatar photo works off your email address – but if you change the capitalisation of your email you’ll get an different photo.

          So this is j.smith@fake.com

        5. Sefe

          but this is j.smitH@fake.com

        6. Wright

          Well, let’s give it a whirl.

        7. Wright

          Not bad, but let’s try again…

        8. Positron

          You can also just crop your fav image from a strip and put it on Gravatar, which is where these get pulled from if available

        9. Kamino Neko

          It appears to be Mary’s boyfriend, Peter Paul.

        10. XH

          Back in high school, I got kicked out of the Christian Club that met for lunch on Wednesdays for bringing the “wrong” bible. Apparently KJV is the only correct version. My New American was supremely unwelcome, as was my Catholic interpretation of the readings inside.

          No more free pizza for me.

        11. Reltzik

          Also, the Book of Revelation says that the Antichrist will stand at the head of the church, and it’s pretty common for her branch of Christianity to think that means the Pope is Satan.

        12. Malisteen

          it’s not just the word of the pope’s, but ‘Tradition’ in tgeneral – councils, letters, etc. – of which the pope is just one particularly important part. And while protestant denominations might claim to derive doctrine purely from scripture, they all follow their own traditions as well. Trafitions that that tell them not just how scripture is to be interpreted, but even what constitutes scripture in the first place. And that alone is basically a nail in the coffin for ‘scripture only’ belief. There were dozens of different accounts of Jesus’s life and teachings going around by the time the church settled down for a big council to determine which of those counted as actual gospels.

        13. Malisteen

          *some* protestant denominations might argue doctrine from scripture alone. Others fully acknowledge the necessity of tradition.

        14. jbear

          So is that why she’s givin the ol’ Joyce Eyes about the dudes in robes holding staffs? All the pomp and spectacle are idolatry?

        15. Queen Anthai

          I’ve learned more about the difference between Christians and Catholics from this comment section than I ever did from anything or anyone else ever.

          ETA: Explained in small words that I may understand it.

        16. SeanR

          The? I’m Methodist.
          The Methodists started out as an Anglican bible study group, that was largely derided by all the CEO Anglicans, (Christmas and Easter Only Christians, those who only step foot in a church for Christmas and Easter..and maybe the occasional wedding or funeral,) and Sunday Anglicans, (Sunday Christians, those who only go to church, and keep their act together, on Sunday, and act like pagans the rest of the week.)

          Then the American Revolution happened, the Anglicans pulled out of the American Colonies, and John Wesley had to split his little study group formally off of the Anglican church, since the former colonies were asking for ordained preachers, and he wasn’t empowered to ordain anyone.

          There has been some fairly liberal cross pollination. John Wesley had visited America, and while over here, had gotten to talking with a few German protestant missionaries. Our churches tend to have far less gilt, (I’ll let you decide how much guilt we carry,) and no crucifix. Just a simple cross.

          Our church recognizes Catholics as Christian, but denies that recognition to Mormons. I don’t know the specifics, but I tend to think it has to do with the number of books they have. That is, that any book following Revelations invalidates the branch. Homosexuals are treated like women in some other denominations. We’ll let them be members, but not leaders. I give it about another 10-20 years. It’s a divisive issue within the denomination.

          Incidentally, the Methodist church now boasts as many CEO Christians and Sunday Christians as any other denomination.

        17. thejeff

          That’s actually close to my take on Mormons, but as an atheist it’s more of a classification question than a put down. Mormons claim an entirely new revelation. They’re Christian in the same sense that both Christians and Muslims are Jewish – distinct things with a hereditary relationship.

      6. Marsh Maryrose

        As far as I know, there is no Jewish equivalent of the Catholic/Protestant split.

        At the time of the Protestant reformation, the Catholics and the Protestants considered each other to be heretics, and violence ensued. The Thirty Years War was mostly the Protestant states and the Catholic states of Northern Europe beating the crap out of each other until no one had the strength to stand any more. (The French came in on the side of the Protestants, even though they were Catholic, it gets messy.)

        TL;DR: In the modern world, the only place where simmering tensions between Protestants and Catholics can still threaten violence is Northern Ireland. But there is a long history of two of the three major Christian branches regarding each other with suspicion and/or odium.

        (In the USA, we tend to forget about Orthodox Christians, the second largest branch of Christianity. I don’t think the Orthodox and the Catholics have had major violent conflict since the Sack of Thessalonica in 1185)

        1. dg

          The closest I can think of is the Karaites but they’re basically a nonentity nowadays-there are a few Crimean and Egyptian Karaite communities around(mostly now in exile) but it’s not a major thing.

        2. Leorale

          I can’t think of any equivalent either. My head-canon is that we Jews friggin’ love debating and arguing over biblical interpretation — you don’t want to kill your debate partner, you wouldn’t have anyone to debate anymore, that would be terrible!

          We’d much rather record the debate, so that we get to study it and wrestle with all the concepts forever. <3

        3. tim gueguen

          I keep expecting to hear of an Orthodox clergyman getting attacked by some idiot who thinks he’s a Muslim, on the basis that long beard+long dark robe=Muslim.

        4. Leorale

          Luckily (?), the ultra-Orthodox typically get mistaken for Amish folks, instead.

        5. Agemegos

          There was the conquest and sack of Constantinople by the Fourth Crusade in 1204 or thereabouts. Then there was about seventy years of fighting between Frankish Catholics and Orthodox Anatolians over the rule of the Byzantine Empire.

        6. CJ

          And like most wars that say they are about religion, the kings and gentry that backed Luther couldn’t care less about religion, they wanted the pope and his church out of their politics.
          In Northern Ireland, the conflict never was about religion as well, but about British occupation and the protestants (who originalally immigrated with British occupation a few hundert years ago) feared for their privileges (very slim ones for the working class) and the Catholics, most of them even poorer working class, wanted to throw the British rule out (and probably all protestants too).
          Only because someone thinks he knows god’s intend better than anyone else, wars don’t happen. They do because someone with power wants more of it.

        7. CJ

          Oh, before and at the time of Luther, there were several other church reformers around, the early ones tended to be burned for heresy like Jan Hus.
          Calvinism developer in parallel to Lutherean ideas, but (for that time) far away in Switzerland, is don’t really know how things developed in other countries.

        8. Minotaur

          Also. if you became a protestant ruler you could take the lands and buildings belonging to the church and use them as hand-outs to your nobles.
          And in the case of Henry VIII, apparently there was a lot of money leaving the country and flowing into the coffers of the vatican. So that stopped when Henry started the Church of England.

        9. Shemp53

          One might argue that the Jewish equivalent of the Reformation was when a group of Jews split off into their own cult/religion. Called it Christianity.

        10. Arianod

          Heh. Good one!

        11. Joe Covenant

          Northern Ireland….
          And Glasgow (Scotland)

        12. Deanatay

          Unless, of course, you count Christianity itself, which Jesus initially preached as ‘Reform Judaism’. It’s wandered quite a bit from that, obviously, but that’s not uncommon for reform movements.

        13. thejeff

          It is kind of funny to look at Jesus as just another in the long line of reform Jeiwsh prophets.

      7. Conuly

        There are a number of potential differences between what she thinks of as normal and what she thinks Catholics believe.

        For one thing, she certainly doesn’t believe in honoring saints, and probably thinks Catholics worship saints. (They don’t. They sometimes pray to saints, but that’s more like asking saints to pray with them to God.) She may think that Catholics consider Mary to be on par with God.

        She probably believes in “faith, not works”, and may think that Catholics believe that you can buy your way into heaven with good deeds, but that really, the only way to get into heaven is to believe in Jesus.

        She may believe that the only thing you need to do for forgiveness from God is pray to him directly, and therefore Catholics have it all wrong because they talk to a priest, at least in some circumstances.

        If she comes from a church where the emphasis is on feeling God’s love, she may think that more ritual-oriented churches are “dead”, and people are just going through the motions rather than authentically and spontaneously worshiping.

        She may also believe any number of slurs about priests ALL wanting to rape little boys, or nuns having lots of abortions.

        1. Freemage

          Also, physical representations of Christ (such as the Crucifix, or the Stations of the Cross) would be considered to be idolatrous by most folks of Joyce’s persuasion–little better than a golden calf.

          Lemme tell ya, when I volunteer at Planned Parenthood, it’s kind of fun to watch the Evangelical Pro-life protesters’ heads spin when the Catholic Pro-life protestors show up with Mary-in-a-case (seriously, it’s a standard Mother Mary statuette inside a clear plastic case) to set up on a table while they perform the rosary. I’ve seen them break out into actual arguments over it.

        2. ValdVin

          Of course it’s the BVM-in-a-Case they’re carrying. Those BVMs-in-a-Bathtub are incredibly heavy!

          https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bathtub_Madonna

          (One guess how I was raised.)

        3. hof1991

          We call them Our Lady of Kohler in Wisconsin. Well, at least my family does.

        4. ValdVin

          So, is there a schism between the Kohler and the American Standard followers?

        5. Knayt

          It’s worth noting that there’s some major exceptions once the representation gets abstract enough. There’s no shortage of cross necklaces among fundagelicals.

        6. Conuly

          Do their arguments distract them from their protesting? Because if so, that’s hilarious.

      8. hof1991

        There is really no core Christian belief. I say that as a Catholic non-Christian and comic reader. Christians have five (counting Paul) origin stories for Jesus. Not counting endless retrocons (gospels made up later). The origin stories are soooooo old that the points they emphasize and their main themes are often mis-interpreted. Plus many canon interpretations are based on cultural references that now are obscure.

        Imagine if we had five non-compatible biographies of Julius Caesar with competing narratives. Plus a lot of later semi-fictional accounts with axes to grind unrelated to the original man or his life. Throw it in a blender and ferment for a millenium or two. Then divide society based on what you believe about Caesar.

    2. MM

      That’s the issue. In Joyce’s brand of evangelical Christianity, Catholicism is a tool of the devil. And Episcopalian services and rituals are very similar to Catholic ones. So at least on a gut level, Joyce thinks she’s just walked into Satan’s lair.

      1. Pal

        Yeah, growing up protestant I was told that Catholics (who were specifically not referred to as Christians, just “Catholics”) included idolatry and other Problematic Sins (like praying to Mary, etc). They weren’t “legit”, so to speak. No one ever said that they were being misled by Satan, but it was heavily implied so.

    3. OOzulu

      There’s a thing in many non-catholic denominations about no idolatry whatsoever, even if jesus is on it. As far as Joyce’s fundie eyes are concerned, she’s looking at a demonic cult holding up sticks depicting the death of christ.

      1. C.T Phipps

        Mind you, Joyce’s brand of Christianity probably has plenty of statues of Jesus.

        1. Pal

          They definitely do, but they’re not ritualized or prayed/bowed “toward” in any way. They’re more for religious decoration, whereas other denominations (like this one) use the imagery in church rituals — a big no-no in their eyes. It sounds like a small difference, but it’s considered very huge.

        2. Daggart

          Im not sure. Maybe unadorned crosses. I remember being in a youth play where Jesus kept his back to the audience so we wouldnt be depicting God. Cross necklaces were a thing but then you had the people who thought he died on a tree and crosses are evil. Not sure where Joyces church would have stood but Im certain it had some 50 year olds that would loudly grumble about it either way

      2. Viktoria

        Yeah, in the south, plenty of protestants would disagree. In TX it’s considered perfectly normal to walk into a house and see a wall with 30ish crucifixes hanging on it.

        1. Bruceski

          In a Pretestant house? That was commonplace in New Mexico but we tended to have Catholic spillover from the Mexican and Spanish influences.

        2. Sorrischian

          Yeah, I’m a lot more used to seeing crosses without the human figure in protestant churches/houses (esp. my family in North Texas and Oklahoma).

        3. Bruceski

          If I remember the terminology right a cross is just a cross until you stick a guy on it and then it’s a crucifix?

        4. Lumino

          That is correct.

        5. Deanatay

          “OOOOOHH!! I see you have a predilection for ancient Roman torture devices! My own tastes run more towards Medieval torture machines, but I respect the ancient methods – simple, yet effective. Would you like to see MY collection? I always carry a couple of thumbscrews on me, just for inspiration…”

      3. hof1991

        There is a big difference between a cross and a crucifix. Major signifier in US Jesus followers. Catholics favor Jesus on the cross and Protestants prefer a cross without him.

    4. Knayt

      It looking decently normal from a Catholic perspective* is pretty much the point. Protestant denominations usually cut down pretty dramatically on the formalized rituals, replacing them with a lot of de facto/informal rituals instead.

      *In the sense of that defining normality, not in the sense of the perspective of someone who’s catholic.

      1. Knayt

        Wow, but starting a post and coming back a few minutes later gave a lot of time for other people to answer.

      2. C.T Phipps

        The short version of this scene is Joyce was raised by a bunch of Catholic hating bigots. The long version is this is going to get ugly.

        1. JetstreamGW

          I doubt it’s gonna get ugly. She’s probably just gonna have a panic attack for half the service until she realizes that basically nothing is different except that there’s more regimented worship here. šŸ˜›

        2. Minotaur

          So long as the minister (vicar?) doesn’t say any weird stuff like “Today is the festival of the Dormition of Our Lady”, which you might hear in an Anglican Church (or at least I heard that there once). But it being october in-comic, that seems unlikely…

        3. Sudden Clarity Clarence

          Isn’t Dormition more of an Orthodox thing? An Anglican church would be more likely to use “Assumption of the Virgin Mary”.

        4. Minotaur

          I’m not familiar with Eastern Orthodoxy. I know this was what they actually said one morning in august in an Anglican church I was attending that day.

    5. Pal

      This is very catholic-themed compared to most protestant churches. A lot of strict protestants would have a similar reaction when entering an Episcopalian church. Joyce’s usual church doesn’t have special clothing for any of the clergy or symbols to be used in rituals (aside from communion), and usually such churches take pride in how they “just” gather around with the bible instead of having all the bells and whistles of the Catholic church and similar denominations.

      There’s also a bit of beef between protestants and catholics as a whole. For example, I was raised being told that Catholics weren’t “christian-christian” and my father freaked out when I wanted to go to a catholic school, even though my family was protestant. It’s a Big Thing where many protestants don’t even know there’s a special word for them (protestants) because they simply call themselves Christians and the Catholics Catholics.

      This is a giant culture shock moment that I went through as a sheltered religious youth, too, that I imagine seems silly for those raised outside of those cultures.

    6. blue

      Lots of nondenominational Protestant churches like the ones Joyce grew up in take a VERY dim view of Catholocism; specifically, they view the church hierarchy, the need for intercession by a priest, the abundance of symbols and the idea of saints as against the commandments to “have no other gods before me” and “make no graven images.”

      Hardline nondenominational Protestants of this mold will sometimes call Catholics idol-worshipers or pagans without a trace of irony.

      1. Andy

        Though, as I recall, the use of iconography and the debate over whether or not that constituted idol-worship was one of the main reasons for the schism between Eastern Orthodoxy and Roman Catholicism. So the nondenominationals are apparently accidentally coming lose to the mark.

        1. C.T Phipps

          I think the split had already occurred and was for purely political reasons with the fact the Pope and Patriarch both claimed to be the leader of the faith in the Roman Empire’s capital (Rome and Constantiinople). It’s one of those non-religious things people attribute to being religious like why priests aren’t allowed to marry.

