I'll bet Denzel gets mistaken for Jesus all the time
I always get really self-conscious when I go to church, because I only go twice a year and because I think the regulars suspect me of having horns. But in my defense, I’m not trying to sneak in and be a hypocrite. Left to my own devices, I wouldn’t go at all. I go because I know our attendance means something to my mother-in-law, who attends regularly and has never, in any obvious way, mentioned whether or not she cries in private and prays for our poor heathen souls.
(Either way, it’s still a step up from the way my Catholic college roommate’s family seemed to think that the other three of us were damned. Once, we sang “Happy Birthday” with them and didn’t know there was a second verse that goes, “May the dear Lord bless you.” And also, we sometimes forgot to hide the giant black dildo that sat on top of our TV. I never caught the Yates family in the act, but I’m pretty sure that they spent a lot of the time that they were in our apartment crossing themselves and blessing our various disgusting surfaces with Holy Water.)
But I’m not Godless, dammit. I’m a fairly spiritual guy once you get down deep, past the cool hair and the fart jokes. And I’m a respectful guy too, which is why I go on Easter and Christmas to make my mother-in-law happy.
The attendance problem churches face today boils down to the fact that church is not fun. And it should be. You’re celebrating resurrections, talking about snakes, digging for eternal life in a place cooler than any pad on MTV Cribs, but with chicks that aren’t as slutty.
I think that back in the day, God was strict but cool, and made things generally cool, but then over the years, whitey fucked it up as whitey always does. It’s not church’s fault per se. I mean, black people kept it real, which is why I’d be more devout if I were black. Black churches look like a party. Like, if you were running the sound system, you could pretty easily put on Public Enemy instead of devotionals and it wouldn’t matter because even Black God would dig it.
But for white people? Church amplifies our rampant lameness and distills it to its purest, whitest form. Sometimes, I can’t believe Orville Redenbacher hasn’t shown up leading a crew of albino mutes. But then again, maybe they avoid the holiday services.
This Sunday, we got a quartet of singers. No electric guitars or turntables whatsoever. I’m trying to keep my 4-year-old son Austin from dropping his Transformers onto the people in the pew ahead of us, and when the song finishes, he says quite loudly, “That was an awful song.”
But I was too absorbed in the program they’d given me at the door to really pay attention. This church uses a lot of modern Christian music, and I couldn’t help but notice that most of the upcoming pieces had totally ripped off 1980s pop songs.
“Look at this,” I whispered to Robin. ” ‘What a Savior.’ ”
“What?”
“Doesn’t that sound familiar to you? Like… say… maybe something from a pair of ladies by the names of Salt and Peppa?”
She glanced up. “What are you talking about?”
“You don’t think it’s a little close to ‘Whatta Man’?”
She looked back at the front of the church.
“Let me ask you this. Don’t you imagine that people thought about Jesus and were like, ‘Whatta man, whatta man… whatta mighty good man?’ I mean, think about it. Is he not smooth like Barry and his voice got bass? A body like Arnold with a Denzel face?”
“Jesus looks nothing like Denzel Washington.”
I snorted. “I’ll bet he does in black church.”
I looked back down, running my finger through the following songs. “See Him in the Garden” sounded legit, but what about “Mary Don’t Weep?”
“How about this one?” I said, pointing.
She wouldn’t look down, so I nudged her.
“Yes?”
“Kind of like ‘Papa Don’t Preach’?”
She looked back toward the front of the church. “That’s ridiculous. It’s not even close.”
“Don’t you remember that Madonna video where Black Jesus came to life and it was vaguely sexual, and everyone got all mad, maybe because of the sex but maybe because Jesus was black, and not just black but super Wesley-Snipes-Yaphet-Kotto black, or maybe because Madonna exists?”
“They weren’t even on the same album,” she said. ” ‘Papa Don’t Preach’ was on True Blue and was before she started making out with religious statues. And besides, ‘Papa Don’t Preach’ was about Madonna getting knocked up and Danny Aiello getting fat and mad at her. ‘Mary Don’t Weep’ is about Easter.”
“You think Danny Aiello didn’t weep? Not in public maybe, but that’s because he’s Italian.”
But I was sure that the entire service had been cribbed. The following song was “Cherish the Cross,” which was a bit coincidental given that Madonna also had a big hit with “Cherish.” And she always wore a cross around her neck, because she’s Catholic and because it somehow made her look extra slutty in the 80s, like forbidden Catholic school girl fruit but with all sorts of diseases or something.
I kept scanning the program, making a fair amount of noise turning pages. And Robin was like, “What are you doing?”
“Looking to see if they have Run DMC’s ‘Down With the King’ in here. Although I’m thinking that would work better at Christmas.”
I could get into that. It would make me come back for Christmas. I’ll bet the black church is down with the King. Especially since they’re already down with Martin Luther King.
Really, I’m not anti-church. I just don’t understand it. I mean, we’ve crafted and molded the story of Jesus over the years, but whoever he was in the end, he still lived as a dude and built things and hung out with his apostles and you know he probably had some good jokes. You have to figure that he was cool. Not all boring and preachy all the time. I have to think he’d be fun to hang out with, like you could have some mead after a goats-for-eggs trade and just kind of shoot the shit. I mean, think of how many millions of people are down with the King today. Only a cool dude with a good sense of humor and fun could have that many people get down with him. Nobody to date has built a religion centered around a guy who was a dick.
Well, except for that one. You know who I’m talking about.