Last night JK and I went to a quote unquote “Christian” seminar called “The Appearing” up on Capitol Hil. The idea was first introduced when he busted out a pamphlet at our previous meeting with Jeremy Puma. At the time I had thought that maybe “The Last Battle On Earth” would prove educational, but because of time constraints we ended up with last nights: “Does History Repeat Itself?”
Okay, so forgive me if this is a tired subject – I know that for me, whenever someone starts badmouthing Christianity I usually take the defensive. I deeply believe that there is a possibility for something really transformative and powerful in that myth system. That being said, when I was first introduced to the idea by JK, I was pretty hestiant; I’d been enough of these shindigs to cancel out all the possible humorous side-effects of mingling with the birth-defect born-again. Nonentheless, JK sounded awfully excited by the prospect of facing evil one on one, so we met at a local medieval bar a few minutes before hand, and JK slurped down his Olympia as we headed out the iron-wrought door.
Little did I know that after leaving the themed bar we’d find ourselves back again in a world that imitated the Dark Ages. Just like JK’s great post about the American people of little over 150 years ago whose light reading of the past (in this case, The Last Of The Mohicans ) would nowadays take a modern scholar to wade through – I sat in on this symposium wondering how people could stand being entertained by the simple ideas espoused on the pulpit. Is this what Modern American Christianity really looks like?
The implied religious gathering depicted on so many glossy pamphlets mailed to every heathen in the gay district of Seattle – was now, in actuality before us; poorly contrived, devoid of the captivated throngs, and centered around – you guessed it – a goddamn vhs tape! They couldn’t even get some fire-breather to come rain brimstone on us in person – instead, it all had to be mediated through the big screen!
I’m really going to try to hold back on what I say about this event, cause I like to give people the benefit of the doubt. I try to side with the underdog. And likewise, when I walked into that church with the 40 or so people scattered about the pews and saw that video screen blaring, well, I mantra’d to myself, “Garrett, you’re going to sit down there and you’re going to try to learn a thing or two …” .
But there just was nothing tangiable in that screen.
The premise of the video had to do with Jesus’s second coming, and the specifics of said return.
His voice cracking and with the faintest tinge of whine , the pixellated pastor spewed out the most absurd and literal interpretations of God’s cloudy descent. JK leaned over and said “this guy’s got a hardon for Jimmy Stewart…” and I tried not too laugh. But mostly, I just felt sad. I couldn’t believe what I was hearing – do people still actually buy this crap?
Please dont’ get the wrong impression -I hope my negative reactions don’t imply that I think I’m a fucking spiritual rocket scienist. It’s entirely possibly, even more than likely that the people in that room nodding their head and whispering “amen” have a much higher intelligence quotient than yours truly.
I think that what so infuriated and concerned me had more to do with the second thing JK mumbled to me with beer on his breath ” Right now, we’re looking at the face of evil.”
It was difficult to figure out what was so “evil” about the pictures of doves and pastel watercolors. It’s taken a while to see what it was that was making JK literally quiver in the benchseat next to me biting his knuckles so as not to burst out in opposition.
This may be something: I really feel that the video’s intentions were not to convince you through logic that you had to subscribe to a certain chain or reasoning – as I’m sure the people involved in the video would tell you straight to your face with a sparkle in their smile.
Instead, the presentation seemed to have a hidden, perhaps consciously-unknown purpose, which sought to cull you into their cult of fear. This was an emotional, psychological event – not an intellectual discourse. This may seem obvious to some, but I realize only now that the focus of that night had nothing to do with style or outwitting people with slick words. It doesn’t even matter that I wasn’t raised Christian – what we were being dosed with was something universal, an emotional trigger being pushed over and over again. And I felt it.
After the seminar there was a short recap of the issues raised, and for this reiteration two – (what seemed like) “good christian” stage actors – read from a script a series of questions with short contextual-less biblical blasts to fill in the answers. JK said that he was staring directly at the man with the earpiece mic up at the lectern – and he believes it was his confrontational eye contact that made the man falter through his speech. He also said that he could tell that the line about how “the bible paginations might be different from book to book” was actually a scripted scene meant to look like an ad-lib. Was this event much more organized than I had previously thought?
I take into consideration that the whole thing was nothing to get worked up over. I’m still not sure what I was looking at last night, what that event meant for the people there, or for myself in that moment.
I do know that I was pretty much speechless when we walked out, (whereas JK was excited to have been so close to a manifestation of the very thing eating away at our society). We breathed the Beast bitch herself. We walked back to Cantebury and ordered a few beers and talked about wierd politics, and try to calm down about what we had just witnessed. Then the waitress told us that the cook had thawed too many buffalo and ostrich burgers, and so as a special this night they’d be a little cheaper. Normally being a vegetarian I would have never given in so easily – but there was something disturbing about what I saw inside those church walls that made me break my normal dietary habits.
So why did I choose the ostrich burger? Was it a magical act to counter the dark spell put on all of those people who have been told to bury their head in the sand while they get violated by the powers that be? Told to hold their heads underground so that they, now being blinded, can no longer see ?
Maybe I was making a conscious decision to try something new. Yes, yes.
What does it taste like to finally have your head out from that hole?
