Every evangelical Christian’s nightmare is New York City’s Christopher Street on All Hallows Night. That night the street is mobbed by beautiful young lesbians strolling hand in hand dressed as blood thirsty vampires, 6 foot transvestites with bulging muscles and heavy five o’clock shadows, Satan, Satan, and more Satans, demonic incarnations running loose of every type, body piercing, sex hustled, but more commonly given away freely to any same gender taker, and DL brothas looking to get their freak on.
All that, with nary a Bible, pulpit or holy charge anywhere in sight. Surely a modern day Sodom, or its rival den of iniquity Gomorrah, if there ever was one. Hell on earth most Christians would say, if they didn’t believe so ardently that Hell, its fire and brimstone, gnashing of teeth and eternal flesh singeing blaze was a place reserved for the dead, for after life.
But, can any place resemble hell more? No, those folks on Christopher Street Halloween night looked happy, laughing, singing show tunes, smiling and joking, running around costumed like children at play, innocent and seemingly carefree. They surely didn’t look afraid of each other, or anything else for that matter, say like, a Second Coming – Judgment Day.
It is most Evangelicals I know who seem to anticipate evil, who await the spook around every corner, the devil in every detail. They seem to be perpetually under attack, threatened or menaced by some impending demonic force. At one time they warned of the Red Menace, Russia, the great Communist Threat to the Church of God. After all, its creator, Karl Marx, viewed religion as the opium of the masses. The church in Russia struggled, while those in the free world thrived. Then the Eastern Block of Communist nations collapsed. Undoubtedly, the result of legions of relentless Christians praying. That and Ronald Reagan’s arms race simply broke communism’s collective financial back. At any rate, victorious in that battle the church has found a new threat. This one not separated by seas or economic ideology. This new enemy of God is much more intimately engaged with us. This newly discovered demonic force sits next to us in pews on Sunday mornings and during Wednesday night bible study. This new incarnation of Satan works in the cubicle across the office. This new threat to the Church of God actually, on occasion, follows us home in the disguise of a family member; a brother or son, sister or daughter, nephew, cousin, uncle or aunt. A close friend perhaps. This newly recognized enemy on this earth, to the Christian church, is homosexuality.
It is God’s charge, many Christians believe, to attack, condemn and cleanse the world of those we identify as being gay – like most of the folks gaily celebrating All Hallows Night on Christopher Street.
We, Christians, find reason for this condemnation in the Bible, which now is much more convenient than it was in condemning communism. After all, the Bible talks of how early Christians came together and shared all their wealth “in common.” On homosexuality, in all of the 66 books of the bible, written over a 2,000 year long span, with it major themes of love, acceptance, hospitality, charity, forgiveness, redemption, liberty and peace, there are at most 6 vague exhortations against same gender sexual practices. Those 6 ambiguous references alone are enough for many Christians to view homosexuals with enough disdain to disown friends and family members, enact laws that deny homosexuals the same civil rights other citizens hope to enjoy, excommunicate gays from the church or bar their appointment to positions of leadership, and in some extreme cases even berate, bash, beat and occasionally murder them.
Christians seem to be very comfortable with easily identified enemies, as long as that enemy is 'the other.' It does something to our self image to perceive God on my side. It does something to our ego to perceive me as being better, or holier than the homosexual, the communist, the Muslim, the Hindu, the Jew, the atheist, the Catholic, the member of that denomination as opposed to mine, the member of that congregation, as opposed to mine, the sexually different, or Christopher Street revelers. God is with me, not them. They are going to spend eternity in Hell, while I spend it in Heaven, seated at God’s right hand, forever.
It is odd that many don't see the enemy that the Bible speaks of is not at all someone other than 'me,' but indeed the self, the very ego that is inflated by condemning others. That take on biblical teachings is just as plausible as any other interpretation. That being the case, and our chief enemy is our self, our ego, and we were to devote waking energy to minimizing our out of control ego, ('deny thy self,' as Christ put it) would we have time to worry about how someone else worshiped, or not, what someone else is doing with their body, who someone else decides to sleep with, who someone else decides to love?
Evangelicals are taught that for being pious here on earth, for condemning those deemed lost, for keeping Satan (not the self, mind you) ‘the other,’ the enemy, in check, that their reward, as it says in the Bible, will be to spend all of eternity literally kneeling at the throne of God singing Holy, holy, holy, over and over and over again.
Ghee. Now I love the Lord too, but…
Well, if that is the reward for servitude, surely a night of debauchery and revelry running around in a Superman costume or dressed as Hooker Bo-Peep one or two Halloween nights on Christopher Street won’t matter much in the grand scheme of things.
Eternity, spent in either heaven or hell, is such a long time.
Enjoy life.
