Pope Benedict resigned from the papacy for health reasons, so the next time anyone tells you, "The Lord never gives you more than you can handle," point out that the Pope had to step down from serving God because it was too much for him to handle.
Or was there another reason for the Pope to retire? I suspect it was political.
After the death of Pope John Paul II, there was much debate during the ensuing selection process about the future direction of the church. Much had changed during the nearly 30 years of John Paul II and cardinals had to consider whether to select a Pope who might change church doctrine regarding homosexuality, birth control, women's rights, and other hot button issues, or more accurately, when they would select such a pope.
The selection of Cardinal Ratzinger allowed that decision to be put off for a few more years. The papacy was the equivalent of a lifetime achievement award for Ratzinger, who'd been Frank Nitti to John Paul's Al Capone. He was also very old, which meant he wouldn't be around long. Progressives within the Church were satisfied that Ratzinger deserved the spot the way Don Ameche deserved an Oscar for Cocoon, and in a few years, they'd be able to see significant change.
As age set in, Benedict knew his replacement would dealing with many of the same issues he was, but that the new Pope would very likely hold different opinions than he did. So he quit.
For the first time in centuries, the college of cardinals would have to go through the selection process while the last pope was ostensibly in the other room. The new pope would have to lead the church knowing the old pope was discussing and second guessing him with cardinals. When key decisions were to be made, he would either have to consult with the old pope or he'd have to make a point of not consulting with the old pope. In that environment, what are the odds of a younger, progressive pope being elected in the first place, much less making real and significant change?
About five seconds of research into the new pope shows Benedict's plan worked. Unlike eight years ago, there was little debate about progressive cardinals. Five seconds of research is all it takes to see Pope Francis nee Cardinal Bergoglio is a radical opponent of contraception and gay rights. In retirement, Pope Benedict ensured his legacy and conservatism will live well beyond himself.
Tim Tebow's goal in college wasn't to win the Heisman Trophy or National Championships. With the Broncos, being MVP or winning a Super Bowl are secondary motivations. Tebow's primary purpose in everything he does is to witness to the world and bring the Word of Jesus to us all. And he has done that in a way few in this world ever have.
Regardless of my differences of opinion with him about religion and my never-ceasing stream of Twitter hatred for the guy whenever the Broncos play, I have to admit, Tim Tebow has made me understand Jesus in a way I don't know if I ever could without him.
From what I understand, Tebow is the Jackie Robinson of Christians in the NFL. After years of passing over strong, talented Christians in the draft, Tebow finally posed figure too large to ignore, so Denver reluctantly chose him and vowed to keep him on the bench his entire (short) career. But Tebow's talent and the overwhelming cries of the usually silent minority of Christians in this nation could not be ignored, leading him to disprove the critics by stepping in and lifting a terrible team to a win in the Super Bowl despite the protestations of the NFL, the networks, ESPN, Sports Illustrated, and the Muslims, Jews, and atheists who run this country.
Unfortunately, that was not true. In fact, Tim Tebow is not a very good quarterback and Christians are rarely quiet about anything. Neither of those things, however, is a reason for me to hate him as personally as I have.
Say what you will about his goody-goody personality and overt religious zealotry, Tim Tebow truly believes what he says. In America, Republican contenders for President, who cheat on their cancer-ridden wives and suggest repealing child labor laws, make a daily point of reminding us how much they love Jesus and his teachings. Soon, Mitt Romney will secure the Republican nomination and will be able to shift the attention to how much more he loves Jesus than President Obama does. And, in turn, President Obama will have to make the case he loves Jesus more because a huge voting block in this country justifies its decisions at the polls with statements like, "Sure, President Bush ruined the economy by sending us to war with a country that posed no legitimate threat to us resulting in the deaths of millions, but he prays every day and I don't think Gore does that."
For so many in the public eye, religion is an accessory to be worn when one wants to appear good, noble, kind-hearted. But just as it's possible to wear a Broncos shirt or baseball cap without being a true Denver fan, only a minority of any religion's followers will show any devotion beyond the surface appearance.
Tim Tebow is the rare exception whose religious beliefs come from a pure belief in the Bible. While I may not agree with what he believes, it's refreshing to be able to accept it at face value. A sect of Tebow fans likes to put forward the idea that the quarterback might actually be the son of God, and I can understand why.
Tim Tebow's wins on the football field defy all reason. While the word "miracle" gets overused, there's a statistical improbability of a guy playing as awfully as Tebow winning even one game that can't be ignored. Tim Tebow is humble. Tim Tebow shares his beliefs and feelings with the world because he wants us to be--and believes we can be--better people. Tim Tebow loves his enemies. Tim Tebow seems like a genuinely good, noble, kind-hearted person.
His followers, however...
Before he'd started rookie training camp in 2010, Tebow's jersey was the highest selling jersey in the league. Despite his own insistence he had a lot to learn before he could be an effective NFL quarterback, Jesus freaks lambasted Denver's coaches and management for not starting Tebow. Every Tebow win fueled the blind devotion of his followers and made them less bearable.
And, worst, his winning ways drew the attention of non-football fans to the NFL, which drove network and league executives to make "All-Tebow, All-the Time" the strategy for the entire season. Watch a Buccaneers-Texans game and discussion among the announcers will turn to Tebow. NFL.com recently posted a gallery of Photoshopped images illustrating what it would look like if Tebow impregnated various celebrities. Every week this year, whether he was playing or not, one of the headlines on ESPN.com, CNNSI.com, or Yahoo's NFL page featured the word "Tebow."
And, thus, Tim Tebow accomplished his ultimate goal. He made me, a devout atheist, understand Jesus and his sacrifice on the cross in a way I never had seen it before. Because while I know Tim Tebow is a good man and I have nothing against him personally, his followers are ruining football for me.
Three days from now will be the two year anniversary of the morning my agent called me to tell me Scholastic had made an offer on my book, which was then called I Think My Teacher is a Superhero and featured art by Jacob Chabot (including the page to the right). The offer wound up being for a four book deal, and two months ago, I finished the final draft of Book 4 in the series.
Since that July morning that I sent off the final draft to my editor, I have taken half-hearted stabs at Book 5--for which there is no contract or even discussion of a contract--and three other projects I've had bouncing around in my head. Last night I finished the first book in a new series that I can't announce anything official about yet.
However, this is a collaborative project which was created and loosely plotted by two other guys who asked me to write it for them since their writing experience is in comics and animation, but not in prose. It proved to be quite a grind for me to knock it out, largely because while they gave me complete latitude to flesh out the characters and plot, it wasn't my story or my characters. It was a paycheck--or in this case, a speculative potential for a paycheck at some point in the years to come--but so is approximately 99% of the writing being done in the world every day.
