This will undoubtedly be another long-ish entry. The third in three days! Aren't you lucky?
A slight bit of house-cleaning first.
This weekend, I am visiting Dallas, TX. I am visiting because I used to be a minister at a giant megachurch that more or less destroyed my sense of self and, at the very least, heavily exacerbated my mental health issues.
There was also a subplot about a woman who flew me in that I was concerned was maybe in love with me. I am going to go ahead and close that one now. She's not. She wants a Godly man. I want that for her too. Once I released it yesterday (thank you, long Diaryland post), everything was fine. We had a great conversation about dating and what we wanted and it was clear that what both of us want is not each other.
Bangarang. Moving on.
I wrote on Facebook last night that yesterday felt like a Richard Linklater movie. And that seems to be the best way to describe it.
From 8 am yesterday morning to 3 am this morning, I was in some sort of theological, philosophical, or political conversation with someone. And even better, there was a rotating cast of people from a surprising variety of worldviews. My only regret is that I didn't record it. I am scrambling now to remember at least the gist of every conversation that was had. It was beautiful and open and life affirming.
Even the parts that weren't life affirming—which I will get to immediately after this paragraph. Why am I telling you instead of just writing it is a mystery. But I am typing it now, so hell, might as well just go with it—proved to be actually life affirming by the end of the night, as there was safety for us to collectively process all of our varied emotional experiences to what we encountered.
What it is that we encountered was actual the central theme of the day. A day or two before I left for this trip, my friend Josiah texted me and asked if I'd like to go see a Hell House with him. I told him that I'd love to and, in fact, was about to head down to Dallas where I was going to walkthrough the one I used to be a part of. Josiah is a journalist that writes for Vice about Evangelical Christian culture, and when he heard this (and realized the narrative angle of it), he booked a flight to join me so he could write a story about the experience.
And this knowledge that I was returning after some 15 years and bringing an interloping journalist with me spread quickly to the old friends I was hanging out with and became the central tenet of the conversation. Everyone had a different perspective and position on it.
What is Hell House, you ask?
You might be sorry you asked, dear imaginary reader.
Hell House is a Christian haunted house where instead of seeing ghosts or chainsaw maniacs, you watch teenagers act out highly moralizing vignettes portraying someone dying of drunk driving or drugs or an abortion gone wrong. Then you walk through Hell and see what a horrible eternal place it is, and then you get preached at for a few minutes about how we are all horrible sinners and then you are forced to go to a different room and talk with a "counselor" that prays for you to accept Jesus.
I am glossing over how deeply traumatic all of this shit is. There is no one that could walk through the thing without feeling a little sick to their stomach. It's graphic and excessive and relentless.
And it's also totally fucked up. And not just for the obvious reasons of trying to scare people into heaven.
It's fucked up because there is nothing but misinformation in it.
The first scene portrays a young woman of about 19 or 20 who wants to have a three way with her boyfriend with some dude she met on Tinder. That dude actually turns out to be a human trafficker who pays off the boyfriend and then rapes the young woman in front of us (behind a couch so we can't see it). The message here is clear: if women pursue sexual agency and pleasure, the consequences will be dire. Maybe you won't be sold into human trafficking, but something bad will happen. Not to mention Hell after you die.
The second scene was a drug deal gone bad. There is no redemptive purpose here. As a person who used to act in this scene, I know that it is just an excuse for us innocent Christian kids to play like we are in an action movie. There is a drug deal. It goes bad. Someone gets shot. The end.
Oh, but it's also super fucking racist. The only white person in this scene is the drug dealer's whore girlfriend. Everyone else was of latino descent. Mexicans bringing guns and drugs into this country and taking our women. Might as well be a Trump ad.
And it is followed by something even more baffling. We walk into a room full of Black Lives Matter protestors standing still as statues. They have signs that say "No Justice, No Peace" and "Hands up, Don't Shoot." We eventually notice that there are people standing behind the crowd that have signs representing the "other side" of the issue, but it should be noted that they are far less specific. One says "Go Home." Another says "Build a Wall." It should also be noted that everyone acting in this scene is a person of color. The guy holding the "build a wall" sign looks to be of Mexican descent.
The demon narrator (something that every scene has. They pull the strings of the humans acting and show us that all of these impulses are actually demonic in nature) tells us that Satan has poisoned the minds of these protestors, causing them to believe that all they are is their identity. The demon goes on to say a whole bunch of racial slurs for some reason, and then the actors suddenly come to life screaming angrily. The "Build a Wall" guy then pulls out a gun and shoots one of the BLM guys. Clearly the message here is that there are bad people on "many sides" and everyone should just learn to love each other. No reference to the systemic oppression of people of color. No reference to the injustice of our criminal justice system. Just hey, don't be so angry, man.
