And I said, "Mime 'er? I barely know her!"

ISSA has seen some weirdness in its day: Hecklers who inexplicably insist we're holocaust deniers during biblical discussions... Drunk folks who somehow mistake our fundraising efforts to help orphans for aquatic ventures and insist, "No, I don't like dolphins..." The Jed-Man praising our group's organizational feats... I could go on. But this past week, something happened that really takes the cake.

Following our part in this year's SSA Week Blogathon -- in which we gave away one of our popular Atheism/Portal shirts to one lucky donor to the SSA, chosen at random -- we received this email from  a pretty cool dude who decided that those odds weren't enough for him and he was going to straight-up buy himself a shirt.

He later informed me that he was mostly being facetious -- apart from the blog thing, and here I am a-blogging. But enough about that; the kicker is the shirt he received in lieu of ours. Let's take a closer look.

That's right, Mime Ministry. I briefly considered the possibility that "Mime" could be the name of the founder of the church or something, but a quick googling set me straight -- turns out, it's an honest-to-god congregation of mimes.

Here's a video of Ebenezer in action.

Another googling revealed that there are, in fact, a handful of these across the United States. There's even a guide on Amazon for "organizing, programming and training a troupe of Christian mimes". Color me speechless.


That begs the question: How is this a thing? On a personal note, I'm suddenly riddled with concerns that all of the mimes I've seen in my life were in fact rabid evangelicals and I mistook their "good news" gestures for humorous antics.


And I wish I could end this post more pointedly. With some sort of lesson, maybe. Like this:

...I've got nothing. Look at this freakin' mime church!