          It’s so the church doesn’t have property or inheritance issues.

        2. Ferdinand Rosenthal

          At first, during the Iconclasm. East and West had Iconclasts and Iconodules , with Iconodules painted as primitive and pagan-in-all-but name. The East lost a lot due to that conflict. However, early on Italy was Iconodule, Pope Gregory fought Leo the Iconclast over it.

        3. ValdVin

          I’ve known, read others use, and liked the word “iconoclast” because I know.what it means. Now I want more people to use “iconodule” in everyday speech too.

        4. Agemegos

          The Great Schism (1054 AD) was more about whether the three persons of the Trinity are the same stuff or the same thing, and whether the Holy Ghost procedure from the Father or from the Father and from the Son. The iconoclast/iconodule thing was earlier and separate.

          The Anglican Communion (of which the US branch is called “Episcopalian”) is a sort of amalgam of Lutherans-in-all-but-name (the so-called Low Church) and congregations that might as well be Catholic now that the Catholics don’t worship in Latin any more (the High Church). They got glued together in England back when it wasn’t politically possible to have two churches in the one country, and the Queen didn’t want any more religious war screwing up Her kingdom. So anyway: some Episcopalian churches emphasise the authority of scripture, and have crosses with no corpus on them, plain churches, little music, simple vestments etc.; others put more emphasis on the teachings of the Church Fathers (patristic tradition etc.), have crucifixes (i.e. crosses with a figure of Christ on them) elaborately decorated churches, elaborate ceremonies with lots of singing, choirs full of people wearing surplices, elaborate vestments etc. Now that the Catholics have given up Latin the High Church looks a lot like Catholicism: the main diffences now are individual auricular confession and married clergy. In some countries a lot of High Church Anglican priests are converting to Catholicism to escape the growing acceptance and influence of gays and women.

        5. Swissaboo

          Fun fact on the “married clergy” and “converting priests”: catholicism has a specific exemption for married anglican priests that convert to catholicism to get to stay married.

        6. Sudden Clarity Clarence

          The Maronites are also Catholic(*) and they have married clergy in the sense that married men can become priests. It doesn’t work the other way, though: a priest cannot get married and stay a priest.

          (*) Are they Catholic or just an affiliated church in full communion with the Catholic church? As usual in this kind of thing, there is always room for debate here. But I had a Maronite friend (whose father was a priest), and he always considered himself a Catholic.

        7. thejeff

          Jacob’s church apparently being “high church”. The other big difference between high church Episcopalianism and Catholicism is obviously the Pope. And there are other more political/theological differences as well. Episcopal churches tend to be more liberal on social issues.

    7. Dana

      Episcopalianism is the Protestant denomination that held onto the most trappings of Catholicism. It’s the state religion of England (where it’s called Anglicanism) and disagreements over how rich, fancy, and Catholicy it is is one of the issues that drove the Puritans to America. Not the main one, but one of them.

      1. hof1991

        Having a formal and set liturgy is more than a trapping. Anglican have a Book of Common Prayer, which keep them in common, while Protestants split into 10,000 sects. They have a canon, like a good comic book and don’t belive in retrocons or re-sets.

    8. coru

      To a lot of Protestant communities, Catholicism is considered little better than a cult. All of those idols, and rituals, and worshiping Mary and the Pope (…a lot of protestants also don’t understand Catholicism).

      1. coru

        Oh wow a lot of people replied to this in the past seven minutes.

    9. BigDogLittleCat

      Protestants think Episcopal/Anglican are Catholic and Roman Catholic think they’re Protestant.
      All the Episcopalians/Anglicans I know think, “whatever.”

    10. StClair

      The thing to understand is that the greatest “threat” or “enemy” to most religions isn’t completely different faiths, which can be dismissed as godless heathens who are simply wrong. No, it’s those who (claim to) worship the same god, but differently. Because those are competitors in the marketplace, rivals for the same pool of worshippers. It is vitally important to establish that YOUR brand is the one and only sect that has it all correct, and everyone else are foul heretics who are doing it wrong. (Because if you don’t, they will steal “your” people away and add them to their own group.)

    11. EvolutionistX

      It’s more than just Protestants sometimes defining Catholicism as non-Christian. Of all the Protestant denominations (found in any great quantity in the US,) Episcopalian looks/feels the closest to Catholicism. If a Catholic and Protestant marry, they often end up at an Episcopal church by compromise. So for Joyce, this is basically like accidentally walking into a Catholic church.

      (Note that unlike the denominations started by folks like Martin Luther who had actual doctrinal differences with the Catholic church, Episcopalianism is the American spin-off of Anglicanism which is just what Henry VIII did to get a divorce. So it’s fair to say that Episcopalians are kind of different from other varieties of Protestant.)

      1. StClair

        Yup.
        The only reason, the only reason that the Anglican (and thus, the Episcopalian) Church exists as a separate entity from the Church of Rome is that the Pope wouldn’t let Henry keep spinning the Wheel o’ Brides (and throwing the “bad” ones back) in hopes of finally getting a male heir. That’s it.

      2. Agemegos

        Well, High Church Anglicanism is what Henry VIII did to Catholicism to get (a) a divorce and (b) all that lovely monastic real estate. Low Church Anglicanism is what Elizabeth I did to Lutheranism to have just one official church in her kingdom, supporting her throne and not killing each other. In between, Edward VI was Lutheran and Mary I was Catholic.

        1. StClair

          oh right, I forgot about the land grab, which solved his other problem of being flat fuckin’ broke.

          (reminds me of how many police departments today basically fund themselves off stealing confiscating anything and everything they can possibly tie to criminal activity, particularly drug dealing.)

        2. Remmington Steele

          Nice summary. Back in the day I attended Low Church which had no incense – big difference. I then attended a church which wanted to introduce altar boys and incense – my god, the rumblings.

          IIRC, Henry wanted to finance his campaigns in France to try and win back the French part of his Empire.

        3. thejeff

          Anglicanism was also a predominate religion among English colonials in the US and has split off into various other sects that aren’t particularly Episcopalian anymore, though some still include the word in their names. Methodists, for example, are an offshoot of Anglicans/Episcopalians.
          Like all things religion, it’s complicated.

          Not something I knew a lot about until someone mentioned the Christian Methodist Episcopal Church as a possibility a few strips back.

    12. Mollyscribbles

      Same. There needs to be a guide for atheists/agnostics/people whose churches didn’t gossip about what the other churches are up to enough to get the jokes.

      1. Arianod

        I did have to read the comments section to get the joke. At first I was like “Wait, so is it or isn’t a Catholic church?”

    13. Briny

      Well, yeah. You have Catholics, and then you have snake-handling congregations with different brand-names. šŸ˜‰

    14. Andrew_C

      I think Jacob is Episcopalian, which IIRC is basically the American branch of the Anglican church, & Anglicans can get even more smells & bells than Catholics.

    15. Whittier

      It is likely that Joyce’s church taught her Catholicism is satanic. This is a common belief in fundamentalist circles, including the belief that the pope is the antichrist (without bothering to look up what the Bible has to say about *that* word…)

    16. Kryss LaBryn

      It looks like perfectly normal Canadian Anglican stuff to me. Maybe the crozier is a bit plain? Is that it? That the crozier seems to be an actual shepherd’s hook instead of a symbolic staff tipped with gold YOU MONSTERS?

    17. steelplatedheart

      Y’all chill. You’re thinking way too deeply into this.

      It’s the crosses. Willis has already said in the “read before posting” section that Joyce is from a sect of protestant Christianity conservative enough that she doesn’t wear a cross. Why? Because crosses are idol worship. Having a giant crucifix at the front of the church is idolatry.

      It’s literally that simple.

  4. shadowcell

    [catholicism intensifies]

    1. Undrave

      Wait until they bring the wafers!

      1. Marsh Maryrose

        Or as Jack T. Chick calls them, Death Cookies.

        I cannot in good conscience put in a link to the Chick Publications website. But if you were to go there and search for “Catholicism,” you would have some idea of how Joyce was probably raised to regard Catholics (and by extension, anything that resembles Catholic ritual.

        Quoting from The Death Cookie: “If you don’t obey us…we won’t let you eat the Jesus cookie any more. And that means you’d lose your immortal soul.”

        1. Kora

          After your comment, I just HAD to have a look at Chick Publications… And just WOW! My mind is officially blown (I had never heard of Jack Chick, probably since I’ve been born and raised in Italy, where catholicism was, until not so long ago, essentially the only option). Indeed this also helped me understanding the magnitude of Joyce’s reaction, which is apparently not so cartoonish as it may seem.

        2. Khyrin

          As I related last week… What I find most amusing here is how anti-hate my particular Roman Catholic church was…
          “No, Cindy, the jews aren’t going to Hell for nailing our Saviour to the cross. That was part of God’s plan, and they worship the same God. ”
          “No, Molly, the Baptists aren’t going to Hell for hypocrisy, either. ”
          “DAVID! I just want to get on with the lesson plan. NO ONE IS GOING TO HELL. Worst case scenario, you spend a few years in purgatory, and then the rest of your existence in Heaven. unless you’re a traitor.”

          All actual things my catechist said in sunday school.

        3. MatthewTheLucky

          Your catechist rules.

        4. BP

          I am jelly; my little brother got catechism with a fundie nutbag who ranted about kids with gay parents and neglected her own daughter. It was one of the many reasons my mom got us out of church after we all were Confirmed. I guess she wanted to guarantee we could all be buried in the same cemetery plots before yanking us out.

        5. thejeff

          I love the Chick tracts – ever since I came across the D&D one, lo these many years ago. I wouldn’t have any real qualms about linking to them. I can’t imagine anyone not already deep into that mindset being convinced by them. They read like parodies, though I’m sure he was serious. Anyone who hasn’t already drunk the kool-aid is more likely to be turned off by them than converted.

        6. Roborat

          My friends and I used to collect them, we thought they were hilarious. We would also make a point of reading them and laughing hysterically or heckling them when we found them, in case the person who planted them was hanging around.

    2. abacuswizard

      Well that eschatologized quickly.

      1. Arianod

        LOL X’D Yeah.

    3. Jamie

      THREE SHALL BE THE NUMBER THOU SHALT COUNT.

      1. Arianod

        AND THE NUMBER OF THE COUNTING SHALL BE THREE

  5. BBCC

    Apparently the answer is no. šŸ˜›

  6. Rheinman

    Yay! Bells and smells next! Joyce will not be prepared.

    1. Undrave

      And sticks too.

      1. Solenoid

        she may get incensed

        1. Reltzik

          CURSE YOU FOR A PUN-STEALING BLIGHTER!

        2. tyersome

          Hey now, think about whether you really want to start censering people for puns …

        3. ZerglingOne

          You smoked that pun.

        4. Geneseepaws

          No casting Aspergillums on us for that comment.

        5. Rheinman

          +1 internets to you!

  7. Fart Captor

    Sorcerers!

    1. Delavan

      Worse. Papists! (Or so Joyce thinks…)

  8. Awnman

    Oh Joyce, I’m sorry honey but you are in for some old time religion or at least the protestant approximation of such.

    1. thejeff

      Speaking as an occasional pagan: Oh honey, that’s not old time religion. Come round for Beltane and I’ll show you some old time religion.

      1. Rheinman

        ? Let us worship with the Druids.
        Drink their strange fermented fluids,
        And run naked through the woods.
        And that’s good enough for me.
        Oh, give me that old time religion…?

        1. ProfessorDetective

          “Let us sing to Lord Cthulhu,
          Don’t let Lovecraft try to fool you,
          Or the Elder Gods WILL rule you,
          And that’s good enough for me!”

          I just found a website full of these.
          http://www.sacred-texts.com/bos/bos527.htm

  9. Architex

    BAHAHAHA this one’s getting shared to my religious studies friends.

    1. Jnorrich

      As an Episcopalian Willis needs to stop reading us like this.

      But yeah in the city I live in the Episcopal and Catholic cathedrals are right next to each other and look very similar. We’ll occasionally get Catholics who get mixed up, and usually aren’t tipped off until they notice the priest is a woman (or if they’re really perceptive all the gay couples)

  10. Blender

    Panel 4: The Antichrist himself (not too much of an exaggeration in some Fundie circles)

  11. C.T Phipps

    Well, basically, Joyce and Jacob are doomed. He is not going to react to Joyce’s anti-Papist beliefs or genuine horror at the trappings of Catholicism.

    1. Fart Captor

      He’s a very measured dude. Joycob is doomed for other, unrelated reasons, like Jakes already having a girlfriend that he’s happy with

      1. 3oranges

        and having a ship name that sounds like happy corn

        1. MM

          Or a very Joyce-influenced euphemism for male bits.

        2. Minotaur

          Sounds more like Joyce’s euphemism for Other Jacob to me…

    2. Chrissy

      Can you explain a bit more? I was raised Catholic and I’ve seen Joyce’s reaction from people of other Christian sects and I didn’t really understand it. (Saying “I’m catholic” to a Jehovah’s Witness has gotten a much toned down version of this reaction.)

      1. BBCC

        Catholic = cannibalistic, idol worshipping whore of babylon.

        1. Chrissy

          Haha! I kind of figured it’s because other Christians think Catholicism is nutty for some reason (but also think their version is “normal” whatever that means?)

        2. mluh

          It’s the ritualism. Protestant churches don’t have as much symbolism going on. It’s all very face-value. The idea of needing a human to speak to God or receive forgiveness is considered to be blasphemous, as is the idea of worshiping iconography. They also have little to no regard for Mary or any of the saints– the idea being “anyone with Christ in their heart is saintly” (which has it’s own issues.) It doesn’t help also that so much of what chick-tract raised people are afraid of (ritual satan-worship, risque art) resembles Catholicism.

        3. Gandalf007

          Funny, while I was extremely religious in my younger days, I didn’t learn about transubstantiation until my Senior year of high school. Somehow the subject of cannibalism came up in English class (probably in some literary work we were discussing), and at the end of that discussion, this happened:
          Teacher: …but cannibalism is still around. Heck, Christians practice it every week!
          Me: What?!
          T: Yeah, in the Eucharist.
          Me: “Eu-cha-rist?” …Oh, right, the Communion.
          T: Body of Christ, eat my flesh, drink my blood.
          Me: But that’s a metaphor!
          T: You must not be Catholic.
          Me: No. Wait, they take that literally? Really? o_0
          T: Look up “transubstantiation”.

          Mind blown!

      2. C.T Phipps

        The short version is America is the most religious of all Western nations but it was founded by religious separatists who have somehow managed to keep a lot of the nastiness toward Catholicism going for 200 years. I say that as a liberal Christian who is a former fundamentalist. It’s usually only the wacko fundamentalist branches but Joyce is very much a part of them.

        1. Chrissy

          You’re a peach! I see. Separate question, wouldn’t Catholicism be the most “fundamental” Christianity, since it’s the most traditional? What makes fundamentalism more fundamental?

          (I’m having that problem where you repeat a word until it loses its meaning and just looks like gibberish… Fundamental)

        2. Jamie

          Oof. So, one of the big reasons for the schism was the principle that any believer was a legitimate interpreter of the scripture. Contrast with the Catholic church, which professes a measure of divine authority over interpretation, which is what the papal encyclicals are about.

