WASHINGTON, D.C.: In a bold move completely defying more than 200 years of practice, Church and State have announced the end of their separation. “Reunited and it feels so good,” crooned State at a recent press conference, held at The Right Way Church of Jesus Christ Almighty.
In his opening remarks, State confessed, ”After many years of denying our mutual attraction, after years of pretending our separation was still an actual foundational tenet of our democracy, Church and I are thrilled to announce that we are officially ‘in a relationship’.”
Standing beside State at the pulpit, Church added, “We tried to keep ‘the wall’ up, God knows. I mean that literally - God and I talk all the time - and God was like, ‘I don’t think a Theocracy is a very good idea.There’s lots of different versions of me so it’s probably not fair to invoke the ultra-right Christian one in decisions about bodily autonomy or making wedding cakes for gay folks or what to teach in school. Not to mention the people who question my very existence. You should stay away from that State.’” But I was all “Whatever, see ya later Big Guy, I got a book burning at the Capitol to get to.”
Continued State: “And between the relatively small but very loud number of Evangelicals, the fundamentalist Christian members of Congress and all those extremist Catholics on the Supreme Court, well, it became obvious how involved Church and I really were. Are.”
In an attempt to justify their relationship, Church noted that “91% of our congressional representatives identify as Christian. Not to be judgy, but pretty much all the heathens are Democrats! That explains A LOT. Now, overlooking the fact that only 63% of the US population identifies as Christian, I think we can assume that the people of this great country truly want Church and State to be closer than two roaches on a bacon bit.”
To support that reasoning, Church cited New York City Mayor Eric Adams’ recent outlandish remarks at an interfaith breakfast where he unequivocally stated his belief that, “State is the body, Church is the heart. You take the heart out of the body, the body dies.” Breezing right past that terrifying revelation, State then went on to assure the public that, “Let me be clear: I have never been with Mosque or Synagogue or Temple. It’s always been Church and only Church.”
In a demonstration of yet another mangling of our constitution, Church told reporters, “We’ll take a few questions now. And because of the whole free speech thing, we’re free to only answer the questions we want to answer.”
When asked how long Church and State had been carrying on, the two entities looked at each other, smiled sheepishly and said, “Well, in some folks' minds, since the 1770’s…but things really started heating up in the 1970’s, thanks to Pastor Jerry Falwell. The work he did to merge politics with the Christian religion, using reproductive rights as a way to move the white supremacists off of segregation and on to the more acceptable issue of abortion galvanized clans of white folks who became perfectly comfortable blurring the lines between religious beliefs and actual facts.”
Church and State were then reminded that George Washington is on the record as having stated, "The government of the United States is not in any sense founded on the Christian religion...," to which, after a long, awkward pause, they replied, “Time's up, thanks for coming. We gotta get to Lauren Boebert's bar-b-que. Praise the Lord!,” and abruptly ended the press conference.
By Christine Stevens