by Matt Taibbi
So once he was finished with Ahmadinejad, Hagee quickly went back to the other Devil, the domestic Devil—and the crowd buzzed again, for the Devil is very real to these people. They see him everywhere, hovering over everything they love and need: their families, their husbands or wives, their jobs, their bodies.
“He intends to kill you physically!” shouted Hagee. “He intends to destroy your marriage!”
Behind me, the men and women of the congregation whispered their assent:
“Protect me, Lord!”
“Save me, Jesus!”
And he finished the sermon with the usual fire and brimstone, talking about how the Devil can try as hard as he wants, but he knows his is a lost cause, because he was already beaten at Calvary two thousand years ago. The crowd cheered; they never get tired of hearing this happy ending. And then there was music again, and the organ cranked back up, and we all filtered out of the church.
After services I went out for a cup of coffee with Janine and her little girl, who was coloring in a book as we talked.
“What did you think about the the pastor’s message?” I said. “About 2007 being a special year?”
“What do you mean?” she asked.
“I mean, I got the impression he was saying that something was going to happen in the Middle East, that maybe the Rapture was coming.”
“Oh,” she said. “I didn’t get that. I just thought…you know, I wondered if 2007 would be a special year, too, but that’s because I’m thirty-three this year. Christ was thirty-three when he died on the cross, you know.”
“I know,” I said. “And what did you think about what he said about Ahmadinejad?”
“Who?” she asked.
“Never mind,” I said.
“You know, obviously, I think about the Rapture,” she said, “but not that often. If it happens, it happens. I just try…”
“You’re just trying to be the best Christian you can be right now, while we’re still here,” I offered.
“Exactly,” she said.
OUR CHURCH had a clear hierarchical structure, one that placed Pastor Hagee at the top and then spread out to leaders of the “twelve tribes,” which were like homeroom units within the church. Within each tribe there were smaller “cells,” and each of these cells met once weekly, holding Bible-study classes and providing a sort of extended family structure that allowed each church member to have a real personal connection to the congregation. I imagined it was not dissimilar to Al-Qaeda.
Although the church itself claimed a different reason for having this cell structure—Reverend Sorensen, of course, had basically said that the cell structure gave the church an organizational framework to rely upon in the event of a terrorist attack upon the church building—I saw clearly that the cell/tribe structure was an absolutely necessary innovation, a brilliant way of transforming an utterly impersonal megachurch/TV-preacher religious corporation into something even more intimate than a backwoods, ten-pew country parish.
What the followers of Cornerstone craved more than anything was personal contact, a sense of being connected to something in the world, and the cell group, not the church, was what fulfilled that need.
Through Laurie I’d joined a cell group and had begun going to meetings. I’d been a bust at the first one, which had been just a meet-and-greet at a member’s house, a modest one-bedroom ranch with Formica floors and slate faux-masonry walls within earshot of a highway. Frightened by a clowder of fifty-something housewives with crayon-thick eyeliner and Nancy Reagan hairdos—and anxious to avoid their pious, potbellied, truck-driving husbands—I spent the entire meeting clinging to an octogenarian Japanese anesthesiologist named Hiroshi Nakitomi, a stroke victim with memory lapses who sat mute at the dinner table tranquilly clutching a cane with a saintly smile on his face. I must have spent nearly forty minutes quizzing the good old doctor about the types of anesthesia he used over the years. Like all drug addicts, I have an unhealthy fascination with this subject.
“You ever use methoxyflurane?” I asked. “I mean, what was your go-to general?”
He looked at me and smiled. “Putting them out isn’t the problem,” he said. “The trick is making sure they wake up.”
He nodded, pleased with his joke. I laughed with him.
“How about trichloroethylene? When do you use that?”
“We used to use halothane,” he said. “Of course, putting them under isn’t the problem.”
“No?” I asked.
“No,” he said. “The problem is making sure they wake up.”
He laughed and put his hand on my shoulder. He smiled again, a broad, kind smile. The doctor was losing it, but he was a good man.
“That’s a good one,” I said, laughing. “And what did you use in the nineties? Before you retired?”
“The nineties,” he said, shaking his head.
“Right, the nineties,” I said.
“I miss it, you know,” he said wistfully. “I had fun being a doctor.”
“I’ll bet,” I said.
“Of course, putting them under wasn’t the problem…”
We went on like this for a long time. I started to notice eyebrows being raised around the room. It was weird enough for me to be a young, single man in this company of older married Christian couples, most of whom had grown children who had already left the hearth. And yet here I was, not only single but ignoring the host and hostess and accosting the only foreigner in the room with weirdly involved questions about chemicals. This was certainly about the least amount of effort I’d put into keeping my cover since I’d come to Texas, and I felt sure that I was blowing things on many levels. Moreover, as I later learned, there were rumors flying in the group that I was Laurie’s new beau, and I can only imagine what kind of talk that inspired. So it was with some trepidation that I showed up at the next meeting, which wasn’t just a social meeting—we were actually going to worship and praise and “get teaching.”