I began struggling with my writing while working on Book 4. Being the last book of the contract with no guarantee the series will continue, I found myself focusing on some of the corners I'd written myself into and questioning whether I even wanted to continue with a Book 5. After working on the same characters and scenarios for nearly five years and not much of anything else for the past two, I found myself much more interested in exploring something completely different and unable to focus on the story at hand. But when I finally finished it and was free to work on other projects, I found myself floundering. Maybe it was because I'd been working for two years on a series that had already been figured out and I merely had to get one step closer to the already-decided-upon conclusion. Maybe it was because I was overwhelmed by the number of opportunities available and couldn't decide which way to go, like Morgan Freeman unable to pee without his boss's permission after getting out of Shawshank.
Or maybe it was because I'd already climbed that mountain and climbing it again held no interest for me.
I've written before about the number of successes I've had professionally and the subsequent disappointment I've had with said successes. I set goals, I work hard to achieve them, but once I do, I find myself asking "What's next?" I worked for years learning to be a sportscaster, then within a year of my first television job, I felt empty. After three years, I walked away and have never regretted the decision for a second. Now I wonder if the same is true of my writing career. I set the goal of writing a book that would get published, and I did it. Now is my mind moving on to "What's next?"
And this, I discovered, is the true value of religion to the human race. The idea of heaven or nirvana or paradise, the goal of achieving some perfection akin to a flawless mythical being is impossible for any mortal to achieve. Therefore, no matter how long one lives, one always has a goal to strive for. No one in the entire history of the world has gone to heaven, come back, and said, "Well, I did that. What's next?"
Granted, we all could do the same thing by setting impossible goals, except we know they are impossible. Over the summer, I took up curling. I could say I will not be satisfied by anything less than winning an Olympic gold medal, but that goal would almost do more to demotivate me than motivate me because I would know it was realistically unachievable. Being grounded in truth and realism prevents me from accepting impossibly high standards.
As such, the skeptical non-believers of the world are at a disadvantage to the religious. Those who can accept the concept of a magical man in the sky who lives in a place where all your dreams can come true can face every day never having to ask, "What's next?" Everything they do, no matter how insignificant, is a piece of the puzzle that ends with an ascent to sit at the right hand of the Father.
That's because your God always thinks the way you do. Do you hate gays and Muslims? So does God (Leviticus 20:13; Exodus 23:24). Are you accepting of other religions and sexual orientations? So is God (Leviticus 19:17-18). Do you think God wants you to be rich? He does (Psalm 12:1, 3). Do you think God loves you more than rich people because you're not rich? He does (James 5:1). If your marriage is unhappy, do you think you should tough it out because you made a commitment before God and your loved ones? That's what God says (Matthew 19:6). Do you think God would rather you find someone new who can make you happy rather than stay together and be miserable? Of course he does (Deuteronomy 24:1-2)!
Whatever you do, whatever you think, that's what God wants you to do and think. And it all adds up to your express ticket to the Pearly Gates as soon as you kick the bucket. While we atheists are trying to make the most of our time here on earth, objectively looking at our accomplishments and our impact on those around us, the religious can trudge forward through every day meaningless and without worry about their fellow man, unburdened by the madness those of us who seek truth and reality suffer as we continually try to find something else of significance.
Sanity through unwavering belief in the insane. That is the objective value of religion.
I'm house/dogsitting on the southside again, which means when I go to get the mail I have to brace myself for another run in with the Crazy Born Again Christian Neighbor. For previous run-ins go here and here.
Today's encounter was a brief one, but raised an important point about the ethics and values of Christians. (For the record, while I was writing this, Jen Grunwald linked a post with a similar theme on Twitter.) In a statement he's made many times before, my neighbor claimed that Jesus changed his life. I'm not sure of many specifics from his previous life. I know he was in a gang and that his brother-in-law was shot in the head by gang members, but other than that I'm left to speculate what "bad, bad stuff" he's done in the past. Maybe he's knifed a fifth grader for crack. The important point isn't what he's done, but rather that he considers it evil and that he believes he couldn't have stopped without Jesus.
My argument was that Jesus didn't change him at all. When someone makes a change like the one seen in my neighbor, the more important factor that the magical manipulations of a mythical sky man is self-awareness. Recognizing that one should not stab one's fellow man is not a lesson taught only to those who follow Christianity. I have never stabbed anyone in my life and I haven't been to church for anything but weddings, funerals, and Easter egg hunts since 1991.
Implicit every time a Christian says he or she does something good or doesn't do something bad because he or she wants to go to heaven is that if heaven were proven not to exist is a streak of sociopathy.
A sociopath is unable to relate to the feelings and understand the rights of other individuals. This is why sociopathic killers feel no remorse murdering a random person on the street. In their brains, that person had no inherent right to live and they feel no sympathy for the victim.
If fear of angering of God is the only reason you donate money to charity, if the threat of banishment from entering the pearly gates is the only reason you don't slaughter your family in your sleep, you are a sociopath. If you can't think of any good reasons not to rape the pretty woman you see at the bus stop other than Jesus might be upset with you, you need to be locked away from society for everyone's good. The scariest part of this is that God will forgive anyone who asks, so the fact is there's no good reason not to rape that pretty girl as long as you pray afterward.
I am happy that my neighbor has gotten his life on the right track. I am proud of him for the fact that he's turned his back on his evil ways. But he deserves the credit himself. For whatever reason, he came to recognize that his previous behavior and its lack of regard for those around him had negative effects on the world around him. For him or anyone else to indicate that a lack of God's presence would erase that recognition is pure insanity.
"When exactly did you realize you were gay?"
When my friend Dan came out of the closet several years ago, I was able to ask him the question that I found most interesting about his sexuality. I remember first recognizing that I was attracted to a girl in kindergarten. I still vividly remember seeing naked breasts when John Belushi climbed that ladder in Animal House at the age of eight and thinking, "Yes, this is something I enjoy and would like to see more of." 
I first saw a Playboy in February 1982 and first got caught by my mother while reading a Playboy in March 1982.
There was never any question for me whether I was straight or gay, and I wondered whether it was as simple a realization for Dan, and, if it was, why did he wait until his late-20's to tell all of us? Considering many of us had our suspicions for several years leading up to his ultimately coming out, I wasn't sure if he'd waited our of fear of rejection and disapproval or out of indecision.
"I guess I realized I was gay kind of the same way I realized I was an atheist," he explained. His analogy noted the similarities between his Catholic upbringing and the social moires of heterosexuality. "When you're a kid, everyone tells you there's a god and you believe in him because you just assume everything your parents say must be true. Then I reached a point where I was going to church, but was thinking, 'I don't know that I really believe this.' Then I was agnostic for a while, but then reached a point where I wondered why. I didn't believe in God or Jesus or any of the pillars of Christianity, but there was a part of me still clinging to the idea that maybe my parents were right." Just as he realized he didn't believe in Catholicism and eventually that he wasn't agnostic, Dan also realized he didn't conform to the boy-girl dynamic he'd been told was correct his entire life, and, furthermore, he wasn't bisexual or "just curious." He was gay.