          Going back to the “real” fundamentals, to Protestants, meant going back to the text, not necessarily back in history (though all the canonical books were written before the founding of the Catholic Church anyways). That’s why, today, there’s a lot of tears wept over the exact reading, and why Bible Study is so important (as opposed to making sure you show up to Mass every Sunday).

          In pure academic terms, it’s totally okay for everyone to read the Bible in different ways. In reality, this ends up being a free pass to call everyone else a heretic. And hilariously, this reality is actually in the Bible, because Paul wrote half his letters for the express purpose of slamming down heretics.

        3. Chrissy

          Huh. I always pictured it as like, the constitution is available for anyone to read and they have to follow the laws, but the lawyers (priests) and judges (pope) are the ones who quibble over the details and have the final say. So you can read the law all you want, but it doesn’t mean your interpretation has any authority whatsoever. Is that a catholic-influenced metaphor?

        4. Jamie

          Sort of. I mean, there’s a pope and everything.

          How it works is fuzzier than that. Because a big thing in most Protestant sects is that the relationship between God and believer is not intermediated (there are no priests; the saints don’t intercede in Heaven on behalf of the praying person; etc.), your interpretation is ultimately between you and God.

          Instead, what you’ve got is a weird kind of half-authority in the form of pastors and deacons, who are older and wiser and therefore more likely to be right because they’re Officially Trained and Certified, but… their job is still to cultivate your relationship with God. The kind of authority they have is closer to animal trainer than policeman.

          So what you actually have is “everyone is a lawyer, and no one is a judge, but some lawyers actually have training/are older and respected and we listen to them”. This basically works up until someone takes a disagreement seriously at which point the lack of an arbiter (judge) means you have a schism on your hands.

          This is before you throw into the mix the fact that there are many translations and some churches have Strong Opinions on the validity of different ones. Some are pure KJV. Others specifically cite NASB or NIV. It says something that the more popular online Bibles these days will list a verse in a dozen different translations just in case there’s a tricky nuance to care about.

        5. thejeff

          In practice what it often means, especially in sects like Joyce’s, is that while theoretically everyone is supposed to read the Bible for themselves, heaven help you if you don’t come to the same conclusions your pastor teaches. Which, since he’s been pounding them into you as the only possible literal reading of the text every Sunday for your whole life and everyone in Church agrees, is pretty hard to avoid.

          It does mean there’s more room for schisms when church leaders disagree – one just goes and starts up his own church, but within they can still be very authoritarian.

        6. anonymous

          Fundamentalists are called that because of their focus on the Bible, which they often take literally, and their rejection of the extra stuff that other denominations use, such as writings of saints, stories about saints, saints in general, Papal decrees, Patriarchal decrees, any church organization or ranks above the local priesthood, etc.. Things like a St. Christopher medallion would be idolotry or a heretical cult object to them.

        7. Chrissy

          Wow, fascinating! I always found the saint stuff to be kind of fan fictiony (no offense intended to any practicing Catholics.) I have limited experience with Protestant, Lutheran, Episcopalian, UCC sects but absolutely no exposure to fundamentalists or baptists because I grew up in New England.

        8. JohnF

          I think the Coptic Church has the strongest claim on antiquity, with the Geez coming second, the Greek Orthodox third and the Church of Rome (Roman Catholics) a poor fourth.

          Mind you, the Armenian and Nestorian Churches probably predate the Catholics, as well as the Thomasian Churches in India (founded by St Thomas the Doubter)

          In terms of fundamentalism though, it’s very hard to go past the Exclusive Brethren. Some Millerite Churches (SDA and it’s related churches) come close though.

          Fundamentalists believe that only Scripture can be used as a guide to God, and that it is inerrant and infallible. Many of the Evangelical/Charismatic/Pentacostal churches fit that ilk, although many also believe in personal revelation (I’m looking at you, teleevangelists).

          Attitude to personal revelation was behind many of the Schisms in the early Church, with most Gnostic Christian sects wiped out by the 5th Century. There were other sects as well in those days, including the Paulicians, who rejected the Old Testament altogether, and the Pelagians, a Celtic branch who believed that the Church shouldn’t hoard wordly riches, but should serve the common people.

          The Protestant Reformation’s most characteristic attribute is that the priest/pastor does not stand between the believer, mediating with God.
          There are as many Protestant Denominations as there are grains of sand on the beach, each with subtly different interpretations of what constitutes sin and acceptable forms of worship.

          The Millerite Churches gave rise to the Seventh Day Adventists, the Jehovah’s Witnesses, and the various Mormon sects. Whilst SDA are accepted as Christian by most protestants (if considered legalistic and dangerously close to a cult), the JWs are not, as they consider the role of Christ and Adam very differently. The Mormons suppliment the OT and NT with their own revelations, mostly from Joseph Smith. Mormonism considers the Americas to be the site of the New Jerusalem. Most non-Mormons consider the Mormons to be cultists. The Mormons consider the other churches to be incomplete.

          The above is a very brief, and quite inaccurate summary of the main historical branches of Christianity.

        9. Chrissy

          An excellent overview! I have never even heard of a few of those branches (esp Geez and Thomasian). My basis for calling Catholicism the “oldest/most traditional” is obviously heavily flawed and biased since I learned it from catholic school.

          What do fundamentalists think regarding flaws in the text based on human fallibility/transcription/translation errors?

        10. JohnF

          The most extreme fundies don’t believe there are translation flaws (!!!!!!!!) due to divine guidance during translation, as they believe God looks after His own Word.

          So grasshoppers have four legs, bats are birds, and the two different versions of the creation of man, the two different versions of the Ten Commandments and the conflicting stories from Judah and Samaria are mysteries to be viewed in awe.

          Most fundies these days do rely on Hebrew and Attic scripture to a certain extent, although their translation is somewhat narrow, for example, in Genesis 1, “nom” is viewed as meaning “day” whilst according to my friend the Reader in the Synagogue “nom” means “an interval of time”. I’m not Jewish, so I can’t say for sure on that one, but I’m inclined to believe him.

          Some fundies believe modern Hebrew is corrupt, and we don’t know what a lot of words in the Torah really mean. I find this one a bit hard to believe, although names of herbs and minerals may indeed be lost.

          Similarly, these same fundies believe the Attic Greek word “pais” means “servant”, when it really means the same as the gay slang term “bottom”.

        11. insomniac

          “The most extreme fundies donā€™t believe there are translation flaws (!!!!!!!!) due to divine guidance during translation, as they believe God looks after His own Word.”

          Not even getting into the ones who think that their particular favorite translation (usually King James Version) is the ONLY extant divinely-inspired translation, and all other versions are deceptions laid by Satan.

        12. EvolutionistX

          Fundamentals: yes, you could use language that way if you felt like it, but that happens not to be how the word is used. Sometimes people use words in annoying or confusing ways and then you just have to accept them.

        13. Chrissy

          Well, if makes sense why a sect would want to imply they are truly the most fundamental Christians, since all sects do think they already are anyway

        14. Conuly

          Pro tip: Pretty much any Christian group considers that theirs is the most traditional. Either they’ve existed thousands of years, or they’ve stripped away all the heretical innovations that the other ones built up over thousands of years.

        15. hof1991

          Christian funamentalism is a 19th century American invention.
          https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christian_fundamentalism
          Mainly based on a series of book from 1910-15
          https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Fundamentals
          Little to do with tradition. If it did, Catholics would win.

        16. EvolutionistX

          >America is the most religious of all Western nations
          I think that depends on how we define “Western.” According to Wikipedia’s page on Importance of Religion by country, Croatia, Chile, Greece, Portugal, Italy, Moldova, Mexico, Armenia, Poland, Bosnia, and a few others you could argue are all more religious than the US.

      3. Viktoria

        From the perspective of US Protestant sects, Catholicism is a heretical polytheistic cult. There’s various reasons, but they’re mostly excuses for: “Y’all have fancy churches and claim to be more religious than us so we need to make our followers hate you so you can’t steal them.” And the followers buy it, so you tell people you’re Catholic and they hear “Yes, I worship hundreds of demigods and a man who claims he talks for God, also I eat flesh and drink blood, also my worship includes a lot of weird rituals that are probably actually satanic.” Because people suck.

        1. Chrissy

          Oh man that’s hilarious!! I’m not religious at all, it was really a “while you’re under my roof” kinda thing, but I will say I like how much Catholics like Mary, other sects don’t seem to respect the challenges of raising a lil’ messiah.

        2. EvolutionistX

          I thought about Mary a lot after the birth of my first child. Sometimes it’s nice to just have a someone to focus on.

        3. Chrissy

          Surprisingly often, I wonder how Mary must’ve felt when Jesus ran away as a 12 year old and was missing for 4 days. Probably really scared and a little angry.

          I’m not religious at all, teetering between agnostic and atheist, but I still say Hail Marys when I am upset because it’s so calming to me.

        4. EvolutionistX

          Oh man. She must have been freaking out of her mind.
          Calming rituals are good. šŸ™‚

        5. Drake

          Catholics seem to generally view Mary as an intercessor, someone who you can talk to directly easily because she was human too, she knows how much being human can suck and you can kind of be on the same level, it’s not the mighty angels or God Himself coming down. Basically she’s the “relatable” one.

          Jesus: “You know, the whole being human thing has taught me that maybe the angels might not be the best messengers. Bit scary, with all the eyes and wings and halos of fire”
          Daniel, Arch-Seraph of the Many Voices: “BUT I TELL THEM VERY GENTLY THAT THEY DON’T HAVE TO BE AFRAID”
          Jesus: “…yyyyeah, you know what, Daniel, I appreciate it, but I think I’m just gonna send Mom”

      4. Reallyrandomdude

        Another reason I’ve heard from relatives, but not seen really mentioned here, is a dislike of the Pope and general power structure of the Catholic church. They dislike it since it seems like the Catholic leaders are too earthly, more focused on riches and power of the world than spiritual stuff. Various scandals with how the Catholic church shuffles problematic priests around also don’t help with the opinion either.

  12. Reflex76

    I was raised Catholic, I got this instantly.

    FYI: Episcopalianism/Anglicanism = Reform Catholicicsm.

    Seriously, eucharist in services, crucifixes, and pretty much the same structure, down to bishops and archbishops overseeing diocese and archdiocese, with the big exception of no Pope.

    1. Tufto

      But with a Protestant theology. This seems to be being forgotten by a lot of people in these comments :p Anglicans still have sola fide and other Protestant theological aspects, at least on paper.

      AND there are plenty of low-church Anglicans whose services bear more resemblance to something like Joyce’s church than Catholic services. We aren’t *just* Catholic-lite, I swear :p.

  13. lia47

    i dont understand anything about christianity

    1. C.T Phipps

      It’s a pacifist poverty loving reform messianic branch of Judaism which somehow got adopted by the most militant richest empire in the Western World. It has since had hundreds of splits with Catholicism (European Christians) and Eastern Orthodox (Middle East and Russian Christians) having formed a incredibly ritualized hierarchy branches while Protestant branches formed in the Renaissance that now have thousands of individualized beliefs. Many of these HATE rituals and hierarchy.

      1. CJ

        Say they hate rituals and hierarchy but are very sure that they are better than anyone else (which kinda contradicts hating hierarchy).

      2. Vulcanodon

        That’s a really good description!

  14. Questionor

    between panal 3 and 4, is one the actual episcopal church they are at and the other a memory? or are they both the episcopal church they are at?

    1. FortyTwo

      They’re both current events. Panel 3 is the acolyte, and panel 4 is the priest.

  15. timemonkey

    The best part about todays joke is that I don’t get it but I understand it. It adds a weird layer to the comedy.

    1. Far

      For me (raised in circles almost as anti-catholic as Joyce’s), the extra layer of comedy comes from all the confused comments.

  16. Shiro

    Huh, I was raised Lutheran and that stuff looks familiar. Are Episcopal services similar?

    1. C.T Phipps

      It goes:

      Catholics/Eastern Orthodox (which is every bit as entitled to call itself the oldest Christian Church unless you go to Ethiopia which has an arguable claim to be founded by the Apostles who weren’t Paul or Peter)
      Episcopal/Anglican
      Lutheran
      Presbyterian (Reformed)/Methodist
      Baptist/Mormon for their own very very distinct from Catholicism churches with own interpretations of everything
      JOYCE’S CRAZY PEOPLE CHURCH

    2. Andy

      I was also raised Lutheran and while some bits of Catholicism look familiar, some really aren’t…the first time I walked into a Catholic church (for a wedding of my then-fiancee’s cousin), I was very confused when everyone started genuflecting next to the pew.

    3. Agemegos

      The Anglican/Episcopal Church is about half Catholic and half Lutheran.

      1. ValdVin

        A term I read from a Maryland-raised writer is.”softshell Catholic”. No idea how long that’s been a term, or its origin, but as a recovering Catholic my Episcopalian friends do like it.

        1. bucket

          That seems like a very Maryland-specific term, going along with soft-shell crab being a more tender and easier to eat version of the Blue crab that the state is famous for.
          The term made me smile!

    4. Lexicon

      The protestant churches that were founded closely after the schisms started (Lutheran, Anglican) tend to retain more of the structure and traditions of the Catholic Church. Since the Episcopal church is pretty much the Anglican Church ver MURICAH, they have many of the trappings of the Catholic Church, such as cruciforms and clerical collars.

  17. bryy

    Every so often, I’m reminded that Joyce’s religion is one of the weirder offshoots.

  18. Passchendaele

    OH NO

    THEY HAVE STICKS

    WHATEVER SHALL WE DO?!

    1. Passchendaele

      D8

      1. Andy

        Is that supposed to be a horrified emoticon, or are you listing which die to roll for damage?

        1. Warren

          I read it the same way, to be honest. “The Episcopal cleric brandishes his staff! You take 1d8 points of damage and become Panicked!”

        2. Passchendaele

          ffft, it’s suppose to be a horrified emoticon, but I will also accept the other explanation. XD

        3. Deanatay

          ‘XD’? Are you saying,

          (X) No
          (D) Dice
          ?

        4. SeanR

          I think that’s (X)=10
          D-Dice
          But 10D8 is a horrific amount of damage.

        5. Passchendaele

          probably is accurate for Joyce. šŸ˜›

        6. Roborat

          It’s highly effective.

        7. Kamino Neko

          Oh, good, I’m not the only one. >_>

        8. Arianod

          Both

        9. Lingo

          I read it as:
          “Whatever shall we do?”
          “Date!”
          Which is pretty in-character for Becky!

      2. Jamie

        No, Darths and Droids has established that sticks are 2d6.

        Same as a blaster.

        1. Knayt

          Only with the bonus for being a cool “exotic” weapon. Normal sticks would be lower.

        2. Andy

          I haven’t played since 3.5 but I distinctly remember quarterstaves being 1d8 damage

  19. Also Becky

    I live for these Joyce freakout faces

  20. Reltzik

    Someone needs to assemble all of the Joyce freak-out faces into a single gravatar.

    … not that I’D use it, but it’d be fun to see floating around the comments section for a while.

  21. Reflex76

    Epsicopalianism/Anglicanism is what happens when Catholicism does not have the patriarchy of The Vatican to hammer it down.

  22. Kernanator

    Oh no! STICKS!

  23. bleepbloop

    I hope I’m wrong but isn’t you-know-who’s dad supposed to be a religious leader? Of course that doesn’t mean he has to be the…priest? (pastor? brother?)…in this strip.

