Mathewsonism
From JUOD
Mathewsonism (adj. form Mathewsonist) is a monotheistic religion centered on Harley P. Mathewson, and on his life and teachings as presented in the Verities of Joining. Today, Mathewsonism is divided primarily into three traditions: Joino-Mathewsonism, Joinology, and Ders-muus-eh. These three sects differ in many ways, but all agree that joining is the only way to avoid death. Officially founded in 1889, Mathewsonism continues to attract followers worldwide, and Mathewson insists that it is a major world religion.
Founding of the Church of Mathewson
Scholars still debate over what prompted Mathewson's decision to not initiate into the Alpha Tau Chapter of Beta Theta Pi (of which he was helping found), but some believe that the fraternity's secret philosophy was inconsistant to the essense of Mathewson's being. It is commonly believed that Mathewson spent a year wandering the Kansas countryside, in an attempt to find, as he puts it in the Verities of Joining, his "center". At the end of his wandering, Mathewson realized that in order to find his center, he must be everyone's center, and thus the Church of Mathewson was founded.
The Accidental Schism
One night, while drinking heavily at a local bar in Lenexa, Kansas, Mathewson demanded that everyone there must renounce their faith and join him in his new Church of Mathewson, threatening them with certain death. Most everyone there knew of Mathewson's reputation as an immortal vampire and gathered around him to learn more of his church. Mathewson presented them with the Verities of Joining and demanded that they leave their current lives to study his life's work and follow him with unquestionable faith. A man by the name of Jethro Hawkins, the local town drunk, questioned Mathewson and asked how they were to learn his ways if they didn't speak New Canadianese, the language in which most of the Verities was written. With a single glare, Mathewson turned the man into a bowl full of orange flavored Jell-O, which he consumed in front of his new followers.
For several weeks his new followers struggled to learn from the Verities of Learning and continued to fail (and consequentially be turned into various gelatinous desserts). Finally, Mathewson was left with only three followers: Franklin Hergort, the former town priest, Lowell Bizentine, a Boeing rocket scientist, and Muhammad Jones, a fifth generation Syrian immigrant. He decided that he would translate a copy of the Verities of Joining for each of his remaining followers. He translated the Verities into English for Bizentine, King James English for Hergort, and Arabic for Jones. He then told them that he was bored with all of this "churchy non-sense" so they should go out into the world and spread his wisdom, or he would find them and kill them himself.
Unfortunately, by sending out his remaining followers the Church of Mathewson was doomed to division. This is largely because Mathewson was not proficient at any of the languages he transated the Verities in to and as a result, the translations varied greatly. Thus, the three traditions of Mathewsonism: Joino-Mathewsonism (Hergort-King James English), Joinology (Bizentine-English), and Ders-muus-eh (Jones-Arabic).
