Some Thoughts in the Aftermath of Tragedy.

As national mourning continues for the victims of the horror in Newtown, several thoughts have occurred to me.  The first is the incredible cynicism of both the national media and our national government.  At least since the Columbine massacre, there have been many voices pointing specifically to an essential element needed if ever we are to stop these atrocious acts.  The verdict is unanimous among professionals from many disciplines.  Do not give these murderous monsters 24/7 international notoriety on television.   Psychologists have spelled out precisely what should not be done.  In every case, that is exactly what the national media does do, thereby immeasurably increasing the likelihood that such acts will continue.  Why is this?  Stupidity? Insensitivity? Ignorance? Lack of discipline?  Lack of real concern? Lust for ratings? Fear that if they don’t compete they will lose their audience? All of the above?  Whatever it is, there is no excuse. 

And our national government is just as bad.  While proclaiming that we must not politicize this tragedy, our venal and foolish leaders do exactly the opposite, joining with the insane media to inflame even more passion and further divide the country.  The United States is being turned into a spiritual and psychological kennel full of rabid dogs.  Apparently, our leaders want to see us tear each other to pieces.  If they really want to stop these massacres let them legislate controls over the idiot media – controls to be instituted the moment each situation begins.  The truth is that 24/7 news coverage of such horrors is far more responsible for their continuation than gun ownership.  Which brings us to the most cynical part of all.  Why try to stop such coverage when it can be used to fulfill your agenda?  Needless to say such controls will never be legislated, because there is the First Amendment.  Mark this prediction:  Gut the Second Amendment and destruction of the First will soon follow.

The second thought that has struck me (yet again) is the utter impotence of secular materialists across our culture to accept the reality and meaning of Evil.  I don’t mean people doing bad, even awful things. I mean Evil that is beyond humanity, evil that is Satanic in very specific and personal terms.  Every time this kind of Evil erupts there is a collective wringing of hands, followed by futile groping attempts to apply the worthless cookie cutter of psycho/social philosophy to inhuman hate and bloodlust.  In war, an army dedicated to losing is one that refuses to understand and accept the reality of its enemy.  Because secular materialists refuse to accept the reality of our Enemy, they dither in utter confusion flailing at branches while never touching the tree or its hideous root.   Blind leaders of the blind, they lead society like sheep to the slaughter.

This blindness regarding Satanic Evil has cost millions of lives and it will cost untold millions more.  It was this blindness that led western leaders to misunderstand the true nature of Hitler and Nazism.  It led to futile attempts to negotiate with Satan’s human representatives.  (And I mean that very literally.)  While the secular materialists of western culture discussed, dawdled and dithered, the ovens burned.  All of that is coming again because we refuse to accept reality.

That young murderer in Newtown was filled with an Evil Power beyond himself that expressed its hatred and bloodlust through his willing mind and hands.  I don’t know how the possession took place, how he became “perfectly possessed,” but there is no question that it happened.  What “mental illness” would make a twenty-year-old want to shoot children over and over and watch them die?   The same Evil that shoved them into ovens.  The same Evil that hates all of humanity because, by the Grace of God, we bear the Image of God.  You do not negotiate with it.  You do not medicate it or try to talk it out through endless hours of therapy.  Incarcerating it does not work because prisons and iron bars mean nothing to it.  You find it, confront it, and cast it out by the One Power that is far greater, the Blood of Jesus Christ that was shed to cleanse the world of sin.

I am well aware that my secular materialist friends will consider such a statement to be utter foolishness, the product of an unsophisticated, even dangerously primitive mind.  So be it.  The dangerously primitive mind of Saint Paul, a brilliant Jew who penned some of the most beautiful and powerful words in any language, told us this, “For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against Principalities, against Powers, against the Rulers of the Darkness of this age, against spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places.”  Was he just primitive and deluded? 

To my friends who think he was, I would say this:  If you are wrong and Saint Paul was correct, if the Bible is correct, in the years that lie ahead you are going to see Darkness and Evil come upon the world such as has never been in recorded history.  Someday you may be confronted by a terrifying Darkness beyond anything you have ever imagined.  And it will be very personal. When that moment comes, remember one thing.  Remember the Name of the King.  Call out to Jesus and keep calling out…then see what happens. 

A new journey

Beginning the first week of January, 2013, I will do something that I have been warned not to do.  Several years ago I wrote a novel.  I had been contracted to write it by my publisher at the time, Zondervan, a company owned by Rupert Murdoch.  When the editors saw what I had written they were aghast and horrified and they absolutely refused to publish it.  Yes, this novel was BANNED BY ZONDERVAN, the largest Christian publisher in the world.  And I do not blame them.  They publish novels for good Christians, especially good, middle-aged Christian women.  (This they told me.) But I do not write novels for good Christians. I write novels for bad Christians like me and a whole lot of other bad people who might enjoy them. 

The novel I wrote is titled THE MENTALIST PROPHECIES – BOOK ONE: DAGON’S ILLUSION.   In this novel are many, many bad things such as the occult and the supernatural, magic and mentalism (I am a mentalist and a member of the Academy of Magical Arts at the Magic Castle in Hollywood), very dark inter-dimensional fantasy, a mentally handicapped person with strange powers and a whole lot more.  Also, there is some really ugly rather philosophical humor in a few places.  As you can see, Zondervan was right.  No good Christian should read a novel like this. 

I have decided to publish this novel in an odd way.  I have started a blog titled The Mentalist Prophecies – Book One: Dagon’s Illusion and each week I’m going to post four or five chapters.  So if you are a bad Christian or some other really bad person I invite you to come on a strange journey with me.  In it you will meet a man named Robert Arthur Dagon, one of the greatest mentalists and magicians in the world, who owns a night club in New Orleans called Dagon’s Illusion.  You will spend a long night in that huge, old mansion – the night the spirit called Katrina came to land. 

So if you are up for a journey watch for the announcement and the link that will lead you into a terrible world.  And if you choose to read this, don’t blame Zondervan.  They did their best to protect you.  

What’s Wrong with Evangelical Christians 

and Why are we Destroying America?

By Coleman Luck

This is a very difficult piece for me to write.  It’s hard to say negative things in public about your family even when what you are saying is true and needs to be said.  And evangelical Christians are my family.  The evangelical Church is my spiritual home.  I was born into it.  From my earliest childhood to the present moment I have been nurtured in its churches, schools and organizations.  My father was an evangelical leader, a theologian and Bible teacher who was faithful to his family and calling all his life.  I can say with the deepest gratitude that over my 61 years the most wonderful loving and giving people that I have ever known have been evangelical Christians.  And I have known thousands of them in an array of denominations across America.  Many hundreds have left a personal stamp of God’s love on my life.  So I write as an American evangelical who owes much to this branch of the historic Faith.    

But I believe there is a deep sickness in American evangelicalism.  The germ of the disease has been there for many generations but at least since the 1960’s it has become virulent to the point where our very spiritual life is at stake.  And for those who read this who are not evangelical Christians take no joy.  I do not argue as do some that America was founded as a “Christian nation” and we need to go back to our “Christian roots.”  Given the number of Masons who were among our early leaders and the deep influence of Masonry I could argue just as well that the United States was founded as a Masonic nation or if that makes you uncomfortable how about a Deist nation?  My atheist and agnostic friends should find little comfort in either of those positions.  But, such arguments are beside the point. 

What no one can argue against is the fact that an extremely large percentage of Americans claim to be evangelicals.  Now if you hate evangelicals you can rant and rave all you want about that.  It won’t change anything.  As much as you may dislike us you will be forced to agree that what happens within evangelicalism deeply influences every aspect of American life and it’s going to be that way for a long time to come.  So, strange as it may seem, even those who consider themselves our enemies should be very concerned about our spiritual health and in my opinion our spiritual health is in an advanced state of disaster.

