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The good Mr. Steele, new chairman of the Republican National Committee, has stated that the Republicans will return to power-- not with new ideas, not with valid objections to Obama's programs, no. With a hip-hop makeover. And oddly enough, it reminds me of Grandpa and Grandma's church.
When I was young, about the end of the last Ice Age, I loved to visit my grandparents. Sometimes we'd go with them to the Name Withheld Baptist Church, which they attended faithfully.
If you found this church's town on any map it would be something like one of the ultra-detailed USGS topographic sheets. This town was never anything but a general store near a State Highway that isn't State any more, near a railroad that is now gone. They had a General Store that sold gasoline, candy, cigarettes, and some canned goods. And they had a little Fire and Brimstone Fundie Baptist Church that would seat about twenty people, maybe thirty.
Somehow, though, maybe because of their Fundamentalist Gospel, the church grew. It became The Jesus Store, then the Mall of Jesus, and on, and on, addition after addition, abandoning their sanctuary every five years for a larger one, until today they are the Mega Assembly Plant of the Triune God. In spite of which they're not Assembly of God, they're still Baptists.
They had the best quality Fundamentalist Gospel. The members studied their Bibles with great diligence. Each and every one could, with kindness, tolerance, plain-spoken reason, and God's love, explain why it was a sin against God for blacks to be equal to whites (they were evil because their dark skin was the mark of the murderer Cain), why it was a sin for them to live in the same neighborhoods with whites, let alone marry whites; why you were going to Hell if you opposed the War, questioned the President, believed in evolution, believed that man would ever land on the Moon (because it wasn't predicted in the Bible, and therefore could never happen), why you were going to Hell if you had long hair... in other words, they were experts in creating God in their own image, complete with all their own bigotry, only with that bigotry now given the force of Divine Law.
Of course I can't think of a single instance where anything like that has happened in more recent times.
My cousin, who went on to become a cop-- so this is not a leftist peacenik hippie we're talking about here-- got into it with the pastor of the Mall of Jesus about the long hair thing. The Pastor, with God's Sincere Love, informed him that he was going to Hell because his hair grew down until it touched his collar.
"But look behind you, Reverend."
"What? What do you mean?"
"The picture of Jesus in the front of the sanctuary. HE has long hair."
The pastor did what so many of his kind do when confronted with something of this sort. He destroyed the evidence. The ten-foot portrait of long-haired Jesus was gone the next week.
And I might point out that my own church, although a little less radical, was about as bad on the hair issue. This was the era when the Jesus in all the current tracts, the Bibles they'd hand out as gifts, and so on, sported a buzz cut.
But to get back to my grandparents' church. They might think all the young people were going to Hell, but they did at least try to Reach Out to Youth and Make a Nod to Youth Culture.
I happened to be there when The Nod took stage. It was a scene I will never forget for the rest of my life.
Picture a short, thin man with red hair brushed up and back from his forehead-- not the hair style I would choose myself if my particular pattern of baldness was with the hairline receding backward along the sides. He's wearing a white shirt, a polyester leisure suit the exact sage-green color of a 1965 IBM Selectric typewriter, and he's got a Montgomery Ward folk guitar. And his idea of reaching out to the Rock-N-Roll Generation, the fans of the Beatles, Stones, Led Zeppelin, and The Who, is to sing a bouncy Petula Clark pop song with ONE word of the lyrics changed.
His love is warmer than the warmest sunshine
Softer than a sigh.
His love is deeper than the deepest ocean
Wider than the sky.
His love is brighter than the brightest star
That shines every night above
And there is nothing in this world
That can ever change his love.
When the ordeal was over-- well, church etiquette back then (before the rockers took over the less formal churches) was that you never applauded. When a special song was over, you just said "Amen!" with a particular reverence. And that was that. I was glad of that; after that performance, applause would have been such a lie that Hypothetical God would surely have struck me down for it, right then and there.