The act of coming out has been one of the most powerful tools in the fight for gay rights. The simple act of telling those around you that gays aren't "those people," but that they are our friends and family members. They are people we loved before they revealed they were gay and and that revelation should in no way affect our love. When I think of any issue affecting gays, it's impossible for me to think of "gays" as a faceless mass of "them." Anyone who wants to deny the rights of gays to visit their partners in the hospital wants to deny those rights to Dan... and to Jarvis and Derrick and Tim and Scharia and several other gay people I know and fully fleshed out human beings and not just one-dimensional caricatures based solely upon their sexual preference.
The more gays who come out, the greater the tolerance for homosexuality increases. The reason support for gay rights is highest in places like New York, New England, and the West Coast is not simply a reflection of liberal leanings in those regions, but of the fact that gays are more open in those areas and are seen as real people instead of as just a bunch of fuckin' faggots as they so often are by guys who have never met an actual live homosexual because they live in and have never had any desire to get out of places like Wewahitchka, Florida.
Surveys have shown that atheists are the most distrusted minority in the United States. The typical American would rather have his daughter marry blacks, Jews, Muslims, Mexicans, even gays before she marries an atheist. Yet at the same time, trends are showing fewer people attend church or claim any particular religious belief. The term "spiritual but not religious" gets thrown about fairly easily. With each generation, religious devotion drops. In other words, with each generation, more and more people realize, like Dan, that maybe their parents were wrong.
But if there are potentially more atheists than at any time in the past several decades, why are atheists still so hated? Because too many atheists are afraid to admit their lack of belief.
Just as coming out has been so powerful in the advancement of gay rights, it can do the same for atheists. I make no attempts to hide my feelings about religion, and I know several other atheists who are the same way. 
Letting your friends and family know that you are living a moral life without the guidance of a mythological overlord or a millennia old book puts a face to godless America. Those who care about you can come to the realization that atheists can't just be dismissed as irrational father-haters who've been deceived by Satan into giving into peer pressure to not believe in God. Most importantly, coming out may help those non-believers around you who are not brave enough to do so themselves yet to find that strength.
Certainly there are those who will not accept, but that is not the fault of the atheist. I have a friend who routinely insists on posting comments on Facebook telling me she'll pray for me or that god exists in the hope that some morning I will wake up and realize I do believe afterall, as though this was just some silly phase.
I can only wonder if she'd tell Dan that she's hopes he'll find the perfect girl.
Recent polling has shown that a majority of people don't know what is in the health care reform bills. The upshot of that ignorance is that a lot of those who say they want congress to "kill the bill" would actually support it if they bothered to look into it instead of taking marching orders from Glenn Beck.
Unfortunately, Americans don't like to do things like "read" and "think" about things. It's much easier to be told what you think by someone who must know what he's talking about because he has a microphone.
Politics and religion have always been equally dangerous in my mind. The idea of having your thoughts and feelings dictated to you because you choose to be part of a group--be it Catholic or Democrat or Muslim or Libertarian--makes no sense to me. If you are a pro-life Democrat, you're not really a Democrat. Your party has made a point of stating that your belief is not a part of it's platform. If you are a gay Republican... well, no, you're not.
I have heard the case that a belief in free market economics and lower taxes for businesses can supersede one's desire to be treated with equal civil rights, but in my mind it is proof that the very concept of a two-party system is irrevocably flawed. If there are 200 million voters in America, there should be 200 million political parties. A two-party system merely dumbs down any debate to the most simple soundbites as if a nation of hundreds of millions of people can be run on a straight choice of abortions or miniature American flags.
Religions thrive on the same ignorance. In fact, they go so far as to encourage it, threatening eternal suffering to those who dare to question the Almighty's Divine Plan. "Faith" is defined as belief in that for which there is no evidence. In other words, believe what the guy with the microphone in the pulpit tells you and don't go doing a lot of research and reading and thinking that might contradict what he's said.
Ask most Christians whether God is cool with rape and they'll get indignant. "God would never do that. You atheists just hate God for no reason and make up stuff like that!" Then you show them Numbers 31: 17-18 where the followers of Moses are told, "Now kill all the boys and all the women who have slept with a man. Only the young girls who are virgins may live; you may keep them for yourselves." Translation: commit mass rape in thy Lord's name.
Oh, there are rules about rape. Like if you want to rape a woman after you kill her family in war, you have to wait 30 whole days and marry her, and if you decide you don't want to stay married to her, you have to let her go rather than enslave her (Deuteronomy 21:10-14). And if you rape a girl and get caught, you have to pay her dad 50 pieces of silver and you have to marry her and you can't divorce her (Deuteronomy 22:28-29)! Because if you ask any rape victim, they'll tell you the worst part about the experience is that, after all they shared, the rapist never calls.
The list goes on--God endorses the ravishing of women in Zechariah 14:2--and on--God punishes King David by having his wives publicly raped in 2 Samuel 12:11 (then he kills a baby seven verses later)--and on--rape victims who don't scream loud enough for help get put to death in Deuteronomy 22:23-24--and on--Babylonian babies get murdered while all the women get raped in Isaiah 13:15-18. Yet the majority of Christians are oblivious to these passages.
It's long been said that the greatest tool in the atheist's toolkit is the Bible. The overwhelming message of the book is not one of love, peace, and kindness, but one of hatred, violence, and intolerance. God endorses and demands genocide of his followers (Exodus 22:19, 23:23, Deuteronomy 13:7-12, 13:13-19, 17:2-5, Numbers 25:1-9, Ezekiel 9:5-7, 1 Samuel 15:2-3, Joshua 6:20-21, 8:1-29, 19:47, 2 Kings 19:35... Christ, there's a lot more, but I'm tired of listing them). Jesus suggests men should chop off their penises to get into heaven (Matthew 19:12). God commands thou shalt not kill, but then has a long list of exceptions where killing is okay, including cursing at your parents (Proverbs 20:20, Leviticus 20:9), being related to a sinner (Isaiah 14:21, Leviticus 26:21-22), not circumcising your son (Exodus 4:24), and not punching a prophet who asks you to do so (1 Kings 20:35-36).
What's most interesting is that a majority of atheists will have a passing knowledge of these passages, while most Christians will find them a surprise.
The Christian leader teaching the most accurate dogma per the Bible is Pastor Fred Phelps. The Westboro Baptist Church's leader is most famous for drumming up the "God Hates Fags" rallies and protests, often outside churches and cemeteries where funerals for homosexuals are taking place. Pastor Phelps can quote chapter and verse to explain why terrorist attacks and natural disasters are God's punishment for societal tolerance of homosexuality. He correctly points out that God says he will kill our children if we don't follow his every demand, such as killing our children for mocking bald guys (2 Kings 2:23-24).
