diary of a church hopper (pt. 4)

Long and short: Ariel would be a rogue at this church.

I'm not certain why I decided to visit this baptist church today. I had actually been there before, three years ago. Actually, it was the day after my engagement. It was the last stop on our band tour, and the church was the least welcoming and the worst attended of our concerts. It seems like setup was particularly troublesome or something, because I associate it with a negative feeling.

But, this church has AWANA, and I kind of missed that. Was considering getting involved with one again. Considering. My mom recently pointed out some things about it that made me have second thoughts.

And I've got experience in baptist churches -- the church my family goes to is baptist, or at least used to be baptist.

But this one... I bet there was a shrine to Focus on the Family somewhere inside the building.

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I was inclined to like the church right away when the greeter was the athletic director at the schools I cover. He's a nice guy, and knowing him better would help me know others in the district better.

The sanctuary was one of those new auditorium-style ones, with the chairs that can be connected and a stage with stage lighting and a backlit wooden cross and no other art to speak of but the Walmart variety plastic floral arrangements. It was only about half full of people, and those people there were magnetized toward the back, leaving six to seven rows in the front of each of the five sections empty.

After glancing through my 11x17 full-color tri-fold bulletin, the service began with five to six praise and worship songs. The worship band included two female singers, two male singers, two flutists, a drummer, a guitarist, a synethsizer player and someone at a baby grand (and I can't figure out quite why). About half the songs were in keys far too high for the average voice, but that's just how it goes. Isaiah Lockard (whose voice I do happen to love) did the same thing. It's common.

There was some P&W, followed by applause (which I abhor), followed by prayer and offering (with special music) and then it was time for the sermon. Already! I'm not sure what was missing, but there was no funny business in between. Seriously. There was no need for an outline of the service, because that was it.

And, in a more traditional baptist tradition (talk about redundant), the sermon was on the long side. I didn't mind that so much. It was the content of the sermon that irked me.

I knew when I saw the title of the sermon -- "Life in Hell" -- that it probably wasn't going to work out. Because from what I remember from my Christian college education, there isn't enough information in the Bible to make many safe speculations about Hell except that it's eternal punishment and permanent separation from God, something you don't want to mess with. I could be dead wrong on that.

About a fourth of the sermon was about where Hell is, geographically. In the end, he said it was inconclusive. In response, of course it is. And even if we knew where it was, would we want to go visit it? Try to do research?

He said something about how it starts early in history as the abyss, and ends as the lake of fire. I was unclear about how it evolved from one to the other.

His opener, of course, was about New Orleans people and their claims that they're in "Hell on Earth." About two-thirds of the way through he danced around the sticky subject of New Orleans being the "second most immoral" city in the country and basically how we shouldn't be surprised at this being a possible judgement from God for the debauchery and sinfulness.

I will not deny that it is possible the hurricane was an act from God to punish this sinfulness. But I would point out that many, many, many people were affected by the hurricane who are not in New Orleans. And that perhaps the church should be just as concerned about the injustice of the city -- that a staggering number of them already lived in poverty and the government was not prepared to evacuate them. That the casino owners were rich enough to get out, while their employees were not so lucky.

And it was, if nothing else, really poor taste in my mind for him to express his gladness that 10+ large casinos were decimated, and that 16,000 people wouldn't be working in those sinful places anymore. They could get new jobs now.

1) Where does he propose these jobs are? Where does he propose any jobs are now?
2) The first things to rebuild would likely be said casinos.
3) There was overall more concern in the church for possibly judging these people than what could be done to thelp them.

Back to Hell: Granted, the pastor was probably preaching the party (denomination) line about down-under theology. Maybe he should be applauded for teaching something definite. Maybe everything he said is right. But what I'm looking for (I want, I want, I want) that would respond to this disaster with messages of justice and compassion rather than what Hell is like and who deserves it (and their answer to who deserves it was "those who do bad things" -- missing part of the theology).

Well, what now? Last night, chickadee K said why don't I come to St. George's with her and E. Even once a month? And that does sound nice. It has been a favored place of many people I respect. We'll see. For that matter, there's an Episcopal church downtown. But K and E would not be there, the beautiful girls. Something about it seems wrong, though.

Who in the world knows?