How do I define disaster?

Now I’m going to speak directly to my brothers and sisters in the Faith.  It is disaster when we give up our ability to carry out the Great Commission of Jesus and live out His love within the culture to which we have been assigned.  It is disaster when we lose our moral authority.  It is disaster when political/cultural/moral ends come to justify ungodly means.  It is disaster when we commit ourselves to an agenda of fear instead of faith.  It is disaster when we choose leaders who tell us what we want to hear instead of what we need to hear.  It is disaster when we condone ungodliness and hypocrisy in those leaders.  And because all these things have been happening, it is disaster for the spiritual life of America.  In my opinion not since the Roman Catholic Church of the Middle Ages or the Protectorate of Oliver Cromwell has a Christian church so failed a culture as evangelical Christianity is failing and destroying America right now.

Not long ago the sad revelations about the Reverend Ted Haggard spread through the media.  Because of his prominence as an evangelical leader all of us are a laughing stock, the butt of tawdry late-night humor.  And we deserve it.  Not long ago I read David Kuo’s important book, Tempting Faith about the seduction of power within the Bush White House.  Both the revelations regarding the Reverend Haggard and the experience of Mr. Kuo among “political Christians” point in the same direction.  They are the symptoms of a disease. 

Now, every disease has an etiology.  To understand the nature of a disease and recommend treatment doctors begin by looking at symptoms.  Before we try to define the disease that is destroying evangelical Christianity we should do the same.  Symptoms are anecdotal.  It’s easy too misinterpret them because they are viewed through the lens of a specific and very limited observer.  In this case that means me.  So, I present the following perspectives with the hope that you will make your own examination and decide whether my diagnosis is correct or not.  Here is the first symptom: 

The evangelical church is addicted to choosing destructive leaders.

In my experience this is true from the foundational level of the pastorate all the way up to those who represent us in the national arena.  Please understand that I am not saying that every evangelical leader is destructive.  There are many wonderfully gifted and spiritually mature people in church leadership today.  But a disturbingly high percentage are lethally damaged and damaging human beings incapable of making righteous personal decisions much less guiding others.  Why are we addicted to following such leaders?

Back in the early 80’s I was an elder in a small church in North Hollywood, California.  At a certain point our pastor moved on and we had to start the process of finding his replacement.  As we began the search the district supervisor of the denomination met with us and confided to me an important principle to help us in the choice of a new pastor.  At first I thought he was joking, but he wasn’t.  In his opinion after many years of guiding evangelical churches in southern California he had determined that there was an important trait necessary to assure a man’s success in the pastorate. 

All things being equal he needed to be a jock.

That’s right, a jock.  Being a jock (okay, a former jock was acceptable) would give him the ability to relate more effectively to his church members and the more prestigious a jock he had been…well, you get the picture.  Now the district supervisor was a good and godly man.  There was nothing cynical about him.  He was honestly giving me the wisdom of many years during which he had dealt with scores of churches and hundreds of pastors and he had been a pastor himself.  He knew his target audience.

Granted southern California is unique.  But in almost every area of culture it has proven to be a bellwether for the whole nation.  Several decades later we might add a new element to the guidance of the district supervisor.  Today besides being a jock it would be helpful if a prospective pastor had some experience as a rock musician.  This is because since the 1960’s in most of our churches music has become more important than preaching.  (For those unfamiliar with such things church-style rock and roll is now the musical base for what most evangelicals call “worship.”  That’s a change from previous eras when the entire Sunday morning service was called worship.)  Many evangelicals choose their church depending in large part on the quality of the musical “worship” experience.

In most of our congregations rock and roll “worship” (all right with a strong influence of folk, gospel and country/western, but let’s not quibble) can go on for 45 minutes or even longer on a Sunday Morning.  But God help the pastor who preaches more than half an hour.  Twenty minutes is the optimal length.  If sermons consistently drag out beyond the thirty-minute barrier the perpetrating pastor had better be one of the greatest storytellers in the world and no matter how good he is he should never talk past noon.  Why?  Because it will encroach on two other vastly important Sunday evangelical activities – getting to restaurants for lunch and home for the games on TV.  (Do you see the nexus between the jock pastor and preaching?)   

Our little church in North Hollywood had another problem.  Not a lot of people attended because we were within five miles of several “mega-churches” with “superstar” pastors who drew large crowds and generous offerings.  Their churches could afford all the amenities.  Why waste your time in a little church with a pastor who struggled to construct a sermon when you could attend a Grand Event that would truly “meet your needs?” 

While we were searching for a pastor I ran into a dirty little reality of evangelical church growth.  With a few striking exceptions I discovered that most of the mega-churches had not grown from reaching the non-believers of their communities.  Like giant corporations that suck up the competition they had grown at the cost of hundreds of other small churches.  Was there some pseudo-spiritual capitalistic conspiracy behind this?  Of course not.  It just happened because great numbers of evangelical Christians are anxious to sit under the ministry of a “Superstar.” 

What is a “Superstar Pastor?”

First, he is a Great Communicator who is skilled in moving crowds through the Power of Emotion.  More than most other preachers the Superstar seems to have an ability to open his heart, to communicate with amazing honesty and vulnerability in front of thousands.  He preaches with passion appearing to relate on a personal level with each individual in the huge room.  Now some of these men are quite legitimate.  They are exactly what they appear – honest, caring individuals struggling to perform a difficult job.  But a dangerously significant percentage are not.  For too many of our Superstar pastors how well they preach the truth of the Bible or how well they even know the Bible is of secondary importance.  Evangelicals automatically assume that numbers and spectacle equate to God’s “blessing.”  (For non-evangelicals the word “blessing” is our code word for success.)  Based upon the size of the “blessing” we make a very dangerous logical leap.  We assume that if there’s great success the pastor’s moral and spiritual life must be exemplary.  He must be a true “Man of God.”  We ask ourselves, “would God fill a dirty vessel?”  Tragically over and over these assumptions have trapped us.  Either He “fills dirty vessels” or we don’t have a clue what the “filling” of His Spirit is all about.  How have we become so muddled?  Here is another statement that will disturb many of my fellow evangelicals:

For most of us emotion has become the measure of Truth.

We are the “Me” generations.  Everything revolves around meeting our “needs.”  How does a “Me” generation member know that God is speaking through a pastor? Emotion.  If our hearts are moved then the message must be from Heaven.  For most of us when certain emotional manifestations are present it is conclusive proof that the “Power of God” is resting on the person in the pulpit.  Let’s be brutally honest.   

Much of what we consider to be God’s Power in our pulpits is nothing but the Grand Illusion of Celebrity and its hypnotic influence on crowds.

How dare I make such a statement?  First, from 61 years of observation in many different churches and, second, from spending decades as a writer and producer in Hollywood the heart of Grand Illusion.  In the entertainment industry the principles of Grand Illusion and the Concept and Uses of Celebrity are well known.  Finally, and what may be viewed as oddest of all, I am a magician, a mental illusionist, who has spent years studying selective perception, misperception, and the power of hypnotic influence in the befuddlement and control of crowds.

Am I saying there should be no drama or emotion in preaching?  Absolutely not.  Our emotions are God-given.  I want to hear passionate preaching.  I’m a professional storyteller and I want to be touched by stories.  But when emotion is the measure of truth instead of truth the measure of emotion we are vulnerable to every trap and disaster that can befall us.

One of the great lies of Hollywood storytelling is that when you are “in love” somehow a deeper “wisdom” enters your life.  You can understand truth that no one else sees.  When you “follow your heart” everything will be all right no matter how stupid a particular decision may be.  Almost everyone who has lived beyond 35 years old knows from painful experience how asinine this philosophy really is.  But we evangelicals display our own version of this romantic stupidity when we fall in love with and idolize our Superstar Pastors and Christian Media Celebrities. 

