To: University of the Free State – Faculty of Theology

Dear Reichsmarschall,

Word in the Lord’s vineyard is that you have a vacancy in the Shepherd Centre for the Guidance of Spiritual Leaders. This is fortuitous timing as you have caught me between jobs.

The last time I saw your university’s spiritual leaders, they were in a television documentary performing some kind of religious ceremony. I presumed they were converting the heathens to Christianity, although it struck me as a little odd that they would use beer and urine as their holy sacraments. Is that from the Old Testament?

Rest assured that I am well-equipped to provide the best possible guidance to these charismatic young leaders. I am as well versed in the Bible as I am in the R4 assault rifle, and history has shown that the pagans are more easily converted when both the good book and the gun are used in conjunction with one another. Being a man of God yourself, you will already know this.

I should probably tell you right now that I intend teaching liberation theology, but without all that melodramatic carry-on about bringing justice to the poor and oppressed. Instead of promoting doomed causes, I will instruct my flock in the more practical art of liberating oneself should one find oneself in Pollsmoor Prison or Pretoria Central.

Some of our country’s finest spiritual souls are behind bars after committing a misunderstanding. Not too long ago, four bright young lads from Waterkloof were sent to jail for failing to get a homeless man to accept Jesus into his heart. The ungrateful sun worshipper instead chose to die even as God’s angels were banging on his door and his head and his ribs and his kidneys and spleen.

Through liberation theology, I will teach these eager young evangelists how to bribe warders, fashion crude duplicate keys, hide in the kitchen during lockdown and make good their escape. However, true liberation is never achieved easily and I may well include a module dealing with emigration to Australia.

I understand there are a few students of the darker persuasion studying at your noble institution. This pleases me because there is nothing more futile than preaching to the converted.

With your permission, I will get the girls to make boerewors rolls and hand them out to our black brethren as a way of encouraging them to come along on Tuesdays and Thursdays and teach their Aryan brothers to sing and dance. We all need a little levity in these tough times and, besides, a lynch party that can toyi-toyi would be uniquely South African. It wouldn’t surprise me if your sister universities in Alabama and Mississippi offered to sponsor my position once word got out.

You need not provide the accoutrements of the job since I already have my own uniform and freshly charred cross.

Supremely yours,

Ben Trovato

Imperial Lizard

Church of the South African Knights of the Ku Klutz Klan