New Hampshire’s godless Church of the Sword (COTS) will soon learn whether its bid to be recognised as a ‘true’ religious entity has been successful.
The church – famous for its pies and playful sword fights – last week went to the New Hampshire Supreme Court to appeal an early court ruling that said COTS was simply not a “real” religion because it doesn’t worship any supreme being.
Church founder Kevin Bloom is reported here as saying:
We disagree, naturally, and so do Taoists and Buddhists, among others.
The church had a pastor living in some property it had been gifted, and when they filed to remove it from property tax rolls as a parsonage, as church’s do, back in April 2014, their filing was denied. (The annual tax due would be around $3,200.)
The church reportedly has 263 church members, with an average of 25 showing up at any given weekly meeting, which happen at a variety of locations, both indoors and out.
Their hymns are called “jams” and they use cider for communion during a “Ritual of Disobedience”.
Also, at the end of each service, there’s “The Ritual of Pie”.
Other religions transform wine and grape juice and bread into flesh and blood, we transmute other baked products into pie.
But above all, there’s “The Ritual of Combat” – series of sword fights with foam-covered weapons. Everyone at the service participates in at least one bout, and if they don’t, they’re tagged anyway in the ceremonial “slaughter of the innocents”.
The most challenging feat on the way to becoming a pastor is to win six of 10 duels with fighters hand-selected by the pastors.
Said Bloom:
We only have one ritual that we borrowed from the established religious organizations, and we call it begging for money.