Things that make you go -------> @_@

[catscradle]

I interviewed Rev. Maurice Gordon and many of the congregation of Lovingway United Pentecostal Church about four years ago while writing a paper for my Psychology of Religion class. Little did I know at the time, being still new to Denver, how notorious he was for being so inflamatory - at least in Denver he was. Now he's got national attention on CNN for the sign he had put up reading "The Jews killed Jesus." He made an apology for that, saying that he didn't mean it as an offense to modern Jews and that people were reading it out of context. Unfortunately, he's just made another comment that got him into trouble - that the Jews need to forgive the Germans for the Holocaust: Offending Colorado pastor re-offends

I visited his church three times in 2000 in the course of writing my paper. I wish I had that paper now, but it's sitting on the dead laptop and I've not a clue where the floppy is for after two moves. Maybe I'll finally get motivated to hook the laptop up to the new computer.

The whole experience was amazing to me. The first two services I attended there were sedate based on what I knew of Pentecostals. This is not to say they weren't wild when compared to the Catholic services I attended growing up or main stream Protestant ones I've been to with friends. During certain times of the service, I recall them speaking in tongues, running about the church when "charged" with the spirit, swaying wildly and the singing - I think I dedicated about 10 pages of the paper just to explain their complex sound system for music. They are a very poor church, but the musical equipment is state of the art.

Gordon has six daughters, all of them musicians and singers. One of the services I attended - they were all in town and gave a gospel show. To be honest with you, it was gorgeous. I have to give them credit, they are talented women. It was the kind of music - the kind you can only experience live to get the true feel of it - that made you wonder if they weren't tapping into something truly spiritual. Even those of us that didn't believe in the faith and were even offended by it, couldn't deny that the music lifted you to a different place. Perhaps this is why so many convert, there's something more tangible, more moving and alive than what you get in your average mainstream church.

Though I recall with a little horror during an interview with Gordon that he couldn't understand why some of his daughters wanted to work (one of them had an advanced degree in special education), when they had husbands with good jobs. But it was impressed upon me by my prof that smiling and nodding was the way to go when up agaisnt unsettling discoveries.

That wasn't the only moment that bothered me. At one point, one of the church members had brought a young girl to the church to find her salvation in Jesus after she had left a very abusive home. She went to her friend for a place to stay and they decided to take her to church. I didn't feel that the girl, in her state of mind, could judge whether or not she really wanted to belong to this type of church. To this day I think about that girl and regret not interfering.

The last day I attended services was mind blowing. I did not announce that I would be there in advance like the last two times. I just showed up and stayed in the back of the church. It was like a different world. People were flipping over the pews, running backwards, gyrating wildly, racing around the church, crying, sobbing, jumping up and down, screaming in tongues. It was like they all hooked into some live wire. I've never experienced anything like it in my life. This was the stuff I read about, but couldn't imagine before that day.

After interviewing the pastor, I've got to say in his defense, the pastor is completely senile. If anything, the Pentecostal Church needs to retire the guy. I firmly believe that this man is genuine in his beliefs and honestly doesn't know how his words come across to people outside of his church. When he says that people took his words on the billboard out of context and he didn't intend to offend people - he's telling the truth from his own perspective. He doesn't understand the outsider perspective or that there could even be a differnt opinion. In many ways, he's very naive and sheltered. This isn't to say that I blame anyone for being upset with the man. It's just that he shouldn't be allowed out of the house, much less be in charge of an entire congregation.

Comments

[madame-mercredi.livejournal.com]

Thanks for a thoughtful, objective portrait of a religious culture that is perplexing and foreign to most of us.

[catscradle.livejournal.com]

Thanks. I guess when I saw the CNN article it hit me like a ton of bricks how many times we see this sort of thing and jump to the conclusion of someone being evil - without knowing anything about the person or their belief. Sometime we can't afford to, we need to say this isn't acceptable. But it's always better to have a more human face. It's too easy label and not have to think :P