Most people in my (Plymouth Brethren "privileged") position had been doing all of these fun things anyway. Despite what their church parents thought and often despite what they themselves actually believed in their church-trained hearts. They were willing to believe that all that fun stuff was wrong (as I once had) but just "do wrong stuff" anyway. Or they wilfully didn't know, which allowed them to not know for certain if all that fun stuff was actually wrong, so they had enough doubt to do it.
I've never been willing to do that to myself, I guess. Not because of some deep-seated obedience, but because I superstitiously feel like it will do psychological damage to me if I do stuff I truly believe I shouldn't. If the stuff is bad, and I do it, then I'm bad. And I don't want to look at myself that way. I mean, there's TULIP "thoroughly depraved because I'm human" bad, and there's "what are you, personally, doing with your life?" bad.
Forbidden Knowledge
I've never been willing to do that to myself, I guess. Not because of some deep-seated obedience, but because I superstitiously feel like it will do psychological damage to me if I do stuff I truly believe I shouldn't. If the stuff is bad, and I do it, then I'm bad. And I don't want to look at myself that way. I mean, there's TULIP "thoroughly depraved because I'm human" bad, and there's "what are you, personally, doing with your life?" bad.
Forbidden Knowledge
But even once I'd reached the point where I no longer believed these normal fun things to be wrong, it took me a while to actually do them. I was gentle with myself. And it cost me socially to not do them, while it also cost me, with my family and church peeps, to be known to believe that some of the forbidden fun things were actually okay.
Because it wasn't like my parents or church were pleased with me anyway. I'd lost all my church Kristian Kred. I no longer had a future among them, once I'd gained the forbidden knowledge that a bunch of the fun stuff wasn't evil. I'd been vocal about the fact that I thought being all superstitious about harmless fun was a "bad testimony," and that it in fact gave Christianity a bad name. That it had nothing to do with truth and reality, and that Christianity was supposed to deal solely with those. So I was in a position of suspicion without even enjoying the stuff. I was viewed as someone who "wasn't clear" about these crucial things, these devil's dumplings, and this was bad enough to put me in the dog house. (I would certainly lead other, younger people astray into paths of hedonistic decadence, concupiscence and lasciviousness) People were "grieved."
Normal English-speakers use the dramatic word "grieve" mainly to talk about when their kid has actually died. Top shelf Brethren parents use it to mourn the loss of their child's pleasure superstition, to bemoan the birth of their offspring's Christian liberty. (or they just use it to mean "pissed off. Making us look bad.") But being born again sometimes looks like that. New life. Liberty. Strength. Joy.
Normal English-speakers use the dramatic word "grieve" mainly to talk about when their kid has actually died. Top shelf Brethren parents use it to mourn the loss of their child's pleasure superstition, to bemoan the birth of their offspring's Christian liberty. (or they just use it to mean "pissed off. Making us look bad.") But being born again sometimes looks like that. New life. Liberty. Strength. Joy.
Yet everyone expected I would soon enough start enjoying these forbidden fun things, no doubt to great excess, like their own/other kids. And I was blamed for kids doing various fun things I didn't actually do, just because it was known that I felt those things weren't wrong. If my sister drank alcohol, this was my fault because I didn't anymore believe drinking a glass of wine outside the context of the Sunday morning proceedings was wrong.
Living Some Liberty
Living Some Liberty
Eventually, a few years later, I did 'have a drink,' go into a movie theatre, and see a live concert. Didn't do anything crazy like go out dancing or anything. Or vote or go to a casino. And I never did the fun things I allowed myself, to excess. That would have made me feel stupid and it would have made the naysayers look right. I needed it to actually be okay to do those things, if I wanted to do them, and this kind of required the spiritcrushers to be wrong when they kept getting in my face so opinionatedly, scattering splintered shards of shattered scripture bits and shame-loaded dusty church jargon as they came.
