From the “you-couldn’t-make-it-up” files:
Much has already been said on this story (notably by P Z Myers from whom I nicked it). Pastor Jon Knudsen, of the Løkken Free Church in Vendsyssel, Jutland, has declared his lack of rationality – dare I even say sanity – in a particularly public way.
He’s convinced that elves are not only real, but are somehow destroying xmas.
In retaliation to the spiritual war raging so bitterly in his mind, Pastor Joke decided to lynch an elf outside his church. For some reason unable to find a suitable victim, he was forced to improvise and instead string up a toy elf, adorning it with a sign reading “we reject Satan and all his works and all his empty promises” in an attempt to shed some light on his obscure point.
It would be all too easy to make a joke about dyslexia here, but instead I’ll note in passing that the irony of this mock execution taking place next to a perfectly good crucifix hasn’t gone unnoticed.
Anyway, according to the good pastor:
decorating with elves at Christmas was “comparable to decorating with Nazi flags”, and described elves of all sorts as “poltergeists that come from the devil and make children sick”.
Which tells me considerably more about his state of mind than I really wanted to know. Ah well, xmas is a time for nuts I suppose.
In retaliation for this murder of one of their own, a group of garden-variety gnomes staged a protest vigil outside the church, although I rather suspect that their presence owed more to humans taking the piss than anything supernatural. Call me Mr Cynic.
Okay, enough mocking of the afflicted for now. Knudsen presumably wanted to stage a protest about fairytale characters such as elves distracting people from the message of the fairytale character of Jesus, or something. It just strikes me as ironic that he chose to do this by decorating his church with an elf.
Kepler's Dream 