I Am The Local Atheist (4 page)

General
agreement supported Mrs. Stewart’s words.

Callasandra
looked to the host and then the curator for support, but all they
did was shrug their shoulders, raise their eyebrows in mock
consideration, pop some grapes into their mouths and continue
watching events unfold like disconnected observers at a crash site
– frozen with fascination, but happy to continue feeding their
hunger. She was left standing next to her paintings by herself, a
lonely figure with arms helplessly at her side, hands outstretched
and a pained face questioning what had just happened.

Her shoulders
started to shake. “But…”

“
These paintings are despicable!” spat Mrs. Stewart. “This
isn’t art – this is trash.” She took a glass of red wine, walked up
to a painting and splashed wine all over it.

Callasandra
stood there dumbfounded, her pained expression turning to
hopelessness – a look I knew all too well.

I felt a
terrible shiver creep over my shoulders and down my spine,
anticipating tears that would soon fall on the girl’s cheeks – if
not my own. I had to turn away. Holding my distraught face in one
hand, I cleared a way through the bodies with the other, ignoring
the rising voices that cursed and shouted around me – whether at
Mrs. Stewart or Callasandra Schuar, I didn’t care; I just wanted
out. I walked directly for the front door. The empty paintings that
lay littered about on the floor could do nothing to stop me: they
were like black holes without a gravity well. I hit the door with
full force and let the cold chill-stained air envelop me. Down the
steps I went, walking as fast as I could to escape the glow of
street lamps, and on into the darkened night where I found security
in the emptiness.

Chapter 2:

Apostate

Part I

The steeple
rose from behind the houses like a beacon, stabbing a hole in the
cloud-ridden sky and summoning the courage of those who dared to
look upon it with derision. I looked away.

If I had
thought that silvery steel cross flashing God’s light on it was
hard enough to face, then the gaping mouth of the church doors that
appeared to me as I rounded the corner was even harder: it
swallowed its victims one by one as they entered into the jaws of
the church so happily, so willingly. I wanted to turn and begin
walking away, hang my head low and pretend that I was just another
random person on the street trying to avoid the far-reaching hands
of Christians everywhere. But something pulled me forward, like I
couldn’t avoid being sucked into the gaping mouth of something that
had spat me out once before and was now asking for a second go at
it.

Temptation. It
asked so much of my soul.

And I was one
who couldn’t resist.

I stepped onto
the concrete courtyard. Lisa saw me as I passed through and around
the mingling bodies and waved a hand from where she stood to the
right of the church. I felt a buzz, that feeling of attachment for
someone that I hadn’t felt for a very long time. I waved back and
started directing my trajectory towards her but I began to notice
that there were a number of other people also coming up to her as
well.

Suddenly I was walking a lot slower, watching as other people
offered their own bodies for hugs and she so willingly returning
the gesture. I thought of her standing by me at the art gallery,
fidgeting with her wine glass but not really looking at me much.
Her feet had always seemed to be moving backwards as if to keep
distance between us. Yet here she was extending her friendship to
people she had known for less than a year and all I had gotten was
a ‘hi’. Her arms reaching out in a sign of loving compassion were
not for me anymore, for her
new
friends – yes; for me – no. It was like I had done
nothing for her.

She turned a
superficial smile towards me as I stepped up to her.

“
Hi David”

“
Hi Lisa.” I returned the smile.

She flicked
the hair back from her eyes and crossed her arms tightly. “Cool day
isn’t it?”

“
Yeah, yeah it is.” I put my hands in my pockets, fingering the
cellphone I barely even used.

“
Hey, I’m real sorry bout the art gallery thing. Certainly
wasn’t what I thought it would be.”

“
Nah. Me neither.”

We used to visit art galleries together and make fun of the
abstract paintings by taking random guesses at what the artists
were trying to depict:
“a bag of lollies,”
“mud,” “more mud,”
“the Eiffel tower… in a
patch of mud,” “…surrounded by lollies…”

“
What about this one?”