Perhaps the greatest interpreter of the Bible is cartoonist Jack Chick, whose tracts are famous for using Bible verses to explain why Dungeons and Dragons is a gateway to Satan and telling your kids about the Tooth Fairy will make them murderers.
Understand, Phelps and Chick are both batshit insane. They promote hatred and intolerance, but they are the true voices of the Lord of the Bible. Any Christian who denies Phelps and Chick is as much a Christian as a pro-gun, anti-abortion Democrat is a Democrat.
Christmas is not just a marketing opportunity for Best Buy and Walmart. It's also Christianity's big recruiting drive. The lights and decorations and music are all around us, be we Christians or Jews, Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists, or atheists. But unless you fall into the first category, you can count on someone asking you why you're participating if you don't believe in Jesus.
In short, Christianity, which prides itself on having a Christian attitude, likes to treat Christmas time with less maturity than my four year old son when he has a toy he doesn't want to share with his sister. "Hey, that's our holiday. Don't put those twinkling lights on your house unless you're willing to accept that Christ, who was God made flesh, was born of a virgin and gave his life that you might have eternal life!" It's as though "Jingle Bells" contained the Lord's Prayer in it. And the most obvious ploy, "Only Christians should be allowed to get presents!"
Oddly enough, midnight Christmas mass or other religious ceremonies might be best closed to atheists, but instead the church and your most religious family members will openly try to get anyone to attend. But regardless of what Christians may wish was true, most of the traditions surrounding Christmas either have become secular or, in many cases, started out as secular (or non-Christian), were co-opted by Christianity, and have become secular again. Decorating trees, putting up lights, hanging missletoe, and singing carols do not require a religious test. Nor should they.
The fact is that Silent Night is a pretty song. So is Handel's Messiah, and I don't have to accept Jesus as my savior to sing songs about him any more than I have to be coming straight out of Compton or to honor a vow to not turn around because Der Kommisar is in town to sing either of those songs. Religious or not, the six or seven weeks from Thanksgiving through the end of the kids' winter break is about a lot more than the birth of a Jew born in Palestine 2000 years ago.
All of this was a long winded way for me to say Tim Minchin does a good job of explaining why even an atheist can "really like Christmas" in White Wine In the Sun.
Bumped into my crazy born again Christian (redundant) neighbor while outside. He was a little hesitant at first and admitted that he'd told "my wife" (who is not my wife) about our previous encounter. Theresa had told me about this, saying that three different times he'd tried to talk with her while she was walking to the mail box, desperate to inform her--in case she was unaware--that "Jake doesn't believe in the bible or Jesus."
Any, way, despite the rain starting to come down, he shared the following:
1. America is the bitch queen. All other nations bow to her and work for her. She is the mother of all harlots.
2. The Catholic Church will soon pay off America's debts. After which, anyone who is marked will be able to get a free house or truck.
3. We were better off with a white president. Obama wants to bring the troops home from Afghanistan. Bush would never do that. We should never stop fighting there.
And my favorite:
4. Abraham Lincoln, the first president, told people that the world is round. Before that, they all thought it was square. No, wait, who was it? George Washington? (I suggested maybe he was thinking of Christopher Columbus.) Yes, Christopher Columbus, George Washington, and Abraham Lincoln, they were all original men.
Seriously, how can you have that many bible verses memorized, but not know who the first president of the United States was?
I came home from work today and the born again Christian from across the street was trimming the tree in my front yard while his brother raked up the leaves that had fallen from the bushes. For a moment, I considered driving past the house and coming back half an hour later. I don't want to seem rude. I appreciate when he does the yard work so I don't have to, but to say he does it for free isn't really an accurate description. He may not request any money, but I'd gladly pay $30 not to have to listen to him preach to me.
What's most frustrating about arguing with the really hardcore born again Christians is that their beliefs are completely illogical, so they feel no need to make their arguments logical. When you say something like, "The bible says God created a firmament over the earth to separate it from heaven and that rain happens when God opens a trap door in the firmament to let water through. Knowing how precipitation actually works, don't you think we can accept that the bible isn't supposed to be taken literally?" He responds with something about the serpent being a man without a soul so Satan could enter him and tempt Eve and the line of Cain and Noah and "do you remember Joshua?"
Since I had to sit through this, I thought I'd share some of the highlights where he was actually coherent (if not exactly sane):
- Science was better 10,000 years ago than it is now.
"They made pyramids that we don't even know how to make today! And mummies. We don't know how to preserve a body like that?"
"Yes, we do. Just watch the History Channel. The pyramids had an internal ramp system. And we preserve bodies better now than they did then. If you wanted to be a mummy, that can be arranged I'm sure, it's just that embalming and other techniques are preferred for open casket funerals."
"Well, if they know how to build pyramids, why don't they?"
"For the same reason we don't still build covered wagons. Just because the modern Navy is all destroyers and submarines and aircraft carriers doesn't mean we don't know how to build wooden sailing ships any more." - Scientists are all doing Satan's work.
"Do you know where water comes from?"
"It's hydrogen and oxygen molecules that have bonded."
"That's what scientists tell you, but that's not real. Instead of trying to understand how water is formed, they should be out preaching the gospel. That's real." - Pretty women are a sign of the pending apocalypse.
"That's why you're seeing more and more beautiful women today. Satan knows the rapture is coming and the most potent weapon he has is sex. For if a man looks upon a woman with lust, he has already committed adultery. So the more lust Satan can cause before the second coming, the fewer people will be saved. That's why he's creating so many sexy women in short shorts and bikinis and tight shirts." - The bar scene is hell.
"Hell is right here on Earth. Just go into a bar and what will you see? A divorced woman wearing tight clothes with her stuff all on display trying to find a man." - Jesus is coming any day... or in a couple thousand years.
"How can you say scientists shouldn't be studying science? If Copernicus had just said, 'I'm not going to bother looking at the planets and the stars, I'm just going to preach because the rapture is coming any day,' he wouldn't have made any of his discoveries and he would have been dead 400 years without the rapture still having arrived."
"But to God, a thousand years is like a second."
"So when you say the rapture is coming soon, that be anytime in the next 250,000 years. Because that's only like a couple hours to God. You'll have to excuse me if I don't wake up every morning waiting for the Horsemen of the Apocalypse to come running down the street." - How do you like them sexy apples?
"The reason we have so many problems with 14 year old girls getting pregnant is because we teach that the Eve went to the Tree of Knowledge and ate of its fruit, but we say it's an apple or an apricot. It was sex. Eve tried it and that's why she went to Adam and wanted him to 'eat her fruit.' But these kids today think it's an apple so they don't know how dangerous sex is." - Nothing bad ever happens to Christians... unless they piss off God.