Now it’s always dangerous to generalize.  Let me underscore a previous statement.  There are many wonderful men and women in church leadership today.  (One or two may even be on radio and television.  And, no, that’s not a joke.)  But the evidence is overwhelming.  A frightening percentage of our leaders are not spiritually qualified to sweep the parking lot much less preach the Bible or make decisions for us.  The clearest argument proving this fact is the number of men who are forced to leave church leadership every year because of “moral indiscretions.”  The evangelical church of a hundred years ago would have used different words.  They would have called it Gross Sin. 

Since the 1960’s the wave of men guilty of such sin has grown ever larger and they are only the ones who have been caught.  How many more are enslaved to pornography and its correlated perversions but manage to keep their addiction secret?  One figure I have read is that four out of ten men in every church from the pastor to the custodian is a porn addict.  Given the influence of the Internet I do not doubt this. 

How many pastoral search committees have ever asked a prospective candidate to bring his personal computer in for examination by an expert who would expose all the deleted files?  How many members of a pastoral search committee or elder board would be willing to undergo that kind of scrutiny themselves?  Do you want to assure yourself about the spiritual quality of your leadership?  Then try it in your church.  The measure of the negative response will be a measure of your problem.  Do you think such a requirement is insulting and unnecessary? If you do either you’re a porn addict yourself or you are abysmally naive.  The fact that we need to start taking such measures speaks to the depth of our crisis.   

But let’s go deeper toward the core of the disease.

The addiction to sexual sin is not the most dangerous of our leaders’ problems.  Many times those sins as damaging as they are, eventually come to light because of the Law of Diminishing Returns.  This inexorable Law forces a person to take greater and greater risks in order to achieve the same satisfaction.  Once in the light the sin can be dealt with if we choose to do so.  Sadly, I know several churches where senior pastors have been removed for “moral indiscretions” and what did these men do?  Each went out immediately and started a new church.  Hundreds of people followed them because they didn’t want to be “judgmental” and they loved the wonderful “preaching.”  But at least the revelation about moral foulness gave everyone a clear choice.  The most dangerous addiction is one that we evangelicals reward our leaders for having and the more they are controlled by it the more we revere them.  What is this addiction?

It is the Addiction to Spiritualized Power.

The heart attitude of one so enslaved might be verbalized in this way:  “God has blessed me.  I am gifted.  Many people hang on my every word.  Obviously I am doing God’s Work.  Look at how many lives are being changed, healed, delivered.  Look at the financial resources that have opened to accomplish my vision.  The Mantle of the Apostles is upon me.  I live in the bubble of my own special dispensation.  The people around me are to be used to fulfill the Great Work that God has given me to do.  Because my Vision is God’s Vision what I set out to accomplish justifies the means that I choose and anyone who stands in my way is a Servant of Darkness who must be removed.”  While, this is a crude statement of the philosophy it is operationally accurate.  Throughout my adult life, I have seen it play out with the most damaging results in a variety of churches and evangelical organizations.  The more successful and powerful our addicted leaders become the more we idolize and reward them. Charming but destructive personalities enslaved to Spiritualized Power fall into a category that we might call Independent Operators.  No matter how charismatic they are and no matter how well they hide it, beyond all else these people are concerned about themselves and achieving their own agendas.

In the mountain community in which I live I attend a church that is still suffering from such a “ministry.”  A dozen years ago in the pulpit of this church there was a very gifted preacher.  I can’t speak about his abilities from personal experience.  I didn’t live here at that time and I never heard him.  But years after he has been gone everyone still talks of his preaching power.  To this day the people love him.  Of course, almost everyone expresses the fact that there was a kind of mystery about the man.  Though he was wonderful in the pulpit on a personal level he was distant and hard to get to know, a man with many invisible barriers carefully established.  Was he an Independent Operator?  You decide.

What happens when a gifted preacher is in the pulpit?  From everywhere Christians congregate to hear him.  And that’s what occurred in this church.  Membership boomed.  People were “being fed.”  (That’s the cliché that evangelicals use to describe their satisfaction with a pulpit ministry.)  There was excitement.  Soon the congregation outgrew its building.  Big plans were laid.  They would build a much larger building.  They would start a school.  And these things they did.  They built the first of what was to be several large buildings.  They started the school.  Needless to say this kind of “vision” costs money and they found themselves with a huge debt.  But all would be well…as long as their success continued. 

Unfortunately, that success was based on the “ministry” of one person.  Not long after the building was completed and the school started this man “felt the call of God” to go to a more prominent church in another state.  When you lose a gifted “pulpiteer” it’s hard to replace him especially in a small community.  As the years passed many in the congregation did what most modern evangelicals do when they grow bored and discontented.  They found other churches where their “needs” could be more fully met.  For years, those who remained have labored under the financial yoke that this “pastor” left on their shoulders.  Subsequent pastors have felt its crushing weight.  In spite of what he did to them the people still speak fondly of this man and revere his wonderful “ministry.” 

Now, let’s be gut-level honest.

To do this kind of thing to people who have vested all their trust in you is despicable.  In any other area of life such lack of concern and commitment would be repudiated.  In business you just don’t start something huge, enlist the deep involvement of many trusting souls, then walk out on them leaving them to suffer the consequences of your grandiose “vision.”  If you were a General and had recruited an army based on your leadership skills then took them into battle, what would your soldiers think if you abandoned them at the height of the war?  But such things don’t bother Independent Operator Pastors.  Why?  They are “Following the Call of God.”  

Saddest of all because of our unbiblical pastoral romanticism evangelical Christians allow such things to happen over and over.  The fact that a pastor is willing to leave a ministry in the lurch should be the first reason another church would refuse to hire him.  But we encourage men like this to go on and on.  That’s because we view our Superstar Pastors like Superstar Athletes.  If we can steal one away from another “team” so much the better for us. 

And the disease continues to grow.

My career in Hollywood was never stellar.  But I experienced enough success to know that it changes you in fascinating ways.  At the heart of that change is a kind of mystical exhilaration about winning a subtle sweetness in knowing that you have succeeded where so many have failed.  With success comes flattery.  The flattery of Hollywood is like crack Cocaine for the soul.  You suck it in whether you want to or not because it’s in the air you breathe and it isn’t just the flattery of words.  It’s the many oblations that are laid on your altar.  

During my years of success in Hollywood, there was a single airline that came to personify it all.  Yes, an airline and its name was MGM Grand Air.  This delightful if small collection of planes flew between New York and Los Angeles and every inch of them was First Class.  None of this pretense to grandeur called “business.”  And certainly no hordes of smelly bodies crammed into constriction seats in a cattle car called coach. 

To fly MGM Grand Air your limousine took you to a private terminal.  From there you were ushered onto the aircraft and seated in a soft, Lazy Boy style lounger with plenty of legroom.  Fine wine and caviar were served followed by a delightful selection of gourmet meals.  An hour or so before landing the staff would bake chocolate chip cookies.  (I am not lying about any of this.  Every word is true.)  I came to look forward to a hot chocolate chip that would sweeten my arrival on either coast.  The rear of the plane was divided into cubicles with four chairs facing each other.  One night flying back to LA I was alone in a cubicle.  Just for me the staff collapsed the loungers into a queen-sized bed.  (Isn’t this sickening?)  As I lay there looking out the window I knew without a doubt that God loved me more than anyone else.

But the most subtle joy in flying MGM Grand Air was the other passengers.  Not on one of those planes would you be crammed in with the riffraff and illiterati that slosh down the aisles of Southwest Airlines.  You weren’t even subjected to the lesser mortals who flew first class on American.  (Some of them might have been upgraded. You just couldn’t tell.)  Every time you boarded the plane there was the quiet assurance that MGM Grand Air catered only to stars and moguls, truly important people just like you.  I won’t mention any of my seatmates on those flights.  Being from Hollywood, I hate to drop names.  Suffice it to say that just to walk on board and sit down made you feel as though you had pierced the inner circle.  Flying at studio expense became a delicious form of flattery.

