Omnibus: The Know-It-All, The Year of Living Biblically, My Life as an Experiment

by A. J. Jacobs

  Same goes for now. I could adopt the cognitive-dissonance strategy: If I act like Jesus is God, eventually maybe I will start to believe that Jesus is God. That’s been my tactic with the God of the Hebrew Bible, and it’s actually started to work. But there’s a difference. When I do it with the Hebrew God, I feel like I’m trying on my forefathers’ robes and sandals. There’s a family connection. Doing it with Jesus would feel uncomfortable. I’ve come to value my heritage enough that it’d feel disloyal to convert.

  Which naturally leads to this quandary: If I don’t accept Christ, can I get anything out of the New Testament at all? What if I follow the moral teachings of Jesus but don’t worship him as God? Or is that just a fool’s errand? Again, depends whom you ask.

  The more humanist mainline Christian denominations say, yes, it’s OK to follow Jesus’s ethics without converting to Christianity. Ask a Unitarian or more liberal Lutherans, and they’ll tell you there is much to be learned from Christ the moral teacher. This is Christianity with a strong dash of Enlightenment.

  The most extreme example of this comes from Enlightenment’s archbishop himself, Thomas Jefferson. His version of Christianity is so one-sided it almost seems a parody of this position. In the early 1800s Jefferson created an edition of the Bible called the Jefferson Bible. He stripped away all the supernatural references. Gone was the Resurrection. Gone was the miracle of the loaves and fishes. Gone was the virgin birth. Jefferson’s idea was that Christ was a great moral philosopher. So Jefferson kept only Christ’s moral teachings: forgiveness, loving thy neighbor, and striving for peace. He called them “the most sublime and benevolent code of morals which has ever been offered to man.”

  The Da Vinci Code tilts the way of Jefferson. Dan Brown doesn’t come right out and say that Christ was totally human, but a Christ who marries and has kids sure makes him seem more like us mortal men.

  So that’s one side. On the other side, most evangelical Christians would say that simply paying attention to Jesus’s moral teachings is missing the point. The central message of the Gospels is that Jesus is God, He died for our sins, and He rose again on the third day. You need to accept Him.

  The emphasis on faith is a key difference between modern Judaism and current evangelical Christianity. Judaism has a slogan: deed over creed. There’s an emphasis on behavior; follow the rules of the Torah, and eventually you’ll come to believe. But evangelical Christianity says you must first believe in Jesus, then the good works will naturally follow. Charity and kindness alone cannot save you. You must, as the saying goes, be “justified by faith.”

  Here’s an email I got from a conservative evangelical Christian I contacted. He runs a website that tries to reconcile science with biblical literalism. He wrote:

  It is through being in Christ and following Him that we become transformed. Unless one takes this step, one cannot be truly transformed. So, after your year is over, you will go back to being a man who finds purpose in weird projects and writing assignments. Becoming a follower of Jesus Christ is much more rewarding.

  In short, I got schooled.

  And yet…I still want to explore Christian biblical literalism. It’s not a minor thing. It’s hugely relevant to my quest. So here’s my revised plan: I’m going to visit some Christian communities that interpret the Bible literally. I will try to learn about them. And, when inspired, and when possible, I’ve decided that I should try to experience some of their teachings firsthand. Overall, it will be much less Do It Yourself than my trip through the Hebrew Scriptures. It’ll be more like a guided tour.

  Which brings me to my final Big Issue. Where to go on my tour? Christian biblical literalism comes in dozens of flavors. No way I could cover them all. I’ll do my best. But I’ll spend much of my time looking at the two poles that shape our moral debate:

  1. The Pat Robertson–Jerry Falwell–style conservative fundamentalists, who place a lot of emphasis on the issues of homosexuality, abortion, the Apocalypse, and George W. Bush’s foreign policy.

  2. The Red-letter Christians, a growing evangelical group that focuses on social justice, poverty, and the environment.

  Both accept the Bible as the word of God, both accept Jesus as their savior, but they come out with radically different agendas.