I came late. This meeting was at the home of our cell leaders, Richard and Cassie Wiggle, who owned a biggish house on the north side of town.
Richard was a sloe-eyed fellow with a full head of silver hair and a faintly nautical-looking beard; he addressed the group in a gentle, Will Rogers speaking style, deferential and friendly. I guessed right away that Cassie wore the balls in this family. She was a prototypical southern power-housewife, dressed in an aggressive red permanent-press pantsuit (the southern housewife version of a NASCAR racing outfit) over a garish multicolored blouse that hung around her sun-splotched, sagging neck—which incidentally featured a Star of David pendant, a brazen and conspicuous symbol of her corporate loyalty to the church. Her eyes were keen bird-of-prey slits; seated as the group was for most of the night in a circle, her chair was just a shade behind Richard’s, and from that vantage point she kept a careful eye on the whole proceeding. In discussions about scripture, she would jump in and have the final word.
There were about twenty others there in Richard and Cassie’s sunken living room, occupying a ring of folding chairs. Laurie had kept one open for me next to hers. I made my way around and took my seat. Dr. Hiroshi and his elderly, kindly wife, Frances, were on my other side. We exchanged a few niceties, and then suddenly a short, squat man, seated behind and to the left of me and wearing an awkward parted haircut that would have looked right in a 1987 Members Only commercial, began strumming an acoustic guitar.
“That’s Reggie,” whispered Laurie. “He does the music around here.”
“Oh,” I said.
“Okay, everyone,” Reggie said. “Now, I want the men to stand up for their parts and sit down when they’re done. Women, you stand up for your parts, same thing.”
“What parts?” I whispered to Laurie.
“I don’t know, honey,” she said.
Reggie hit a chord and stood up. All the men followed.
“I’ve been re-deeeeemed!” he sang.
We sat down. The women stood up and repeated. I’ve been redeee
eemed!
Reggie stood up again. “By the blood of the lamb!”
By the blood of the lamb!
They went on singing. It was the kind of song you could almost sing without knowing—you get a hint at the beginning, and you’re off:
I’ve been redeemed, I’ve been redeemed
By the blood of the lamb, by the blood of the lamb
I’ve been redeemed by the blood of the lamb
I’m filled with the Holy Ghost I am
All my sins are washed away, I’ve been redeemed.
And I went down, and I went down
To the river to pray, to the river to pray
And I went down, and I went down
To the river to pray, to the river to pray
And I went down to the river to pray
I felt so good that I stayed all day
All my sins are washed away, I’ve been redeemed.
By then everyone was huffing and puffing from all the standing up and sitting down, but we went on:
“And that’s not all,” sang Dr. Hiroshi with the rest of the men, smiling at me.
And that’s not all! sang the women.
“There’s more besides!” sang the men.
There’s more besides!
I figured I had it by then. I looked at the doctor and sang:
And that’s not all, there’s more besides
I’ve been to the river and I’ve been baptized
All my sins are washed away, I’ve been redeemed.
The doctor hit the last note—the Sha Na Na bass ending:
I’ve…been…re-deeeemed.
Everybody clapped and cheered. It was a pretty song, a song for kids—and these almost-elderly people were enjoying it like children. Once they all caught their breath, some shook hands or even hugged.
It was a weird scene, watching these empty-nest old parents moved near to tears by this children’s song. But it wasn’t their own kids they were remembering; it was their own childhoods. The church is a place where you can walk in and close your eyes and all the complex and inscrutable troubles of adult life are gone for a time. But you have to be careful to keep your eyes closed, because if you open them, what you’ll see all around you are sad, middle-aged people with brittle hair and long faces, faces as old as your own, looking weary from that crooked road that God keeps promising will someday be made straight and trying to wish the world away with a children’s song. Of course, if they all wish together, the wish comes true for a while.
At the end of each song the group stood with heads hung and eyes closed, and there was much whispering and incantation and even a little speaking in tongues: “We THANK you, Jesus…We do RECEIVE you, Lord…We praise you…Heal us, Jesus…Thank you, Lord…Froom-balakashaka…”
The whispering thing had originally been a big stumbling block for me. During preachers’ prayers and after the singing of hymns, during any solemn silence in any service, you’ll suddenly hear people in the crowd whispering aloud praise to the Lord—loud enough that folks can hear it a few pews in any direction. My first few times in church, I had a real problem with this, just as I had with the hand thing. At first, in church, I’d just whispered ever so faintly, so that only I could hear:
“Uh…thanks, Jesus…um…you rule…”
But now I was light-years past that time. My inhibitions in this area were almost completely gone. In fact, now, at Bible study, I found myself having a bit of a whisper-off with Laurie, who was of course a champion whisperer, not to be outdone by anyone. Laurie scored terrific marks at all external verbal demonstrations of the Christian faith; it was the actual behavioral tenets of the religion she had a problem with. But she had no equal in whispering. When Laurie whispered praise to Jesus, dogs would start barking blocks away.
“We THANK you, Jesus!” she whispered. “Lord, I thank you!”
I peered at her, irritated.