    1. bleepbloop

      Deacon??? This is gonna bug me.

      1. William Leonard Reese Jr.

        In Catholic Churches they tend to be headed by a Father with Bishops and Deacons being a separate part of the hierarchy. The Father also leads the ceremony and ritual before performing . . . . . My sunday school teachers would slap me for forgetting the name of this. . .The Eucharist? Where you partake in wine and wafers representing the Blood and Flesh of Christ being given unto humanity as it was in the Last Supper.

        1. Cybersnark

          In the Catholic system, a Deacon is usually connected to a specific church/parish –they are responsible for upkeep of the facilities and coordinating with the community. Priests (addressed as “Father”) are ordained (and can bless the Eucharist), but have assigned parishes and are expected to move when reassigned (which seems to happen every time someone in Rome sneezes).

          Priests level-up into Bishops (responsible for an entire diocese), then Archbishops, then Cardinals, and finally Popes.

      2. Agemegos

        Down at the bottom of the ordained hierarchy you have doorkeepers, exorcists, and readers (none of whom you see much of any more), then acolytes, subdeacons, deacons, priests, and bishops. Protestant churches have mostly either swept away all those statuses except for “deacon” and “priest” (sometimes translated into a vernacular language: “elder”) on the grounds that they are the ones mentioned in the Bible (if you consider that “presbyter” (elder) and “episkopos” (overseer) were two words for the same thing). You have to be a priest (or bishop, naturally) to perform the ritual of the mass (and the miracle of the transubstantiation in churches that believe in that), and you have to be at least a deacon to hand out the bread and wine or flesh and blood. Acolytes also have a part in the ritual, holding cups and plates and passing things and brushing things, like a waiter at the communion table. What we have here seems to be an acolyte carrying a processional cross in front of a priest carrying a pastoral staff and wearing vestments.

        In a Catholic church the priest in charge of a parish church and authorised to hold services there is legally the “rector”, but is known as the “parish priest”. In and Anglican parish he or she may be either the “rector” or the “vicar”, though there is no legal difference any more.

        Most Protestant branches (not including Lutheranism) put much less emphasis on the ritual of the Lord’s Supper (Mass), and may not perform it at all. Many teach that all Christians are priests and able to access God without any intercessor; their services are based on praying together and so even when they do recognised an ordained status they may call the leaders of their congregations “preacher” rather than “priest”.

        “Pastor” is a Latin word meaning “sheep-herder”. Catholics, Anglicans, and I think Lutherans do consider that the duty of their priests includings guiding and protecting the “flock”, so they do speak of some of the non-ritual duties of their clergy as “pastoral duties”, and agree that their parish priests are pastors. But they don’t use “pastor” as a job title. Some Protestant denominations (believing un the universal priesthood of believers, and not having elaborate rituals), on the other hand, do.

        By the looks of things Joyce belongs to a denomination in which the worship-leader doesn’t even perform pastoral duties, and that has dropped even the title “pastor”.

      3. bleepbloop

        Thanks everybody!! I always wondered what the hierarchy was since so many of the terms sounded interchangeable. I went to Catholic schools all my life but out of convenience not out of actually being Catholic so i probably should’ve known half of this ”^_^

    2. Norah

      Yes, but he was supposed to be a fundamentalist Christian pastor of some kind, and Joyce has been going to church every Sunday (presumably with some kind of pastor or minister) since then without flashbacks. I think it’s the Catholic-like trappings that are freaking her out, not any memories of old gashface.

      1. bleepbloop

        That actually makes a lot more sense especially since I don’t think Joyce knows about his dad yet anyway? Or who knows, he probably would’ve been on the news after his son got super stabbed but either way Joyce probably wouldn’t have made that connection regardless.

  24. Stephen Bierce

    HARLEY QUINN: I’m with you Red! Let’s make like a Church bell and PEAL! Let’s make like the Red Sea and SPLIT! Let’s make like a Communion wafer and TRAN-SUB-STAN-TI-ATE! (/ Gotham Girls)

    1. Shiro

      I’m loving all the newer stuff that remembers that Harley’s a frickin’ genius, not just a mouthy blonde with a hammer.

      1. Vulcanodon

        Doesn’t she have a PhD in psychology? I seem to remember she did her field work in Arkham.

        1. Cybersnark

          “You can’t just put on a helmet and cape and call yourself a Doctor; some of us had to work for our degrees.”

        2. MatthewTheLucky

          Mr. Freeze didn’t spend 8 years studying cryonics to be called…
          Oh. Hmm.

        3. ProfessorDetective

          Which is how she met the Joker, who drove her mad(ly in love).

  25. Zaidyer

    Gowns and staves? Who do these guys think they’re fooling?! Next you’ll be telling me they don’t have a rock band who plays the same two verses over and over for four minutes and calls it a worship song!
    Why, I’ll bet they even recite things. Humbug!

  26. Tacos

    Only four freak-out faces? I feel like there are more than just four.

  27. TheAmazingKMan

    Moral of the story: Research the church you’re going to before going in, so that you expect this kind of stuff.

    Anyway, I’ma go get the popcorn.

  28. Mr. Random

    So, as an evil Roman Catholic who doesn’t know that much about the separate sects…
    Huh?

    1. coru

      You’re an idol worshiping heathen cultist out to blacken the name of *real* Christianity. Duh.

      Yeah I grew up in a largely Southern Baptist community.

      1. Mr. Random

        So her freaking out is due to the use of objects to aid in worship because she views it as roughly equivalent (or is) idolatry?

        1. StClair

          Yup. See Willis’ latest tweets for what his own upbringing taught him was a “proper” sort of church – very bare bones and low budget, almost “meeting in someone’s basement”.

        2. ValdVin

          I wondered where Sarah and Billie, raised in decent-sized Indiana cities about as far apart as can get, both had that “jeans and flipflops” idea of any evangelical church.

        3. Tim

          Similar to a terrorist cell? NOT THAT THE TWO ARE IN ANY WAY RELATED.

        4. MatthewTheLucky

          Other than all those terrorists.

      2. Lena

        Which is hilarious considering how much Catholocism predates all those groups. Could be of course my isolation speaking but as a (Belgian) former Catholic there never was much downtalking about other Christians or religions. I even got thought about them at my Catholic school, though the Catholic school network here is very secular I admit.

        1. Arianod

          The thing about countries with a strong Catholic tradition (Belgium, Spain, Italy…) is that Protestants are largely a ‘foreign’ thing. They aren’t seen as a threat -in the sense of ‘threatening to take your parishioners away from you’- so there isn’t really a reason to go around badmouthing them.

    2. Ravian

      Anglicans/Episcopalians are basically Protestants that liked almost everything about Catholicism except for the whole Pope thing (blame King Henry VIII). They still do many of the rituals and ceremonies as Catholics do, which is probably disconcerting for any of the other Protestant sects who ditched Catholicism because they thought all those rituals and ceremonies were the problem in the first place.

      1. Tufto

        Well, sort of. The theology is rather different, it’s just the ritual which is similar. And only in “high-church” Anglican churches; there are plenty of low-church ones who are completely different.

    3. EvolutionistX

      Episcopalians look like Catholics, especially to a very Protestant Protestant.

  29. Alice Macher

    High Church alert! High Church alert! All hands in the pews!

    1. Tadpole7

      It’s only High Church if they break out the Latin.

      1. Agemegos

        No Latin in the High Church! Until Vatican II the High Church was “Catholicism in English” and now it’s basically “Catholicism with general confession”.

  30. Undrave

    Is there going to be transubstantiation?!

    1. drs

      AIUI, no, but there will be consubstantiation.

      1. OnyxIdol

        Admit it, you just made that word up.

        1. drs

          No, I took AP European History.

          https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eucharistic_theology#Consubstantiation

    2. Knayt

      No.

      The question is, could a cracker and wine staying a cracker and wine be well described as cissubstantiation?

      1. Arianod

        Dunno, but it that happens, your digestive tract is not doing its job. And there must be a word for that.

        1. Jhon

          Dyspepsia?

        2. Arianod

          For example!

  31. StClair

    YOU ARE NOT PREPARED!

  32. Derek

    ok I’m going to need those who grew up fundie to explain this one to me because it looks like a normal church

    1. KM

      What feels ironic to me is some people hold it against Joyce for not being familiar with churches other than her own…

      1. Derek

        I’m not holding it against Joyce, I’m just rather confused at her freakout.

      2. Derek

        yo you I just came to read the comments and I still don’t understand what prompted you to reply like this, you’re seeing some malice against Joyce in my comment that is not there

        1. Derek

          …no sure where that “yo you” came from, now it looks like I’m trying to talk like a faux rapper

        2. KM

          Nah sorry didn’t mean it against you specifically, it just seemed there was quite a bit of surprise that Joyce finds the whole thing to be really out of her experience when it’s clear that the reverse is also true.

    2. Ravian

      Not a fundie, but most fundies tend to think that Catholics have too many bells and whistles in their services which distract from properly worshiping God. Many go so far as thinking that Catholics are actually some sort of secret group of satanists trying to corrupt Christianity (Whore of Babylon and all that jazz)

      Episcopalians aren’t Catholic because they don’t acknowledge the Pope, but they do still use many of those trappings associated with Catholicism (like robes, saints, and a clerical hierarchy) so that doesn’t meld well with the fundies that care for all that stuff.

      1. Hielario

        Wait, they have *saints*?!

        1. Katherine

          IĀ mean, we (Episcopalians) mention saints in our prayers sometimes (mostly a throwaway, “and all the saints”) and we have stained glass depictions of the heavy hitters (St. Stephen, Virgin Mary, etc.) and we have days for certain saints in the liturgical calendar, but they’re just considered examples to follow and honor, but not people to pray to specifically. That’s the main main difference,Ā I think. I’m still a baby Episcopalian. Recently confirmed.

      2. Derek

        I…I thought only Jack Chick thought Catholics were Satanists…I shouldn’t be surprised but huh??

    3. NotPiffany

      Jacob goes to one of those “Catholic-lite” churches. Joyce grew up in a number of “non-denominational” churches, which train their members to think of Catholics as non-Christian demon-worshippers.

      1. Derek

        I am learning that from reading this comments section and it still baffles me. I grew up Catholic, but I left it after I became disenchanted with its corruption. Going as far as to call the demon-worshippers is too extreme though

        1. NotPiffany

          Well, if it makes you feel any better, these people also think of me as a demon worshipper, and I’m an atheist.

    4. EvolutionistX

      Some Protestants don’t think Catholics are real Christians. Episcopalians are ostensibly Protestants, but have a lot of the same look/feel as Catholics. So to Joyce, she just walked into some kind of pit of Catholicism.

    5. Marsh Maryrose

      Check out Willis’s twitter. I would quote from it but a single excerpt wouldn’t be sufficient.

      1. Derek

        I think I found it, this string of tweets?
        https://twitter.com/damnyouwillis/status/912169206959017985

  33. BBCC

    Ohhhhh, Joyce, honey, you look so freaked out. XD She is gonna have her mind blown.

    (Also, off topic, but if you’re USAian, you should call your senators and governors and ask them to oppose Graham-Cassidy, and if you’re not, you should tell any USAians who follow you to).

  34. segnosaur

    It should be considered rather strange that someone who was supposedly brought up in a super-religious household (like Joyce was) knows so little about other religions or branches of the christian faith.

    Well, it SHOULD be. That she is ignorant of what other religions are like isn’t surprising. Can’t let the young ones learn anything different lest they stray.

    1. C.T Phipps

      I studied 11 years of Catholic School while attending protestant school as well as studying other religions. When I went to talk to some fundamentalist associates, I found out none of them knew anything outside their denomination.

      I recall when, oddly, I got asked to speak about Islam because they wanted to know what the hell their deal was. Quite a few people were surprised to find they were a Judaeo-Christian branch.

    2. KM

      Is it fair to hold only Joyce and her brethren to that standard though? In this and the precious related strip plenty of people were confused by denominations other than their own

      1. Marsh Maryrose

        I knew a Jesuit-educated guy who was perpetually shocked by just how little Catholics of his acquaintance knew about the beliefs of even their own church.

        I assume something similar applies to pretty much any other religious denomination.

        1. drs

          I once listened to a Catholic and a Muslim be collectively unsure as to whether Jesus lived before or after Mohammed. I was flabbergasted.

          I get a bit annoyed by atheist/agnostics being proud of how they don’t know anything about Christianity. Like, you can study comparative religion — or, you know, history — without being a believer.

        2. mmblarg

          I don’t know about a point of pride, but being personally agnostic there is no rhyme or reason behind investing hours upon hours of my time researching the various splinters of a single religion… This or any other religion has zero barring on my life except when zealots make me absolutely despise the entire human race and hope this whole world goes up in flames.

          Being annoyed by people who aren’t invested in a religion and choose not to learn about it is like being annoyed the entire human race isn’t part of a hive mind…. Just my thought on that

        3. Conuly

          You gotta live with these people. It’s good if you can understand the highlights.

        4. Lena

          Being aware of other people tends to be a good idea. It’s like, it’s good to know about other people’s experiences and how they relate to the world, makes you understand people better.

        5. Cranky

          Even if empathy was foreign, there is such a thing as being informed, much of literature and history makes more sense if you can vaguely understand the culture(spiritual and political) it comes from.

          Going into a place as a Western idiot when I was in India wearing shorts nearly got me attacked, knowing transubstantiation means Catholics are cannibal blood drinkers gave me a new word to giggle at. Giggle except to understand wars were fought over when in the ceremony the transformation from cracker to the flesh of Christ happened.

          Knowing that various versions of Christians warred brother against brother even in the same towns, to the point they got all the opposing families down to the infants and slit their throats in the middle of the river in boats.

          Just because people follow a religion of “peace” does not mean some of them are not attempting to bring about the end of days or some other rotten selfish thing to further their agenda.

        6. drs

          I’m not talking about various splinters, I’m talking about proud ignorance of the basic story of Christianity. Which I guess is me venting more than talking about this thread.

          “This or any other religion has zero barring on my life”

          You can’t study European History of the last 500 years without knowing something about Protestantism vs. Catholicism, which is of some relevance to US history as well.

          I mean, it’s not like I ever have taken a comparative religion course, though I’ve read around a bit. But European History covered the Reformation, Counter-Reformation, and formation of the Church of England. US History covered the Great Awakening, and Quakers. A kid’s history magazine had an article on the Shakers. The five pillars of Islam probably came via Social Studies. Current events made Protestant vs. Catholic relevant in Ireland. A book trying to sum up Japan will touch on Shinto and Buddhism at least a bit. A history of India will have to include something about Hinduism and Islam, among others.

          Yeah, a non-American doesn’t have much reason to know about the odder splinters of US Christianity (apart from them influencing US politics and thus the world… people like Joyce’s religion are probably in Congress.) But I was venting about basics like “Christians believe Jesus was the son of God who died for our sins and rose again.” Enough to note parallels in Narnia, say.

        7. thejeff

          Honestly, I’ve found atheists tend to have a better broad understanding of Christianity than many Christians – more history, more on the various versions, etc. Not so much obviously on the theology of a particular sect as its members do.