This is when my friend, who honestly had no idea what she had signed up for, but also happens to be a Black Lives Matter activist, totally lost her shit. It was awesome. She yelled out that this was some racist bullshit and then decided to leave.
Good thing she did, because the next scene shows a young woman (maybe 14) on a hospital bed, weeping and screaming that she can hear her baby's heartbeat as a doctor tells her to just be quiet and continues performing the abortion. Then we watch a three minute, incredibly graphic video, of abortions taking place. Awesome.
We walk from that scene into a kitchen where a black stepdad is telling his white stepdaughter not to tell her mother about how he just molested her. The white mom hears though and so the black dad strangles her to death. The daughter then kills the dad (hurray?) and then promptly kills herself after hearing the demon tell her that it was all her fault and that no man would ever want her now that she has been raped. Cool.
We then see a video of a bunch of news footage showing violent protests, human trafficking, more abortions, and a needlessly manipulative 911 call from a four year old girl who just witnessed her dad kill her mom. Fuck.
(And I actually want to quickly digress here, because domestic violence is actually higher in the church than it is in the outside world and pastors and Christian counselors are twice as likely to encourage the wives to stay with their abusive husband, because you know, God hates divorce. So the fact that they present domestic violence as a symptom of sin which would go away if one accepts Jesus is a dangerous one. Because a Christian husband will still beat the shit out of you. And more than likely get away with it.)
Then we are presented with Hell, which was underwhelming. Then we were presented with Jesus on the cross, which was more so.
Then the guy comes out and tells us that we are horrible but that Jesus loves us anyway and he would love to pray with us.
They made us sit in a room and wouldn't let us leave until we had talked to a Christian. This is different than previous years where one was allowed to leave immediately.
When the guy I was assigned to sat down and asked what I thought of the experience, I was ready to speak my mind.
I told him that I volunteer for a human trafficking research organization and have been on Tinder and they were very wrong on both accounts. I was planning on going scene by scene and pointing out everything that was wrong when I noticed him just awkwardly grinning like an idiot, nodding his head and saying "I get you, I get you."
Do you, I asked?
Well, no. He told me he wasn't sure what I was talking about because he had not been through it and had no idea what was in it. I knew the conversation would be fruitless, but my God, he wasn't able to speak to anything. Which was ultimately fine. My group left to discuss how we felt in the parking lot.
The director of the Hell House was a different matter. I actually interned under this guy when I worked at the church. John Michael is a funny guy, but not a great spokesperson for his production. My friend asked him why all of the bad guys and demons were people of color and all of the good guys were white. He said the same kind of toxic bullshit that you always hear. It got heated very quickly. He said a whole bunch of horrible stuff that I wasn't at all surprised to hear.
Afterwards, we went out for drinks. Along with me, there was another former Trinity goer who thought everything was fucked up even though she was still a Christian, two Atheist Black Lives Matter activists who had no idea what this thing was about, my Atheist journalist friend from Vice, who also happens to be a former fundamentalist himself,and an incredibly sweet and empathetic woman who still goes to Trinity and sat in silence as we all passionately analyzed everything we had just seen.
I am most curious about woman from Trinity. I wonder what she thought. I know she was crying from time to time as she heard our stories of attempted suicide, sexual abuse, racial oppression, and the deep never stopping guilt and shame that we all felt because of messages like the ones we received that night.
She will pick me up for church in about 30 minutes. I am looking forward to hearing her perspective on everything.
But I am also grateful that I can now see how horrible and toxic and racist this all is. I can see the poison that entered me and that allows me to reject it with greater ease. Though I had something close to a panic attack when I saw the suicide scene (given how close I was to killing myself this summer) and was infuriated by the misinformation and shame I saw presented, I was also able to really release all of it. I breathed in deeply and let it go. These people do not have power over me. They are lost in Samsara they way we all are. They deserve my compassion, but they don't deserve any of my time or attention.
I will be soon heading to that church for what I am now certain will be the last time. In a certain sense, it will be harder than my experience last night. Because it will be today that I meet with my old pastors. The ones who so deeply influenced me and convinced me of all the horrible things I believe about myself that I have been so unable to shake.
But I am going to release it like I did Hell House. I am going to fly home tonight a free man.
It's going to be wonderful to let go of this weight I've been carrying.
7:20 a.m. - 2017-10-22
Recent entries:
Pent Up - 2017-11-21
Fuck. - 2017-11-11
Stress - 2017-11-05
Alysson Writes - 2017-10-25
Trinity: Dallas, Day 4 - 2017-10-23
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