Thread by @owenbroadcast

slightly cheesy evangelical programing actually goes super hard sometimes. you drop into a show and its like "a firefighter was recently convicted of negligence for letting a family of 5 burn alive in their home.

actually

thats you, when you fail to share the bible with others

he sat in his car listening to music with headphones on while the mother of five children screamed for help, agonized by the searing pain of the flames as her home crumbled to ashes around her. actually, this never happened. still you. we just made this story up. but the moral is

ive kind of told this story in pieces before but since im watching it again while working i will tell you about my relationship to such programs. theres something about it that really nails down something about american evangelical christianity for me.

briefly, i was in san francisco. i was travelling, and i was with this guy, i was friends with him, kind of. at this time i was smoking weed in the hotel room, i was still in my buddhism and psychedelics period, in fact in a way thats why i was there. cant be more specific though

and we were flipping through the channels at like one am and there was this show that came on, it had the guy from growing pains in it, it was this really cheesy over the top show about christianity and the bible. and we stopped on the channel and watched it for a minute

his reaction as like, wow these guys are literally insane this is like watching some cult indoctrination programming or something. kind of a horrified reaction. i didnt really have any strong feelings about it and just thought it was odd that it was on TV.

and there was this one part where they go on the street and just ask people straight up, are you a good person? and everyone says yes, and then they ask them if they've lied or stolen or anything, and they say yes, and they're like... but you just told me you were a good person.

and they play it out with people on the street. and i really didnt know what to think about it. it was so out of left field for me, it really struck me in such an odd way and i couldnt stop thinking about it. as odd as the packaging was, i thought, yeah thats true actually. weird

and i kept thinking about that little segment for a really long time. i kept playing the questions over in my mind over and over. thinking, well yeah, i am a good person. but i have done all those bad things. thats so interesting. i thought about it a lot, for years actually.

eventually i became christian, interestingly the moral aspect of the universe was a factor in that, and i went back later and watched every episode of that show. kind of as a joke, while i was working. it was just kind of funny and strange, i guess. theres like 40+ episodes.

and they do that in the show a lot. its like the bread and butter of the show. i even watched anything i could find with the two main guys in it. i watch a lot of stuff while im working, so its not like im just sitting there. sometimes ill be at my desk for 12+ hours easily.

the main guys name is ray comfort. the show is called way of the master. anyway i just thought it was funny or something. i really wasnt sure why i watched it all. obviously if you know me you know ive also been hitting theology and church history stuff as much as possible.

anyway, one night i had this dream. i was sitting talking with someone, i dont know who it was. it was a man. and they asked me, who is the person who has had the most impact on your faith. and instantly, without even hesitating for a second, i said, "ray comfort". instantly.

and then i woke up. and i was like, man, what. that is so weird. i was actually laughing about it to myself for days afterwards. like, wow, that's so funny, that out of all the stuff ive read and looked into, thats what i said in my dream, man that's so funny. how strange.

but later after i thought about it for a while, i think that it wasn't just a random dream thing. it felt like a significant dream and i felt like the person i was talking to was important and it really pressed itself deep in my mind. i thought about it a lot.

and the conclusion that i came to was that, the reason that original thing made such an impression on me, and the reason i watched all that stuff, and the reason i said that, is because he's just a super genuine person, comically so. he is a comically non academic person.

(im not being mean that's part of his thing). and, i didnt grow up around anyone really religious really. so, i think there is something about someone actually just having faith in a completely non academic or non scholastic genuine context that made a huge impression on me.

so funny that at this point im so far down several intersecting theological paths trying to read everything i can and study and thats what my brain said, when my subconscious was pressed to name a figure, thats what came up. hilarious. its actually really genuinely very funny.