        8. drs

          Many ex-Christian atheists got that way by actually reading the bible cover to cover…

        9. tim gueguen

          You can look like you’ve got a clue about a religion simply by mimicking what everyone else is doing during a service. Usually no one is going to stop in the middle of things to ask you if you actually know why you’re kneeling/drinking that liquid/letting that guy mark your forehead with something, let alone what your faith expects of you.

      2. segnosaur

        I wouldn’t necessarily blame Joyce, since she is the product of her upbringing. (She’s barely an adult after all.) I would however blame her parents and/or the adults in the church group she was associated with.

        Now, should I be fair and blame others? Well, it all depends on how dedicated they are to religion. A person who is a twice-a-year church goer (Easter/Christmas)? Wouldn’t blame them; religion isn’t a big part of their life. Someone who goes to church every week/goes door to door to try to bring in new church members/etc? Those people I would blame if they don’t have at least a basic knowledge of other religions.

    3. CJ

      It took having a catholic lover to learn that in the Catholic Church, they believe Wine and Bread actually turn into blood and body in the ritual (she was explaining why Catholic priests tended not to use normal bread for the ritual).
      Religious education even in schools explains shit about other denominations.

  35. NirallaSira

    Many Fundies believe Catholicism is the work of Satan. It’s actually an old idea – just look at the interview questions JFK had to answer during his election because of his Catholicism.

  36. Keulen

    I love Joyce’s freakout faces so much.

  37. Gojira

    Crucifixes! The sign of the devil!

  38. C.T Phipps

    I predict Joyce will whip them and overturn tables until a short brown man with a blue sash will kick her out.

    1. Delicious Taffy

      “Brown”? Is that okay to say? I’ve been playing it safe and assuming it wasn’t.

      1. Deanatay

        I think C.T is specifically referring to the ‘Historical Jesus’ character from Shortpacked!

        1. C.T Phipps

          Yes, should have been more clear. The irony being she’s too extreme for him.

  39. Alexx

    Soooo…is it the sticks they’re holding? I don’t know church things.

    1. William Leonard Reese Jr.

      Shepard’s crook is what the Father seems to be holding, symbolic of being the Shepard protecting his flock of sheep. I KNOW what the other one is holding but I never did learn or ask the name of it. Ties into more symbolism I believe, never was a faithful Catholic, was raised into it and I’ve struggled immensely with how I had very little to no faith.

  40. Saaaam

    The anti-Catholicism in American Protestants is just such a bizarre concept from the outside. One time a girl told me the Pope was literally the devil.

    1. Marsh Maryrose

      If I remember correctly, two of the four Lutheran synods in America have, as official church doctrine, the belief that the office of the Pope is the Antichrist. (One of the papers I read went to great lengths to point out that the Pope is not the Antichrist, just the office of the Pope.)

      You know, the whole Reformation began with the notion that the Roman Catholic church was WRONG, WRONG, WRONG! It’s not too far from there to HERETIC, HERETIC, HERETIC!

      1. StClair

        In theology, the two are virtually synonymous.

        1. C.T Phipps

          While it’s a children’s story now, Gulliver’s Travels was actually satire on the Enlightenment. The war between the Lilliputans was over buttering bread or not, which was a commentary on the fact the Eucharist being Christ’s literal body or a metaphor was a thing people murdered each other over.

        2. Conuly

          Wasn’t it over whether or not to break eggs at the big end or the little one?

  41. Bret

    Damn. This might be the most religion related comment section I’ve ever seen where everyone’s decent to one another.
    Props, Willis, you actually cultivated a garden of nice people on the internet.

    1. (((Mkvenner)))

      I think the Billie cool off period helped.

  42. Jen

    Ex church of christ here. You have NO idea the giggles this strip gave me. For us it was chandeliers=HELL, gymnasiums and/or kitchens=DOUBLE HELL, instruments/or choir=HOTTEST PART OF HELL. The first time I visited another church I thought I was on candid camera.

    1. Gandalf007

      Funny, I was raised in a slightly more mainstream Church of Christ, and we thought y’all were the crazy fundies (or in our parlance, “legalistic”)! Of course having a kitchen is nice — really helps out with those pot luck dinners! Gyms are cool too, as longs as the kids aren’t playing basketball during the service. No instruments or choir though… do we look like the Disciples of Christ here?

      A bit of background for the 98% who will be confused by this: the 19th-century Stone-Campbell Restoration Movement sought to restore the church to the simple form it had in the 1st century; the Church of Christ and Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) are the denominations that arose out of it (although they’d appreciate it if you didn’t call them “denominations”, thank you very much.) Their major deal was to do things according to the Bible only, without all that junk the other churches have/do.

      Also, many don’t call themselves Protestant, as they feel they aren’t “protesting” anything, but are simply Christian. They probably share Joyce’s dim view of the Catholic church though.

      Predictably, this led to future splits, as there were people who said, “The Bible doesn’t say anything about kitchens in the church, so we can’t have one!” vs. “The Bible doesn’t say anything about kitchens, so why not?” Rinse and repeat for other, larger issues. See the section about “non-institutional Churches of Christ” in WP if you feel like a Wiki-walk.

      1. Vulcanodon

        Gandalf007, Did you go to Milligan college by any chance? First reference I’ve seen to Stone-Campbell in a few decades…

        1. Gandalf007

          Nope… I did consider going to Oklahoma Christian, but ended up attending a large state university instead — one even larger than IU-Bloomington, and with a similar academic profile. One of my better decisions…

      2. Katherine

        Fellow raised-CoC person here (now Episcopalian, funnily enough). This is accurate. Church of Christ is a convoluted denomination. The one I was raised in was extremely liberal for a CoC (we let women pass the communion plate and read scripture at the front! GASP). We also had a kitchen and a gym. AND Sunday School. I was flabbergasted when I first learned that some Churches ofĀ Christ don’t believe you should have class on Sundays. Just service. My home town (pop. 115,000) has something like 40 different Churches of Christ. There are so many splits over tiny things. I very much prefer the mostly-unified vision of the Episcopalian church.

  43. Yotomoe

    Your priests…have weapons!?

    1. Loki

      Of course they do, they take the battle against the devil quite literally.

      1. Jamie

        Repent, heretic, in the name of the Emperor?

      2. EvolutionistX

        +1 to you

    2. Wraithy2773

      How else are they going to checkmate the king?

      1. ValdVin

        Dressed up, Episcopal setting
        But the fundie don’t know what the fundie is getting
        The creme de la creme of the praise world in a
        Church with everything but Yuuuuuullll Brynner

        Time flies, doesn’t seem a minute
        Since a basketball court had Joyce pray in it
        All change, don’t you know that when you
        Pray at this level there’s no ordinary venue

        There’s collars, and idols, and this place!

        I’m in a cult. It’s for a stage musical.

        1. Genie

          She gets her kicks ABOVE the waistline, sunshine!

        2. Deanatay

          One Night In Christville makes the hard man humble
          A prayer between despair and ecstasy
          One night in Christville makes the tough guys tumble
          Can’t be too careful with idolatry
          I can feel the devil walking next to me

        3. NotPiffany

          Valdvin, Genie, and Deanatay, I want to hug all three of you. Provided you’re all cool with that.

        4. ProfessorDetective

          You three have just earned an Internet each. I’m actually crying a little

        5. ValdVin

          Don’t forget Wraithy, who triggered it with “checkmate”.

          I’m cool with internet hugs.

          But I’m not kidding about Chess being a cult.

    3. Remmington Steele

      May Jessel, the Trifarge Putinard, be with you: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cQ9sJVJMiYM

  44. Josh Spicer

    The thing is, as a Lutheran, my family and I always react with a sort of “I’m sorry about that” thing whenever somebody mentions they’re Catholic.

  45. Plasma Mongoose

    Catholics are very handy if you want holy water, gotta keep those vampires away somehow.

    1. Rukdug

      Also, easy to make an impromptu stake for reasons shown above.

      1. ProfessorDetective

        And they’re very likely to have silver on onhand.

  46. AutobotDen

    Meanwhile, I, one of the many Pagans (in otherwords: HEATHENS) likely around, am going “…I really don’t get it.” Bearing in mind I was originally baptized as a Christian (First Christian Church: Disciples of Christ)…

    1. Dusk Rain

      Nice to see a fellow Pagan! I envy you, because I do get it, and it’s bringing up old traumas. Although I don’t get her reaction to crosses. Those are all over Baptist churches at least. (I know she’s not Baptist but my family is. And that’s not the trauma, a nondenom Fundie cult was.)

      1. Dusk Rain

        No please I don’t want Malaya.

        1. Dusk Rain

          This is acceptable. And by acceptable I mean adorable.

      2. thejeff

        Those aren’t crosses, they’re crucifixes. One is a symbol of faith, the other a idolatrous depiction.

        Nah, I don’t get it either.

  47. Bagge

    THE BISHOP!!!
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UqoEUdty4gE

    1. Remmington Steele

      Ah, Bishop Brennan to the, erm, rescue! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uaglEdB7CDs

  48. wrog

    Differences between Catholic and Anglican/Episcopal
    [1] Pope vs. Queen of England
    {or Bishop-of-your-Diocese if you’re in the US…}
    [2] Divorce
    {basically the whole reason the Anglican church exists}
    [3] Confession
    {big deal for Catholics; everyone *has* to confess regularly; A/E *no*}
    [4] Transubstantiation
    {Catholics: Really Happens vs. A/E: just a symbolic wafer}
    [5] Lord’s Prayer, 10 Commandments
    {Catholic LP is shorter, 10C numbered differently}

    1. Wraithy2773

      On behalf of all the agnostics/athiests out there who just remembers “…so, uh, protestants only exist because Henry The Somethingth wanted to divorce his… I’m gonna say his fourth wife?”, many thanks :).

      1. StClair

        No, that’s the Anglicans. Martin Luther, who kicked off the Protestants, had a whole raft of complaints against the (hilariously corrupt) Church of his day (there was only the one, see?), which he wrote down on paper and nailed to the door of the Wittenberg Castle chapel (just to be real sure they read it).

        1. StClair

          (They took it about as well as any church ever has when faced with “heresy”, and/or any entrenched power structure has dealt with dissidents, radicals and revolutionaries…)

        2. Knayt

          Martin Luther sort of kicked off the Protestants, but it was after centuries of smaller splinter groups that just never grew to that level (often because Catholic power structures violently crushed them). Albigensians, anyone?

        3. Wraithy2773

          I stand by my (partly) comedic joke about my ignorance of Christian faction lore :D.

      2. tim gueguen

        Nah, Martin Luther kicked off Protestantism.

      3. Needfuldoer

        Both events happened around the same time, but I don’t think one led directly into the other. (Athiest/agnostic raised areligiously here, so this might be wrong.)

        Henry VIII founded the Church of England because he really wanted out of that marriage.

        Martin Luther kick started the Protestant Reformation for other reasons, not the least of which was that the church was selling get-out-of-Hell-free cards. (Here’s the shortest recap I’ve ever heard, skip to 13:07 if the link doesn’t do it automatically.)

        1. Conuly

          I was told that Henry VIII only went the C of E route because Protestantism was all the rage.

        2. Rukdug

          The other thing is, an indulgence isn’t technically speaking a “get out of jail free” card. It’s a “listen, pay such and such amount of money, and you don’t have to perform the penance I assigned you for the confession.” The priests in the HRE however were very good at selling indulgences because they deliberately misled people into believing buying an indulgence would get them out of hell. Martin Luther initially didn’t even object to the idea of indulgences, just the way it was being used locally. Then he later came to the conclusion that indulgences themselves were bad.

        3. Andrew_C

          If the Protestants hadn’t been around, and reasonably active in England Henry wouldn’t have been able to go “No YOU’REthe heretics!” and form his own, nominally Protestant church. IIRC, he had actually been commended by the pope for his zeal in prosecuting Protestants as heretics.

        4. Agemegos

          Yep. And they still put “F.D.” on coins because of it. “F.D.” signifies “Fidei Defensor” ā€” “Defender of the Faith”. That’s a title the Pope gave Henry VIII for defending the Church against Protestantism.

          At least I think they do. Haven’t been to the UK for a while, and they redesigned in 2008.

        5. Remmington Steele

          Looking at a new pound coin, and they still do.

        6. ValdVin

          I know my way around US coins but don’t know that re the UK.

          Please proceed: Numismatry will get you everywhere.

      4. CJ

        No, there were several people that kicked off protestantism.
        Luther was the guy who translated the Bible into German so people would not have to worship in a strange tongue (i.e. Latin).
        The Catholic Church had the typical severe problems of large unchecked power structures (like corruption, creative inventing of more ways to make money, …) and he listed 95 of those.
        As in his age, not so many people could read and the text hanging on the church door in one remote church wouldn’t have been read by many, I always wondered how the promotion of his idea actually worked.

        1. Rukdug

          Well, he was in what was essentially a university town for theology students at the time.

        2. SeanR

          Don’t forget that this was around the time that Movable Type was coming into its own.

        3. Andrew_C

          IIRC it helped that one of that the local princes was pissed at for not getting elected Holy Roman Emperor

        4. Andrew_C

          That should be “one of thew local princes”.

        5. Andrew_C

          Dammit

        6. CJ

          That’s what I meant. You always read about Luther and his 95 theses on the Wittenberg Church being the kickoff of the Lutheran Church, but without someone in power taking up the cause for their own reasons, Luther would have ended up dead like most other would-be reformers, for example Thomas MĆ¼ntzer, who wanted to disenfranchise the gentry.

        7. Wraithy2773

          What’s amusing me is that my comment was about how I do not get like 99.9% of what defines the 500 Christian sub-groups… and everyone’s jumping up to correct me on the one bit that I *thought* I knew :D.

    2. drs

      Ironically, given how it started, the CoE was rather down on divorce for most of its history. And the Eucharist is more than symbolic; there’s talk about the Real Presence of Christ in it.

      1. Delavan

        True. Although the CoE divorce thing is more-than-partly because of the Catholic influence after Henry VIII. And “Real Presence” is still not full transubstantiation, but is technically more than symbolic, since transubstantiation requires a full-on thomistic/aristotelian metaphysical system to work. Real presence is more similar to Lutherans, iirc.

        What’s the 10C numbering difference? I thought that was just Exodus, regardless of denomination?

        1. Kamino Neko

          Among Christians:

          Catholics and Lutherans make ‘no other gods, and no idols’ the same commandment. Most other denominations split them into two.

          The ‘covet’ section is all one commandment for most denominations. Catholics and some Lutherans make your neighbour’s wife and his property two separate commandments. Other Lutherans make his house the 9th commandment, and group his wife with his other properties.

        2. Agemegos

          The “Ten Commandments” contains twelve commandments, plus an introductory remark. And they are repeated in two places in different order (one in Exodus, one in Leviticus). There are several systems for dividing the thirteen bits into ten commandments, and for numbering them.

          There is an article about it in Wikipedia. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ten_Commandments#Traditions_for_numbering

    3. MM

      Or as Robin Williams put it, “Twice the service; half the guilt!”

      1. SeanR

        I have not seen Mr. Williams performance of which you speak, but I’m guessing he probably meant “gilt”.
        Or rather, it was probably meant to be written “gilt” and heard “guilt”.
        Just a guess.

        1. thejeff

          He probably meant “guilt”. Catholics traditionally have a lot of guilt.

          “Got enough guilt to start my own religion”

        2. StClair

          yeah, he definitely meant guilt.