Too bad they went bankrupt.

What’s the purpose in going into all of this in a screed about why we evangelicals are destroying America?  Because I take seriously Jesus’ command to remove the beam from your own eye before you go after the mote in someone else’s.  Most often, where you choose to be critical of others is where you are at fault.  But there is another truth to consider.  The person who can most easily spot an addict is another addict.  Since I have a verified weakness for success and all the accoutrements it brings, perhaps I am uniquely qualified to identify other addicts.  Or perhaps I shouldn’t be writing about it at all.  At any rate keep this in mind as you read on.

Once you smell the sickly sweet stench of celebrity you don’t forget it.  It’s the reek of desire in your own soul.

Over the course of my professional life I have known more than my share of “celebrities.”  In almost every case, the public persona was quite different than the “off-camera” individual.  Each of these people had a wonderful gift for public charm, but when the camera was switched off, the truth came out.  Infused into many of them was a sickening narcissism that expressed itself in various levels of whining, rage, and abuse.  The people forced to deal with these “elite” individuals suffered in silence remaining in their jobs only because they were extremely well paid to do so.  Now none of the celebrities I’m talking about claimed to be evangelical Christians.  Some were openly hostile to Christianity.  While dealing with them was unpleasant it doesn’t compare to the disturbing experiences I have had with certain evangelical “celebrities.”  Let me give you three examples:

The National TV Reverend

This man is an ordained minister who exudes charm and caring while on camera.  Off camera he is well known for his cavalier lack of concern for the employees in his own large organization.  Some of his actions are horrifyingly laughable such as arbitrarily firing a person then several months later wondering where he was.  Yes I have it on good authority that that actually happened.  I know it sounds brain-dead, but the man’s incapacitation is not mental. 

My own experience with the National TV Reverend took place over a four-day period a number of years ago.  I was part of a small group who stayed with him in a private villa that he had rented for our meeting.  The purpose was to work on a project that he was funding.  (He is a very wealthy man.)  I came to the meeting with enthusiasm.  However, it wasn’t long before all of us crashed into the reality behind the mask.  The private arrogance and elitism of the National TV Reverend were breathtaking.  For four days we were with him from breakfast in the morning through an excellent dinner each night.  During that time he made it clear that he had no personal interest in anyone but himself.  In our little group there was at least one non-Christian.  Though the TV Reverend trumpets his commitment to worldwide evangelism he showed disdain for this man.

Among the unpleasant realities to be observed in this larger-than-life minister was his clear lack of Biblical knowledge.  Though we were working on a story from the Bible he had little interest in the source material.  What fascinated him were the thoughts in his own head.  Let me be quick to say that I had no personal conflict with this man.  When the project was finished he was very complimentary about our work.  But I left the meeting deeply concerned for the millions who follow his leadership and contribute millions to his cause.

The World-famous Bible Teacher

This man is an acclaimed Bible scholar who has written many books.  From this success he has grown wealthy and powerful.  Yet with all his Biblical knowledge he thinks nothing of suing other Christians.  I watched as his actions dragged the name of Jesus through the dirt in Hollywood.  How do I have personal knowledge of this?  It’s not because I was sued.  Rather, a number of years ago this man asked me to moderate a meeting between him and several Christians whom he was suing.  Ostensibly the purpose was to settle the dispute and I was overjoyed at the possibility.  I had a personal stake in the situation.  His suit was blocking a project in which I was involved. 

The meeting went for five hours.  Miraculously at the conclusion he agreed to drop the lawsuit.  I considered this to be a real victory for the Faith.  My sense of victory was short-lived.  Within 24 hours he went back on his word.  For years afterward he continued the suit spending millions of dollars on attorneys and forcing those he was suing to spend millions as well.  The entertainment industry watched with smug interest as the Christians threw muck at each other.  Ultimately the World-famous Bible Teacher lost his multi-million dollar suit.  As it stretched out for years it was a matter of personal sadness and frustration.  The project that would have been groundbreaking for evangelical Christians in secular television withered and died.  I came away from all contacts with the World-famous Bible Teacher feeling that something was deeply wrong.   

The Christian Media Mogul

This is a man who is well known within powerful circles in the entertainment industry.  Because of his prominent position he is pursued to act as sponsor of various evangelical events.  Unlike the other two, very often the Christian Media Mogul is openly brash and arrogant.  Like the others he can be very charming.  Within Hollywood his reputation is for making one right decision years ago that brought him great wealth followed by a long string of stupid decisions.  Also he is well known for deceit.  Several years ago he boasted to me personally about 20 different individuals and organizations that were suing him because of the slick and underhanded way in which he had breached contracts.  (He didn’t use the words “slick” and “underhanded.”  To him it was just “good business.”)  As bad as Hollywood can be within the industry your word is your bond.  Long before contracts are written deals are entered into based on a handshake.  For the “Christian” Media Mogul, even written contracts mean nothing. 

For all of these men, the end justifies the means.  All have been corrupted by power and money.  All are Individual Operators on a grand scale.  Yet, evangelical Christians fawn over them.  Instead of being petted and feted they should be placed under church discipline for the good of their souls.  Of course they would never stand for such a thing.  And who would consider attempting it?  There is no church with authority that they would recognize.  But what about a Christian peer group?  Aren’t there other mature, evangelical leaders on their level who could take them to task?

Welcome to the International “Fellowship” of Independent Operators

From what I can determine exactly the opposite is true.  Instead of a peer group that would hold each member accountable there exists across the United States (and even out into the rest of the world) an elitist “Christian” clique of very powerful men.  These individuals are leaders in media, politics, business, the mega churches and the Christian academic world.  I have had friends who have touched the periphery of this clique.  The members protect each other, fund each other, and promote each other.  Unless someone in the group does something particularly egregious that embarrasses everyone (such as the antics of the Reverend Ted Haggard) normal, everyday arrogance, narcissism, and deceit on a grand scale remain hidden. 

Because they are wealthy and powerful, these men receive special “spiritual” treatment.  I don’t know whether it still exists but a few years ago there was a regular telephone “Bible study” taking place among them.  Every week or two a group of wealthy men would gather in a conference call and a leading minister would give them a short “devotional” message over the phone.  One of those leading ministers was Rick Warren who is certainly a good and godly man.  At one point one of the members listening to him was the Christian Media Mogul.  Perhaps Reverend Warren doesn’t understand that such special treatment is exactly the opposite of what is needed.  Perhaps he should take another look at the Book of James.  What these people require is a truly, tough, godly group of “powerless” men who would kick their rich camel butts hard enough and often enough so that they just might squeeze through the “eye of the needle” that Jesus warned about.  

The Evangelical Church in the United States is becoming like the Roman Catholic Church of the Middle Ages.

I’ve told three stories that come from my personal experience.  I’ve had other unpleasant experiences with evangelical celebrities but I won’t relate them here.  Sadly, there are many other cases that are known to everyone – so-called “evangelical/charismatic leaders” who live like bloated slugs crawling through their mansions and onto their private jets while they suck contributions from the pockets of foolish people.  Their lives leave trails of oily stench while they plead into cameras with tearful sincerity (some with mascara running) begging for the flow of money-milk from the great evangelical boob.  It’s time to face a brutal fact.  Many, if not most of our national leaders have been corrupted.  In the Middle Ages the Roman Catholic Church was governed by a cabal of sleek and charming bullies.  To an ever-increasing degree the evangelical church in the United States has resurrected that awful system.  But are these men more sinful than the rest of us?  Absolutely not.  Were I in such a position without true and tough accountability I’m sure I would be just as bad or worse.  One thing is clear.   

