Episode 4: The B.I.B.L.E. Continued more...

I love the smell of vinyl burning on a Saturday afternoon....

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

This podcast is intended for mature audiences. So grow up. I'm Les and I'm a storyteller, but these aren't just any stories. These are my stories, untold until now. I'm a Gen Xer who's lived through it all. The analog days, the digital dawn, and everything in between. I'm turning the mic on myself to share the true stories, the awkward moments, and the maybe you had to be there experiences that shaped who I am. I'm taking you on a journey through the events, the people, and the pop culture that defined my experience. This is Gen X Crossing. Episode 4. The B I B L E. Yes, that's the book for me, continued. Back masking, subliminal messages, satanic messages. The preacher with jet black hair and a light blue suit brought his slideshow to a close as the lights in the small chapel flicked back on. A whole suit was an odd choice for a Saturday morning at Beth Eden Baptist, but also somehow perfectly on brand. He was a guest of the church, on tour, called by God to warn young people about the dangers of rock and roll music. We had been informed that KISS stood for Kids in Satan's Service, that Ozzie Osborne was an animal sacrificing devil worshiper, and that if you played secular records backward, demonic messages would seep into your unconscious, causing you to do bad things. Messages like God is dead, worship the devil, and the pulsing beat of rock and roll could stir passions in you that would make you want to have sex. This is timed well for a group of thirteen to fifteen year olds. We must put on the full armor of God that ye may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil. This was from the book of Ephesians, chapter six. He continued, hammering the air with one fist for emphasis. For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against the principalities, against powers, against rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places. Don't give the devil an opportunity, he said, stepping down. We sat silently. This was not an applause moment. This was a moment for reflection, conviction, for letting the fear settle in. The youth pastor took the stage to conduct an altar call. Thank you, Reverend Peters. You've left us with a lot to think and pray about. As the organist accompanied us to Just As I Am, my mind wandered a bit. I mean, I was already saved, and since moving to Westland Baptist Church, I had been consecrated with baptism. Beth Eden was no longer my home church, and I had, at the sophisticated age of 13, risen above the King James Version of the Bible. The New American Standard was the Bible that people would read if they actually wanted to live out their faith. This was my belief anyway. The folks at Westland seemed more like followers of Christ, rather than just Christians. I sat there head bowed, arms crossed, saying a little prayer for the lost who were caught in the snare of the devil's music. I, on the other hand, had already made my decision to follow Jesus with my whole heart, no turning back. I said as much to the preacher afterward. Thank you for teaching us today, I said, shaking his hand like a thirty-five year old. I just want to let you know that I do not listen to this kind of music. I have committed my whole life to Christ. I swear to God, as I'm standing here, I did this. Well, good, he said. You're well on your way. No, I insisted, I am already totally committed to Christ. That's great, he said, nodding once before returning to the next kid. I had no idea what possessed me to say it at the time, but I think I know now. I had watched the greats in the pulpit, Sunday school, at retreats, at Christian concerts, speak with absolute certainty, with authority about all things Christian. I was starting to wonder what made them so special. They were taking Bible verses, something anyone could read and learn, and turning them into very specific life lessons. They were extrapolating. They were interpreting. And we assumed they were interpreting on behalf of God and at God's behest. I started to kind of question this a little bit. I mean, I would never ever in a million years had said that aloud. In fact, I was certainly not self-aware enough to see how this indoctrination was affecting my entire sense of self, my whole personality. But I longed to be the best Christian, and I noticed this feeling of competition slowly rising in me. That was at the edges of what I said to that preacher, coupled with the need to be acknowledged as devout. As I mentioned a minute ago, Beth Eden was in my rear view mirror. And so when a friend invited me back for the session on the evils of rock and roll, it felt a bit beneath me somehow. Still, I did find inspiration. That afternoon, I came home and called another friend, one I knew had secular albums like Led Zeppelin. Somehow, I managed to convince her to bring over some of her albums to burn. You heard that right. In order to prove to God that I was committed to living a fully Christian life and to save my friend, who was already a Christian, but not in my cocky, indoctrinated mind, a fully committed one, I was going to have a record burning. As I waited for her dad to drop her off, I wondered, would we be able to hear demons screaming from inside her albums when we lit them on fire? I retrieved a retired powder blue plastic trash can from the basement and set it up on the concrete beneath my mom's clothesline. Wouldn't want anything in the