Pentecostals lack basic hygiene. Discuss.

I came across an intriguing statement by the Episcopalian priest Morton T Kelsey. In his 1973 book Healing and Christianity, he wrote that "Pentecostal churches [have] orgiastic practices and disregard for the laws of hygiene."

I am not sure if he was simply paraphrasing the author (the interestingly named Dr Wade Boggs) he was discussing at the time, and assumed we would know that, or if it was his own opinion. Either way, I'm not sure what it means. "Orgiastic" is easy enough to read as a reference to the perceived chaotic, uncontrolled, emotional style of Pentecostal worship. But is that actually an accusation that Pentecostals are unhygienic? Here is the whole paragraph, putting the sentence in context:

Dr. Boggs points up the fact that in recent years most of the emphasis on religious healing has come from fringe groups about which there is reason to be skeptical. Christian Science (and Mrs. Eddy is certainly a controversial figure) is one example. New Thought with its dubious ancestry in the theory and practice of animal magnetism is another. The Pentecostal churches with their orgiastic practices and disregard for the laws of hygiene form yet another class, and he discusses such figures as Oral Roberts, Little David, Aimee Semple McPherson, and others. The implication is that, because the ministry of healing has sometimes been associated with ridiculous practices and foolish persons, therefore that ministry is itself ridiculous.

I am both amused and bemused that in 1973 an author could apparently get away with such a statement without feeling the need to elaborate. What could Kelsey be alluding to? One can imagine such a criticism in the early days of Pentecostalism. All those people crowding together, touching and embracing and waving their handkerchiefs in the air in the heat of the Deep South - and not to mention whites mixing so casually with Negroes!

Or perhaps it was a comment on the working class origins of most Pentecostals way back when? In the context of a discussion on spiritual and religious healing, the accusation could almost read this way: How dare the Pentecostals practice faith healing while they ignore the basic principles of good health and hygiene!

I am perplexed. I suppose it's likely that our Boggs, writing in the 1950s, had those views. It's Morton T Kelsey, writing in 1973 without challenging those assumptions, that rather baffles me. Did I miss something?

Pet hates in movie fakery

This is a list of things in films that bug me because they're unrealistic. I made it because I felt like it.

Driving without keeping one's eyes on the road. You'd think a good actor would know that when people drive, they generally keep looking ahead of them. If they do look elsewhere, they do so for a second or two, tops (or they crash). So how do even the best actors get away with taking their eyes off the often-busy road for ten seconds or more at a time to have a conversation?

Drinking out of cups that are clearly empty. For some reason, this happens in Dexter all the time. Not surprising, perhaps, since donuts and coffee are two of the biggest recurring characters in the show. But it is obvious to me when someone is drinking out of an empty cup. Especially when it's shop-bought coffee that would clearly burn your tongue off at the roots if you drank it that quickly.

Picking up boxes, bags and packages that are clearly empty. Newsflash to props guy: We can tell that crate that guy just picked up is made of fibreglass and contains a nothing but a handful of packing peanuts.

People in meetings and church services responding in unison. Maybe it's just me, because I endured all of my adolescence in Pentecostal church services, but it irritates me when everyone responds to a preacher or evangelist with a perfectly unison "Amen!". Real born-again services are a little, and sometimes a hell of a lot less coordinated.

I may add to this list occasionally as other bits of random Hollywood fakery grate against me.

This is the blog of David L Rattigan

Since I started writing for The Guardian's Comment is free, my presence in search-engine results has changed dramatically. An unfortunate side effect of this is that a Google search for "David L Rattigan" turns up several former blogs before this current blog is found a few pages in.

I don't want to delete my former Blogger sites, since it is well-known that deleted urls are easily taken over by spammers, which could have much less desirable effects. All the content has been deleted, so they are basically just empty blogs, with an url directing any readers to my current location.

So I'm hoping that this post, by using key words such as Dave Rattigan, David L Rattigan, David L Rattigan's blog and Dave Rattigan's blog, will give a bit of a nudge to the search engines.

Any other advice would be gratefully received.

Lend a helping hand

Michael Spencer, aka The Internet Monk, is very, very sick with cancer. His income and his health insurance come to an end soon. It is no secret that he has spent most of his ministry and career working for peanuts at a private Christian school in what appears to be one of America's poorest regions (in rural Kentucky).

If you know Michael and his writings, and can pitch in a few bucks, I can guarantee your donation would not be wasted. You can give via the PayPal button on Michael's website.