We have the leaders we deserve.

Is there a single sin in them that is not alive and well in us?  Greed, covetousness, selfishness, elitism, competitiveness, self-pity, vindictiveness, and pride have turned our churches into giant nurseries where pastors spend their lives struggling to change massive piles of emotional diapers.  Love for grand spectacle has transformed our “worship” into expensive extravaganzas of sight and sound worthy of ancient Rome.  The exponential decrease in our collective attention span demands an exponential increase in the entertainment value of preaching.  In our prayers we pay homage both to Jesus and the hydra headed idol of health and wealth.  Is it any wonder that so many of our leaders are corrupt? But there is an even greater tragedy.     

Through it all, our children are dying. 

Never in the history of the evangelical church has such a spiritually ignorant and damaged generation arisen as the one that is staggering toward adulthood right now.  In their confusion and anger our children and grandchildren binge and purge, pierce and brand, cut and rage.  And what is our response?  Utter ineptitude.  In our laziness we blame the schools or Hollywood or peer groups anything and everything to keep from blaming ourselves and taking action. 

In the Middle Ages before the Protestant Reformation there was a centuries-long tragedy in the Roman Catholic Church.  The people in the pews did not know the Bible.  Oh, they knew some Bible stories and some truths that they were told to memorize, but the Scriptures were in Latin, Greek and Hebrew.  Only the educated elite could read them.  And many in the religious hierarchy wanted to keep it that way.  These men knew the power of the Bible and feared it.  There is a far greater tragedy playing out in the evangelical church today.  Often within evangelical homes there are half a dozen Bibles in as many versions.  Yet, not since the Bible was translated into English has there been such ignorance and blithe disregard for the Scriptures.  Let’s face another ugly fact:

Most Evangelicals find the Bible boring and have little interest in it. 

How can I make such an outrageous assertion?

1.      In how many evangelical homes is their a time of Bible reading with the whole family present every day?

2.      In how many evangelical homes do the adults take time to read the Bible individually every day?

3.      In how many evangelical churches do vibrant Sunday Schools still exist? Historically, Sunday Schools have been a primary means of teaching the Bible to each new generation.  Believing it to be outdated, we have cast the Sunday School system aside and replaced it with…nothing.

4.      In how many “worship” songs do we find expressed the great truths of the Bible?  For untold generations hymnology struggled to put the truths of Scripture into the musical language of the heart.  Hymns and gospel songs were one of the most effective means of Bible teaching.  Modern Christian lyricists do not know the Bible.  What they know is the power of emotion.  So that is the core of their message.    

5.      How many pastors preach through books of the Bible on Sunday morning?  In modern evangelical parlance such preaching is not considered “seeker sensitive.”  That means we think it would be boring for non-Christians who might visit.  But in a crowd of several hundred on Sunday morning how many non-Christians do visit?  If we’re lucky, three or four.  What would happen if a non-Christian stumbled into a deep Biblical message?  Well we don’t really know do we?  Because it rarely happens.  And it rarely happens because most pastors have not been trained to preach that way.  They think that’s teaching and should be confined to other times and venues.

6.      In how many of our churches does serious Bible study still exist?  Let’s be honest.  When it is offered it’s poorly attended.  Sunday evening and Wednesday evening services are extinct.  Bible studies and Bible classes have been replaced by “share groups.”  Most of these are based on popular books and video series or shared interest in some activity.  This is probably a good thing because there are few laypeople left in our churches who are qualified to teach a Bible class. 

I could go on but there is no point.  In my opinion, the evidence is clear.  Evangelical Christians find the Bible boring.  Since we don’t read or study it we don’t to try live up to it which has resulted in disaster.  All the evils of the world have swept through our congregations devastating everyone.  This loss of the Bible has had two results.  First, we live any way we want and still claim that we are Christians, and second we expect everybody else even those in the secular world not to offend our “Christian” sensibilities.  Do we not justly deserve to be called hypocrites?  Is it little wonder that young people raised in the church are leaving by the droves?  Which brings us back to the original point:  Our reaction to our own sinfulness is not only destroying us it’s destroying the country we love.  The secularists are dead wrong. 

The problem isn’t that we are religious fanatics.  It’s that compared to the history of our movement we’re hardly religious at all. 

We’re just selfish frightened people who go to church on Sunday and give money to bully boys who lead us in flexing our political muscles because that’s all the power that remains.  In Jesus’ day the Pharisees demanded that everyone live up to a standard that they themselves could not attain.  We demand moral transformation from our political and social institutions but not from ourselves.  We demand that the FCC and Congress clean up Hollywood while we continue watching everything Hollywood puts out.  Instead of evangelizing our broken cities we demand that ICE collect all the illegal aliens and ship them back to their home countries where missionaries can deal with their souls.  We demand that moral people be appointed as judges while we don’t have the moral courage or authority to judge the conflicts in our own congregations.  We demand the right to be publicly religious while being privately pagan.  Like the Roman Catholics of the Middle Ages we revere the relics of ancient evangelicalism and hope that by lifting them up some of the power will return.  Nothing is going to change until we change.  Judgment begins with the house of God.  The more we scream and pound our fists, the more we trust in political movements, the more we empower Independent Operators and greedy charlatans, the more we worship health and wealth by “naming it and claiming it,” the worse our country will become and the more we will be justly hated as hypocrites.  The Church is either a light on a hill or a shadow of hell.  There’s nothing in between.

It’s easy to rant about the problems.  But what’s the answer?  Let me suggest a beginning.

Switch it off…Shut it down…Shut up…and LISTEN.

The great national revivals of Old Testament Israel began during times when the nation was in severe moral decrepitude.  In the middle of the darkness someone would find the Scriptures stuck away in the temple and bring them to the king.  The king would listen to them read aloud then rip his clothes in repentance.  After that he would gather the people and from morning to night God’s Word would be read to them. 

So, here is my suggestion:  Every Sunday for one month let all the evangelical churches in the United States switch off their rear screen projectors shut down their blistering worship bands silence the blathering announcements and give the pastor a break from preaching.  For four Sundays no singing, no fake hugging-airkiss-greeting-time, not even communion.  We’re not ready for it.  So what in the world do we do for those four services?  Well, start with prayer.  After that get someone who knows how to read in public to read one of the shorter books of the New Testament all the way through from beginning to end.  (Don’t give the assignment to anybody in the drama department.  It isn’t a performance.)  Personally I’d start with the Gospel of Mark to introduce people to Jesus.  Reading Mark straight through will take about two hours so given the gnat-like attention span of a modern congregation maybe you’d have to divide it into two Sundays.  After that I’d read Galatians followed by Ephesians.  When the reading was finished each week I would divide the congregation into groups of three or four and spend the rest of the service in prayer. 

I can hear a pastor say, “If I did this I’d lose most of my congregation.”  If that’s so, my friend, you don’t have a congregation.  You have an audience paying for spiritual entertainment.  So stop preaching and go to Hollywood where you can do some honest entertaining work with your life.   

Evangelicals pay lip service to the Bible being God’s Word.  We talk about God’s Word not returning to Him void.  We believe that Jesus is The Word Incarnate.  Well it’s time to prove it.  It’s time to get back to the foundation and trust God to speak through His Word.  If this suggestion isn’t realistic, if we can’t trust it, if it wouldn’t “work” in “our situation,” then we’d all better become Zen Buddhists.  And certainly we should stop carping about America being a Christian nation that needs to “get back to its roots.”  What hypocrisy if we can’t get back to our own.

The suggestion I have made is only a beginning.  The point is to fall in love with the Bible again not because we love the pages but because in it we meet Jesus and will fall in love with Him again.   

And you never know we might be surprised.  Maybe God’s Word really does have power to change nations…one person at a time. 