“In the blood of Jesus!” I whispered. “I do RECEIVE you, Lord!”
“Thank you, Jesus!” she whispered. “Thank YOU, Jesus! THANK YOU, JESUS!”
Fuck! I thought, wincing and glancing sideways at her.
“Protect me, Lord!” I said. “Rom-balakashaka!”
Laurie didn’t flinch. “Cooo-karakashakakakakakakakaaaaaa!” she whispered. “Shom-balakorososhaka!”
This went on for minutes. Finally, mercifully, Richard asked the group, “Does anyone have a word they’d like to share, someone or something to pray for?”
A long-faced, sad-looking woman off to my right, seated on a couch, stood up.
“I have something,” she said.
“Okay,” Richard said.
She nodded.
“I’d like to pray,” she said, “dear Lord, to ask you to bring me a letter tomorrow, dear Father, from the state of Texas, saying that it’s okay for me to drive a car again.”
I thought about that one for a moment. I wanted to hear why the state had revoked her license in the first place before I prayed for her to be allowed back on the road. Maybe she’d run over a crowd of blind children or something. The crowd, however, exploded in prayer:
“Lift her up, Lord.”
“Help her drive again.”
“Hear her prayers, Lord.”
“Embrace her, dear Jesus.”
We went around the room. Most everyone had a prayer request:
“I’d like to ask you, dear Father, to lift up my son, who is going through a difficult time.”
“Lord, lift up my mother and father, who are ill.”
“Lord, please protect me on my trip upstate tomorrow, make sure that I arrive safely, without any problems on the highway.”
There were a good dozen or so requests along those lines—and then we got to Richard and Cassie.
Richard cleared his throat.
“Lord,” he said, “we pray today for President Bush.”
It is a testament, I think, to the virginal purity of my atheism—my deep, unwavering faith in the nonexistence of this particular Christian god—that I did not even hesitate to spit out the asked-for prayers.
“Lord, protect the president!” I whispered. “Lift him up, dear Lord, and guide his every action! Protect him from slanderers and malcontents!”
“Guide him, Lord,” whispered Laurie.
“Smite his enemies with disease!” I continued.
The crowd prayed enthusiastically. As if as one we all chanted in support of the former governor, and then also for the troops in Iraq, and we continued, right up until Cassie took her turn.
“Lord,” she began, “I’d like to say a prayer for Israel, dear Father.”
She looked up for a moment, then hung her head solemnly, looking deeply moved for Israel’s plight all of a sudden. Cassie was all business, a good soldier who seemed to be doing what the church leaders asked her to do.
“I’d like you to guide her and to protect her,” she went on, “not only from her enemies in the Middle East, but from those within Israel and in this country, dear Lord, who would ask her to give up any of her land. We ask you to save Jerusalem, dear Father, and to protect her from Iran!”
Cassie opened her eyes when she was done with her little speech and cast a glance at everyone in the room. Dutifully everyone in the group whispered the usual praise, but I detected the energy seeping out of the house. We were here to talk about our own problems, not Iran. And once Cassie was finished with her grim corporate duty—and that’s so obviously what her anti-Iran prayer was that I don’t doubt that even some of the other group members noticed it—the group went back to more usual prayer requests.
“Father, pray for so-and-so, who’s in the hospital.”
“Lord, I ask you to lift up my daughter, who’s running with the wrong crowd.”
“Father, guide me and protect me financially.”
Cassie glanced at me in the midst of all of this. I realized that I hadn’t prayed for anything. Not knowing what to do or say, I stepped forward.
“Lord,” I said, “I
’d like to say a prayer for my little cousin Katie, who’s, uh, just now entering college…”
An alarm went off in my head. Just entering college? You idiot—it’s February!
“…who’s just entering college a semester late,” I continued. “Little Katie, dear Father, she calls herself an atheist now, and I ask you, dear Father, to lift her up and wash her in the blood of your only son, Jesus Christ, so that she may be healed of her addiction to drugs and inhalants, glues and such.”
A woman off to the right of me stepped forward, like she wanted to say a new prayer. I cut her off.
“So, Father, I please ask that you cure my little cousin Katie of those addictions and lift her up so that she may return to school and resume a normal life and go back to studying again, and playing musical instruments…”
The crowd stared at me anxiously. I gulped.
“In particular the xylophone,” I added finally.
There was an awkward pause. I took a deep breath and braced myself. Then the verdict came:
“Lord, protect this young lady!” whispered one man finally.
“Bind those demons inside her and cast them out!” said another.
“Save her, Lord!” said another.
EIGHT
Conspiracy Interlude I,
or
9/11 and the Derangement of Truth
EARLY ON THE MORNING of October 4, 2006, a friend of mine called, waking me up. When I hit the answer button on my cell, I could already hear him laughing.
“Dude,” he stammered out, “you’re being picketed!”
“What?”
“I just sent you the link,” he said. “It’s hilarious. The 9/11 protesters are picketing your office.”
I crawled out of bed and slid into my desk chair, opened the link. It was an entry from the Official Loose Change Blog, and it read as follows: