Sure, Jesus likes to heal deaf mutes (Mark 7:31-37, for those of you not dragged to church every Sunday as children), but he’s happy to leave the mimes speechless so they can “sing” his praises. That’s right, I said mimes. And no, I haven’t been drinking. Much.

This afternoon, Rachel and I stumbled across a local church’s television broadcast of its services. At first, we were simply entranced by the two women dancing around waving iridescent flags as the choir sang songs consisting of one word repeated over and over. Captions helpfully informed us that one of these women was the Praise and Worship Dancer, and the other Praise and Worship Flags.

After more minutes of flag twirling than I’d care to admit we watched, a young man strode onto the stage with them, dressed either in a Jesuit’s habit* or Omar Sharif’s outfit from Lawrence of Arabia– I can’t say for sure which, but the overall effect was definitely neither Sharif-ly foxy nor Jesuitically austere. The long white Michael Jackson gloves the guy was wearing weren’t helping, either.

So the oddly dressed guy comes out and starts doing some kind of quasi-interpretive-dance style maneuvers next to the Praise and Worship Flags and the Praise and Worship Dancer. After a few minutes of this, Rachel and I started referring to him as a mime, never actually considering the possibility that this guy might really be the Praise and Worship Mime. But damned if that’s not what popped up on the screen a moment later.

A bit of internet research quickly let us know that this guy was just one of many religious mimes. We even found a video of some more, um, professional looking Gospel Mimes. Check it out. It’s like Kabuki meets Michael Jackson meets miming meets a boy band dance routine meets the Lord.

*No, I don’t mean Bob’s muscle shirt and leather jacket.