Theological Clerihews – Heaven & Mirth

Edmund Clerihew Bentley

Spiritual Sunday

The clerihew is a whimsical four-line verse form that sums up a famous individual in a offbeat but accurate enough way. It starts off with a rhyme on the subject’s name (the whackier the rhyme, the more fun) and follows this up with a second rhyming couplet. The lines vary in length for comic effect. The humor often lies in the juxtaposition of elevated sentiments and all-too-human foibles.

Clarihews were the invention of Edmund Clerihew Bentley, whose collection Biography for Beginners appeared in 1905. Since then, a number of major poets have tried their hand at them, including G. K. Chesterton and W. H. Auden. Bentley wrote some absolute gems on King George III, social philosopher John Stuart Mill, and homosexual architect Christopher Wren:

George the Third
Ought never to have occurred.
One can only wonder
At so grotesque a blunder.

John Stuart Mill,
By a mighty effort of will,
Overcame his natural bonhomie
And wrote Principles of Political Economy.

Sir Christopher Wren
Said, “I am going to dine with some men.
If anyone calls
Say I am designing St. Paul’s.”

Believing that humor is divine and that God loves a good laugh, I share a number of Scott Bates’s clerihews on ecclesiastical figures. My father has been writing them since 1968, and as they will test your knowledge of church history, feel free to resort to Wikipedia if there are ones you don’t understand. Many of them are theologically very smart and witty, managing (as the best clerihews do) to go to the heart of profound questions and contradictions. A number, for instance, probe the fraught relationship between our spiritual and our earthly sides, such as St. Paul’s difficulties with sexuality and St. Augustine’s obsession with earthly desires. Enjoy:

Jesus’s
Thesis is
Love thy neighbor
And vote labor. 

St. Paul
Explained it all
Except the thistle
In his Epistle

St. Augustine
Found people disgustin’,
Lascivious and base.
Fortunately, he had grace.

Pierre Abelard
Went decidedly too far
But that hardly justifies
Cutting off his family ties.

Saint Simeon Stylites
Didn’t have any nighties;
“But that’s all right,” he said,
“I don’t have any bed.”

Saint Francis
Dances
In little flowers
Over principalities and powers.

Saint Thomas Aquinas
Caught a cold in his sinus
While traveling the route
Between Reasonable Universals and the Irrational Absolute.

Tomas de Torquemada
Went from bad to badda
And turned the screws
On Spanish Jews.

Giralomo Savonarola
For attacking the payola
Of the current pope
Was paid in rope. 

Nicholas Copernicus
Didn’t make any fuss–
He turned the universe upside down
And quietly left town.

Saint Thomas More
Found much to deplore
In Henry’s weddings
Not to mention his beheadings.

Martin Luther
Grew progressively uncouther
Until he took out his constipation
On the whole Reformation.

Thomas Cranmer
Had trouble with his grammar.
Can we prune his magnificent plant?
Some Anglican and some Anglican’t. 

The distaste of John Knox
For royal jocks
Is the first criterion
Of a good Presbyterian.

Nobody every suggested to John Calvin
That his conscience needed salvin’;
It was not something you would expect
Of one of the Elect.

Miguel Serveto
Picked up a hot potato
When he questioned the Trinity
In Calvin’s vicinity.

Giordano Bruno
Was numero uno
On the Church’s hit list
(He was a pantheist). 

Richard Hooker
Was not a good-looker
And his wife was a mess
Which explains his studiousness. 

Ann Hutchinson
Was an Antinomian
Which meant that she could do
What she wanted to.

George Fox
Took a lot of hard knocks
When he opined
That he was a friend of all mankind. 

William Penn
Quit Aldermen
To go shares
With Delawares.

Cotton Mther
Could never quite gather
Which witch
Was which.

Jonathan Swift
Was frequently miffed
By shrews
And yahoos. 

Jonathan Edwards
Cast his congregation headwards
Under the chastening rod
Of an angry God.

It is debatable whether John Wesley
Would have admired Elvis Presley
Except as an energetic
Peripatetic.

Mother Ann Lee
Preached celibacy
So her posterity either went defunct
Or flunked. 

Bringham Young
Lived happily among
Twenty-seven wives;
His tribe survives.

Ralph Waldo Emerson
Thought it fun
To be swallowed whole
By the Oversoul.

Joseph Smith
In concert with
The angel Moroni
Wrote a lot of baloney.

Henry Ward Beecher
As a dedicated preacher
Shared his spiritual life
With his neighbor’s wife.

Mary Baker Eddy
Got increasingly unsteady
Until she found herself in the difficult position
Of having to call a physician. 

Paul Tillich
Seemed idyllic
Till Hannah found his forbidden fruits
Hiding behind his absolutes. 

Karl Barth
Found a hospitable hearth
Among the Swiss
Away from the abyss. 

Dietrich Bonhoeffer
Reluctantly accepted the offer
To act in the thriller
To Kill the Killer.

John Paul the Second
Never reckoned
That priestly joys
Included little boys.

Jimmy Bakker
Loved his Maker
And built a theme-park of milk and honey
With his Maker’s money.

Jimmy Swaggart
Was a sanctimonious braggart
Who was caught in the act
When up he shacked.

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