Post by Moses on May 29, 2005 10:01:11 GMT -5
....Pastor Ted, who talks to President George W. Bush or his advisers every Monday, is a handsome forty-eight-year-old Indianan, most comfortable in denim. He likes to say that his only disagreement with the President is automotive; Bush drives a Ford pickup, whereas Pastor Ted loves his Chevy. In addition to New Life, Pastor Ted presides over the National Association of Evangelicals (NAE), whose 45,000 churches and 30 million believers make up the nation’s most powerful religious lobbying group, and also over a smaller network of his own creation, the Association of Life-Giving Churches, 300 or so congregations modeled on New Life’s “free market” approach to the divine.
...The morning service on the second Sunday of 2005 was devoted to the marriage of Pastor Tedís eldest son, Pastor Marcus. It began with worship, just like an ordinary service, but the light show was a royal purple-and-gold, the hymns more formal, the dancing more ecstatic. I sat with Linda Burton in the front row; she curtsied and bowed, over and over, her right hand sweeping the carpeted floor.
Pastor Ted wore a black suit and a red tie. Earlier in the week, at a staff meeting, he had announced that he would use the wedding as an illustration, and to that end he delivered a lengthy prenuptial presentation with slides, in which he laid out a fractal-like repeating pattern of relations, shrinking and expanding: that of God to man, reflected in that of man to wife, which is in turn a model for a godly society. Just as we conform ourselves to Godís will, so, said Ted, must "the Woman" The Woman must take on her man's calling, her man's desire.
"Mmm-hmmm," murmured Linda, eyes closed.
In return, Pastor Ted continued, the Woman gets the Man's love; authority just wants to serve. "Total surrender!" he called. "True or false?"
"TRUE!" answered the 8,000 assembled.
The Man is the Christ; the Woman is the Body. He is coming; she is the church; she must open her doors. United, they are the Kingdom, ready for battle. "The Christian home," preached Pastor Ted, "is to be in a constant state of war." This made many so happy they put their hands in the air, antennae for spirit transmissions. "Massive warfare!" Ted cried out.
The language of the Christian right was, I realized, hardening, collapsing. "Spiritual war,"a metaphor as old as the Gospels, has been invoked for the sake of power before - the Crusades, the conquest of the Americas - but for most of Christian history it has been no more bellicose than "jihad," a term that once referred primarily to internal struggle. But the imagination of the Christian right has failed, and its language has become all-encompassing, mapped across not just theology but also emotions; across not just the Church but the entire world.
Two gray-shirted footmen scurried down the main aisle, unrolling forty yards of white runner. A white spotlight swung around until it landed on burgundy drapes strung across the main entrance. Eight groomsmen and eight bridesmaids emerged, the men in tails and the women in sleeveless crimson, their hands clasped before them in white furry muffs. From the catwalk above fell fake snow, silhouetted against white lights strung over white trellises and white branches around the purple-lit stage.
Once the couple started back up the aisle, I made for an exit and rounded the arena so I could get a good spot. I wondered if there would be rice to throw, and if any guests would share theirs with a reporter. But when I came around to the main entrance, the great lobby was empty except for the greeters hanging around the cafÈ tables. Had Marcus and Sarah given us the slip? Then the doors opened, and the couple emerged, alone, their wedding shoes clicking across the marble. They looked like tired actors leaving a set.
The sliding doors of the main entrance whispered open, and Marcus and Sarah walked through. It was a brisk day, blue skies fading to white on the horizon, too cold to be crossing New Lifeís vast parking lot in a sleeveless wedding gown, but what could they do? Marcus hadnít arrived early enough to get a prime parking spot. It was too cold for me: I watched from inside. Sarah's veil snapped behind her like a white flag. At an SUV - no tin cans, no decorations - about a hundred yards off, Marcus fumbled in his pockets. It seemed like he might have forgotten his keys or, worse, locked them in the car. The pair looked helpless, peering in the SUV's windows; for a moment, I thought I was going to have to call for someone to jimmy the newlyweds' door. But they figured it out. Then they got into their SUV and drove away. As far as I could tell, I was the only one who took any pictures.
About the Author
Jeff Sharlet is a contributing editor of Harperís Magazine, the editor of TheRevealer.org, and the co-author of Killing the Buddha: A Hereticís Bible (Free Press). His last article for Harperís, ìBig World: How Clear Channel Programs America,î appeared in the December 2003 issue.
Notes
1. The New Lifers I spoke with afterward loved Pastor Larry's Underworld metaphor but laughed at how backward he was in his reference to tattoos. New Life's youth ministries are filled with tattooed and pierced prayer warriors.
2. All the paintings accompanying this article are works by Blackshear that hang in the World Prayer Center.
3. The life of the gay man, in the evangelical imagination, seems to be an endless succession of orgasms, interrupted only by jocular episodes of male bonhomie. The gay man promises Christian men a guilt-free existence, the garden before Eve. As such, he is not just tempting but temptation embodied; ìthe Enemy,î to whom Linda often refers.
4. Pastor Ted is aware that his martial plans alarm some outsiders; in Primary Purpose he writes that when he began his campaign for Colorado Springs, ìspiritual warfare was not a popular subject. . . . I didn't speak publicly about my own experiences.î Even today, in his more mainstream position atop the NAE, Ted's belief in less than full disclosure persists. Last fall, when the evangelical journalist Ayelish McGarvey asked Pastor Ted why President Bush, as a Christian, had not apologized for the false assertions used to justify the Iraq war, or for the dishonest smears marshaled on his campaign's behalf, Ted said: ìI think if you asked the President these questions once he's out of office, he'd say, ëYou're right. We shouldn't have done it.í But right now if he said something like that, well, the world would spin out of control! . . . Listen, I think [we Christian believers] are responsible not to lie, but I don't think we're responsible to say everything we know.î
This is Soldiers of Christ, a feature, originally from May 2005, published Thursday, May 26, 2005. It is part of Features, which is part of Harpers.org.
