Separation of Church and Soap

While my mother-in-law hasn't given up hope in converting my children to Christianity via illustrated bible stories and Christmas plays, I'm pretty sure she's given up on me -- not that she tried too hard.

However, I think she has spies.

Which brings me to today as I was showering (calm down ladies, there are no pictures or video -- unless you pay).

Apparently, my soap is trying to convert me.

I never paid attention to it before, but our purple and white bottle of Dr. Bronner's all-purpose soap is literally covered in religious rhetoric.

Here's a taste (which starts off nice enough): "The whole World is our country, our fatherland, because all mankind are born its Citizens! We're all Brothers & Sisters because One, ever-loving Eternal Father is our only God, & all-One-God-Faith reunites God's legion."

Now, right off the bat, the word "legion" scares the shit out of me. Pehaps because it sounds like "lesion" another nasty word, but probably because for some reason I think of the devil when I hear that word. Isn't satan quoted with saying "I am Legion?" Maybe that was Lex Luthor. Either way, those are both bad people (and fictional) but the word leaves a bad taste in my mouth.

Here's another quote: "The 2nd coming of God's Law! Mohammad's Arabs, 1948, found Israel Essence Scrolls & Einstein's 'Hillel' prove that as no 6-year-old can grow up free without the ABC, so certain can no 12-year-old survive free without the Moral ABC mason, tent & sandalmaker Rabbi Hillel taught carpenter Jesus to unite all mankind free in our Eternal Father's great All-One-God-Faith!"

Now, I've never met a crackhead (at least not formally) but I'm pretty sure that Dr. Bronner was on something when he made the marketing decision to splash religious gobbeldy-gook all over his fine product. I mean the irony is that someone who has the sentence structure and historical accuracy of a stumbling hobo has ended up making a terribly good soap.

However, after doing some research it turns out Dr. Bronner was a crusading Jewish soap maker from Germany whose parents were killed in Nazi Death Camps, so yeah, if you're asking if I feel like an ass for calling him a hobo, I kind of do. But still, if Dove soap started proclaiming the second coming of anything, I like to think we'd have a national fit.

Truth is Dr. Bronner's is a natural, hemp soap so its very possible anyone using it is just too high to pay attention. And really, who cares what a bunch of weed-smoking, vegans think about separation of church and soap?