How I Was Saved
Woah. After an extremely boring, gloomy weekend, today is shaping up to be extremely interesting. In Acting today we had a guest lecturer, Mel Damski. He gave us a really good insight into show biz and all its weird little idiosyncrasies. We had a nice long Q&A session, and he fit right into our fun little class of jocularity. I stood around a bit after class so Amy could talk to him some more, then I made sure we're still meeting tonight to get our lines down for our scene.
Then I'm walking from class to lunch, and I saw this huge crowd of people gathered around these two guys standing up on the cement platform at the end of the plaza. The two speakers were holding these big signs that said things like "Jesus hates the wicked" and one had a list of all the people Jesus hates. These guys were being really serious. They had their bibles handy, and were basically shouting that we were all sinners and that we were all going to go to hell if we didn't wake up and do like they wanted us to. They were being incredibly offensive in their efforts to win our hearts over, saying some of the most vile, ignorant, prejudiced things a person could say. The crowd wasn't having any of it. Most people were heckling them, and every good zinger was met with thunderous applause and cheers. Several people got up on the stage waving signs they had just made from their notebooks, saying things like "These guys make Jesus sad." It was all a big laugh. However, a few members of Campus Crusade for Christ were there, and they were genuinely upset. Here were these guys, naming themselves by the same faith as they did, but making an absolute travesty of it. My thoughts went to Cora, and how upset she gets when she gets lumped in with the hate-mongering Christians, which she is quite the opposite of. A couple other guys from Acting and I talked briefly about bum-rushing the fuckers, and I was for it. But they decided to be all reasonable and shit, so there was no bum-rush. I did, however, join the series of people hopping up onstage and heckling the guys on even turf. I gave 'em the old Ezekiel 25:17 (Samuel L. Jackson translation), and got one of the better reactions of the afternoon. I stayed up there to take my inevitable abuse from Mr. Gawd, but what I got was far from what I expected.
He made some stupid jokes about my hair length, including "Man, you've got awfully hairy legs for a woman!" which made me quite proud of myself. That I was expecting. But the other guy started talking, and the guy I was standing next to took me aside, and starting asking me some questions about my religious background, which he was interested in after I had recited my little (scripturally incorrect) passage. Before I knew it, I was having the best, most intellectually stimulating religions debate I've had in years. I was astounded. They were highly intelligent, educated, and well-read not only in in Christianity but in other faiths as well. I asked him why he acted the way he did onstage, and it turns out that they use the shock value to gain people's attention and filter out those who would make poor material for an intellectual conversion anyway. He said that the goal is to keep the act up until he has the crowd down to a few people, and then slowly let things give way to more intelligent conversation. It's all a marketing strategy. Their goal is still the same, the conversion of all people to their straitlaced, conservative, Bible-thumping brand of Christianity. But it goes to show that you can't judge a person's brain by where their heart lies.
So did he convert me? No. I still can't see myself living that lifestyle or turning my beliefs upside-down. But for about half an hour I was academic colleagues with a man whom 2 minutes before I had wanted to see get struck by lightning. As I was walking back from lunch, I passed by the stage again. The crowd had gotten smaller, and my new friend was back to yelling about how women who didn't obey their husbands, no matter what, were going to hell. I just smiled to myself and walked away, shaking my head. Do I still have a right to hate them? After all, they were saying some pretty nasty things. But on the other hand, it's an interpretation they didn't invent, of a book they didn't write. They were genuinely doing what they thought was their job on this earth, and to me it looked like they were having fun. He caught my eye as I was leaving, and I think we somehow connected. Everyone still thought he was just an idiot redneck, but he knew and I knew. These guys are slick, I'll give them that. Very slick.
Then I'm walking from class to lunch, and I saw this huge crowd of people gathered around these two guys standing up on the cement platform at the end of the plaza. The two speakers were holding these big signs that said things like "Jesus hates the wicked" and one had a list of all the people Jesus hates. These guys were being really serious. They had their bibles handy, and were basically shouting that we were all sinners and that we were all going to go to hell if we didn't wake up and do like they wanted us to. They were being incredibly offensive in their efforts to win our hearts over, saying some of the most vile, ignorant, prejudiced things a person could say. The crowd wasn't having any of it. Most people were heckling them, and every good zinger was met with thunderous applause and cheers. Several people got up on the stage waving signs they had just made from their notebooks, saying things like "These guys make Jesus sad." It was all a big laugh. However, a few members of Campus Crusade for Christ were there, and they were genuinely upset. Here were these guys, naming themselves by the same faith as they did, but making an absolute travesty of it. My thoughts went to Cora, and how upset she gets when she gets lumped in with the hate-mongering Christians, which she is quite the opposite of. A couple other guys from Acting and I talked briefly about bum-rushing the fuckers, and I was for it. But they decided to be all reasonable and shit, so there was no bum-rush. I did, however, join the series of people hopping up onstage and heckling the guys on even turf. I gave 'em the old Ezekiel 25:17 (Samuel L. Jackson translation), and got one of the better reactions of the afternoon. I stayed up there to take my inevitable abuse from Mr. Gawd, but what I got was far from what I expected.
He made some stupid jokes about my hair length, including "Man, you've got awfully hairy legs for a woman!" which made me quite proud of myself. That I was expecting. But the other guy started talking, and the guy I was standing next to took me aside, and starting asking me some questions about my religious background, which he was interested in after I had recited my little (scripturally incorrect) passage. Before I knew it, I was having the best, most intellectually stimulating religions debate I've had in years. I was astounded. They were highly intelligent, educated, and well-read not only in in Christianity but in other faiths as well. I asked him why he acted the way he did onstage, and it turns out that they use the shock value to gain people's attention and filter out those who would make poor material for an intellectual conversion anyway. He said that the goal is to keep the act up until he has the crowd down to a few people, and then slowly let things give way to more intelligent conversation. It's all a marketing strategy. Their goal is still the same, the conversion of all people to their straitlaced, conservative, Bible-thumping brand of Christianity. But it goes to show that you can't judge a person's brain by where their heart lies.
So did he convert me? No. I still can't see myself living that lifestyle or turning my beliefs upside-down. But for about half an hour I was academic colleagues with a man whom 2 minutes before I had wanted to see get struck by lightning. As I was walking back from lunch, I passed by the stage again. The crowd had gotten smaller, and my new friend was back to yelling about how women who didn't obey their husbands, no matter what, were going to hell. I just smiled to myself and walked away, shaking my head. Do I still have a right to hate them? After all, they were saying some pretty nasty things. But on the other hand, it's an interpretation they didn't invent, of a book they didn't write. They were genuinely doing what they thought was their job on this earth, and to me it looked like they were having fun. He caught my eye as I was leaving, and I think we somehow connected. Everyone still thought he was just an idiot redneck, but he knew and I knew. These guys are slick, I'll give them that. Very slick.