© Copyright 2007 Coleman Luck

Angus T. Jones vs. Two and a Half Men

I’ve been thinking a lot about the young star of Two and a Half Men, Angus T. Jones, and what he has said about the show.  Pray for him.  For the last year of his contract he’s got a world of trouble.   In light of his courageous statement, I thought I might write a few words about Hollywood.  And, trust me, I do know my subject. 

Think of Hollywood this way:  It’s like a giant restaurant, the most fabulous in the world.  The décor is stunning.  The hosts and servers are charming, sometimes even ravishing.  Everything in this restaurant has been created to make you love the experience of eating there, especially the menu.  Just opening it is dazzling.  There are thousands of items, something for everyone, and all are created by the most talented chefs.  You don’t see them, they stay behind the scenes, but they are constantly at work laboring to make the finest soups and salads, the most tempting entrees and desserts, all designed to overwhelm your palate with pleasure.  These skilled artisans spend night and day creating new culinary concepts to bring you back over and over to eat in their vast establishment.  But I have to tell you something that might disturb you. I know this because I know the restaurant well. You might be surprised to learn that there is a primary, secret ingredient in almost every one of their recipes. That secret ingredient is shit.  (My friends, there are rare times when only that word will do and this is one of them.)

There are several important things to understand about this secret ingredient.  First, it is never called shit.  To suggest that the food you will be eating in the restaurant is primarily shit would not be a good marketing plan.  People would be offended.  They wouldn’t walk in the door.  Second, you can’t just serve up a pile of raw shit.  To load that on a plate and stick it in front of someone on their first visit would not get you a good Yelp rating.   So the chefs have found a thousand different spices and condiments, not just to hide the flavor, but make it delectable.  To the unsophisticated palate there is a slightly unpleasant aftertaste, but over time that disappears.  Third, (and this is very important to understand) the chefs have been eating shit themselves for so long that, honestly, they don’t think of it as shit.  In fact, they would be highly offended if anyone described it in such a crass manner.  To call their creations shit would bring the most God-awful load of the pure stuff right on your head.  Fourth, after years of eating many different varieties of shit, the chefs like theirs straight.  And they want you to like it that way as well.  So the longer you visit the restaurant the more your palate will become like theirs.  After a few years of eating disguised shit you will be sophisticated enough to eat raw sewage and love it.

It might be interesting to note where all these chefs come from.  They are products of the finest culinary schools with names like USC, UCLA, New York University, Harvard and Yale.  In these schools are experienced professors who train students for their future lives in the restaurant.  If some young students arrive with a modicum of real culinary genius (rare) they are gently and carefully guided to lay such youthful delusions aside and create recipes that are acceptable and will make them successful restaurant chefs, for it is in the success of their students that these schools maintain their high reputations.  Remember, like everyone else involved with the restaurant, the professors don’t think of shit as shit. If you suggest that they are creating shit chefs they would be enraged.  (Here is a strange fact that must be taken into consideration:   The longer you eat shit, the more you lose your ability to appreciate any other cuisine.  In a weird convolution, you start thinking of good pure food as shit. Isn’t that odd?  But it is the truth and that’s the case with most of the people who run the restaurant.) 

So how do Christians fit into all of this in Hollywood?  First, you have to understand where young Christians are coming from.  There is so much Hollywood shit in churches that is passed off as the finest Christian cuisine that they arrive with sewaged-out palates.  In their homes they’ve been eating shit for years and told it was all about Jesus.  If they come from a Christian college or university, most likely many of their professors don’t know shit from shinola as the old saying goes, or they have been corrupted by the restaurant themselves.  The truth is that the whole American Christian world loves to eat shit in the Hollywood restaurant.  They’ve done it for decades and have created their own versions of all the great Hollywood recipes.  But it’s still just shit.

When they arrive in Hollywood young Christians may enter one of several  “Christian” training programs in which they will learn how to fit in at the restaurant.   They will be told that they aren’t here to come up with their own recipes.  They need to learn the recipes of the restaurant and execute them well for that is their job.  They will be told that if they want to do their own recipes they should go out and start their own restaurants.   For most of the students it’s an easy sell.  If there is some lingering vision, some vague idea that they are in Hollywood to cook up creations whose main ingredient is “truth” instead of shit, they are told that, perhaps after many years of faithfully serving shit, someday they may earn the right to cook something else.  Of course, by then they will be a well-paid chefs and will have lost all ability to cook anything else. But there is a consolation.  When all is said and done they can tell themselves that there was a little less shit in a particular dish because they helped cook it.  

Friends, I’m sick of it all.  Dare not minimize the importance of what I am saying to you and dare not patronize me by saying that I’m just an old curmudgeon.  Am I old?  Indeed. But the older you get as an artist warrior the more dangerous you should become.  After all the years the vision is still strong, in fact more powerful than ever.  I have a vision of Christian artist warriors, young and old, skilled in their crafts and absolutely committed to the King, who refuse to serve up shit.  I have a vision of Christian artist warriors who aren’t satisfied to be drones and whores (both inside the church and out of it) and who care about the slaves of the restaurant and setting them free in Jesus more than they care about their own precious creativity and careers.  I have a vision of Christian artist warriors who have the guts and commitment to clean up their lives and find the Power of God to create things that have never been seen before.  The art of the Christian warrior who stands for Jesus isn’t pretty.  It doesn’t play idiot ghetto-games using the slither of chameleon words such as “faith-based” and “family-friendly.” Most often it’s bloody and wears a crown of thorns.  Who is the Christian Artist Warrior?  The wounded and heartbroken man or woman who stands and creates in darkness, yet sees the coming of the King.  And all they do is for Him.

The time is short.  Where are you?  Is anyone there?  If you are sick of it all, what shall we do about it? 

Response to an agnostic reader.

Recently, I received an email from an agnostic reader who asked my opinion about a problem. I thought my response might generate some conversation.

Dear Allen (the name has been changed),

Sorry it has taken me longer than expected to answer your email. Reading it again, I'm not quite sure what to tell you. I am the last person who would defend Christian denominations and their activities. Anglicanism is a mess. Thankfully, I am not an Anglican. But do I understand your situation correctly? You used the word "proselytize." Your brother-in-law is trying to "proselytize" you. I take this to mean that he is concerned for your rapidly aging soul. At our age (I'm 66 as well) that is no unimportant issue. We could be dead tomorrow (if not sooner). In answer to his concern, you raise your objections about what Anglicans are doing in Africa. Do I have that down right? So how in the world should you deal with this damnably irritating individual (whom you love and respect) regarding his futile attempts to save you? Is that the question?

In my experience, with all such people delicacy and sophistication simply do not work. No matter what his concerns may be that you are on your way to hell, you have every right to your opinions and privacy. In particular, within the confines of a family, no one should browbeat another. Sadly, I think there's no other alternative than a fairly brutal response. I suggest that you tell him with the utmost clarity that his attempts to save you will never work. You have made your decision regarding Christianity. While somewhat clinically fascinating as an example of spirituality, it will never be of any deeper personal interest to you. As a sophisticated man you are quite prepared for what you consider to be the minimal risks involved with this decision. The minor risk being that Jesus Christ is exactly who the Bible says he is and that your rejection of eternal salvation offered through him means that you will go to hell. While you don't believe this fantasy for a New York minute, you accept the logical potential that there is a very tiny percentage of possibility that it could be true. After all, in the insanity of our quantum universe almost anything could be true, if not in this dimension, then in some other. Accepting this tiny percentage of possibility and standing against it will prove one of two things - either you are a man of great moral courage who has risen above primitive ignorance or you are an arrogant, smug eternally self-destructive fool. One way or the other, I would inform your brother-in-law that you are ready, willing and able to take the risk.