Gay Brit turns straight, attacks gays

From The Guardian’s Comment is free this morning:

Writing in the Times earlier this week, Patrick Muirhead describes “the day I decided to stop being gay“. Even allowing for its firmly tongue-in-cheek tone, the problem with his article is that he really seems to believe the half-truths he presents about homosexuality.

He talks of his increasing attraction to women, or more pertinently his attraction to the idea of a wife and children – though in fact, when his decision was made, no woman was even in the picture. It was the sight of a father playing with his child that persuaded this one-time “fully fledged homo” to pursue a traditional, heterosexual family life. This is a spectre that cannot be avoided throughout the article: has the author really changed, or is he just enamoured of the idea of “normality”?

In common with many others who have given up the supposedly hedonistic lifestyle of the modern gay man, Muirhead cannot resist taking a parting shot at homosexuals. It’s a familiar pattern, especially in the US, where the religious, rightwing “ex-gay” movement thrives on myth-making about the dangers of same-sex love.

Read the full article, by yours truly, here.

Review: Misery (Stephen King)

I can't say I'm much of a Stephen King fan. I may have read bits and pieces when I was a kid, but in adulthood I have read a novella, a novel and the first few chapters of one other novel.

The novella was The Body, part of the collection Different Seasons. It was famously made into the beautifully crafted 1986 movie Stand by Me, directed by Rob Reiner. Much of the book made it almost word-for-word into the screenplay. It certainly has some very readable, funny dialogue. But the book was just "okay."

Then I began The Shining. (I recently moved, and shelves of Stephen King paperbacks are all I've had to hand.) Frankly, it was a bore, and King's dialogue for a five-year-old was embarrassingly unconvincing (even for a five-year-old with psychic gifts).

Misery was a compulsive, exciting read, however.

It is easy to find flaws in King's writing, and they can get annoying at times. For example, he picks up a metaphor and uses it to death. In the first part of Misery he latches onto the metaphor of a tide washing over a wooden post, and all of a sudden it's everywhere, branching out into all kinds of sub-metaphors. He doesn't seem to know when to lay it to rest.

The excerpts from the central character's novel are pretty badly written, too - but apparently it turns out to be his finest novel ever. (The exception is the penultimate sequence with the bees, but I shan't be more specific and give anything away.)

However, Misery is such a tense, involving thriller, I could easily forgive these glitches. King writes truly riveting suspense sequences that leave the reader breathlessly anxious to read on. Several times I was feverishly flipping from one page to the next, uttering, "Oh shit!" under my breath as revelations were made and the plot twisted.

This is quite a remarkable feat for a story whose action mainly takes place between two people in a single setting - a setting I gained a remarkable sense for.

I look forward immensely to watching the film this evening. Although I've never seen it, it's familiar enough to me that I couldn't read the book without picturing the iconic Kathy Bates in the role of Annie Wilkes, a character King writes strikingly.

Dispelling myths about leaving fundamentalism

When I was a fundamentalist, I had a perception about those who had left the fold that I can now see was far from the truth. My perception was that those who had left born-again Christianity were never really as committed or convinced as I was. I knew I could never forsake my faith; therefore anyone who left their born-again, Bible-believing, conservative evangelical faith never truly had the relationship with Jesus that I had.

I was wrong. I know that now that I'm on the outside.

I can think of some reasons why I thought that. First, to admit that ex-fundamentalists, liberals, agnostics and atheists were once like me would be to admit that I too could be that way one day. Second, I had such certainty, I couldn't fathom why or how anyone who really knew God could consider any way other than straight-down-the-line, Bible-believing religion.

Pastor, preacher, saint, brother, sister: I was once just like you.

I believed, yes, really believed that Jesus died to save me from Hell. I knew the Bible was true. I shed tears as I worshiped. I spoke in tongues, received words of prophecy and fell to the floor under the power of the Holy Spirit. I talked to God and he talked to me. I stood on street corners and proclaimed loudly that Jesus was the only way to heaven. I even got the call, went to Bible College and interned as a pastor.

Some Christians will suppose that there was always something deficient in my Christianity. They will say I lacked some essential element of faith, or my foundation was insecure. My faith was all in my head and never in my heart, they will say. They will suppose that I never had the quality of relationship with God that they have. Some will have to believe that, or they would have to open their minds to the potentially terrifying possibility that one day they too might stop believing.

No, brothers and sisters, sorry. I was pretty much where you are now.

This is just one of many myths about those who leave fundamentalism. Stay tuned, as I'll be addressing a few others in the coming weeks.