  A disclaimer: I’m going to try to be fair, but I’m probably going to fail. It’s the same problem I had when I went to the Creation Museum. There are limits to how far my mind can leap. I’ve been a moderate New York liberal all my life. Will I really be able to get inside the mind of a conservative evangelical from Virginia?

  “Judge not, that you be not judged.”

  —MATTHEW 7:1

  Day 247. This evening I spend an hour on the phone talking to Pastor Elton Richards. He wants to give me a theological inoculation.

  I tell him I’m about to make a road trip to Jerry Falwell’s church, and he wants to make sure I know that, in his opinion, Falwell’s version of Christianity bears practically no relation to Jesus’s message.

  “Take what they say, and in most cases, it’s the exact opposite of Jesus’s message. Jesus’s message was one of inclusion. Theirs is of exclusion.”

  “OK,” I say.

  “And they’re so focused on the other world and the end times. Jesus cared for the downtrodden and outcasts in this world.”

  “Got it,” I say.

  “It’s this god-awful certainty that they have.”

  I promise him and promise him again that I’ll spend as much time looking at other, more progressive interpretations of Christianity.

  Falwell—who died several months after my visit—embodied a certain ultraliteral brand of Christianity. For decades he was the go-to guy when the mainstream media wanted a quote from the Christian right about homosexuality or abortion. He was the liberal’s nightmare, the man who launched a thousand Aaron Sorkin plotlines.

  Here’s my chance to see Falwell unfiltered. I take a flight to Richmond, Virginia, and drive a rental car to Thomas Road Baptist Church in Lynchburg. It’s a big week in the Falwell universe. For its fiftieth year, the church has moved from its three-thousand-seat house of worship to a splashy new six-thousand-seat one.

  At nine-thirty in the morning, I park my car along with hundreds of others, pull open the glass, mall-like front doors, and step inside Falwell’s enclave. Like all megachurches, it’s not just a church. It’s a complex.

  There’s a massive, brightly lit walkway called “Main Street.” There’s a playground with a Noah’s ark theme featuring pairs of wooden zebras and tigers, along with a huge whale’s mouth that kids can climb into à la Jonah. There’s a Starbucks-ish coffee shop called The Lion and the Lamb Café, where I get a pretty good iced coffee. Nearby a player piano tinkles Mrs. Falwell’s favorite hymns.

  Services don’t start for a while, but at ten, many of the parishioners attend one of the Bible studies in the classrooms off Main Street. You have an astounding range to choose from—thirty-eight in all, from a tutorial on the Apocalypse to a meeting targeted at Christian biker dudes.

  With the imminent increase in my household, I opt for a class called Growing Families, in room 255. There are about thirty churchgoers already assembled, mostly white, mostly crisply dressed, engaging in a prestudy mingle.

  “Hello, I’m glad you could come,” says a fortysomething woman. She eyes my beard. “We welcome people from all, uh, walks of life.”

  “Thanks.”

  “Do you have a growing family?” she asks.

  “Yes, I have a son—and two more on the way.”

  “Wow! And you live here in Lynchburg?”

  “No.” I pause. “New York.”

  “Great! What are you doing here?”

  “Um, just traveling around the South a bit.”

  Oh, man. Biblically, I should have been honest and told her about my book, but I only have a day here at Falwell’s headquarters, and I didn’t want to waste any time.

  “You’re here with your wife?”

&
nbsp; “Uh, yeah. She’s back at the hotel.”

  Another lie. I didn’t want to seem like a lout who abandoned his pregnant spouse, which is what I did.

  “She didn’t want to come?”

  “She was going to, but, uh, she had morning sickness.”

  And on it grows, the tangled web. She keeps asking questions, I keep spitting out lies.

  Mercifully, the meeting starts. The pastor, a man who looks like a thinner, younger, brown-haired Falwell, has some announcements. An upcoming luau, a couple’s twentieth wedding anniversary—and a welcome to me, soon-to-be-father of twins. The parishioners applaud. I wave a sheepish thank-you.

  Man, these people are friendly. That’s the overwhelming first impression: They’re disorientingly friendly. When I walked into the church, an official greeter named Tip said “Good morning!” with such enthusiasm, I’d have to append a half dozen exclamation points to get across his tone. Nobody is aloof. Everybody keeps eye contact. Everyone smiles. In my four hours there, I got more pats on the back, arms on the shoulders, and double-handed clasps than I’ve gotten in ten years in New York.