Worse yet, the atmosphere of the church culture itself was stiff with this kind of pleasure superstition, and I'd grown up eating and breathing that church voodoo stuff. It was normal for us to fear fun. It was what we did, mostly. The raison d'etre of our church was to warn everyone of the connection between fun and Hell. Just like with the puritans. We didn't burn witches, but we certainly castigated and socially excluded people who'd had a Coors Lite. In our church it was even viewed as daring to speak emphatically, in any way "rock the boat," or wear bright colours or stripey patterns to church. Fun's fiendish infernal function was to get everyone safely into Hell without seeing that supposed connection between abstaining from fun and ushering souls into Heaven thereby. The Christian's job was to forswear fun. To "save souls" by attracting them to Christ in that way. (Hating fun, exuberance, colourfulness of personality and socially punishing anyone indulging in harmless joy is so attractive. Like our exclusivity and our divisions. It's a wonder we have enough chairs for everyone.)
I knew as a Plymouth Brethren lad, that if fun was something I was going to start doing, that in a way this made me kind of not Plymouth Brethren anymore. And I'd been raised to believed that Christian meant Plymouth Brethren. If you cared about Christ at all, and read your bible and prayed, at all. So how was I going to view myself as a Christian, even if I was going to see a live band playing music? I knew I'd have to work all that stuff out. My Christianity was going to have to get more real and less superstitious. It was going to have to become its own actual thing, and not just a forswearing of what normal was for other, "lesser" people. Like Satanists generally don't so much have their own religion as they simply shit on Christianity, without understanding it, incensed by its excesses and its frequent narrow-hearted, soul-crushing punishment of anything natural, loving and living.
On the few occasions when I have spoken with Satanists, they have always purported to champion supposedly "Satanic" virtues which they seem wholly unaware were characteristics of Christ. Individuality. Uniqueness. Not simply following the herd. Not believing everything one is told. Not serving things unless they work. Doing actual worthwhile good, rather than merely obeying rules. Self-improvement rather than conformity. Speaking out strongly against fake, empty shows of religious piety, and against all leaders who are lying and ineffectual. Being willing to speak a harsh word to reach people who aren't listening, in a climate where everyone's supposed to always be all nice and mild all the time. That kind of thing. Jesus' life. What got him killed. (It's easier for many Christians to follow a dead Jesus, rather than try to live like he did. They'd rather imitate their pastor than the person their religion is named after.)
Pikes Peek
Worse yet, the atmosphere of the church culture itself was stiff with this kind of pleasure superstition, and I'd grown up eating and breathing that church voodoo stuff. It was normal for us to fear fun. It was what we did, mostly. The raison d'etre of our church was to warn everyone of the connection between fun and Hell. Just like with the puritans. We didn't burn witches, but we certainly castigated and socially excluded people who'd had a Coors Lite. In our church it was even viewed as daring to speak emphatically, in any way "rock the boat," or wear bright colours or stripey patterns to church. Fun's fiendish infernal function was to get everyone safely into Hell without seeing that supposed connection between abstaining from fun and ushering souls into Heaven thereby. The Christian's job was to forswear fun. To "save souls" by attracting them to Christ in that way. (Hating fun, exuberance, colourfulness of personality and socially punishing anyone indulging in harmless joy is so attractive. Like our exclusivity and our divisions. It's a wonder we have enough chairs for everyone.)
I knew as a Plymouth Brethren lad, that if fun was something I was going to start doing, that in a way this made me kind of not Plymouth Brethren anymore. And I'd been raised to believed that Christian meant Plymouth Brethren. If you cared about Christ at all, and read your bible and prayed, at all. So how was I going to view myself as a Christian, even if I was going to see a live band playing music? I knew I'd have to work all that stuff out. My Christianity was going to have to get more real and less superstitious. It was going to have to become its own actual thing, and not just a forswearing of what normal was for other, "lesser" people. Like Satanists generally don't so much have their own religion as they simply shit on Christianity, without understanding it, incensed by its excesses and its frequent narrow-hearted, soul-crushing punishment of anything natural, loving and living.
On the few occasions when I have spoken with Satanists, they have always purported to champion supposedly "Satanic" virtues which they seem wholly unaware were characteristics of Christ. Individuality. Uniqueness. Not simply following the herd. Not believing everything one is told. Not serving things unless they work. Doing actual worthwhile good, rather than merely obeying rules. Self-improvement rather than conformity. Speaking out strongly against fake, empty shows of religious piety, and against all leaders who are lying and ineffectual. Being willing to speak a harsh word to reach people who aren't listening, in a climate where everyone's supposed to always be all nice and mild all the time. That kind of thing. Jesus' life. What got him killed. (It's easier for many Christians to follow a dead Jesus, rather than try to live like he did. They'd rather imitate their pastor than the person their religion is named after.)
Pikes Peek
Back when I was having my worst year at university, there was a tape I listened to on the bus on my knockoff Walkman on the way in to work, and on the way back, late at night, knowing there were books for class unread and work undone. It was The Northern Pikes' Snow In June. I was into the sense of bitter, defiant, satirical despair that underlies a lot of their lyrics. And the ominous foreboding they built into their music rather sneakily, when they were known for happy-sounding pop songs you needed to listen to more closely to hear the doom in.
In that bad year, I lost my job and had to move because my apartment kept getting burgled. I had nothing, I was no longer making money, depending on my parents to pay my rent for the rest of my school year, the girl I liked liked someone else, and I was worried I'd fail all my courses anyway, given how much I'd worked in the mall until getting laid off in the spring like everyone else, Christmas season over.
In that bad year, I lost my job and had to move because my apartment kept getting burgled. I had nothing, I was no longer making money, depending on my parents to pay my rent for the rest of my school year, the girl I liked liked someone else, and I was worried I'd fail all my courses anyway, given how much I'd worked in the mall until getting laid off in the spring like everyone else, Christmas season over.
So, when I walked by a sign that said The Northern Pikes would be playing on the front lawn of the main building at our university, I was quite tempted to go. I didn't any more believe it would be wrong to go. My younger sister had gone to a fair and seen Kim Mitchell play there, and my parents had shown up to escort her home. But I didn't have the self-esteem to stand up to my parents, my church, and my now only vestigial past self. And I didn't have the money anyway.
But as I walked by the main University building, I was alert that a sound check was about to happen. Guys were setting up music stuff. Guys who appeared to include the Northern Pikes themselves. I didn't ever go see the concert. But I walked over and met my favourite member of the band and had a chat.
That didn't count as going to the concert. Just talking with one of the songwriters about his lyrics. On the front steps of my school. It wasn't like walking into Father and Sons Tavern or anything. I felt like I'd gotten away with murder. Like I'd found a loop-hole so big I could fire cannons out of it.
But as I walked by the main University building, I was alert that a sound check was about to happen. Guys were setting up music stuff. Guys who appeared to include the Northern Pikes themselves. I didn't ever go see the concert. But I walked over and met my favourite member of the band and had a chat.
That didn't count as going to the concert. Just talking with one of the songwriters about his lyrics. On the front steps of my school. It wasn't like walking into Father and Sons Tavern or anything. I felt like I'd gotten away with murder. Like I'd found a loop-hole so big I could fire cannons out of it.
Being Wholly New
The Northern Pikes broke up after the next album came out, and that was it. I never saw them playing live. I went and (the same year I first went into a bar had a drink, and saw Star Trek 6 at the movie theatre) saw, first quiet folkie John Gorka, and then brand-new breakout smash successes, The Barenaked Ladies. But the Pikes were history. I bought all their stuff on CDs to replace the old worn out cassettes. And no new albums came out.
The Northern Pikes broke up after the next album came out, and that was it. I never saw them playing live. I went and (the same year I first went into a bar had a drink, and saw Star Trek 6 at the movie theatre) saw, first quiet folkie John Gorka, and then brand-new breakout smash successes, The Barenaked Ladies. But the Pikes were history. I bought all their stuff on CDs to replace the old worn out cassettes. And no new albums came out.
Then ten years later, despite now being musical nobodies, the Pikes reformed for some shows. I have seen them several times now, and also, several times I have hung out and chatted with them all. Sat down and had supper with them. I guess you could say it worked out pretty well, after all.
Should I have rushed myself and gone to the bars and the movies and concerts while I was still at University, rather than in my early twenties? I don't know. I know that I feel okay about it all now. When I first did it though, my heart was racing a bit, I can tell you. Not because it was wrong, but because it was so new. So "not me." (Well, actually the "me" I was suddenly being was a wholly new creature, with new life and new courage.)