Permanent URL
harpers.org/SoldiersOfChrist.html
...The morning service on the second Sunday of 2005 was devoted to the marriage of Pastor Tedís eldest son, Pastor Marcus. It began with worship, just like an ordinary service, but the light show was a royal purple-and-gold, the hymns more formal, the dancing more ecstatic. I sat with Linda Burton in the front row; she curtsied and bowed, over and over, her right hand sweeping the carpeted floor.
Pastor Ted wore a black suit and a red tie. Earlier in the week, at a staff meeting, he had announced that he would use the wedding as an illustration, and to that end he delivered a lengthy prenuptial presentation with slides, in which he laid out a fractal-like repeating pattern of relations, shrinking and expanding: that of God to man, reflected in that of man to wife, which is in turn a model for a godly society. Just as we conform ourselves to Godís will, so, said Ted, must "the Woman" The Woman must take on her man's calling, her man's desire.
"Mmm-hmmm," murmured Linda, eyes closed.
In return, Pastor Ted continued, the Woman gets the Man's love; authority just wants to serve. "Total surrender!" he called. "True or false?"
"TRUE!" answered the 8,000 assembled.
The Man is the Christ; the Woman is the Body. He is coming; she is the church; she must open her doors. United, they are the Kingdom, ready for battle. "The Christian home," preached Pastor Ted, "is to be in a constant state of war." This made many so happy they put their hands in the air, antennae for spirit transmissions. "Massive warfare!" Ted cried out.
The language of the Christian right was, I realized, hardening, collapsing. "Spiritual war,"a metaphor as old as the Gospels, has been invoked for the sake of power before - the Crusades, the conquest of the Americas - but for most of Christian history it has been no more bellicose than "jihad," a term that once referred primarily to internal struggle. But the imagination of the Christian right has failed, and its language has become all-encompassing, mapped across not just theology but also emotions; across not just the Church but the entire world.
Two gray-shirted footmen scurried down the main aisle, unrolling forty yards of white runner. A white spotlight swung around until it landed on burgundy drapes strung across the main entrance. Eight groomsmen and eight bridesmaids emerged, the men in tails and the women in sleeveless crimson, their hands clasped before them in white furry muffs. From the catwalk above fell fake snow, silhouetted against white lights strung over white trellises and white branches around the purple-lit stage.
Once the couple started back up the aisle, I made for an exit and rounded the arena so I could get a good spot. I wondered if there would be rice to throw, and if any guests would share theirs with a reporter. But when I came around to the main entrance, the great lobby was empty except for the greeters hanging around the cafÈ tables. Had Marcus and Sarah given us the slip? Then the doors opened, and the couple emerged, alone, their wedding shoes clicking across the marble. They looked like tired actors leaving a set.
The sliding doors of the main entrance whispered open, and Marcus and Sarah walked through. It was a brisk day, blue skies fading to white on the horizon, too cold to be crossing New Lifeís vast parking lot in a sleeveless wedding gown, but what could they do? Marcus hadnít arrived early enough to get a prime parking spot. It was too cold for me: I watched from inside. Sarah's veil snapped behind her like a white flag. At an SUV - no tin cans, no decorations - about a hundred yards off, Marcus fumbled in his pockets. It seemed like he might have forgotten his keys or, worse, locked them in the car. The pair looked helpless, peering in the SUV's windows; for a moment, I thought I was going to have to call for someone to jimmy the newlyweds' door. But they figured it out. Then they got into their SUV and drove away. As far as I could tell, I was the only one who took any pictures.
About the Author
Jeff Sharlet is a contributing editor of Harperís Magazine, the editor of TheRevealer.org, and the co-author of Killing the Buddha: A Hereticís Bible (Free Press). His last article for Harperís, ìBig World: How Clear Channel Programs America,î appeared in the December 2003 issue.
Notes
1. The New Lifers I spoke with afterward loved Pastor Larry's Underworld metaphor but laughed at how backward he was in his reference to tattoos. New Life's youth ministries are filled with tattooed and pierced prayer warriors.
2. All the paintings accompanying this article are works by Blackshear that hang in the World Prayer Center.
3. The life of the gay man, in the evangelical imagination, seems to be an endless succession of orgasms, interrupted only by jocular episodes of male bonhomie. The gay man promises Christian men a guilt-free existence, the garden before Eve. As such, he is not just tempting but temptation embodied; ìthe Enemy,î to whom Linda often refers.
4. Pastor Ted is aware that his martial plans alarm some outsiders; in Primary Purpose he writes that when he began his campaign for Colorado Springs, ìspiritual warfare was not a popular subject. . . . I didn't speak publicly about my own experiences.î Even today, in his more mainstream position atop the NAE, Ted's belief in less than full disclosure persists. Last fall, when the evangelical journalist Ayelish McGarvey asked Pastor Ted why President Bush, as a Christian, had not apologized for the false assertions used to justify the Iraq war, or for the dishonest smears marshaled on his campaign's behalf, Ted said: ìI think if you asked the President these questions once he's out of office, he'd say, ëYou're right. We shouldn't have done it.í But right now if he said something like that, well, the world would spin out of control! . . . Listen, I think [we Christian believers] are responsible not to lie, but I don't think we're responsible to say everything we know.î
This is Soldiers of Christ, a feature, originally from May 2005, published Thursday, May 26, 2005. It is part of Features, which is part of Harpers.org.
Permanent URL
harpers.org/SoldiersOfChrist.html