        3. SeanR

          I stand by my assumption. “Gilt” is gold leaf. Something else that Catholics seem to have in abundance.

    4. Far

      Also Sola Fide, which I’m surprised hasn’t come up in the comments (that I’ve seen) given that fundie Protestants make a huuuuuuuge deal about how Catholics supposedly believing in “salvation through works”.

    5. Tufto

      There’s quite a lot more than this, notably how Anglicanism theology is largely Protestant and Lutheranesque, at least traditionally. The 39 Articles, the basis for Anglican beliefs, are all pretty Protestant. Plus a lot of difference on social attitudes; we tend to be rather more accepting of sexual minorities than the Catholics, especially among the Episcopalians.

    6. SgtWadeyWilson

      My entire thought process: Pope vs. Queen of England… “It’s time for a Death Battle!!!”

  49. Reltzik

    I think Joyce is worried that employment law isn’t being followed. The head priest was clearly crooked in how he staffed his church.

    ……….

    *flees for dear double-punning life*

  50. wrog

    [6] Music
    Catholic: hymns are melody only, gregorian chants
    A/E: four part harmony, Bach, Holst, Vaughan Williams, etc…

    1. Obdormio

      With luck, they’ll sing “Ye Watchers and Ye Holy Ones”. A whole verse about how great Mary is is probably just the thing Joyce wants to hear right now.

    2. EvolutionistX

      I’ve been to Catholic churches with guitars and singing.

      1. Cybersnark

        And organs and pianos and a full choir.

        It depends entirely on what kind of musicians (and instruments) are available.

  51. Queen Anthai

    Religions are weird, y’all.

    1. NotPiffany

      Of course they are. Humans are involved.

    2. C.T Phipps

      Religion is the original nerdery. Before the internet, monks and priests yelled for hours about which slight bit of doctrine was the truth like Optimus Prime being a vessel of Primus or not.

  52. Bagge

    God bless her heart. Even when Joyce freaks out, she’s trying.

    Enjoy your hippie church, Joyce.

  53. Website Guy

    I was raised Methodist, and in 7th grade, we had confirmation, which mostly involved meeting a few times a month to go over what Methodists believed. But one thing that I think was very enlightening was that we visited at least five other “churches” over the course of that year, including (from what I can remember) Lutheran, Episcopalian, Baptists, a Jewish synagogue, and a Catholic church. Where I grew up, both Jews and Catholics were an extreme minority (probably less than 2% Catholic and less than 1% Jewish), so it was really a very enlightening.

    Even so, I didn’t understand the evangelical distaste for Catholics until more recently (I am now Catholic, so it is more relevant and probably helps in my understanding, but that is a long story). The whole rapture/tribulation thing is usually about how the Vatican is the “whore of Babylon”, which certainly makes things interesting.

    Anyway, I guess my point is that the exposure I had to other denominations and even other religions I had during confirmation seems to be fairly unique, but I am really glad I was able to experience it.

  54. Dawn

    I’m Catholic. The only church I ever went to that wasn’t (besides a few Lutheran and Episcopalian) was a non-denominational church in an old movie theater. They put the lyrics to their hymns on a big screen.

    For me, THAT was weird. Where Joyce is at right now looks normal.

  55. Badgermole

    But look at how chill Becky this! This makes me hopeful that she’s come far in accepting religion as a more spiritual thing that doesn’t contradict science and isn’t dependent on the physical trappings of churches and whatnot. I’m proud of Becky and hope she can sustain her usual enthusiastic curiosity about hippie church.

    1. Dusk Rain

      That’s my hope for Becky as well (also Joyce but Becky’s closer to being able to do this). Well said.

  56. Badgermole

    Ooof *is

  57. EvolutionistX

    Now this is what I call normal human behavior.

  58. KM

    How even…that’s like…not even specifically religious knowledge…but yeah I can believe that there exist people who really are that unsure of such things while still being certain of their faith.

    As to point 2, I suppose though that they are counter balanced by the kind of atheist who will beat you over the metaphorical head with how much of the Bible he’s read to disprove it…

  59. (((Mkvenner)))

    High church, called it.

  60. Delavan

    It’s Pandaemonium! (And the Milton scholars go wild…)

  61. Nenja

    Yeeees, I love the freak-out face! It was a collection of them on tumblr that introduced me to Dumbing of Age.

  62. Dracke

    “Oh sorry did your church started by a decapitating king lust for women and his fascination of killing his wives because the Catholic church didn’t give him the divorce so he started a church so he could do whatever he wanted” sensibilities got offended, Joyce?

    I was waiting for her freak out, I love her she is a riot.

    1. DinaWho

      The irony of this statement is that’s exactly the church she’s in right now (Epsicopalian is basically CofE without the British-monarch-as-head-of-church part, though there may be some other differences I’m not aware of.)

      Joyce’s sect probably has its roots much more in some of the other Protestant branches.

  63. Yumi

    I saw this meme today, and if I lived in the DoA universe, I think I’d try to add Carol on Facebook, tag her in it, and get blocked:
    https://i.imgur.com/gw7Hkue.jpg

    1. (((Mkvenner)))

      Truth hurts.

  64. Mendel

    Wasn’t it mentioned someplace that Joyce’s family switched churches for some reason, like the preacher being totally inappropriate in some way? and her father supported her, so they did? In which case this could trigger a flashback? or am I remembering this wrong?

    1. Shariku

      I know they switched churches a bunch of times to find one that catered to their needs, but i don’t think it’s stated any of the previous churches did anything that could generally be considered inappropriate. It’s more Joyce’s family wanted a specific type of church that catered to their specific viewpoint.

      Probably the best thing to do to see for sure is to check the archives containing Hank or Carol and see if anything gets said.

      1. mendel

        That was a good idea, thank you. The strip in question is this: http://www.dumbingofage.com/2016/comic/book-6/04-it-all-returns/quarters/ and it doesn’t really say what Hank found objectionable.

        1. thejeff

          There was also this, earlier on.
          B-words

        2. thejeff

          Dammit. Forgot to close quotes.
          B-words

  65. HeySo

    Joyce, coming from a background of loud southern worship, is shocked to see such large sticks- after all, as everyone knows, the bigger the stick, the softer the speech.

  66. Yossarianduck

    *ORGAN MUSIC INTENSIFIES*

  67. Needfuldoer

    “Wow, nearly 200 comments already. This is gonna be good…”

    -Me in the couple seconds between the rest of the page and the comic loading

  68. BenRG

    Yeah, it looks like what we Brits call ‘High Church’ – Very similar to Roman Catholicism but with the whole ‘Roman’ bit firmly set aside. So, yeah, Joyce, this will be your first experience of the highly ritualistic ‘spells and smells’ European-style legacy Christendom.

    1. Arian

      Or “bells and smells”.

    2. MikeFoxWoW

      The ‘spells and smells’ varies from church to church. I attended a church as a child that was far less formal, and later attended a church that had all the bells, smells and whistles, and was surprised. That incense is intense.

  69. Chronos

    I didn’t expect to hear the first few seconds of the theme from “Ironsides” in that last panel, but, here we are.

  70. Delicious Taffy

    A while back, somebody told me that some of the other regulars had done some podcasts. If anyone has links to these, I’d absolutely love to give them a listen.

    Unrelated, but is there some sort of accepted etiquette for after you’ve been banned from a board? Asking for a person who was recently banned for “inciting flame wars”.

    1. insomniac

      If there’s a procedure for appealing a ban, it should be clear somewhere in the public sections of the forum. If not, the done thing is usually to either find a less moderated board on the same topic and talk shit about the board that banned you, or move on with your life.

      1. Delicious Taffy

        Oh, I’m sure an appeal isn’t something that’s being looked for. The post that resulted in the ban pretty much said outright “If you don’t ban me as hard as possible, I’ll be coming back to do this all over again.”

        1. StClair

          That does not strike me as someone particularly concerned with etiquette.

    2. Anowan

      Here you go !

      https://skepticalclown.wordpress.com/category/podcasting-of-age/

      The podcasts are by Cerberus and Emperor…
      … I always remember it’s him when I read “Emperor” and I don’t bother to read the rest of his pseudonym. May he forgive me. Emperor Norton II ? I completely forgot.

      1. Bagge

        Named, incidentally, after Emperor Norton I of the United States of America. The Emperor that hangs around here is Emperor over all of Internet, poor sod…

        The podcast is awesome!

      2. Delicious Taffy

        Excellent, thank you very much.

  71. Danni

    this is reminding me of the time i went to a protestant church. i had grown up catholic so i assumed it would end with cupping my hands for that tasteless cracker and leaving. i was kinda surprised when the preacher guy started singing.

  72. Kaunisenkeli

    Robin Williams once described the Episcopal Church as “Catholic-lite. Same religion, half the guilt.” This should prove for an interesting day for Joyce.

  73. BP

    I never did get the hate for Catholics, even knowing that Joyce counts as a Protestant. Growing up in an Irish Catholic family I guess I just assumed that the Irish were the only ones who still cared about that crap.

    1. Rukdug

      Nope, still a thing here in the US. If there’s one thing you can count on it’s radical nondenominational protestants hating Catholics. And groups like the KKK, who hate Jews and Catholics only slightly less than black people. The Deep South sucks for a lot of people.

      1. thejeff

        There’s a lot of race/ethnic hatred tied up in it too.

        Real Americans (descended from English and to a lesser extent German immigrants) were properly Protestant, while these new waves of weird foreigners were usually Catholic – Irish and Italians and other wierdos. Plus Mexicans.

        1. C.T Phipps

          Most American Christians actually don’t care about it but the squeaky wheel of radical evangelical protestants get a lot of attention.

        2. BP

          … I keep forgetting fundies and extremists are universal constants. (sigh)

          I remember actually explaining to my European agnostic boyfriend that Jack Chick thinks Catholics are going to Hell for being the wrong flavor of Christian (assuming at the time that everyone understood the man was a dry-roasted nut). He was absolutely baffled and outraged. It was nice. <3

        3. C.T Phipps

          80% of American Christians get along fine and then you have the people who hate Mormons and Catholics who hate them back. As 20% of 300 million or so Christians in the United States is a lot of people.

  74. OnyxIdol

    Re: Twitters regarding what fundie church looks like: As a former Roman Catholic, this blows my mind.

  75. Jeff

    I’m wondering why the artist drew the eyes and hair overlapping instead of obscuring the parts of the eyes covered by hair? It making the panel feel ever-so-slightly off.

    Still think it’s a great panel regardless

  76. D.S

    If I was never brought up Catholic and witnessed a Catholic mass I might be terrified too.

  77. Rukdug

    Man, the priest even has a shepherd’s crook. That’s pretty hardcore. We Catholics don’t even use those anymore.

  78. Yet Another Laura H.

    I am just glad that is all there was. For a second, I was worried that the reverend was “Ryan’s” dad, and there was a marked-enough family resemblance that she realized it.

  79. C.

    The direction in which her eyes bulged out changed this time. They’re wider now and not as long.

  80. Eldritch Gentleman

    Chill Joyce, aside from rampant corruption in Vatican and covering up for paedophile priests Catholicism is not all that bad.

    1. Knayt

      Don’t forget about the smear campaign against condoms in the middle of the AIDS epidemic.

      1. Eldritch Gentleman

        And campaign against condoms in Africa which makes their overpopulation problems even worse.

        1. OnyxIdol

          And still employing exorcists.

        2. Peter

          You guys do realise that American evangelical churches do all of these things, and much worse, too… right?

        3. Eldritch Gentleman

          Well I was raised a Catholic so I can only talk about them with some degree of authority.

        4. C.T Phipps

          I was going to convert to Catholicism because of the genuinely more progressive views of the church under John Paul II which appealed to me as well as the scientific approach to miracles and evolution. Then the whole child rape scandal happened. Real Broken Pedestal moment.

        5. Eldritch Gentleman

          Yeah that’s a big, black mark on the Catholic Church. Over here in Poland the hierarchs still cover up for the pedo priests. Unfortunately a right-winged party got voted into power and they are kissing the Church’s asses…

        6. CJ

          Since when had right-wingers any interest in prosecuting sexual abuse of children (or women)? They rather tend to say it’s a man’s right anyway (which reminds me, one of the candidates of the German version of trumpism answered to the question about which book he read Nabokov. Don’t really remember the title, something rephrasable as “poor prosecuted me”. )
          The Catholic Churches way to (not) deal with child abuse by their priest is a rather large black spot on their reputation but not the reason why fundies hate them.

        7. Eldritch Gentleman

          @CJ
          You want to hear something funny? In a “laugh because otherwise you’ll have to cry” way?
          One of Polish priests said something like this “It’s not the priest’s fault, the children are going into their beds themselves deprived of love and affection”
          I shit you not, that’s what he said.

        8. CJ

          No, the adult has never been at fault since long before Lolita ?
          This actually needs an animated puking emoji but I have to make do with this.

        9. BP

          Hey, how’s Francis handling that one? As I recall, Benedict XVI wasn’t so great about it; don’t remember how JPII handled it but as he was a solid bro I imagine he at least expressed distaste.

    2. BP

      Yeah, that kind of bullshit is why I stopped going to church altogether after college. (Had already cut back in high school because the only priest who was actually cool and likable had a stroke, and his replacement was boring as sand.)

  81. Arian

    Technically, Episcopal churches are Anglican. Some sections of the Church of England say they are not Catholic *or* Protestant. Some say they’re both. šŸ™‚

    1. Eldritch Gentleman

      Does US provide any kind of guide to Christianity in America? Because this is all hella confusing.

      1. Yossarianduck

        That’d be pretty difficult, since Protestant churches can range from being akin to franchises, where multiple churches practise exactly the same way and have a collective agreed-upon interpretation of the Bible, but there are also literally hundreds of single churches who practise and worship their own particular way, and whose opinions on other denominations may vary wildly from “different, but still one of us, basically” to “may actually be the Antichrist”, depending on which one you ask.

        I guarantee Willis has some great stories about inter-church politics.

      2. C.T Phipps

        There’s literally thousands of different variations on Christianity in America alone so it isn’t really a guide book thing. The shortest version is Joyce belongs to a sect which is US and Jacob belongs to a sect which is THEM.

    2. Peter

      Episcopal churches are originally Anglicanism without the “monarch of England is head of the Church” thing. They’re governed by an episcopal synod, instead (hence the name).

      And Anglicanism is close enough to Catholicism that an Anglican priest who converts to Catholicism is considered a priest as a Catholic, too. Or so I am given to understand.

      1. Galdan

        They need a crash course in order to learn how Catholic Church work, but yes, they do, even married ones. Orthodox priests too (technically speaking, married people can be Catholic priests, but the Vatican demads that priests dedicate their whole life to the Church, and that they have no loyalty that could compete with their loyalty to Christ, hence no wife and children…).

        Fun fact… the position of Catholic priest is mostly an administrative one. People think that only priests can administer the Sacrements, but that’s wrong:

        -Anybody can baptize a child.
        -The groom and bride are the ones actually oficiating the marriage ceremony, hence, if there isn’t a priest, anybody can take his place, and the ceremony is still valid.
        -The person confessing his/her sins is the one who is actually officiating the sacrament of Confession… in the past, people would rise and confess their sins out loud during mass. The Vatican changed it to confessing with just a priest hearing to encourage people to do it more often…
        -Confirmation, Ordination of priests and Ordination of bishops are basically the same sacrament, repeated as you climb the Church hierarchy… A priest can confirm a lay member, a bishop can ordain a priest, three bishops can ordain a new bishop. In the old days there wasn’t any difference between the three, and the sacrament was performed only once (so any confirmed Catholic could be a priest or bishop without further ceremonies…)
        -Eucharist (Communion, Lord’s Supper) and Anointing of the sick required a priest to bless the bread and the oils, but any authorized person can perform the rest of the ceremony…

        Even most Catholic ignore those facts, and the Church isn’t eager to remind them…

  82. AGV

    And here I am without getting the joke

    1. Eldritch Gentleman

      I think it has to do with the Church looking a bit too Catholic-like for Joyce’s comfort.

    2. Agemegos

      I don’t think there is a joke, really. This is a dramatic bit.

    3. Nym

      The joke is that while the Episcopal church is very different in many of its beliefs and policies (see: our stances on divorce, gay people, female ministers, ministers marrying, etc. etc.), a bunch of the trappings and expressions of faith are similar or exactly the same.

      1. Richard

        Which isn’t a surprise, since the Episcopal church is an offshoot of the Church of England, which was only formed because Henry VIII wanted to divorce his wife (and had no other real issues with the Catholic Church).

        1. C.T Phipps

          To be fair, Henry was bendable on quite a few other points which would get people murdered like the clergy getting married but it really was all about establishing himself as head of the Church.

    4. Roger Sterling

      1. The Episcopal Church is very, very close to Catholicism. 2. As Joyce had an incredibly sheltered upbringing, she had no idea that was the case. 3. Baptists and their like hate hate *hate* Catholics.

      1. Roger Sterling

        Edit: Catholicism

  83. Andrew

    The Catholic Church was corrupt and it became more about amassing wealth, land and political power. A Catholic monk, Martin Luther, thought the Church needed to be reformed and get back to God. He was not the first or the last critic to call for reform, but his movement stuck and we got Lutheranism which believes in salvation through belief in Jesus (faith) alone and not works e.g. how many indulgences you bought from the pope, how much money you Paid to have masses and prayers said for after your death (the Catholic church taught that everyone goes to Purgatory at death, which is Hell lite, until sufficient prayers were said for the deceased to spring them to Heaven). Protestants also translated the bible from latin/greek/hebrew into the spoken language of each nation so the common people could read it and form their own relationship with God breaking the Catholic Church’s stranglehold on salvation. This lead to the slow evolution of many other Protestant sects whose beliefs and practices are different from one another. If I think what you ste preaching is incorrect, I can leave that church and start my own with those who also have my beliefs. They all believe in the worship of God and Jesus but differ in the specifcs and practices of that belief. Given that the bible is often vague or contradicts itself, this lead to a lot of different protestant sects.

    Henry VIII, being buds with pope and the political might that came with that relationship, initially condemned Luther’s reforms. But then he wanted a divorce (later, more than one divorce), the pope said no, and Henry decided that he would just make himself the head of the church in England. Thus was born Anglicanism/Episcopalianism/the Church of England. Basically keeping many of the trappings of the Catholics but with the king instead of the pope as the leader.

    The original zeitgeist of Protestantism is very alive in the United States in some Protestant sects and the closer you get to Catholicism, the more wary and uncomfortable those Protestants get. They see modern Catholics as worshiping the pope, Mary, and the saints with not much emphasis placed on God, the father, Jesus and reading and interpreting the bible, which they believe is God’s word passed directly to humanity from God.

    So clerical collars and vestments that set the priest outside and above the congregation members, gold gewgaws, litanies, and even communion, where the priest seems to be the person who controls salvation, are anathema to these Protestants.

    1. C.T Phipps

      Mind you, the situation in the Catholic Church versus Protestants also got troubled because plenty of the Protestants were, in simple terms, fucking nuts. John Knox, the founder of my church, for example had the view of Biblical literalism and all things in the Bible as true with every word inerrant. This becomes notable because much of Jesus’ ministry is TALKING ABOUT HOW THE BIBLE WAS WRONG. Sorry for the caps but needed for emphasis. So while the Catholic Church was in desperate need of reform, others became terrifying zealots. Good Queen Elizabeth, for example, murdered more Catholics than her sister “Bloody Mary” murdered Protestants. Ugly, ugly business.

    2. Galdan

      Fun fact. During Luther’s time, the dominant branch of Catholicism in the royal courst of western Europe was Erasmism. Henry VIII followed it, Emperor Charles of Germany and Spain followed it, and even Alonso Manrique, Inquisitor General and Archbishop of Seville and Alonso Fonseca, Archbishop of Toledo and primate of Spain, the two top bosses of Catholic Church in Spain at the time, were admirer of Erasmus.

      Erasmus proposed most the same reforms as Luther, before Luther himself did it, and it was considered 100% Catholic. People weren’t required to revere the saints (it was optional) or to buy indulgences (optional too, and many religious people, theologians and priest didn’t believe in their effectivity) or to obey the Pope in order to be considered Catholic (hell, Emperor Charles f***ing SACKED ROME AND CAPTURED THE POPE, and he wasn’t even the first Catholic monarch to do so!).

      The problem with Luther’s teaching was:

      1.-He said that Salvation is due to Faith alone, while Catholics argued that Christ had said that good deeds (if you were able to do those) were required too.

      2.-Luther refused to accept not only the authority of the Pope, but most important, of the General Councils of the Catholic Church, which represent the collective opinion of the theologians and religious leaders of all the Catholic Church. He claimed that everybody was able to come to the right interpretation of the Bible on their own, and that terrified the Catholic Church, which feared an explosion of different split churches, each following their own interpretation of the Bible.

      3.-Luther wanted the Church to disassemble its temporal (political, administrative and economic) structure and rely on monarchs (kings and princes) to do everything that lay believers couldn’t do individually (like, building Cathedrals, funding Colleges, supporting full-time teachers and theologians…etc.), and the German princes were like “HELLl, YEAH!” and the Catholic Church was like “HELL, NO!!!!”

      After Luther, Erasmus’s teaching were considered suspicious, and eventually, they were considered heretic. The cult of saints, the presence of religious icons and statues and the importance of ritual increased in relevance because they showed that you weren’t a Protestant, hence, they became almost mandatory (sort of the same way people ate pig in order to prove they weren’t Jew or Muslim).

      Some stuff that Protestants often consider to be among the causes of the split between Catholics and Protestants are really recent, from the XIX century: the Pope proclaimed himself infalible as a reaction against the rise of liberalism, trying to contain dissenting voices against him among the Catholics, and Mary wasn’t given special status among the saints until the XX century, trying to ride on a rise of popular admiration of her provoked by her supposed apparitions in places like Fatima and Lourdes…

      1. thejeff

        I’m not so sure. A lot of that sounds like revisionism. Erasmus may have pushed similar reforms and the practices may not have been officially mandatory, but they weren’t forbidden and still continued.
        And while something may have been codified in the XX century (not actually sure which aspect you’re referring to there), the veneration of Mary goes back deep into the early Church and grew over the centuries.

        1. Galdan

          Of course the practices I mentioned weren’t forbidden, millions of people, from lay people all the way up to Popes did those, the majority of Catholics, in fact, but nobody forced you to join, and you could denounce them without fear of reprisals. Erasmus denounced indulgences, superstitions and the excesses of the cult of saints, and the Spanish Inquisitors thenselves sympathized with his ideas.

          And long before Erasmus, the Cistersian monks, who became dominant in Europe for a time, wanted to strip churches and monasteries of most of the icons, statues and decorations. And mendicant orders denounced the wealth of the Church and the indulgences.

          The Cult of Mary is ancient, but her special status wasn’t part of the official dogma. She was just a saint. She became more than a saint only very recently.

          My point is, the real reasons Catholics and Protestants did split weren’t the ones most people believe today…

        2. thejeff

          And my point is “official dogma” doesn’t matter as much as actual practice, so those things that were actual practice are more likely to the the reasons for the split than the official dogma.

        3. Galdan

          Actually, the Exsurge Domine papal bull that censured some (41) of Luther’s propositions was all about official dogma, and said papal bull was the reason the Diet of Worms was convoked. And when Luther refused to renounce his propositions and escaped instead, the Diet condemned him, and several German princes helped protect and hide him against the Emperor, starting what eventually became a massive religious war… And the reasons argued to condemn him were his doctrine of Salvation through Faith only and his refusal to accept the authority of the Roman Church.

          Up until that point it was all a matter of Catholic theologians arguing with each other. Afterwards, people started to fight…

          Unlike Calvinus, Luther didn’t cause a split willingly, he wanted to reform the Catholic Church, and the reforms he originally demanded were mostly about indulgences and stuff like the existance of Purgatory and Salvation by Faith alone… Were not for a few propositions the Catholic Church found unacceptable, his followers would have remained a current within the Catholic Church that could even have had a chance to become dominant…

  84. kilgaen

    Man, I know you do niche jokes, Willis. But this is niche.

    1. Roger Sterling

      Hey my girlfriend’s maternal grandparents literally believe Catholicism and Satanism are just as unholy.

      They’re noticeably circumspect when it comes to my Atheism but they keep sending her brochures about the holy life.

      This is too real.

      1. Joli

        I guess the arguably central character of this comic is niche then

  85. Mr. Morningstar

    God help her if she ever winds up here in Ireland

    1. Eldritch Gentleman

      Which God though? Catholic or Protestant?

      1. DarkoNeko

        Yes.

      2. StClair

        Green or purple orange?

  86. Makkabee

    When I was an undergrad some Alabama-based organization distributed pamphlets on campus that used numerology to “prove” that the Pope was the anti-Christ. I wouldn’t be at all surprised if Joyce’s church distributed that pamphlet, or one very much like it, to its youth groups.

    And I know this is an Episcopal service, but High Church Episcopal uses a lot of the same ritual as the Catholics. After Vatican II there wasn’t even the “well, we’re not praying in Latin like they do” distinction anymore. So I’m not surprised Joyce is freaking out, though I am a bit surprised at how much.

  87. Scar Man!!!

    Now, I’m wondering about how she’d react to the ark and Torah veneration and ritual garments in my synagogue.

    Especially since I’m not sure how I feel about them anymore

    1. Roger Sterling

      Probably with a mixture of feigned understanding and benign contempt.

      1. Scar Man!!!

        …that’s sometimes my reaction, but I’m still offended.

        Rather ironic that Protestant fundamentalists actually eschew ritual

  88. Tommy Fresh

    Has anyone else noticed that Beatrice is signing the letter “B” in her character art? For some ASL speakers, that would be a common way for a Beatrice or Bea to sign their name. šŸ™‚

  89. Leila

    Remember Joyce: ALL Christians were Catholic until 15 June 1520.

    1. wynne

      1054, technically. Gotta love that schism.

    2. Lena

      *cough* Orthodox Church *cough*

      1. Lena

        Not to mention there’d been plenty of persecution about other disagreements. Council of Nicea anyone? Christians have always been good at being shits to each other honestly.

        1. StClair

          s/Christians/humans/

          carry on.

      2. thejeff

        Coptic Church *coughs some more*

        1. Peter

          I’d say something witty about Arianism, but I’m kinda worried that somebody will think I’m talking about Aryans, and have a fit.

        2. Arianod

          Liquorice lozenges, anyone?

    3. Liliet

      0.o

    4. Conuly

      Well, if we assume Christianity = Pauline Christianity, then maybe?

  90. wynne

    See as a Catholic, this is hilarious.

    (I will say thank you to Joyce for not implying that Catholics aren’t Christian somehow, bc that is my pet peeve. We’re the *originals*, ya jerks! Us and those Orthodox kids!)

    1. Eldritch Gentleman

      What a bunch of hipsters those protestants are, am I right?

      1. HeySo

        That association actually makes the attitudes of several churches I went to make a whole lot more sense. I mean, as much sense as hipster mentality ever makes.

    2. BigDogLittleCat

      How much progress Joyce has made, right? I bet when she started college she was in the “Catholics aren’t Christian” camp.

      1. thejeff

        I was worried she might be Catholic

    3. BP

      “So what kind of Christians are you?”
      “…The Jewish kind.”
      “Ohhh, the originals!”

  91. Nym

    “This looks kind of . . . Catholic-y to me.” And I started laughing, because I knew what was coming. There’s a reason our ex-Catholics call us Catholic-lite.

    But man, I know that feel, Joyce. The first time I went to the church of one of my friends as a kid, it was a huge shock how different everything was. There were individual chairs! People were in jeans! Members of the congregation occasionally shouted out things! THERE WAS A ROCK BAND. And suddenly I understood why she had been making weird, shocked faces the previous weekend, when she went to mine.

    1. wynne

      Oh god, an evangelical friend decided to come to the Catholic church with me and another friend on PALM SUNDAY of all days. The chanting. The incense. Everyone talking in unison (if she’d come a year or two later she’d have been there during the liturgy switch, when at least everyone else would be struggling to read the right response from the little card too). She was rather freaked out, to say the least.

      I will say that as someone who had 99% of their religious education in either a Catholic church or a synagogue (aka. lots of ritual and tradition and speak-singing), it was rather eye-opening to see all that stuff from the pov of someone who hadn’t. Really drives home how weird it all is from the outside.

  92. coeurdechoeur

    Oooh! The Bishop is there! Joyce will get to see baptisms and confirmations!

  93. hof1991

    As an historian of sorts, the first histories of the US were written as “good Christans flee bad ones and kill the devil worshipping natives”. Later it became that solid Protestants were the only ones good at democracy, since every one else is idol worshipping slaves. England good, Spain and France bad, because Catholic. Historiography is fun.

    1. Peter

      As an actual historian, can confirm.

  94. Deanatay

    Ooh, I just got it.

    This is ‘Facing the Strange’ for Joyce, isn’t it?

    1. Eldritch Gentleman

      Might be closer to “Visit to Mordor” and expecting Nazguls or Orks to jump out on her any minute.

  95. Oresthin

    But actually, why didn’t Joyce… y’know, wikipedia or google the episcopalians? It’s not like our Catholic-liteness isn’t rather well-known.

    1. Oresthin

      Also, OMG THIS IS THE BEST GRAVATAR EVAR!!!

    2. Kamino Neko

      Why would she?

      They’re Protestants, and therefor necessarily do churching right, not like those Papist heretics.

  96. Cerberus

    Comic Reactions:

    Panel 1: Ah, yes, rapturist fundie culture and catholics. So yeah, this was a big thing growing up. Like, that community loathes catholicism, views it as essentially an organ in service to the Antichrist and looks for any opportunity to look down on them.

    When I was growing up, the Catholic Church’s attempt at burying its rapist priests got revealed and the fundies I was surrounded by loved every second of it. They would jeer at the catholic students and tease them about it and made pronouncements of how this proved their own moral superiority even though similar things happened in their churches.

    It’s a really hateful movement.

    Panel 2: But here it’s made more complicated. Joyce is terrible with change and she’s got a lot of baggage about what a church should and should not look like and still believes what she was indoctrinated in that the devil will work through non-fundie church structures.

    And I think the most telling thing is Becky’s face. She knows this is the beginning of full blown panic attack and is trying to figure out what to do.

