Don’t get left behind! Catch up on the Devangelical 11-Step Survival Guide first:
* Intro
* Step 1: Admit It, You’ve Got Issues
* Step 2: Sanity Is An Option…Right?
* Step 3: Make a Choice to Get Over It, Why Don’t You?
* Step 4: Make a List
* Step 5: Share Your List, or Why I Love Whores
* Step 6: Be Willing to Forgive, or Please Suffer from Diarrhea
* Step 7: List the Possible Amends, or What to Do in Case of Alien
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Devangelist Erika Rae would like everyone to know that masturbation is never appropriate in college chapel.
—Spoiler Alert— In Chapter 11 of Devangelical, a college boy stands in front of several hundred peers and blurts out that he can’t stop masturbating in an attempt to purge his soul.
The preacher had been revving up that college chapel gathering for the better part of an hour on the subject of sex. Specifically, godly sex. You know, the kind that can only be had in a godly marriage, whereupon the two participants might be granted a lifetime of guilt-free pleasure and easy, mind-blowing orgasms.
The problem for the college boy was, of course, that he was having sex outside of a godly marriage and specifically…with his hand, a partner which is neither capable of faithfulness nor the ability to make a delicious Sunday pot roast betwixt the changing of endless diapers. According to preacher man: not so godly. It’s Adam and Eve, remember–not Adam and Righty. For those of you who may not be tracking, our boy was heading straight to hell. And when faced with the choice of an eternity in the Hot Place versus a little social discomfort, he chose the latter.
Unfortunately, this lesser of the two punishments landed him in a different kind of hell; one that would prod him on to change schools a total of three different times as word of his confession followed him around the country.
(OK – it’s safe to read now)
At Step #8, we’re heading toward the finish line in the Devangelical 11-Step Guide to Recovery, so don’t blow it now. Sure, maybe you have had a few lightbulb moments with regard to your uber-righteous past. For example, there are a lot of religious folks out there right now who are all riled up about how “immoral” the rest of the country is over its choice to elect a president who “doesn’t value the sanctity of marriage and who kills babies” while simultaneously and incredibly overlooking Jesus’ message to feed the poor, care for the sick, and to stop judging each other. Maybe you were one of these people who enjoy pointing their fingers at people who have different opinions and calling them “immoral” while sleeping soundly at night under a down comforter of your own smug righteousness.
I mean, hypothetically speaking, of course. After all, you know what they say: when you point your finger at somebody else, you still have 4 left to get the job done, if you know what I’m sayin’. Or something like that.
Maybe just maybe you’ve experienced an election like this one in your past and have snapped out of it enough to understand that perhaps you latched onto a sound bite that doesn’t entirely take into account the whole picture; that maybe you’ve fallen victim to a propaganda machine that revels in dehumanizing the “other” to such an extent that your own message has been rendered moot. Is it worth calling up every person you thought ill of over that election year (still hypothetical, of course) and apologizing?
You: (Phone ringing) Hi, um, you don’t know me that well, but I saw something you posted on FaceBook and thought to myself that you are likely riding shotgun to Hell beside the whore of Babylon herself. I’m speaking, of course, of your wife, who I also noticed was a staunch (unnamed hypothetical presidential candidate) supporter. Anyway, I just called to say I’m sorry.
Yeah. So maybe that’s not the best idea.
On the other hand, maybe you disowned a family member or two. Unfriended them before they became an “ungodly” influence on you, but not before you felt the need to send them one final parting message along the lines of how sorry you were that they possessed such a blackened soul.
In which case a box of chocolates is not inappropriate.
Point is, it’s easy to get caught up in what the herd says is right and wrong. It’s not always easy to be able to see beyond the righteous finger pointing and return to the much simpler response of love.
If you’ve hurt somebody in your over-zealousness (and God knows I have), it’s not too late. But unlike the cautionary tale of the college boy above, let’s try and keep it within reason, shall we?