"When you accept Jesus as your savior and truly believe you can heal with the laying on of hands. For God says no one who believes in me shall suffer."
"Right. That's why no one who believes in God ever gets sick or has a car accident or gets mugged--"
"No, they don't."
"What?"
"I mean, sometimes it happens, but if you truly believe it won't. People who have car accidents or get sick--that's the result of sin. If you sin and don't ask forgiveness and get in your car, the Lord might decide to let you have an accident. But if you get on your knees and ask forgiveness, you will not get into an accident. The bible says that."
"I'm pretty sure the bible doesn't mention car accidents anywhere."
"And cancer. People who get cancer are sinners and maybe they've stopped believing. But if they start believing again, then a son of God may lay his hands upon them and the cancer will go away and the doctors can't explain it. That's another reason science is fake." - Heaven is kind of like high school. Fuck you, nerds!
"Doesn't it stand to reason that if the bible was really God's only message to the world, he should have made it a little more clear? I mean, why say 'fruit of the tree of knowledge' if he meant sex? Why leave so much open to interpretation and argument."
"Jesus said, 'Praise be unto Him that he has hidden the truth from the scholars and the wise men.'"
"But why is that a good thing? If the smartest men in the village or the tribe or wherever all say, 'This makes no sense,' why would that be good? Why would God give us a brain capable of seeing flaws in a book like the bible and then expect us to ignore those flaws?"
"Because you have to come to him through the Holy Spirit."
"So God gave us the most advanced brain on the planet--making us his highest achievement as you noted earlier--to see if we'd just shut it down because a book told us too?"
That's enough for now. Most of the rest of the conversation was circular logic and contradictory points (like the rapture is coming any day but "any day" could be a million years one). A lot was "In the bible is says..." despite acknowledging that the bible was written over the course of hundreds of years, translated by scholars who disputed the meaning of certain words, and hand copied for centuries, omitting and adding certain passages as the copier saw fit. I really hate that aspect of religious debate. You can't support an argument with itself. "The bible says that the bible is true." Yes, and I say I'm czar of Madeupistan. What evidence do I have? The fact that I said it. And why did I say it? Because it is true.
On the plus side, the front yard looks great.
I hate Christmas music in general. This is doubtless related to my mother's love of the stuff that led to my having had enough for this lifetime by the age of nine.
But more than the endlessly recycled songs that get trotted out by everyone from Perry Como to Luciano Pavarotti to 98 Degrees to Alabama, there are certain lines that just get under my skin for how poorly written they are. How can people listen to these songs hundreds, maybe thousands of times in their lives without catching that they don't make sense?
And I'm not even going to mention "wassailing."
"You know Dasher and Dancer and Prancer and Vixen
Comet and Cupid and Donner and Blitzen.
But do you recall
The most famous reindeer of all?"
Doesn't it go without saying that if you are so well versed in reindeer that you know them all by name, you should know "the most famous reindeer of all"? This would be like saying, "You know B.J. Armstrong and Horace Grant and Bill Cartwright and John Paxson, Scottie Pippen and Will Purdue and Stacy King and Tim Kempton... but do you recall... the most famous Chicago Bull off all?"
"Outside the snow is fallin' and friends are callin' 'Yoo-hoo!'"
Mostly I hate this lyric because "callin' 'Yoo-hoo!'" can be so easily confused with "callin' you 'Who?'" Until I was in my late-20's, I assumed this line was trying to express the point that when you bundle up in a lot of heavy, winter clothing, particularly with a scarf over your nose and mouth or a ski mask on your face, it would be easy for your friends not to recognize you. "Hey, guys, it's me," you'd call, only to be greeted by a wary, "Who?" And the truth is, that makes a lot more sense than the idea that your friends are outside in a snow storm yelling "Yoo-hoo!"
There'll be scary ghost stories and tales of the glories of Christmases long, long ago."
Who tells ghost stories at Christmas time? The only Christmas ghost story is A Christmas Carol, but it's not scary. It's more thought-provoking. To me, scary ghost stories are what you tell a bunch of pre-pubescent teens around a campfire in June, not your family on December 24th. I mean, my uncle was a jerk, but at least he never sent us to bed on Christmas Eve with, "Okay, kids, Santa will be coming soon so off to bed. See you in the morning... unless the former owner of this house comes looking for his severed head!"
"But what child is this that was poverty-born?"
This is from a lesser-known carol--unless you grew up with the John Denver and the Muppets Christmas album, in which case it's extremely well known--called "The Peace Carol." Again, my beef with this line is just that for years I misheard it as "what child is this that was probably born?" It seemed like such a non-committal line for a Christmas carol, though I had to respect John Denver for leaving his options open. "I'll sing these songs about Jesus being born... but I don't really have any concrete proof that there was anything so special about that, so I better acknowledge the possibility that the Jews are right."
"I'll be home for Christmas, you can count on me...
I'll be home for Christmas, if only in my dreams."
So we really can't count on you, can we? Look, I'm not buying a bunch of crap to stuff your stocking and setting a place for you at the table if you're just going to flake out, not show, and then claim you were here "in your dreams." You are so unreliable, you jackass.
"Gone away is the bluebird,
here to stay is a new bird"
How long did that rhyme take you? Here to stay are two birds? No. Here to stay is a Jew bird? No, why would he celebrate Christmas? Here's to stay is an avian flu bird? No, it would be dying and not "here to stay."
"Holy infant so tender and mild"
If you ever had Filet of Christ Child, this is how it would be described on the menu.
"Later on, we'll conspire,
as we dream by the fire..."
I hate this one largely because it reminds me of a time when I had one of those Family Circus kid moments. When I was little, I thought the line was "Later on, we perspire..." which makes sense if you're sleeping next to a fire, but doesn't make me feel any better that something I thought was on par with the punchline of a Bil Keane comic strip.
"I saw three ships come sailing in...
And what was in those ships all three?...
The Virgin Mary and Christ were there
on Christmas Day in the morning."
So three ships came sailing into the middle of the desert in Bethlehem? Or was this years later? And what was in those three ships anyway? Even if Mary was on one and Jesus was on another, you haven't told us what was on the third? For that matter, you didn't say Mary and Jesus were on the ships. You just said they were there.
"Hey, what are you eating?"
"My ski instructor is here."
"Cannibal!"
"Shall I play for him... on my drum?... Mary nodded, pa rum pum pum pum."
Just put yourself in this scene for a moment. You've just given birth in a barn, the baby is sleeping peacefully, and some dudes you don't even know show up. At least they've brought some gifts... but they also have a nine year old with a drum. And he things banging the hell out of that drum would be a good gift for the sleeping newborn. Would you nod pa rum pum pum pum? Or tell the kid to go the hell outside pum pum pum pum?
"Up on the housetop reindeer pause..."
Just another misunderstanding here. I hated this song for years because everyone knows reindeer have hooves, not paws.