But the really fun part about my church's climate of pleasure superstition was that there was some kind of underlying message/belief that I felt deeply but couldn't have put entirely into words. I was being made to feel that if I went into a bar or movie theatre or concert venue, that God was unable to keep me safe there, in quite the way He was (failing to keep me safe) the rest of my week. (It was just like the Headless Horseman not being able to follow Ichabod Crane across a stream with moving water, or a vampire being unable to go into a church. God was like a vampire, only He couldn't go to a concert or movie theatre. Not like vampires could.)
Or maybe it was worse than that. Maybe if I went into those places, He'd have to withdraw His meagre spiritual protection in order to punish me into never going into them again.
Or maybe my going into them actually made Him not love me anymore, so He would simply stop wanting to protect me from this deadly world altogether. I wasn't "walking worthy," now was I? As if one can walk worthy of grace by saying no to fun.
Taking A Narrower Path
The God I was being pointed toward was either weak and ineffectual, oddly threatened by fun, or spiteful and completely ignorant of what unconditional love was. But I was reaching out after a realer God, One whom I was starting to feel reaching out toward me in return, a rewarder of them that seek Him. It took me a while to be able to hear the still, small voice over the throng shouting "NO!" It was time to take a narrower way, off the beaten path from the broad one trudged by all the church puritans. A quieter, less explicable, less pious-showy, altogether more solitary path.
But I could feel that this path with God was costing me even more, just when I doubted I had anything left to lose. It continued to cost me with my church and with my parents, but no longer with myself. I was looking after myself the way parents wouldn't. Adding some joy and creative expression to my year. Feeding my heart, because God wanted my heart looked after. It was starving, after all. The Lord's Supper wasn't what our church seemed to be into. It was more of a fasting thing. Bread and water, rather than bread and wine. We did not teach a God who gave abundantly. Who loved unconditionally. Who asked us to grow up. Who cared about our spiritual health rather than just our pious reputation.
Other church kids were half-secretly doing absolutely whatever they wanted. I got blamed for some of it. Oddly, they didn't seem to need to claim they thought God was fine with it all, like I had to, in order to give themselves permission to go do it. But that was me by then.
I was "other." Unjustifiably. Inexplicably. And it signalled the end of church life as I knew it.
But the really fun part about my church's climate of pleasure superstition was that there was some kind of underlying message/belief that I felt deeply but couldn't have put entirely into words. I was being made to feel that if I went into a bar or movie theatre or concert venue, that God was unable to keep me safe there, in quite the way He was (failing to keep me safe) the rest of my week. (It was just like the Headless Horseman not being able to follow Ichabod Crane across a stream with moving water, or a vampire being unable to go into a church. God was like a vampire, only He couldn't go to a concert or movie theatre. Not like vampires could.)
Or maybe it was worse than that. Maybe if I went into those places, He'd have to withdraw His meagre spiritual protection in order to punish me into never going into them again.
Or maybe my going into them actually made Him not love me anymore, so He would simply stop wanting to protect me from this deadly world altogether. I wasn't "walking worthy," now was I? As if one can walk worthy of grace by saying no to fun.
Taking A Narrower Path
The God I was being pointed toward was either weak and ineffectual, oddly threatened by fun, or spiteful and completely ignorant of what unconditional love was. But I was reaching out after a realer God, One whom I was starting to feel reaching out toward me in return, a rewarder of them that seek Him. It took me a while to be able to hear the still, small voice over the throng shouting "NO!" It was time to take a narrower way, off the beaten path from the broad one trudged by all the church puritans. A quieter, less explicable, less pious-showy, altogether more solitary path.
But I could feel that this path with God was costing me even more, just when I doubted I had anything left to lose. It continued to cost me with my church and with my parents, but no longer with myself. I was looking after myself the way parents wouldn't. Adding some joy and creative expression to my year. Feeding my heart, because God wanted my heart looked after. It was starving, after all. The Lord's Supper wasn't what our church seemed to be into. It was more of a fasting thing. Bread and water, rather than bread and wine. We did not teach a God who gave abundantly. Who loved unconditionally. Who asked us to grow up. Who cared about our spiritual health rather than just our pious reputation.
Other church kids were half-secretly doing absolutely whatever they wanted. I got blamed for some of it. Oddly, they didn't seem to need to claim they thought God was fine with it all, like I had to, in order to give themselves permission to go do it. But that was me by then.
I was "other." Unjustifiably. Inexplicably. And it signalled the end of church life as I knew it.
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