“
A kitten on fire.”

“
I don’t see the kitten.”

“
That’s because it’s on fire.”

“
Oh.”

She was one of
the few people I had known in and out of church that I had been
able to do really stupid things with, without feeling like we were
stepping on anybody’s toes. ‘Only heathens like us’ I used to joke
before she joined the church and forever let go of her heathen
self. I missed that.

“
Did you…?” She looked at me, unsure about what she wanted to
ask. I wondered if she was aware of what the paintings were trying
to portray.

I shrugged my
shoulders. “I don’t know. I left. Didn’t like the way the artist
was being treated so I gapped it.”

“
Yeah most everyone else did too.” Her arms gripped tighter to
themselves. “Anyway, I’m so glad you came. My friend Claire is
going to be singing a song today. It’s gonna sound awesome. You’ll
be so glad you came.”

“
Cool.” I was really lost for words, and it looked like she
wasn’t particularly enjoying trying to think of things to talk to
me about either. She kept looking back at her friends and rejoining
their conversations and laughing at their jokes, occasionally
turning back to me and smiling broadly, almost expectantly, as
though she was trying desperately to acknowledge an old friendship,
but it just wasn’t working out the way that she had wanted it
to.

I decided to
make it easier on both of us and said that I was going to go inside
now. She said “okay, see you in there.”

The doors
beckoned. I walked through into a dark black corridor that led into
a room awash with light from immense windows at the side walls,
great beams of arching rafters rose to a centre point. So enamoured
by the heights above me, I stumbled into the pews next to me,
causing them to rub loudly against the thickly varnished floors. I
sat down quickly as several people looked around to see what the
noise was. I hung my head low.

After everyone
had shuffled their way in and found a seat, a trumpet call blasted
through speakers at the front of the stage. It was suddenly cut off
by an electric guitar playing some light-weight rip-off of an AC/DC
song joined by a full band which suddenly had the congregation
cheering and jiggling their bodies in their seats. A man in shirt
and jeans casually jogged before the crowd raising his hands high
and cheering with everyone. “Hallelujah!” Suddenly everyone was
cheering as well.

I wondered why
I used to enjoy this crap. Did God really care that I was or wasn’t
making a song and dance about him?

The music died
down and the man raised his hands before him as though offering an
armload of empty air to sacrifice. “We come here today Lord to
worship you, to bear our souls to you, give our time to you because
it is you that gives us such light that blesses us with life, it is
you that drenches us with love and teaches us the holy ways of our
saviour Jesus. We worship you because our love aches in these human
bodies to be transformed into your heavenly spirit…”

I looked
around and found Lisa not so far ahead of me. She was swaying
backwards and forwards knocking into her friends whose swaying was
completely out of sync with everyone else.

The pastor
clapped his hands together and the echo of it bounced around the
walls. “Who’s here with me!?” A loud cheer issued from the
congregation. “What? I didn’t hear anything. I said who’s here with
me!” A louder cheer issued forth. “Alright then! Anyone who’s not
can leave if they want…” He cut this off with a horrendous laugh as
though he had just made the best joke ever. I was about to get up
and leave, I seriously was. “No, I’m just kidding, hahaha. We want
you to stay, God has brought you here on this magnificent day so
that you can experience what the rest of us already know and love
about our Lord Jesus Christ, that He loves you and forgives
you.”

There was a
moment of silence.

“
Alright! I want to tell you something about people I’ve talked
to over the years, people who call themselves Christians. They go
to church yada yada yah, like the rest of us, but there’s something
about these people, something that doesn’t ring true; something
that makes my heart ache when I hear what they have to say to me.
Wanna know what they say?”

He walked
around a bit before saying anything – classic ploy for tension
building and attention getting.

“
I have these people come to me and tell me that their church
is boring and I say ‘why do you want to go to a boring church?’
Church should be exciting. ‘Why?’ they say astounded – because they
don’t know any better, this is what church has always been to them
– boring. ‘Why?’ I say – ‘because Jesus is exciting!’ Aren’t you
excited to know Jesus? Was Jesus ever cold and dispassionate? I ask
you now – Was Jesus ever cold and dispassionate?”