yard to catch fire while I burned albums in a flammable container. As I hunted through the kitchen junk drawer for matches, I started to feel a twinge of guilt and a little hesitation. I mean, after all, I was asking my friend to sacrifice her records, something she had surely bought with allowance money. But I didn't have anything of my own to contribute. The only album I owned at that age was Barry Manilo's This One's For You. He was a singer my parents also listened to, so I figured he must not be that satanic. Plus, the cover didn't have any elaborate art to hide subliminal messages in. It was just a portrait of Barry with a sly smile on his face. Looking back on it now, I think it was supposed to be seductive. That kind of went over my head as a 13 and a half-year-old. When I heard her dad's car, I ran up to meet Chris halfway between our front yard and backyard, excitedly telling her about devil worship and the evil plan of Satan and his demons to drag us all to hell. We brought her albums into the house so I could show her how bad they were. I wanted her to be as passionate about defeating Satan as I was. Plus, I didn't want to burn her albums unless she really wanted to. I felt this other twinge the moment we pulled the record out of the sleeve. Fear. This was Led Zeppelin's album for. Before me were the lyrics to stairway to heaven. I had been warned just hours before that the man carrying kindling symbolized a demon, eager to stoke the fires of hell for those who fell prey to the lyrics, cadence, and music within. You can't buy your way into heaven, I said as we listened to the song and read along with the lyrics. I knew it, I thought. They were trying to trick us into thinking there was another way besides the sacrifice of Jesus Christ. Suddenly I emboldened. I was seeing everything through my godly filter now. I skimmed the album art, searching for subliminal messages. I couldn't see anything specific, but I was sure there was more symbolism there than I knew what to do with. It had to go. I had seen enough. Funny, when I tell this story now, I think to myself, where the hell were my parents? Didn't anyone notice me taking a plastic trash can outside with matches? I don't know, maybe I was home alone. I really don't remember. Solemnly, we made our way to the backyard. We tore the album covers in half and then in quarters. We ripped the sleeves. We stomped on the records. Then we dumped the wreckage into the trash can and dramatically lit a match. Nothing happened. We looked at each other. Was Satan blowing out the flame? We tried again. Nothing would light on fire. A third time, nothing. Chris shrugged. Well, I guess that was enough, she said, adding, we probably shouldn't be burning stuff anyway. Of course she was right. Now I kind of felt silly. We dumped the albums out of the trash can and stomped them for good measure. Then scooped up the remains and put them in the aluminum trash can my dad kept just outside of the garage, which in retrospect would have actually been a tad safer for a demon torching, but I digress. Remember I mentioned my need to assure that preacher that I was all in for Christ already? That really did become my whole being. As I made my way into high school, I believed 100% of what I had been taught. I dug deeper than ever into studying the Bible. I began taking detailed notes during church and making study and prayer lists. In the silence of my mind, I compared myself both to my school peers and my youth group peers. I was the real deal, I concluded. They were less serious, immature. They focused on the silliness of homecoming, the meaninglessness of being popular, the vanity of dressing fashionably and trying to fit in with other people. I, on the other hand, set a schedule of prayer and Bible study, much like the great Charles Spurgeon, a super Christian from the eighteen hundreds. It was from his example that I learned to pray verses back to God as a way of shoring up my belief in him and his promises. I rose every morning at 4 30 AM, falling asleep on and off behind the door of my bedroom where the heater was. Then I would stir again, resuming my supplications to God. Like Spurgeon, I set out to pray throughout the day in the privacy of my mind, whenever God came to mind or when I was going through something hard. I was absolutely obsessed with all things Christian. I believed everything that was said to me within the confines of the church, that there was nothing really good in us without the grace of God. Sex outside of marriage was a sin, as was masturbation, often referred to in Christian circles as selfish solo sex. Abortion was a sin. The gross oversimplification of sin caused me to moralize everything. The whole kit and caboodle. And I continued to measure my godliness against the ungodly, in my eyes, actions of others. And we're gonna go into that a little bit more in my next episode. M Y O B. Thank you for listening. Know that your time and attention are both precious to me, and it means the world that you're willing to spare some of your time and attention to hear my stories. This season has been a lot about trial and error, and I don't have a lot of followers, but I want to keep telling these stories, whether people all want to hear them or not. Someday someone will. So if you like what you're hearing, take a minute to subscribe and to rate my show. My episodes sometimes get released every month, sometimes they get released every couple of months, but they do get released. Thank you again, and that's all for now. Peace out.