Perhaps he is not fully aware of the important values held by every good agnostic. As gently as possible, I would inform him that you carry in your proverbial wallet an important piece of self-identification. It is your Professional Searchers Card and it qualifies you to dabble endlessly (well, not endlessly) at the smorgasbord of world spirituality - a dab of this, a titillating morsel of that. He needs to understand that Professional Searchers are members of a very exclusive club. Their self-esteem (some would call it arrogance or overweening pride, but why quibble?) is found at all costs in maintaining their life-long objectivity. The most important clause in the contract of club membership is that a Professional Searcher is not allowed ever to actually find anything of eternal and life-changing importance other than belief in the power of his own intellect and the rather entertaining illusion that he is master of his fate and captain of his soul. To invest in anything beyond this would mean an instantaneous and very humiliating loss of membership and the status accruing to it among his many sophisticated friends. Which, you might mention, brings up the most egregious claim of historic Christianity.

To be a Christian demands abject, self-mortifying humility. Not only must one believe in the anachronistic concept of sin, one must accept that he is a sinner deserving of hell before a Holy God. That is bad enough, but it gets infinitely worse. One must actually humble himself, ask forgiveness for his sins and then turn away from them, depending only on Jesus Christ, and his death on the cross to pay the eternal penalty for all the evil crap that he has done. You might mention to your brother-in-law that, not only is this unnecessary in your case, it is personally insulting and goes against every modern concept of psychological well-being, all of which, in one way or another, depend on stoically coping with human evil and murderous destructiveness, while desperately struggling to maintain a positive, life-affirming attitude - indeed, a truly heroic endeavor in the face of your own ever-approaching death.

So there we have it. The time for charm and patience is at an end. Give it to him with both barrels.

Of course, there is another way. I spent a significant portion of my life as a card-carrying Jackass. It was a great relief to get that card out of my wallet. For such a little piece of plastic, the thing was an amazingly heavy load that pulled my trousers down to my knees. Strangely, for a long time I was completely unaware that I was wandering through life as a bare-assed idiot. I was oblivious to the cool breeze swirling around my posterior because I was smugly pleased that my intellectual hair was combed and my tie was straight. But what am I blathering about? That was only me.

All the best,
Coleman Luck

Freaks Rule

A friend read this recently and brought it back to my memory. It was written quite a while ago, but I think there is still a message in it for our pitiful, corrupted culture.

Freaks Rule
By
Coleman Luck

I grew up in the Chicago area. In the mid-fifties I was in the sixth grade. During those years I had a paper route. Talk about anachronisms, the only guys who have paper routes these days are middle-aged immigrants from Cambodia who drive around in mini-trucks plastering two thousand driveways a morning. Anyway I had this paper route and it was a miserable job – dogs in the summer, freezing your tail off all winter long, and once a month I had to collect. That meant wandering up and down the streets on a Saturday trying to get jerks to cough up a couple of bucks to keep me in business. But I was good at it. In sixth grade I won an award. I’ve forgotten what it was for, but the prize I will never forget. It was an evening at Riverview.

Now anybody who grew up in Chicago during that period remembers Riverview. It was one of those great old sleazy amusement parks, a bloated carnival on a permanent location with a wooden roller coaster and a pot load of other dangerous rides that looked like they’d disintegrate the moment you sat down on them. All summer long Riverview advertised on the Chicago TV stations. Their main pitchman was a local personality named “Two-Ton” Baker, a really fat guy who did noonday programs for kids. (Another anachronism: kids coming home from school for lunch.) So all summer there’d be these commercials showing old “Two-Ton” taking up two seats on a roller coaster yelling to display his sheer joy and probably to prove that if the thing held him it’d hold anybody. Anyway, you get the picture.

Riverview was the last gasp of an era. It died with the coming of the giant Nazi-World theme parks that we have today where everything is perfect all the time even the plants which they change constantly to make sure everything is always blooming. Riverview was an honest straightforward temptation. It whispered to kids, “Come walk in my shadows. Come listen to my rats crawling around behind the boards. Come debauch.” We loved it.

So I won this trip to Riverview and the greatest part of it was that my parents wouldn’t be going along. I’d be with a group of paperboy “winners” just like me, young delinquents in training. (This was long before girls would stoop to do such nasty jobs as paper routes.) And, the peak of ecstasy? Our “chaperones” would be the paperboy “supervisors” from The Daily Journal. Now my parents didn’t know it but these guys were absolute losers, basically lazy drunks who had been promoted far beyond their level of competence. Going with them was like going alone. They gave us cash and went off to a bar. Oh joy from heaven. Sixth grade. Money. And Riverview without adults.

When I say this was an old style amusement park I’m not joking. On the boardwalk it had a freak show. Can you imagine such a thing today? Try to picture a freak show at Disney World. Aren’t we glad that we’ve matured as a culture to the place where such things would never be allowed? Of course one could argue that Riverview simply had an appreciation for diversity, but we won’t go there. So after you’ve gorged yourself on delicious little bags of dead meat euphemistically called “hot dogs” and braved all the dangerous rides at least six times, where’s an eleven-year-old boy who appreciates diversity gonna be found? THE FREAK SHOW.

So, I bought my ticket and walked in.

I found myself in a stark ugly little room standing with a small crowd in a roped-off area. There was nothing fancy about this. It was as down and dirty as you can get. Three feet beyond the rope sitting on wood pedestals and little chairs were seven or eight freaks. And they were the full Monty. Nothing fake here. It was a collection of poor sad human beings with bodies that looked like they’d been created in a Hollywood visual effects house. The instant you walked in, there was a seriousness about the place. Nobody laughed. Nobody talked. The freaks looked at you and you looked at them and then you left. But while I was there, something happened in that room that I will remember as long as I live.

One of the freaks was a little old woman, probably in her sixties. No more than three feet tall, her face was deformed beyond ugliness and all of her limbs bent in the wrong direction. She was just sitting there and you could imagine that she’d done this all her life.

Suddenly into the room walked a man carrying a little girl about three years old. Why this idiot had brought her there no one could imagine. I was eleven and I was appalled. Of course at the time there was no rating system on freak shows so how could you blame him? Anyway, the man with the little girl stopped in front of the little old woman. The instant the child saw this frightening creature she became terrified and started to sob. It was a horrible moment. Then, as I watched, that little deformed grandmotherly lady started to cry too. Quietly, without a sound, the tears ran down her face. After all the years of being stared at, all the years of loneliness and pain, the humanity in her eyes was overwhelming. And then she spoke. That little woman began to talk to the little girl. Softly, with a voice like your grandmother's and mine she tried to comfort her, to take away her fear, to reach out with words because her arms weren’t long enough and they bent in the wrong direction. It was one gentle heart whispering to another. Now eleven-year-old boys are not known for their deep sensitivity, but if I live to be a thousand I will never forget that scene.

Over forty years have passed since that night. Riverview is long gone and I was thinking about freaks the other day. We’ve heard a great deal over the past months about the idea that we are a nation ruled by law. Untrue. We are a nation ruled by stories. The stories we love reveal who we are and what we are becoming. Based on that fact, William Jefferson Clinton belongs in the White House. He has the moral right to remain there for the rest of his life. Why? Because he is the living embodiment of our collective story. And, if we were going to make that story into a film, it would be titled, “Freaks Rule.” Not the good honest freaks of Riverview, the true freaks. Us.

We are the freaks who stand inside the rope watching others wallow in degradation and pain and enjoying the view. We are the fathers who sit up late at night after our wives and children are in bed sucking cyberporn off the Internet. We are the mothers titillated by the human fecal matter that we chew and swallow dished up on so-called “reality shows.” We are the hip and cool young executives screwing each other’s brains out after hours on the conference table and then popping pills to stave off the effects of sexually transmitted disease. We are the teenagers, the generation of nightmares swimming in fake blood and gore loving vicarious mayhem and terror. Freaks all. Freaks who have managed to be born with the ability to hide our true ugliness.

