It Was a Dark and Stormy Night

Happy Happy Church! 
(Trains in the Sky)

Sir Edward Bulwer-Lytton was a British author made famous in the modern era from the Peanuts cartoon character, Snoopy, and his eternal quest to write a book beginning with Bulwer-Lytton’s classic opening, “It was a dark and stormy night.” 

"The sardonic Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest, held annually since 1982, claims to seek the opening sentence of the worst of all possible novels - that is, one which is deliberately bad."

Below are a few bad first sentences from books in the religion category.

PAPAL AUDIENCE SERIES: "Planes and Trains and Acrobats" - Riding his magic carpet made of steel across the Vatican sky over St Peter's (because he no longer trusted Boeing 747's Shepherd One) the pope, in his best Arlo Guthrie impersonation, sang, "Good morning, TLM Catholics, how are ya?" then in a sinister voice said, "Have you not heard the news that before the day is done, one more feckless rigid doctrine will have faded like a bad dream into the disappearing Catholic Church?" but suddenly his train fell from the sky crashing into Santa Marta where the numerous scantily-clad Vatican acrobats were housed.

It was a dark and stormy night in the Amazon

Remember Snoopy from the Peanuts cartoon and his eternal quest to write a book beginning with Bulwer-Lytton's classic opening, It was a dark and stormy night? Bulwer-Lytton was a British author who wrote exceptionally bad prose, and the Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest is an annual event asking entrants to compose the worst possible opening sentence to a novel by using atrocious prose with terrible strings of adjectives ranging in categories from general to western, science fiction, romance and so on. Now a new genre has been added - the Amazon. It's in the religion category under the subcategory of heresy. 

Book title - Feathers: The Current State of the Amazonian (Catholic) Church 
Heresy hung heavy over Rome like a dank dark cloud of doom dripping its poison to form one giant river of Amazonian theology that flowed unimpeded through the Church with tributary streams to the parishes, trickling down to the soul of each and every man, woman and child, therefore, despite the flood of new pagan rituals, parish tree plantings and idol worship, the loss of faith soared.