"In fields where they lay keeping their sheep,
On a cold winter's night that was so deep."
Are there better words to describe the night? Cold? Dark? Lonely? Contemplative? Sure, but none of those rhyme with "sheep."
During last night's home run derby, Rick Reilly offered up this nonsequitorian analysis of Josh Hamilton's record-breaking 28 home runs in the first round:
It's a lousy night to be an atheist!
I don't get it. When the Pope was at Yankee Stadium, did he announce, "Unless someone hits at least 25 home runs in a single round of the State Farm Home Run Derby to be held in this stadium later this year, I will consider it a clear indication that there is no god and will disband the Catholic Church and urge all other religions to do likewise? Is Reilly mistakenly under the impression that atheism is not a lack of belief in god, but rather a lack of belief that heroin users can rehabilitate themselves, get reinstated to professional baseball, and hit a lot of home runs on a national stage? Was Reilly implying that Josh Hamilton is a deity whose existence atheists can't deny?
Or maybe Reilly is just an overrated hack who hasn't offered any decent sports analysis for more than a decade, but is so in love with his own voice he can't be bothered to stop and think about whether his words actually make any sense before he opens his stupid, stupid mouth.
Given that he's on ESPN, I'm going to go with that final option. (My kingdom for a Charlie Steiner!)
Is there anything more boring than the final two to three minutes of a close NBA game?
I mean other than soccer and church.
Just when things should be most exciting, you get an intentional foul, a guy shooting free throws, a time out, and four or five seconds of guys running around while the losing team tries to hit a shot as quickly as possible. Then the whole thing repeats. The two minutes of playing time takes about 20 minutes and the majority of the action takes place on inbounds plays where eight guys run around like extras in a disaster film while another does jumping jacks in front of the guy trying to get the ball in.
I blame Pat Riley.
Of all the things that get under my skin about religious fanatics, I think what annoys me most is the cyclical logic and ill definitions applied to prayer and God's will. Someone wants something so they pray. If they get it, God gets credit for answering the prayer. If they don't get it, God gets credit for not answering the prayer because in His wisdom He knew better.
The other day on "Larry King Live," Paula Deen told a story about prayer that took this ignorance to a level I've never before witnessed. She was telling about a bad time in her life, before she was thrust into the homes of Food Network viewers on an hourly basis with her alleged Southern charm.
| I was coming home, Larry, and I turned to prayer. I said, "Lahwd, send me a neighbor." Because I thought then when I'm leaving in the morning or coming home at night, I could see this other person and maybe just have a conversation. That's what I wanted. So that night, I went to bed and when I said my prayers I said, "And Lord, please bring me that neighbor." |
| And I prayed that prayer, Larry... for three years. |
| And that's when I moved. |
How is God even involved in this story? Let's put aside whether God is great or God is good or whether we should thank him for Paula Deen's food. At best, God's involvement is incidental name dropping. It would like if I said:
| I ate at this restaurant the other night where Tom Hanks ate. I looked at the menu and saw they had a half-sandwich and soup deal so I got that. The sandwich was okay. It had turkey and cheese, but I thought it would have bacon. I guess it was just turkey instead of a club. The soup was really tasty though. It was a chicken vegetable and it had baby corn, which you never see in vegetable soup! That was a nice surprise. Man, Tom Hanks sure is a good actor. |
As a kid growing up in the Netherlands during Nazi occupation, Anne van der Bijl, better known as "Brother Andrew," dreamed of adventure. As an adult, he found it, but not in any way he would have imagined in his youth.
Brother Andrew risked his freedom and even his life defying the state-mandated atheism of communism, delivering bibles to Eastern European Christians. He chronicled his tale in the novel "God's Smuggler," which has sold over ten million copies in English alone. The story was also adapted to comic book form by Al Hartley at Spire Christian Comics, the same creative force behind "The Cross and the Switchblade."
Brother Andrew is revered among Christians. The Amazon reviews of his book refer to him as "one of the greatest heroes of modern time." He also happens to embody everything bad about Christians.
Well, maybe not everything. That would be Jack Chick. Brother Andrew never specifically condemns homosexuals or people who believe in evolution or Dungeons and Dragons players, though I kind of doubt he'd come out in support of them either. Let's just say Brother Andrew embodies several of the key bad points of Christians, chief among them ignorance, stubborness, and condescension.
Oh, the condescension...
The story opens in the Nazi-occupied Netherlands, where young Brother Andrew finds amusment throwing firecrakers at Nazi soldiers patrolling the streets. When he grows up, he joins the army in search of adventure and is shipped off to Indonesia "to take back the colonies for the queen." Quickly, he learns war is not the adventure he'd imagined and becomes so bitter about the madness of it all that he can't even find happiness in the bottom of a beer mug nor the arms of a Jakarta prostitute.
His attitude gets even worse after he's shot in an ambush and told he'll never again walk without the use of a cane. He's shipped off to a veteran's hospital where he reflects that he'd rather have died and gone out in a blaze of glory than be crippled.
Then a beautiful nurse enters his life and changes everything when she offers to read to him.
"It's all true? Every word? Even the words that contradict the other words? Even the words about the geriatric man with no previous shipbuilding experience built a 450 foot long wooden boat with one 18-inch window for ventilation that was capable of carrying two of every animal in the world and remaining afloat for forty days and nights despite the fact the largest wooden boats in recorded history were only about 300 feet long and required iron supports to hold them together and were leaky and unseaworthy despite being designed and built by master shipbuilders? Even the words about how the Messiah will be a warrior king named Emmanuel? Even the words that say the penalty for raping a woman is paying her father fifty pieces of silver and marrying her?"
The way he so quickly jumps into the whole Christian thing "lock, stock, and adventure" makes me think he was just grasping for something and the bible is what came along. If she'd read him Moby Dick, he would have become a whaling captain. "Wow, my leg doesn't work right... Captain Ahab got his leg bitten off... I can feel his love pouring into my life!"
Very quickly, he goes from "guy who found inspiration" to "annoying bible thumping jackass."
This is one of those trademark panels that tells you you're reading a Christian comic. Andrew's friend is making a legitimate point, but the story plays it off like he's a complete idiot (and bound for hell) for suspecting that a doctor in 1948 might have misdiagnosed the severity of the leg injury when it's so clear that God healed Andrew because the depth of Andrew's faith made all things possible.
Another point that should be acknowledged is that even if God did heal Andrew's leg to reward his faith, that doesn't not make Andrew a religious fanatic.
Andrew enrolls in the seminary and, while there, is offered a chance to attend the World Youth Festival in Prague. Behind the Iron Curtain, he is shocked to find most kids don't want to read his "God's Love" pamphlets or talk about Jesus. He cannot buy a bible in the bookstores and learns that preachers must be licensed (which actually seems like a good idea since many often serve as therapists). He is most upset to learn that children are encourage and rewarded for questioning the "superstitions of their parents."