    Panels 3-5: It’s always amusing how much fundie culture looks down on “pageantry” even when they pack into megachurches with stadium seating, TVs for back seats, and other forms of whizz-bangery.

    1. Bagge

      In that context it is so telling for Becky’s character that a) she is nowhere near a panic attack herself, despite her having the same religious background as Joyce, and b) her first impuls is to figure out how to help Joyce (bless her heart).

      Becky is good at change (because she had to be), and in contrast to Joyce, SHE is not going through a religious crisis. She is perfectly cool with a God that answers lesbian prayers (even if he might be a bit of a slowpoke when it comes to seasonal change), and she is much less hung up on how a church is “supposed to be”.

      She will make sure Joyce is OK, snigger at the priest-dude with the funny stick, chat up the queerest lady she can find and send God a quick “thanks for the dinosaur chick, bro”-prayer, and all things considered have a great time. Again – Becky’s religion is one to envy.

    2. roteg

      I’ve been so confused by Joyce’s church, only because I grew up with similar family/beliefs/etc but her church was the type my family considered a “hippie” church. All that non-godly music! Sometimes using “rock’n’roll” which was the devil’s beats! Casual clothing!

      So yeah, to see this church considered the “hippie” church (plus the eeeevil Catholic trappings, which yes I remember the talks about that too) makes me laugh probably more than I should.

      Also, I second how awesome this comment section is for learning about different religions/religious upbringings without fighting. So nice. šŸ™‚

      1. Rukdug

        I’ll be honest. I was pretty close to blowing up at someone. They used “orks” instead of “orcs” when referring to Mordor. I can only hope that Tolkien forgives them.

    3. Rukdug

      I grew up in central Michigan, so I didn’t get exposed to the massive hate movement targeted at Catholics like me until moving to CA. So my reaction is generally one of laughter. I find it legitimately funny that they think I’m some devil worshipper because I (sometimes) listen to man in Rome with the funny hat and prefer some good old iconography with my church decor. And there was also the little thoughts in my head like, “Oh, so you believe that the earth was made in a week because Genesis says so, but Jesus literally saying ‘This is my body’ at the last supper isn’t? The hell kind of sense does that make?” At other times, I kinda, feel sorry for them. That they just feel this need to latch onto something to hate and designate as “the other”. How scared do you have to be to think and feel like that?

      1. StClair

        IMO? As scared as most any human, trying to form an identity and a tribe to belong to.

    4. StClair

      3-5: yeah, but those are old forms of ritual (and corruption), the ones the Enemy practices! the new forms are A-OK, rite?

    5. BP

      Yeah, what exactly is the difference between their actual gorram rock bands and our just some incense and an organ and sometimes a choir?

    6. ValdVin

      “Becky knows this is the beginning of full blown panic attack and is trying to figure out what to do.”

      Plan A: Make sure Joyce’s wafer and communion wine don’t touch? Already done.

      I sure hope Becky has a Plan B.

      But seriously I did pass over Becky’s face until that spark of recognition was mentioned.

  97. Jenny Islander

    CAAAAAAALLLED IIIIIIT.

    Wait till she finds out that ECUSA churches are gay friendly!

    1. a/snow mous/e

      Considering that she’s now gay-friendly, she might decide to give them a second chance.

      …But then she’ll probably freak out again.

    2. ValdVin

      Joyce knows that, which is one reason she accepted the invite.

      However, making this known to her mom and her oldest brother, and some of her home church’s folks…let’s say that’s something else. Hoping the ‘Hank’ side of her comes thru.

      http://www.dumbingofage.com/2017/comic/book-7/02-everything-youve-ever-wanted/episcopalian/

    3. DinaWho

      I think that came up when Jacob invited her.

    4. Jenny Islander

      …oh, right, she already knows–forgot that part.

  98. Daphne

    The stole is purple so must be advent or lent. Episcopal priests wear different liturgical colors based on season.

    1. Jenny Islander

      Based on the colors of the trees, I’m guessing 1st Sunday of Advent. On the other hand, my monitor is making it look maroon, so maybe it’s actually red and there’s a saint’s day going on.

      1. bucket

        But that’s odd. In-comic, it’s October, and Advent occurs in the 4 weeks leading up to Christmas, so December, essentially. I think (been areligious a long time, so memory’s hazy) it’s still be “Ordinary Time” with green vestments. I assume it’s just a detail Willis missed.

        1. bucket

          Dunno why, but I had to google it. From Walkypedia, it’s Sunday OCt 10 in universe. This year, that Sunday is closest to Oct 8, which is the Eighteenth Sunday after Pentecost, so, looks like it should be green. https://www.episcopalchurch.org/library/glossary/liturgical-colors

        2. Daphne

          On of the other interesting things about Episcopalians ( assuming true of most other Anglicans ) is that the Book of Common Prayers has a complicated set of tables that can be used to figure out the service based on the date. For example Oct 10 has the following entry in the book of common prayer on page 28. “10 c [Vida Dutton Scudder, Educator and Witness for Peace, 1954]”. The lower-case c can be mapped to which years have Sundays on letter c days and even has rules for figuring out for leap years. From the table on page 881 shows that Sundays with letter c occur in 2010, 2004, 1999, 1993, 1982, 1976 etc. Assuming the year was 2010, applying the formula on page 888 would result in it being Year A of the lectionary. Which looking at the entry on page 899 shows it would be Proper 23; old testament Exodus 32:1-4 Psalm 106:1-6,19-23 or Isaiah 25:1-9 Psalm 23. With Philippians 4:1-9 and Matthew 22:1-14 from the new testament. Sometimes I wonder if part of my interest in math and algorithms come from browsing those tables. Speaking of the BCP; I recall thinking when I was a kid that the book of common prayer was more important then the Bible.

        3. Jenny Islander

          Sometimes a priest wears their favorite “statement” stole or one that was a present regardless of the season. But the vest underneath is definitely red, so I think they’re celebrating a saint, specifically a martyr.

          Hmmmm. *google google* No martyrs whose days don’t fall on or closer to a different Sunday–OH! I forgot! It’s also used for ordination!

          Oh boy, she’s going to get allllll the semi-papist smells, bells, and yells. There’s a bishop on the premises and there will be kneeling and laying on of hands, but like nothing she’s ever seen.

          Or Willis just a detail.

  99. Jdorr

    Reading what I did at the top of the comics is just wonderful (at least the part I read) since it is just people discussing religion in a calm civil manner. No insults, arguments, or hate just discussions and explanations. Good job at being good humans who surpass the stereotypes of religious discussions on the internet

    1. Bagge

      This is a pretty great forum, in part thanks to awesome people, in part thanks to good moderation.

  100. Matt Dullaghan

    Joyce about to get that diet catholic experience

    1. Ryek Hvek

      “All the guilt, but only half the calories”

  101. Smooti

    Forgive my ignorance here but what does her church service look like if these sites are weird to her??? I know we’ve seen her church but we didn’t get to see much.

    1. Daibhid C

      Okay, I’m probably not qualified to answer this, since I did not grow up in an American fundamentalist community, but based on past comics and my own mustn’t-look-like-Catholics church experiences, I’m prepared to give it a go.

      Joyce’s church, from the outside, looks like this, and could be anything from a school to a small business (it’s later stated to be a former school), so just looking like what the uninitiated think of as a church is a black mark. (I know there are Scottish churches that are heavily against stained glass, or if you must have it then it should be abstract.)

      My own experiences with Scottish Presbyterianism haven’t exactly been the ye-can-catch-Papery-frae-excessive-decoration denominations, but I can tell you the minister doesn’t usually wear vestments or carry a crozier, and there definitely isn’t somebody else in a cassock holding some kind of crucifix-on-a-stick. And Joyce’s pastor doesn’t even have a clerical collar, so all of this is probably striking her as Catholic. What she’s basically looking for – I think – is a simple auditorium, with a plain lectern and a single unadorned cross behind it.

      1. Smooti

        That person is a crucifer, and I had no idea it was a weird thing for a church to do! I guess for the sake of clarity I went to Lutheran churches as a kid. I always thought of us as Protestant but as I’ve gotten older have been told more and more that it’s just “Catholic lite”. Which I guess are Joyce’s feelings here too.

        1. Rukdug

          Well, let’s put it this way. If the Catholic Church is Coke, then an Episcopal church is Diet Coke, and a Lutheran Church is Coke Zero. They’re all still Coke, but there’s some secret difference that almost none of us really understand besides the fact that they taste a bit different.

    2. StClair

      Check Willis’ twitter (in the box up on the right side) for recent posts. His childhood (and thus, Joyce’s) experience with church eschews pretty much all of the ritual and trappings – it’s almost literally the “bargain basement” (and thus, in their eyes, “fundamental”) version.

  102. miina

    LOL I grew up Catholic and some of my friends responded like this when they found out. Episcopal churches seem cool. I went to an Anglican service in England once in this centuries old stone church that was incredible.

  103. Derek

    So what I’m gathering is that Joyce-sect thinks that Catholicism is just as bad as Satanism. So if I wanted to shock and upset her, should I say I’m a Catholic or a Satanist? which one will get the bigger reaction?

    1. Mkvenner

      This not the first time Joyce has had “issues ” with Catholicism.

  104. Potatamoto

    Oh baby, look at that bright airy narthex. And they’ve got that light, flaky eucharist. Mmmm, I wouldn’t mind dipping my hand in their font.

  105. King Daniel

    Since no one has said it yet…lookit Joyce’s faaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaace

  106. Tenn

    It seems that Only American Protestants Will Get This Joke, because to this European atheist who’s only ever been inside protestant churches, there’s nothing here that strikes me as catholic-y. I mean, I’m not even sure what I’m supposed to be looking at. Is it just the crosses? Is it the priest’s collar? Is it the cane? (Actually, I don’t know if I’ve ever seen that one before.)

    My only notion of catholic churches comes from crime dramas, and they’ve taught me that:

    1. There’s dark wood, dark leather and/or dark red velvet. No bright colors. This may be the set decorator’s fault.
    2. There’s that little booth where you can admit that you touch yourself at night or that you’ve killed someone. The latter might be more common in the dramas than in reality.

    1. Tenn

      OTOH, again from my European perspective, there’s one thing about Joyce’s church that’s extremely catholic-y: the heavy anti-abortion stance.

      I mean, that’s what defines catholicism to me. No female priests, no contraceptives, no abortion. The rest is just superficial (insert shocked Joyceface here). So it’s kind of funny to me that American fundamentalists can be so rabidly anti-abortion and still think catholicism is satanism.

      It feels good to be a heathen! ^_^

      1. C.T Phipps

        Which churches in Europe aren’t anti-abortion? I ask because it’s pretty much the default state in America.

        1. C.T Phipps

          And in America the big decider is Catholics don’t believe people who are non-this specific group of Protestantism are damned for all eternity. That’s a big difference.

        2. Jenny Islander

          If you’re interested in the history of this issue, here’s a blog for ya:

          http://www.patheos.com/blogs/slacktivist/

          Specifically, this entry:

          http://www.patheos.com/blogs/slacktivist/2012/02/18/the-biblical-view-thats-younger-than-the-happy-meal/

          The “biblical [view] that’s younger than the Happy Meal” referred to in the URL is that human life begins at conception.

          Scrolling down the front page will take you to a series of posts on Ethics: Alternatives and Issues by Norman Geisler, which was published before the Great Rewrite of History and Memory regarding abortion. Here’s the first one:

          http://www.patheos.com/blogs/slacktivist/2017/09/11/white-evangelicalism-1975-change-pt-1/

          American Fundamentalist Protestantism has been about throwing out the unwanted chapters of history from the start, originally in the name of pruning human adulteration away from the pure Word of God, but lately in the cause of getting large masses of voters and donors to do as they are told.

        3. ValdVin

          Patheos is a neat website and I will read those. While eating a Happy Meal, or Fifty. McNuggets.

        4. Regret

          Here’s an interesting take on the subject:
          http://www.slate.com/blogs/xx_factor/2013/08/06/abortion_in_europe_and_america_to_understand_the_difference_you_can_t_ignore.html

        5. Tenn

          Protestant churches in Europe aren’t anti-abortion, at least not any that I’ve heard about. Individual protestant christians can certainly still be against abortion, but it’s not mandated.

    2. Rukdug

      As an American Catholic let me just say
      1. Yeah that’s the set decorators fault. They’re trying to go for a sort of dark, gothic, stained-glass type of look that is not as common as it once was. A paler, often white, interior is favored here in California.
      2. Sometimes we make that booth really hard to find from just walking in, so no one else knows that you went to tell the priest about touching yourself or murdering someone (I have no idea what exactly the ratio is for that), and you can just say you where using the bathroom after lighting a candle and saying a little prayer instead of admitting you were telling the priest about your faults.

  107. Micki

    ELL OH ELL
    You’d think Joyce would know that Episcopalian is “Catholic lite.” But, actually, I guess being very religious =/= being an expert on religions.

    1. Conuly

      Quite the contrary, even.

      1. Joli

        I grew up Baptist and didn’t know what the Episcopalian church was like until I was, well, a college student

  108. Lara

    I’ve only ever been to a Catholic church and didn’t realize any of this stuff was weird. do other churches not cover every surface in crosses?

    1. Conuly

      Crosses != crucifixes

  109. Joebo

    As a recovering altar boy, I can tell you that getting to carry the big cross down the center aisle was awesome.

    1. Joebo

      And for the record, all of the priests in my life were awesome, so nothing like THAT. I’m just recovering from being Catholic.

      1. ValdVin

        Fellow Catholic also using “recovering”. And I also just gave it up, right after confirmation, none of scandals which have come to light since.

        On times I go to a Protestant church I have to remind myself things look different.

  110. Jan

    As a Filipino Catholic, I have to say, it’s interesting for me to see how evangelical Protestants from other countries react to being inside a… uhm… “Catholic” church.

    (And yeah, I know this is exaggerated but there’s a nugget of truth in this comic, somewhere)

  111. SgtWadeyWilson

    Honestly, Joyce’s reaction is the same as mine was the first four times I walked into churches.

    *Inner monologues.*
    “These monotheists are weird!”
    “Why isn’t this similar to the last one?!”
    “Why are they so inconsistent?!”
    “…and another one, really?!”

    In retrospect, it’s interesting that the relatives I’ve been to the weddings of had such a varied selection of churches…

  112. Black

    I really don’t understand this shit, as an atheist; it’s all Christianity, right? So why is she freaking the fuck out right now?

    1. EvolutionistX

      Certain Protestant denominations (such as Joyce’s) regard Catholics as non-Christian. Episcopalians are technically considered “Protestant” but have a lot of the same look/feel as Catholicism, so Joyce feels like she just walked into some kind of pagan den of Catholicism.

      1. Black

        Almost none of that makes any sense to me. I don’t know what a Episcopalian is, nor do I know what a Protestant is, so… *shrugs*

  113. Jhon

    NOOOOOO
    It’s a trap!
    joyce, run!

  114. Joli

    But the Catholic-ish stuff was Rich’s best material

  115. BP

    … I just remembered when I used to volunteer at a nursing home in my teens, how there was a Baptist ceremony going on one day and one of the church people asked me if I was religious. He looked so disappointed for a second when I told him I was Catholic before backtracking and saying basically what Joyce says in panel 2.

    Once I realized what he meant, I was rather offended. XP

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