decades that it is no longer intelligible even to have a conversation about the aesthetics of sacred spaces. Part of this movement is making churches look less like churches and more like a combination of warehouses and office buildings. Pews are out, comfortable chairs are in (so Protestant—always glorifying the individual). Hymnals have been burned (or donated1) and, in their place, meaningless lyrics shallow enough to embarrass contestants on The Bachelor are projected on a huge white screen. Crosses are often hidden, as they are such a downer, but the coffee bars seem to have assuaged most would-be complainers. Everything is very sanitary. Clean walls, clean carpet, and the smell of newness permeate the contemporary church, meticulously designed to attract an insatiable and fickle consumer.
These people really need to read the works of Chuck Palahniuk.
As the church leaders began orchestrating a show bent on leading me into a depoliticized and privatized experience with my very own personal Jesus (and no, I don’t like Depeche Mode), I thought about how silly the protest is against high liturgical church services. Many, even mainstream, churches claim that high liturgical services are too rigid and far too ordered. It is commonly suggested that they do not remain open to the movement of the Holy Spirit. Yet, in all of my countless experiences with the burgeoning church growth movement, which currently dominates groups like the Pentecostals, Nazarenes, Methodists, the so-called non-Denominational churches (which is code for general moralism while furthering the ignorance of one’s own tradition), and every other church compelled to entertain their patrons, I feel as if they owe a sincere apology to Catholics and Episcopalians. Seriously, your typical Pentecostal or contemporary worship service is just as rigorously structured as the Catholic Mass. Now I’m aware that many people would disagree with this claim. For example, the youth/music pastor at a Presbyterian ARP Church told me their music was never “pre-programmed” and was always a last-second decision. When I asked him about his choice of Sunday morning music he explained to me that he didn’t even pick the songs.
“If you don’t choose the songs, then who does?” I asked.
“Dude, let me tell you something,” he said to me. “That’s not me up there singing and playing those songs. That’s Jesus. Give him the glory.”
Okay, ignoring the obvious problems with this, let it be said that I am more than willing to give Jesus serious props for lots of things, including:
• healing the blind, lame, and deaf
• bringing the dead back to life
• his ability to walk on water
• turning over tables and chasing people with whips for capitalizing on one’s religion (I think its past time for a repeat performance)
• hanging out with prostitutes
• his ability to phase through walls
• turning water into wine (praise Jesus)
• and enduring that whole crucifix ordeal which Mel Gibson opportunistically seized in order to share with millions his predilection for anti-Semitism and sadistic violence.
But I just can’t attribute the having of an idea to sing the average fetishized and maudlin love song with lyrics like “I just want you to touch me deep down inside” to Jesus. Sorry, not going to happen.
Back to the Nazarenes.
The lights remained bright on the stage/pulpit as the lights dimmed over the audience/parishioners, giving me the feeling that this whole experience could be on par with your average community-theater performance. Even worse, I had that feeling one gets when they hear their local high school drama department is going to do Guys and Dolls—again.
Uncomfortably, I watched as women in face paint and spiritually accessorized men contorted their bodies, shed crocodile tears, and gave one another and Jesus high fives while the guitarist, who clearly was impressed with himself, nailed that three-chord progression so prevalent in Christian worship-pop.2 I kept thinking that if the Greeks got it right—that is, if truth, goodness, and beauty are intertwined in such a way that you cannot have one without the other—and if Jesus is the Truth, then why would he possibly bother hanging around such a superficially constructed and theologically barren atmosphere? Whatever it is that Jesus stands for, it cannot be this banal, right? I mean, he was an executed criminal. People wanted him dead because of his views on money. Please tell me he died for something more interesting than producing a church movement that does little more than increase the wealth of a few dozen people in “Contemporary Christian Nashville.”
Tangent aside, I am still here and waiting to see if one of the two will show. And while I couldn’t verify the whereabouts of Jesus, I was pleased to see that Satan made an appearance. At about the midway point of the “praise service,” the CD with the accompanying musical tracks for the soloist started to skip. As the CD was skipping, the pastor quickly informed the congregation, in what I understood to be an attempt to bide a little time so the sound technicians could get things under control, that the “Devil is working extra hard today to keep us from praising Jesus’ name. But it’s not going to work Devil. You should just know that right now. It’s not going to work, Devil.”
He stated the next three sentences very slowly, deliberately, and with an increasing sense of urgency, “It is not going to work. You should just leave right now. You can’t stop us from praising his holy name!”
And the crowd went wild.
As the pastor was relaying his message to the Prince of Darkness, the majority of the congregation was in an uproar of agreement. “Amens” and “Praise the Lords” were tossed around with a more fervent spirit than when the CD was actually playing.
I can’t lie to you; I was actually excited.
To find out that Satan was in the building, at that very moment, felt like an opportunity worth seizing. Unfortunately, by the time I could figure out how to make the most of my opportunity, the sound engineer in the back of the church shouted, “We’re good to go. Take it away!”
The pastor, a white, middle-aged man who appeared to be relatively uninformed about the Christian practice of fasting, informed us that the Devil had been defeated (those sound guys were good!) and was nowhere to be found.
“Oh, well,” I thought. I guess I missed him. But, apparently some other folks, who must have been far more spiritually in tune with the forces of evil than I am, felt his presence. After the service, I decided I would ask the pastor about it.
Fast forward through a sermon on the virtues of The Andy Griffith Show, as well as eight teary-eyed choruses, and church was finally over. I asked the pastor if I could have a few moments of his time outside the obligatory handshake offered on the way out. He consented, and we made our way to his office.
I began the discussion by asking the pastor if he could talk to me a little bit about Satan, his demonic strategies, and how to avoid them. I thanked him for meeting with me, and I told him I understood such a subject to be a bit peculiar.
“Not at all,” he told me. “However I can help increase another person in the knowledge of the Lord, I am happy to do so.”
“‘Increase another person’ . . . what?”
“What’s that?” he asked.
“Nothing, nothing. I’m just interested in what appears to be, though I must be getting this wrong, the seemingly omnipresent status of the Devil.”
“Well,” the pastor stated, “he is the ruler of the air.”
“Ephesians chapter 2, correct?”
“That sounds about right to me,” he confided.
“I guess my more immediate question is this: Why is it the case that some Christians are more aware of Satan, or the Devil—I’m going to use those two terms interchangeably if that is okay with you—why is—
“It’s the same person,” he interrupted, “so why wouldn’t you?”
“Right, sure. Of course, there are some historical