The entire
congregation yelled out “No!”

“
Then why should church be cold, boring and dispassionate? If
you know someone who complains about their church being cold and
boring, tell them that you know a place that is hot and exciting!
Hallelujah!”

“
Hallelujah!” came the reply.

“
And that place that is hot and exciting – it is here, right
here in your church, right here where you sit right now!
Hell-lay-loo-ya!
”

“
Hallelujah!” shouted back the crowd – I had stopped thinking
of them as a congregation. Their yelling had kind of put them in
the same class as a mob.

“
Forget all those cold and dispassionate churches – I wanna be
somewhere I can feel the warmth of
His
love surrounding me…”

I have to admit, it was getting kinda warm in there.
Welcome to the fiery pits of hell – it begins
here, in your own church.

I buried my
head in my arms. His words had pretty much lost all meaning to me.
There was definitely a sense of the pastor preaching to entice
people rather than to inspire. I didn’t doubt for a moment that
there were people there being inspired, yet, at the same time it
felt like a false inspiration. He was preaching to thrill rather
than to convince. I had done my share of sermons – admittedly,
mostly in front of a youth group rather than an entire congregation
– but I never spoke as though my church was the best church, or the
‘hottest’ church the way that this guy was going on. I had just
wanted the youth that were there with me to feel the same love that
I had felt from the Lord, to feel like they weren’t alone. Church
attendance wasn’t a competition.

I closed my
eyes and my brain began its shutdown sequence – ten-thirty was far
too early for me. I drifted in and out of the next half hour as my
brain sought catch-up time.

Lisa’s friend
finally hit the stage with a dimming of the lights. I leaned back
in the pew seat listening to the guitar strum gentle chords as
Claire began humming a simple harmony. It felt good to not be
bashed over the head with preaching. When the words came they were
simple but direct – no wafting melodies, no incongruent meaning;
just basic ‘I love the Lord, He is my light’ type of stuff. Very
pious.

And then all
of a sudden the lights hit full blast along with the music and her
voice suddenly soared into heights that are usually only seen at
rock concerts. Several people beside me were bursting into tears,
raising their hands high in exalted admiration – either for the
girl on stage or the Lord above, I’m not sure which.

Eventually the
song died down to its original volume with the guitar and vocal
harmony reiterating what had first introduced the song. The pastor
got up in front of the band while the music continued gently in the
background. He closed his eyes and raised one hand in the air as
the other gripped the microphone. “I want you to use this time now,
as the band plays this holiest of music, to come forth and feel the
presence of the Lord, to feel the healing power of Jesus reigning
down on you. If you feel there’s something you need to get out of
your system, to release because it is eating you up and you can’t
live with it anymore, come forth, come forth! Don’t hesitate, let
Jesus heal you, cast Satan out of your body, cast that great wall
of sin from you…”

By force or otherwise
. It was really
quite something to listen to the pastor go on, while the occasional
person walked up to the front and let him place his free hand on
their heads, say some kind of magical words and then send a sudden
jerk into the person’s body so they fell over and writhed on the
ground from shear shock.

Mum always
said that love, honesty, and faith in Christ were the only things
that could compel Satan from the soul. Physical acts and the idea
of channelling Jesus were just trickery, appropriated by churches
to give the illusion of healing. Many of the friends I had seen
Lisa hugging out the front, had also gone up to be a part of this
whole healing shebang. City Light Church had propagated the idea
that a person could be healed through the arm of a preacher who was
channelling Jesus and the holy power of God. Girl’s moving from
their seats willingly, going up as though they were great sinners,
kneeling before their pastor, and he laying a hand upon their
heads, squeezing their temples, and yelling aloud for Satan to
“leave this child!” See the girls falling, see them crying, see
them praising “hallelujah” in a show of who was the best Christian,
who had been healed the most, who had won the keys to God’s
country.