What is the breadth and depth of our freakhood? Nothing less than this: As a nation, we are Monica Lewinsky. That poor young woman is simply our surrogate freak, our national daughter sent to spend her holy year of shrine prostitution in the temples of power. Monica knew the proper position of a worshiper. On her knees. And we worship with her falling down before the starry host of freaks that we have created in sports and politics and Hollywood, desperate for our own fifteen minutes of glory. We need a new Statue of Liberty and Monica could be the model. Coiffured and bereted, twenty stories tall, staring out at the world from New York Harbor, she could proclaim, “Give me your proud, your arrogant and your vain so that I can show them the pleasures of liberty.” As much as you hate to hear it, friends, that is our national story. And stories rule.

But in my heart I wish I could change our story and tell a new one so radical that everyone would freeze in shock. Maybe I could make it into a film. Here’s the basic outline: Let’s imagine that someone new was placed in the Oval Office. Maybe for just a month. Of course, the President’s chair would be too big for her. She’d need several phone books just to be seen. She wouldn’t be able to write very well. No rose-garden bill-signing parties jammed with the fatuous elite. After all, her arms would be short and they’d bend in the wrong directions. When the TV cameras focused on her many of us would be filled with anger and revulsion. We’d demand to know why such an aberration had been allowed to live, why her mother hadn’t ended her life in a merciful abortion.

But she wouldn’t listen to our raging. There’s nothing we could say that she hadn’t heard a thousand times. In fact she probably wouldn’t talk to us at all. Instead she’d talk to our terrified children. And with her soft words and tears maybe they’d be able to see beyond her ugliness into eyes filled with love, beautiful beyond comprehension, because in her suffering she had seen the Face of God.

If only we had a true, honest freak in the White House to begin a new national story. And, I think thirty days would be long enough. At that freak show in Riverview, it took only five minutes for an eleven-year-old boy.

© Copyright Coleman Luck 1998 Free to use with attribution.

Let's Get Rid of the Word "Sin"

It’s time to face reality. This word has lost all functional meaning in postmodern society. When people hear it now, it connotes one of several unintended definitions. For many it’s nothing more than irrelevant religious jargon flung about to promote judgmentalism as in, “You’re just tryin’ to guilt me, man. Who are you to tell me how I should live my life?” Then there is the titillating definition of sin. Sin is secret pleasure, something you enjoy and the fact that others think it’s wrong makes it all the sweeter. When you sin you’re cutting-edge and part of a secret club of cool, hip, sick (or whatever your cliché) people. I think for most postmoderns, especially those under thirty, the word “sin” doesn’t mean anything at all. It flies right over their heads.

I have heard countless preachers and Bible teachers try to define sin so that people could really understand the seriousness of it. They’ve gone back into the Hebrew and Greek of the Bible. They’ve used illustrations. I’ve done all of that myself. It isn’t working. There is no traction here. The sin tire is bald. So I suggest that we drop the word altogether and replace it with one that really communicates what sin is. Instead of sin, let’s use the word shit.

I know there are many sweetie-pie Christians who will cringe at this word. These are the nice people who think Jesus is just all about huggy relationships. Thomas Kinkade is their kind of artist. They love the gagging syrupy treacle of so-called Christian “worship” music. They want their religion full of positive, inspiring, feel-good language. And the word shit just doesn’t feel good. It’s ugly, filthy and offensive, right out of the gutter. Certainly, we wouldn’t want to offend people by using it in our lily-pure churches. We wouldn’t want to describe the actions of men like the Reverend Ted Haggard, the Reverend Eddie Long and a host of others as shit. Most of all, I don’t want to characterize my little harmless indiscretions as shit.

But let me tell you something, shit communicates. To see what I mean, let’s try it in some well-known Bible verses (with apologies to the New International Version):

How about the story of the woman caught in adultery and brought to Jesus? John 8:6-11 - But Jesus bent down and started to write on the ground with his finger. When they kept on questioning him, he straightened up and said to them, "If any one of you doesn’t have any moral and spiritual shit in his life let him be the first to throw a stone at her." Again he stooped down and wrote on the ground. At this, those who heard began to go away one at a time, the older ones first, until only Jesus was left, with the woman still standing there. Jesus straightened up and asked her, "Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you?" "No one, sir," she said. "Then neither do I condemn you," Jesus declared. "Go now and leave your life of moral and spiritual shit."

Romans 6:23 - For the end result of all our moral and spiritual shit is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Romans 8: 1-3 - Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, because through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit of life set me free from the law of moral and spiritual shit and death. For what the law was powerless to do in that it was weakened by our shit-filled nature, God did by sending his own Son in the likeness of shit-filled man to be an offering for all the moral and spiritual shit that we have committed.

1 John 1:5-10 - This is the message we have heard from him and declare to you: God is light; in him there is no darkness at all. If we claim to have fellowship with him yet walk in the darkness, we lie and do not live by the truth. But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus, his Son, purifies us from all our moral and spiritual shit. If we claim to be without moral and spiritual shit, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. If we confess our filthy shit, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our moral and spiritual shit and purify us from all our filth. If we claim we have not committed such shit, we make him out to be a liar and his word has no place in our lives.

I could go on and on, but you get the idea. Did that offend you? I make no apology.

When I was a teenager I had a friend who worked part-time at our town’s sewage treatment plant. He gave me a tour. During the tour, he told me about a guy who fell into a huge vat full of shit. Probably the story is apocryphal, but as I stood in front of such a vat while he told it, I was impressed. Anyway, my friend said they pulled the guy out and cleaned him off, but it didn’t do any good. He died of infection.

Here’s the message of the Bible: Sin isn’t just some trite judgmental term or some titillating little secret pleasure. It really is deadly moral and spiritual shit and unless something is done about it it sticks on you forever killing you slowly with a thousand infections.

Just imagine walking around every day of your life covered with shit. You wreak to high heaven and you’re dying, but you refuse to accept that fact. You think everything is cool. If you do detect a slight odor you cover it up with the perfume of an occasional good deed or positive thought. All that does is make you smell like a two-dollar whore with dysentery. That’s how we look and smell to a totally clean and Holy God.

One of the reasons we ignore our shit is because the whole world is filled with shit-covered people and we think we smell better than most, so we’re fine. Do you disagree with that? If so, what planet are you living on? If we’re honest we know we’re not cleaner than anybody else. We fit right in because we’ve done lots of bad shit to ourselves and others. So no lazy-ass excuses!

Well, here’s a “duh” question: If you’re covered with shit what do you need? That’s right, A BATH. A good hot bath will wash away physical shit (assuming you haven’t sucked it into your body like the guy at the treatment plant), but it won’t do anything for moral and spiritual shit. That’s the amazing part of God’s story. He loved us so much that He sent His only Son Jesus into this shit-filled wreaking world. (Would you send your son to swim in one of those vats?) And why did He do it? To pull us out and wash us clean so we wouldn't have to die forever. Our soul-shit can be washed clean only by the blood that Jesus shed on the Cross.

But here’s the warning: If you don’t think you need that blood bath to wash the shit off your soul, if you think everything is cool and you smell great, you will never get into Heaven because shit-covered people aren’t allowed there. And it’s logical. Would you want a shit-covered person for a roommate?

The question is how honest are you? If you know that you’re covered with shit and you can’t stand your own wreaking smell (believe me, I’ve been there), if you’re sick of it and you long to be clean, God is waiting for you to tell Him that and ask for a clean new life. He can do it, He WILL do it, because He’s God and He loves you - even covered in a thick coat of nasty brown. So how long are you going to stay this way? Get a bath before you die, because then it’s too late.

© Coleman Luck 2011. www.colemanluck.com Free to be reproduced (if you dare) with proper attribution including website. (For pity’s sake, you don’t want anybody to think you wrote this.)