  I know that this friendliness has limits—and disturbing ones. I know that Falwell has said “AIDS is the wrath of a just God against homosexuals.” I know that after 9/11 he said “the pagans, and the abortionists, and the feminists, and the gays, and the lesbians…the ACLU…I point the finger in their face and say ‘You helped this happen.’” I know that he recently said that we shouldn’t worry about so-called global warming because, in Psalms 119:90, it says God has “established the earth and it abideth.” I know that his magazine crowbarred poor purse-carrying Teletubby Tinky Winky out of the closet.

  Presumably, Tip and others share these views. But that intolerance coexists with a stunning bonhomie. The place is a study in sweet and sour.

  After about fifteen minutes of announcements with no end in sight, I decide I need to get out of there. This was no different than a thousand other churches or temples in America. I need something more spicy.

  “Be right back,” I lie to the guy next to me, as I slip out. “I have to go to the bathroom.”

  I wander down a flight of stairs to the singles seminar. That could be good.

  The woman at the singles welcoming table asks how old I am.

  “Thirty-seven,” I say.

  “You’re right in there,” she points. “It’s for singles thirty-five to fifty.”

  That hurts. I am in the oldsters’ group. By the way, another fib. I am thirty-eight. Vanity.

  The leader of the singles group is a burly ex-military guy with a bald head, a gray goatee, wire-rimmed glasses balanced on his forehead, and a huge amount of energy. He seems more into tough love than the folks at the Growing Families class.

  He paces back and forth, telling us that we should give up the idea that we’re perfect.

  “Anyone ever say bad things about other people?”

  We nod.

  “Anyone ever think bad sexual thoughts?”

  Yes.

  “Anyone ever have envy?”

  Yes.

  “Anyone ever lie?”

  It’s a sermon directed at me.

  “Did I ever tell you the story of when I was working as Dr. Falwell’s bodyguard?” says our leader. “I handed him the mail one Tuesday, and he says to me, ‘Did you vote today?’ And I said, ‘Um…um…um…yeah.’ But I hadn’t. I lied. I lied to Dr. Falwell. I had forgotten that it was Election Day. But I know that I have voted in every election since.”

  I can’t figure out how this applies to dating, but there’s no time for questions. The class ends at eleven o’clock, and the featured show begins right after: Falwell’s sermon.

  The sermon takes place in an enormous room with comfy, Loews Cineplex–style seats; three swiveling TV cameras; and two huge screens that display the hymn lyrics karaoke-style over photos of seagulls and purple orchids.

  On the side are two “Cry Rooms.” When I saw the words Cry Room on the church map, I thought it was for parishioners who became too wildly emotional. Actually, it’s a soundproof space for screaming babies.

  Falwell himself walks onto the stage. There he is: He’s got that familiar silver hair with the tidy part. He’s packing a few more pounds than he used to. As the three-hundred-person choir sings a hymn, Falwell leans way back on his heels, his hands clasped together in front of him, smiling beatifically.

  Falwell starts with some announcements of his own—that the café is open from eight in the morning to eleven at night, that Rick Stanley, the stepbrother of Elvis Presley, is visiting today. And then Falwell puts his hands on the pulpit and begins his sermon proper. And here’s the thing about the sermon. It is kind of…bland. There was no fire, no brimstone, no homophobic remarks, no warnings of the imminent Apocalypse.

  I’ve read dozens of Falwell’s sermons online since that visit. And this wasn’t a total aberration. More than half of the content is run-of-the-mill stuff: the importance of passing the baton to today’s youth. The suggestion to keep a prayer journal. A moral lesson about being optimistic, another about having patience—both of which I find hard to argue with.

  I noticed the same thing from watching hours of Pat Robertson’s 700 Club. Sometimes you’ll get a crazy “Let’s assassinate Hugo Chavez”–type comment. But a lot of it is indistinguishable from standard morning TV: an interview with a gospel singer, or a health segment on the club’s weekly “Skinny Wednesday” feature (the wackiest thing I learned there was that Robertson has a side business in “age-defying protein pancakes”).

