Cue up the GodMen house band, which opens the revival with a thrashing challenge to good boys:
*
Forget the yin and the yang
I’ll take the boom and the bang….
Don’t need in touch with my feminine side!
All I want is my testosterone high.
*
The 200 men in the crowd clap stiffly. Stine races through a frenetic stand-up routine, drawing laughs with his rants against liberals, atheists and the politically correct. Then Christian radio host Paul Coughlin, author of “No More Christian Nice Guy,” takes the stage. His backdrop: a series of wanted posters featuring one Jesus of Nazareth.
“Jesus was a very bad Christian,” Coughlin declares. After all, he says, the Son of God trashed a temple and even used profanity — or the New Testament equivalent — when he called Herod “that fox.”
“The idea of Jesus as meek and mild is as fictitious as anything in Dan Brown’s ‘Da Vinci Code,’ ” says Coughlin, 40.
So what’s with the standard portraits of Jesus: pale face, beatific smile, lapful of lambs?
“He’s been domesticated,” says Roland Martinson, a professor of ministry at Luther Seminary in St. Paul, Minn. “He’s portrayed now as gentle, loving, kind, rather than as a full-bodied person who kicked over tables in the temple, spent 40 days in the wilderness wrestling with his identity and with God, hung out with the guys in the street. The rough-hewn edges and courage ... got lopped off.”
Always about the balls.
Another representative bit:
But some men at the conference run into trouble when they debut their new attitudes at home. Eric Miller, a construction worker, admits his wife is none too pleased when he takes off, alone, on a weekend camping trip a few weeks after the GodMen conference this fall.
“She was a little bit leery of it, as we have an infant,” he reports. “She said, ‘I need your help around here.’ ”
Miller, 26, refuses to yield: “I am supposed to be the leader of the family.”
He’s pretty sure his wife will come around once she recognizes he’s modeling his life after Jesus’, like a good Christian should. It’ll just take a little explaining, because the Jesus he has in mind is the guy on the wanted poster: “confrontational and sarcastic when he needed to be,” Miller says, and determined to use “whatever means was necessary to achieve his goal.”
This is all putting me in mind of a classic Bloom County strip that I wish I could find...
Better and better!
In several years of performing stand-up at Promise Keepers events, Stine never cursed; the closest he came to vulgarity was his liberal use of the word “stinking.”
“I get tired of trying to maintain that Christian persona,” he says. “I hate that sense of decorum. I hate thinking, ‘Boy, I hope I don’t say the wrong thing.’ ”
Stine argues that the genteel facade of a Christian nice guy inhibits introspection and substitutes cliches for spiritual growth. GodMen is his attempt to encourage men to get real. His speakers admit to masturbation and adultery. A workshop called “Training the Penis” encourages men to talk openly about temptation and bond with guys who share their struggles.
Such honesty, Stine contends, molds better, more godly men than a typical Sunday service.
Hm. They may have a point on the last one, if the only thing they were encouraging is honesty. But again with the cherrypicking bits of the Bible and ignoring the ones that don’t fit with the particular brand of asshole you have decided to be.
this reminds me of the big bearded asshole on campus who was blowing hard about how the new testament is decidedly NOT all about peace love and understanding — jesus HATED fags and abortionists and adulterers.
You’re referring to the “tater tots” strip, right? ned?
How many of these guys do you think are deeply closeted? like, 20–30%?
Eric Miller, a construction worker, admits his wife is none too pleased when he takes off, alone, on a weekend camping trip a few weeks after the GodMen conference this fall.
“She was a little bit leery of it, as we have an infant,” he reports.
This sounds familiar... hmm...
“I DON’T KNOW WHAT YOU DO UP ON THAT MOUNTAIN, BUT IT SHORE AS HELL AIN’T WORSHIPPIN NO JESUS!”
nah, 5–6%, the rest are lightly closeted and/or picking up dudes at the retreats.
You’re referring to the “tater tots” strip, right? ned?
Spot on.
yeah, this is the closest thing, but it’s ain’t even close:
Good move, dude. You single-handedly exceeded their bandwidth.
it was worth it
jesus, these guys are as neurotic about any perceived self-emasculation as the folks who get a little too into _Fight Club_ are. No wonder there are so many vociferously pro-war chickenhawk-types.
$10 says that before long, they’ll start learning Klingon to express “the Warrior Within”
So they’re basically complaing that mainstream evangelical Christianity excludes complete douchebags.
“All right, gentlemen, I’ll fox with you too!”
Trust me, it’s really funny.
Wait a minute. Jesus Christ = “teh guy on teh wnated poster” = Johnny Cash givin the finger = JESUS AND JOHNNY NEWVER CHANGED NO DIAPERS!!!@@##1!!!
I’m imagining a lot of good sarcastic wife responses:
Wife: “Honey, change lil’ Hank’s diaper”
Godman: “Jesus ain’t change no diapers!”
Wife: “Well Jesus ain’t get no blowjobs either!”