Another Great Day at Sea. Geoff Dyer

Curtis needed a whiteboard and brother Nate was sent to get one. A sister read out a passage of Romans chapter 10, verse 9. ‘That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved.’

      To understand this in context, Curtis explained, you had to bear in mind what had come before. For example: ‘For they being ignorant of God’s righteousness, and going about to establish their own righteousness, have not submitted themselves unto the righteousness of God.’

      There followed a confusing exegesis, accompanied by Curtis writing the essentials on the whiteboard: ‘Righteousness = justified = redemption = salvation = saved.’

      It was a terrible shame. The singing had been so wonderful but now the evening had descended into low-level lit crit of a text that didn’t merit any kind of serious scrutiny. It was no better than an aged mullah reducing the complexities of the world to something that could be resolved by a close study of the Qur’an. Curtis was a righteous, spiritual, decent man—he was all the things he had been described as being: a fine man, but he had pledged his light to darkness, had chosen ignorance rather than knowledge and all his knowledge was no more than the elaboration of ignorance. The gap between that and the singing, so heartfelt and full of the spirit, was huge even though the two shared a similar inspiration and belief.

      I caught the snapper’s eye. We snuck out.

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