  That’s the big secret: The radical wing of the Christian right is a lot more boring than its liberal detractors would have you believe.

  Falwell’s sermon today ties his church’s fiftieth anniversary to the concept of the Jubilee in the Bible, which occurs once every fifty years. He encouraged us to be “soul winners” and win over the two hundred thousand souls in the Lynchburg area.

  It’s not a particularly offensive sermon, but I will say that it has absolutely nothing to do with the Jubilee the Bible talks about. The Bible’s Jubilee year is about forgiving debts and returning all property to the original owner, about social justice, about evening the balance between rich and poor. Falwell’s was about expanding his church.

  After the service, the curious seeker can get one-on-one counsel with one of Falwell’s pastors. I am assigned to Tom, who looks to be in his twenties, and has a spiky boy-band hairdo to offset his suit and tie.

  Tom works at Liberty University, Falwell’s nearby college. It’s an amazing place, Liberty, the total opposite of my permissive, grades-optional alma mater. The Liberty rulebook contains such items as: “Six reprimands and $25 fine for attendance at a dance, possession and/or use of tobacco” and “twelve reprimands and $50 fine for attendance at, possession or viewing of an ‘R,’ ‘X,’ or ‘NC-17’ rated movie, or entering the residence hallway of the opposite sex.”

  I decide I have to redeem myself. I have to stop lying, so I tell Tom that I’m Jewish and writing a book about my spiritual quest. He’s interested. I ask if I could gain anything from following the moral teachings of Jesus without being born again.

  “It’s OK to follow his teachings. It can make you a better person,” he says. “But it’s not enough. You need to accept Him, to be born again.

  “I got saved when I was a freshman in high school,” Tom continues. “I was a good Christian already. I went to church. I acted as morally as I could. I had accepted Jesus here.” Tom points to his head. “But not here.” He points to his heart. “I was off by twelve inches.”

  He talks so passionately, so intensely, with such freedom from irony, I feel myself becoming unanchored. Perhaps to counter this, as a defensive measure, I bring up the gay issue.

  “I have a lot of trouble with the Bible’s stance on homosexuality,” I say. Adding somewhat lamely: “I have a lot of gay friends.”

  “So do I,” Tom says.

  This takes me abac
k. A Falwell pastor hanging with Lynchburg’s gay community? It turns out, Tom meant formerly gay people trying to overcome their gayness, which made more sense.

  “Yes, homosexuality is an abomination,” says Tom. “But I’m a sinner too. We’re all sinners. You just have to love them.”

  This is a pretty mild stance—the hate-the-sin, not-the-sinner idea. I’m guessing he toned the rhetoric down for his Northeastern Jewish audience of one. But, still, I find this stance intolerant in its own way. It’s like saying that we should love Jesse Jackson, except for the fact that he’s black.

  After about a half hour, my questions slow, and Tom asks if we could pray together. We close our eyes, bow our heads, put our elbows on our knees, and he begins addressing the Lord. “Thank you, Lord, for giving A. J. and me the time to talk today. And may you give him more guidance in his spiritual journey, Lord.”

  More guidance—that I need for sure. We can agree on that.

  …The men likewise gave up natural relations with women and were consumed with passion for one another, men committing shameless acts with men and receiving in their own persons the due penalty for their error.

  —ROMANS 1:27

  Day 256. Back in New York, I’m continuing my tutorial in evangelical Christianity. It’s Friday night, and I’m sitting in on a Bible study group. The group has been around for thirty years and meets every week on the Upper East Side of New York. Tonight we’ll be delving into the Epistle to the Hebrews, chapter three. We’ll be led by a man named Dr. Ralph Blair, who is a hardcore Christian evangelical.

  Oh, I should mention one other thing: Ralph Blair is gay. And out-of-the-closet gay. Not, mind you, the I-once-was-gay-but-now-am-cured type of gay. Ralph—and all the other men in his Bible group—embrace their homosexuality with the same zeal that ultraconservative evangelicals condemn it. They’re the anti-Robertsons.