Let's be clear. "Ice is cold" is a fact. The temperature of ice can be measured and recorded, proving it is cold. "Jesus is God" is dogma. Facts cannot be questioned; articles of faith, no matter how strong the faith, can.
Andrew is so upset when he sees thousands of young people taking to the streets, happy despite the absence of God in their lives, he decides he must do something to stop it. Seriously, the guy sees empowered youth taking responsibility for their own lives and shakes his fist angrily while gritting his teeth, pleading with God not to let them win.
When he gets home, Andrew tries to devise a plan to show the happy non-Christians how unhappy they are by bringing them Christianity. The sexy nurse once again shows him the way by introducing him to what would become his trademark: condescendingly answering questions with religious doggerel.
"Okay, bitch, so if God's going to do everything, I suppose I can just get on with my life, huh?" Of course not. Andrew writes some articles and gives some speeches and people start sending him money to buy bibles to smuggle into Eastern Europe. His first trip is to Yugoslavia, where he meets a pastor and immediately puts his new found powers of condescension to work.
Oh, snap! Were you bald before Brother Andrew came to visit or was your hair scorched from your scalp by that wicked burn?
Andrew continues to venture behind the Iron Curtain with hundreds of bibles each time, talking down to non-Christian hotel clerks and finding time between trips to marry the sexy nurse. She gets pregnant, but encourages him to continue his smuggling operation because a running theme in these comics seems to be husbands leaving their pregnant wives to deliver alone because the Lord's work is more important.
Andrew is also blessed with a new assistant in Hans, who is really just Moose from Archie donning a Dutch Boy haircut. The semi-retarded manchild becomes a regular target of Andrew's condescending comments.
In this case, Andrew might actually be saying, "There's no real point in explaining anything to you since you're about as smart as a box of rocks and you're just going to ask me to explain it again in twenty minutes anyway."
Once inside Russia, they realize they have no idea who they should find to distribute their more than one hundred bibles. As with everything, they decide to just wait for God to do it for them.
Unfortunately, that guy is then picked up by the secret police and shipped off to Siberia. No, I'm serious. The guy is sent to the Gulag and probably killed, but Andrew stresses they all have to be willing to take risks. Instead of feeling the slightest twinge of remorse for the man or his family, Andrew instead demands that someone else take the bibles, browbeating a man who has already served time in prison for his faith.
On the way back home, Brother Andrew comes up with a plan to print pocket bibles in Russian so they can carry more copies on subsequent trips, but such a venture is not cheap.
Ha ha, bitch, how do you like it when I turn that shit around on you?!?
They put the house up for sale, but mysteriously no one wants to buy it. The implication is that God was at work, keeping people away, but I think it might have had more to do with the two religious fanatics who tried to convert anyone who came to the front door and guilt them into contributing money to give away bibles to communists. In a small Dutch town, how long do you think it takes for everyone who is looking for a house to be told, "But don't go up to the van der Bijl house! Those people are batshit crazy!"
Sure enough, God comes through again, helping set up the capital for the printing venture by sending a wealthy capitalist to fund the whole thing. And how do you think Brother Andrew reacts? With gratitude or condescension?
"... you fat fuck!" Andrew goes on for another half a page with a lecture about the importance of devotion to Jesus and how it's greater than devotion to humanity. Despite this dressing down for saying he wanted to help, the rich guy gives Andrew the money anyway, allowing God's Smuggler to expand his operations. He visit China and Cuba, where the majority of people he meets think "religion is for the helpless," "missionaries are all spies," and "priests and ministers are non-productive members of society." Of course, they are all wrong and deserve to be talked down to and Andrew is just the person to do it.
But it doesn't end there. Brother Andrew can't roll his eyes at everyone who doesn't pray fifty times a day or who thinks things through instead of just asking God to solve all their problems. The last page becomes an appeal to readers to take bibles with them whenever they travel and leave them on tables.
It should be noted that after the fall of the Iron Curtain, Brother Andrew has since turned his attention to the Middle East, which would explain the attitude many Muslims have toward Western Christians.
There are moments in your life--meeting your first true love, losing your virginity, the birth of your children, finding the perfect job to launch your career--when things just click into place and fate seems to guide you to that perfect situation. Coming across a copy of The Cross and the Switchblade in the quarterbox (which--I'm now obligated per Robert's requests to point out--is full of comics that cost fifty cents regardless of what I call it) was one of those moments. Unfortunately, like those others, while the moments themselves seem perfect, upon further reflection they kind of suck.
Do you know anyone who married their first true love and stayed with him/her forever? If so, don't they make you kind of sad? 
Look at that cover. How could a cover which delivers one of the most ridiculous threats ever only to follow it with one of the silliest responses ever disappoint?
By not being bad enough.
While I was reading The Cross and the Switchblade at work about two weeks ago, trying to devise my strategy for snarking it, a co-worker asked to look it over. Her assessment, which she repeated several times while reading, was "I just keep waiting for the punchline, but there isn't one." It's bad, but not "Clark Kent convinces two hunters that Jimmy Olsen is a wild jungle boy to be trapped and sold to a zoo in order to teach the cub reporter a lesson about responsibility" bad, which is to say while everyone can agree that Youngblood: Bloodsport has no redeemable qualities, there is a group of people who will read The Cross and the Switchblade and insist it is a great story told well. And judging from the current administration in the White House, the number of states passing anti-gay marriage laws, and the fact school boards anywhere are even considering teaching creationism, that group is fairly large and powerful.
This was one of the first titles published by Spire Christian Comics back in the 70's. It is based on the true story of David Wilkerson, a born again Christian preacher who has taken his message to the streets.
Whether you are a Christian or not, regardless of your religious views, you have to agree Wilkerson's decision to go into some of the worst neighborhoods of New York and preach to the gangs was kind of ballsy. Likewise, whether you agree with the religion, you have to appreciate the impact he had on people like Nicky Cruz, who gave up the gang lifestyle, took up preaching himself, and has also helped rescue many gang members from that lifestyle.
That said, The Cross and the Switchblade is an awful, awful comic that glosses over important points while hinging its key moments on utterly stupid coincidences and pointless rhetoric. While not quite in Jack Chick territory, Al Hartley's Spire Comics do as much to turn off people to Christianity as to convert them.
The story opens as David leaves his pregnant, about-to-deliver wife to go to New York after reading an article about seven teens who stabbed a polio victim to death. Wilkerson's arrival in and reaction to New York set the tone for the rest of the comic.
Subtlety is not this book's strong suit. It comes off reading like a junior high school drama, infused with overly simplified Christian dogma. David wants to talk to the Dragons, the gang members on trial for the murder, but gets turned away by the district attorney and the police, probably because he just tends to burst into their offices, waving about his bible and insisting on seeing them without offering any reasons.