It went over about as well as you'd expect it would. Indications are that Mr. Steele's Hip-Hop Makeover will do just about the same.
When I was young, about the end of the last Ice Age, I loved to visit my grandparents. Sometimes we'd go with them to the Name Withheld Baptist Church, which they attended faithfully.
If you found this church's town on any map it would be something like one of the ultra-detailed USGS topographic sheets. This town was never anything but a general store near a State Highway that isn't State any more, near a railroad that is now gone. They had a General Store that sold gasoline, candy, cigarettes, and some canned goods. And they had a little Fire and Brimstone Fundie Baptist Church that would seat about twenty people, maybe thirty.
Somehow, though, maybe because of their Fundamentalist Gospel, the church grew. It became The Jesus Store, then the Mall of Jesus, and on, and on, addition after addition, abandoning their sanctuary every five years for a larger one, until today they are the Mega Assembly Plant of the Triune God. In spite of which they're not Assembly of God, they're still Baptists.
They had the best quality Fundamentalist Gospel. The members studied their Bibles with great diligence. Each and every one could, with kindness, tolerance, plain-spoken reason, and God's love, explain why it was a sin against God for blacks to be equal to whites (they were evil because their dark skin was the mark of the murderer Cain), why it was a sin for them to live in the same neighborhoods with whites, let alone marry whites; why you were going to Hell if you opposed the War, questioned the President, believed in evolution, believed that man would ever land on the Moon (because it wasn't predicted in the Bible, and therefore could never happen), why you were going to Hell if you had long hair... in other words, they were experts in creating God in their own image, complete with all their own bigotry, only with that bigotry now given the force of Divine Law.
Of course I can't think of a single instance where anything like that has happened in more recent times.
My cousin, who went on to become a cop-- so this is not a leftist peacenik hippie we're talking about here-- got into it with the pastor of the Mall of Jesus about the long hair thing. The Pastor, with God's Sincere Love, informed him that he was going to Hell because his hair grew down until it touched his collar.
"But look behind you, Reverend."
"What? What do you mean?"
"The picture of Jesus in the front of the sanctuary. HE has long hair."
The pastor did what so many of his kind do when confronted with something of this sort. He destroyed the evidence. The ten-foot portrait of long-haired Jesus was gone the next week.
And I might point out that my own church, although a little less radical, was about as bad on the hair issue. This was the era when the Jesus in all the current tracts, the Bibles they'd hand out as gifts, and so on, sported a buzz cut.
But to get back to my grandparents' church. They might think all the young people were going to Hell, but they did at least try to Reach Out to Youth and Make a Nod to Youth Culture.
I happened to be there when The Nod took stage. It was a scene I will never forget for the rest of my life.
Picture a short, thin man with red hair brushed up and back from his forehead-- not the hair style I would choose myself if my particular pattern of baldness was with the hairline receding backward along the sides. He's wearing a white shirt, a polyester leisure suit the exact sage-green color of a 1965 IBM Selectric typewriter, and he's got a Montgomery Ward folk guitar. And his idea of reaching out to the Rock-N-Roll Generation, the fans of the Beatles, Stones, Led Zeppelin, and The Who, is to sing a bouncy Petula Clark pop song with ONE word of the lyrics changed.
His love is warmer than the warmest sunshine
Softer than a sigh.
His love is deeper than the deepest ocean
Wider than the sky.
His love is brighter than the brightest star
That shines every night above
And there is nothing in this world
That can ever change his love.
When the ordeal was over-- well, church etiquette back then (before the rockers took over the less formal churches) was that you never applauded. When a special song was over, you just said "Amen!" with a particular reverence. And that was that. I was glad of that; after that performance, applause would have been such a lie that Hypothetical God would surely have struck me down for it, right then and there.
It went over about as well as you'd expect it would. Indications are that Mr. Steele's Hip-Hop Makeover will do just about the same.
