The Jesus Music, Redux

I’m trying to figure out if I did the right thing. About a year ago, I got all hot and bothered because the instructor in my exercise class kept playing what I call “The Jesus Music.” I asked her, nicely and in private, to stop because there were non-Christians in the class, myself among them. To my surprise, she did stop playing the song. The reason I say it was to my surprise is that the instructor is also studying to be a Christian minister. She belongs to a church that broke off from another one because it didn’t fall in line with her conservative beliefs on homosexuality and abortion. I'm told her church can be described as fundamentalist. And she has been known to lecture people on why they need Jesus in their lives.

So here’s what happened on Friday. I went to the class, which she regularly teaches. Before she starts, I hear people talking about how she had just taken her ministry exams. I thought to myself, “She’s going to come in here today and play the Jesus music again.” I didn’t really think she would, though, since we had the little chat last year. But lo and behold, here it comes.

The song is Spirit in the Sky, lyrics by Norman Greenbaum. The words are, in part:

Prepare yourself you know it’s a must
Gotta have a friend in Jesus
So you know that when you die
He’s gonna recommend you
To the spirit in the sky

and in the next stanza this:

Never been a sinner I never sinned
I got a friend in Jesus
So you know that when I die
He’s gonna set me up with
The spirit in the sky

Now, I’m no genius, but to me those lyrics say that if you don’t accept Jesus, you’re not going to heaven. By implication then, if you’re Jewish, you’re going to hell. So that kind of bothers me, that someone would think it’s OK to play this music to a bunch of people paying to attend an exercise class in a private health club. Especially after someone has said it bothers them.

I was angry. Perhaps I overreacted but I dropped my weights and left. I was still seething a half hour later when the instructor called me, purportedly out of concern that I might be sick, since I left so abruptly. What can I say, I let her have it. I told her that song offended me, and as a Christian minister she should have a heightened level of sensitivity where religion is concerned. I yelled at her. I told her she had no respect for my beliefs. I told her she probably thought I was going to hell. I said I shouldn’t have to deal with that kind of intrusion, and to think what my kids face every day as non-Christians. She kept saying “I’m sorry you were offended,” and I kept saying “don’t say you’re sorry I was offended. Say you’re sorry you offended me.” There is a difference. I had to repeat this a few times, because she didn’t seem to get that I was not offended in a vacuum. I don’t just walk around and suddenly, out of nowhere, I’m offended. So no, I wasn’t offended. She did the offending. Oh was I pissed off.

She genuinely did not understand why a song about going to heaven if you accept Jesus would offend anyone. And it only fueled the fire to hear her say this. I mean, how clueless do you have to be to not have an inkling that those lyrics are not going to be pleasing to non-Christians, especially after you’ve been told about it before? And I do suspect that if the song said “No need to prepare yourself/you don’t need Jesus/because when you die/heaven is still there for you/up there in the sky”, she never would have played it. (She has refused to play at least one other song due to raunchy lyrics.)

I felt bad about losing my temper, so when I saw her today, I apologized. Not for what I said, but for losing my temper. She accepted the apology and said she wasn’t the kind of Christian who judged whether people are going to heaven or not. And yet the song…. Anyway, after class, she came to my car and said I hurt her feelings. I said I know I did. That’s why I apologized. Maybe she wanted me to apologize for the stuff I said, not for the way I said it. But that is not going to happen.

Now here is something curious. I googled Spirit in the Sky, and the Wikipedia entry popped up. It says that Norman Greenbaum, who’s Jewish, said in an interview that he had no particular intentions with the song. He just wanted to reach a wider audience. The entry also says it’s been rumored for decades that he wrote the song as a mockery of Chrisianity.

So maybe in some kind of twisted irony, we were both wrong.

The Christians are Coming....

I'm a big believer in separation of church and state. Maybe we should think about separation of church and neighborhood birthday parties too.

Here's what happened. I went to a friend’s house yesterday for a picnic on the occasion of her son’s 10^th birthday. This friend belongs to one of those giant “Christian” churches, you know, the Something or Other Community Church, and lots of her friends are very active in what they like to call the Ministry. Silly me, I thought it’s a kid’s birthday party with neighbors. There will be the normal conversations about the normal things: what our respective kids are up to, what’s in the news lately, the stock market, neighborhood news. And there was some of that.

But as the evening progressed, two things really started to annoy me. First, there was a woman there (she wants to move into our neighborhood) who kept sprinkling conversation with “God told me to…” and “God wants me to…” At one point she was telling the group about how she was catching up recently with a friend at a neighborhood park, and (I quote) “God anointed our conversation.” And evidently she thinks God is telling her to sell her house and move.

As a little aside, I learned this week that my sister’s good friend was diagnosed with a massive brain tumor and died on Saturday, three days after receiving the news. She leaves a husband and three small children, the youngest of whom is two years old.

So does the lady from the picnic really think God gives two shits what house a suburban housewife lives in? I think he’s got bigger issues on his plate. Doesn't she know she's already won God's lottery, living in a safe country, married with two healthy kids? The sheer vanity of her thinking God should care about her house is pretty astounding.

Then there was this other woman who’s big on telling everyone about her “ministry”. I’m not one to knock somebody’s ministry. There’s plenty of misery in the world and I actually admire people who can put their own needs and wants aside to help provide housing or education to the world’s less fortunate. I can, however, do without the attitude of superiority. “Look at me, I’m doing all this for charity.” We heard all about how she took her kids out of Christian school and, horrors! put them in public school so they could use the tuition money to set up a school in Costa Rica. That’s good. That’s nice. Not that public school is such a sacrifice. We happen to have one of the top public schools in the State. And she didn't mention the part about hoping to save (i.e. convert) all the poor natives to her brand of religion. Plus I got the feeling she was expecting applause.

In Judaism, one of the highest forms of charity is doing a good deed without taking credit for it. But of course, she’s not a Jew. And evidently didn’t care that someone sitting at the table has a Jewish family.

Because it wasn’t long before she launched into a really ridiculous story about this incredibly pious man who recently became engaged to someone she knows (God apparently had a hand in this too). The story was that this guy, who is 28 years old, never kissed a girl in his life until he got engaged to this woman God had brought to him. Then the woman (the one telling the story) went off about how admirable it is for someone to show such restraint, and how the woman who’s going to marry this guy is like the Bride of Christ. Soon her story became more of a sermon on the virtues of Christ-like behavior and how we should all try to emulate this guy. And never mind that I happen to know that someone sitting at the table (another devoted Christian) slept with her husband on their first date.

So I’m sitting right there and this woman knows my kids are Jewish. I’m sure she thinks they (and I) are going straight to hell. She probably thinks we need her ministry, and bad.

My take on the story was that the 28-year old who had never kissed a girl was just a loser, the kind of man who will want his wife to stay home and bear their eleven children with good humor and grace, and in fifteen years he’ll be caught in the kind of men’s bathroom sting in which Senator Craig (R-Idaho) recently found himself. That or maybe his wife will just shoot him, a la Mary Winkler.

Anyway, the Bride of Christ thing was my cue to exit. Being the sort of heathenish person I am, I left the table and went to find my husband. Curious. My husband (Jewish) and all the menfolk (Christian) were playing beanbag toss and talking sports. So maybe it's a Christian woman thing.

I lay awake last night thinking Suburbia is not the place for me. Especially if God finds a house in my neighborhood for that first woman ….