He's finally told he can only see the Dragons if the judge gives him permission. When he hears the judge has just adjourned the trial, David shows he apparently doesn't know the definition of "adjourn." Instead of understanding the judge has ended the trial for the day so it can resume tomorrow, giving David the perfect opportunity to speak to a clerk and try to get a minute of the judge's time now that he's no longer on the bench, David apparently thinks "adjourned" means "ordered the gang members be taken to a strip club where they will listen to rock and roll music and drink alcohol."
You know the best way to make a good impression on a judge from whom you want a favor while simultaneously not making yourself look like an idiot in general and a religious fanatic in particular? I'll give you a clue. Bursting into a packed courtroom while waving around a bible and screaming to the judge like you're Dustin Hoffman and he's Katherine Ross is not part of the plan.
The press mocks Wilkerson, as everyone going to hell does to the heroes in these Spire books, putting his bible-brandishing picture on the front page of the paper with a banner headline. It's unfortunate for David that he just happened to choose the slowest newsday ever to make an ass of himself.
And herein lies another example of why these comics fail. Wilkerson made an ass of himself, but the comic tries to portray those who laughed at him as bad people, tools of the devil, and enemies of God. It's clear we're supposed to shake our heads at the media for not embracing the message of God's love that was shouted by a raving madman during a murder trial.
The press coverage, however, serves David's needs, leading him to conclude God was behind the mockery.
You're a raving, religious nutjob in a nice suit who has chosen to come to the ghetto and preach and I steal hubcaps to buy my grandmother's insulin. We're practically brothers! This inane explanation leads to the gangs immediately accepting Wilkerson into their heroin den, where he spouts platitudes about how God knows why they shoot up and what they are looking for, but that they'll never find it in a needle or in premarital sex. Instead, they must turn their lives over to God.
I've mentioned in the past that I teach GMAT prep courses. In one session, we focus on the Critical Reasoning portion of the test, which includes a long discussion of the validity of arguments. What David is doing in this frame is called an appeal to authority. This is a common tactic of religious fanatics, who expect that any argument they have will be one in which every word of the bible will be accepted as literal fact.
An appeal to authority does not have factual basis, but instead is based on someone higher up "says so." "My professor says the loss of the ozone layer will kill us all within twenty years?" Okay, how? Without evidence of what the ozone layer loss does to the environment and, in turn, to humans, that argument can't be accepted solely on the word of a professor. The equally valid counterargument to what David has said is, "God says nothing is impossible, yet medical experts say it's impossible to cure a heroin addict!" The difference being that you can site medical evidence to support the experts opinions while the only support for the bible is found within the bible.
In the den of drugs and sex, David meets Maria--not to be confused with Veronica Lodge. I understand she is just lines of ink on a piece of paper, but somehow still manages a melodramatic level of overacting that makes Tom Cruise's declarations of love for Katie Holmes look Bob Newhart-ian in comparison.
Following Maria's tour de force monologue, Nicky Cruz, leader of the Mau Maus, the toughest gang in New York, kicks out the preacher because he's had "a belly full" of his "love jazz."
That doesn't stop David from spouting more meaningless rhetoric, and it's having an effect on Nicky, who is clearly laying on a bed in a room despite later claiming to be homeless.
There is something quaint about the gang and ghetto lifestyle portrayed by this book. "Awww... Nicky Cruz knifed sixteen guys. Isn't that cute? A gang member who says things like 'a belly full' and 'jazz' and 'fink'... how adorable!" The idea that there was a time you could escape a gang killing by outrunning your would-be assailants because they were armed with chains, knives, and bats has an almost-Ozzie and Harriet simplicity to it.
Wilkerson hooks up with another group of Christians who have tried to preach to the gangs with no success, because they don't have the street cred David's earned. Considering the man's reputation among the gangs is based entirely upon his almost being charged with contempt of court, it can be assumed the other Christians are so whitebread one might need sunglasses just to look at them.
They convince David to host a series of rallies and hire busses to bring in gang members from all over the city, which prompts a visit from Maria.
Having left dental impressions all over the scenery, Maria... um... man, she just does nothing. David pretty much convinces her not to kill herself by saying, "Don't," and then she decides out of the blue that Christianity is the solution to all her problems. Unfortunately, converting people isn't always so easy.
Nicky is the perfect example of the more skeptical minds David must overcome.
Of course the kid takes the shoes, which somehow proves... something about God... I guess. It's a good thing Nicky didn't say, "These three kids don't even have any shoes," or Wilkerson would have just had to pack up and go back to Pennsylvania, where, by the way, his wife is now in labor, delivering their first child.
Another quaint moment takes place when his wife calls to tell him she's going into labor and David debates coming home, but decides to stay and make the world his child is entering a better place. The final decision is based on his wife pointing out that fathers aren't allowed in the delivery room anyway so it won't matter if he's there or not.
Nicky seizes upon the impending birth to test David's faith in perhaps the weakest way possible.
Nicky prays to God that David's wife should deliver a boy. David protests, saying that's not a fair test of God's powers, but when his wife calls, he doesn't mind using the results to his advantage.
Whoa! There was a fifty-fifty chance of the outcome you prayed for and it happened! God truly is omnipotent, isn't he!? If it was this fucking easy to convince the baddest man in New York of God's powers, David should have rolled into town with a quarter and prayed really hard it would come up heads when he tossed it. If it came up tails, he could just say it was God's will that there be a do-over.
Having seen that his prayer directly resulted in the gender assignment of a baby, Nicky is shaken to his core and agrees to attend David's next rally. With Nicky on the ropes, David delivers the knockout blow by allowing the Mau Maus to collect the offering, giving them the opportunity to steal the money and run away.
Nicky decides to give himself to God right there on the spot and orders the rest of his gang to do likewise since he's their leader and they have to follow him.
Again, I can't help but chuckle at Nicky being considered such a badass because he's knifed (not killed) a few guys, gets into fights, and is promiscuous. I've sinned worse that he has in playing ten minutes of Grand Theft Auto.
Nicky goes back into the neighborhood, where kids ask him to measure them and determine who is the tallest... which illustrates... uh... that kids... you know what? I got nuthin' for that. He announces his intention to become a preacher and show gang members everywhere that the cross is mightier than the switchblade.
Much like the aforementioned Chick Tracks, books like this one seem to do more to reassure Christians that there are strong Christian messages out there rather than to bring that message to non-Christians. I'm sure born again Christians would read this and see the power of Nicky's prayer for David to have a son being answered, but to those who don't already have a vested interest in believing God is everywhere and working in everything, this is just a crapshoot being blown out of proportion and undermining any validity of the story.
Pat Robertson's influence is being felt in mainstream media. Look at this headline from today's USA Today sports section. That's been the lead story on the 700 Club for twenty years.
Y'know what Christianity needs? Big foam fingers.