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.