“This is not a problem for the born again. There are no other subjects, really; nothing else — besides being born again — is even marginally important. Every moment of your life is a search-and-rescue mission: Everyone you meet needs to be converted and anyone you don’t convert is going to hell, and you will be partially at fault for their scorched corpse. Life would become unspeakably important, and every conversation you’d have for the rest of your life (or until the Rapture — whichever comes first) would really, really, really matter. If you ask me, that’s pretty glamorous. And Left Behind pushes that paradigm relentlessly. Another of its primary characters — airline pilot Rayford Steele — becomes born again after he loses his wife and twelve-year-old son. However, his skeptical college-aged daughter Chloe doesn’t make God’s cut, so much of the text revolves around his attempts to convert Chloe to “The Way.” And the main psychological hurdle Steele must overcome is the fact that he’s not an obtrusive jackass, which Left Behind says we all need to become. “Here I am, worried about offending people,” Rayford thinks to himself at the beginning of chapter 19. “I’m liable to ‘not offend’ my own daughter right into hell.” The stakes are too high to concern oneself with manners.
This is ultimately what I like about the Born-Again Lifestyle: Even though I see fundamentalist Christians as wild-eyed maniacs, I respect their verve. They are probably the only people openly fighting against America’s insipid Oprah Culture — the pervasive belief system that insists everyone’s perspective is valid and that no one can be judged. As far as I can tell, most people I know are like me; most of the people I know are bad people (or they’re good people, but they consciously choose to do bad things). We deserve to be judged.
I realize that liberals and libertarians and Michael Stipe are always quick to quote the Bible when you say something like that, and they’ll tell you, “Judge not, lest you be judged.” And that’s a solid retort for just about anything, really. But the thing with born agains is that they want to be judged. They can’t f@%king wait. That’s why they’re cool.”
Chuck Klosterman, Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs: A Low Culture Manifesto (New York: Scribner, 2003), pp. 235-236.
2 responses so far ↓
Marty // March 29, 2008 at 7:20 pm |
The most perceptive thing about this piece is the last paragraph–how the “Jesus and Me” crowd can’t wait to be judged. That’s because they the second half of the verse–”for by the very measure you judge you also will be judged.” So they heap out the judgments. Not to beat a dead horse about the whole Accountability clique, but isn’t that what those folks do to each other? I can’t count how many times I heard guys say at the BigBox Church, “Man, the Accountability Guru really beat me down.” And of course, the reason to endure the psychological beatdowns was to “Go Deeper.” But of course, you know all that.
I like how Klosterman finds the idea of “discipleship” to be appealing, but the practical application to be found wanting. If only the Left Behind-types could be certain without arrogance, or have their discipleship tied into maintaining a Civil Religion
that has little to do with the Gospel.
Christian // March 30, 2008 at 4:49 pm |
Hi Marty,
I am not totally sure I see what you’re getting at, dead horse or not. I think Kolsterman’s point was to suggest that the over-concern for saving people requires that “born agains” disregard social etiquette in order to get their message, or truth, out there. I think he is right on with the fact that fundamentalism is needed to combat the Oprah culture. This is essentially the same thing that Milbank, Hauerwas, Zizek, Badiou, and others have been arguing. So, this is what jumped out to me.
I’m not sure I have much of a reply to the comments about the accountability clique. “Born agains” do tend to be very judgmental, and I think this is because they all assume they are on the winning side of that judgement. But they forget that both Jesus and Paul state that God’s grace trumps his judgment.
But to be honest, Marty, it sounds like that experience at the church really impacted you in a negative way. I’m sorry about that.
- Christian