The Passive Passion of New Age Christianity

There's a line in the book I'm reading, Paul Auster's Travels in the Scriptorium, in which a policeman pleads with the appropriately named central character, Mr. Blank, to reveal the content of a dream. "Without that dream," he pleads, "I'm nothing, literally nothing." Today, Easter Sunday, sitting passively in the veritable audience at Boulder's Unity Church, a congregation become absolutely that, a passive audience, no longer participating in community, no longer sharing a creed or a tradition or a liturgy for this is, after all, modern day Christianity, New Age faith as practiced on Sundays by people of short attention span and little or no intellect, I was reminded of that pathetic plea. Mady and I sat in rapt and occasionally terrified attention as we listened to a stageful of performers doing an Easter cantata, "No Greater Love."

It was the Baptists, gone to further extremes of whiteness, like the teeth of Americans, beyond white all the way to a gleaming and scary parody of white. Here, the singers were schooled; you felt that each one of them had, at some prior high point of their life, won a talent show, a ribbon, gone to state with their choir and done well in a momentary solo. And now here they have been reborn. Jesus, on stage today, a fat, elderly and altogether middle class white man who reminded me precisely of the choir director at Ben's high school. His wife also had a leading role, though in the male-dominated saga that is the life of Christ, all women are relegated to decidedly more peripheral roles. Hers was tacked on at the cantata's end, an obvious concession to the church's second Power Couple. Power Couple Number One consisted of the minister and his wife, he a greasy looking, surprisingly seedy seeming for swank and monied Boulder man in a white suit and slicked back hair who did nothing more than welcome the audience and solicit the offering; she a wild, leaping conductor of the choir on stage, sometimes menacing the audience with her spirit-possessed arm wavings and skirt spinnings. They, too, got to join the ensemble on stage at show's end, stars all.

"I'm literally nothing without that dream." All these people coming to this church to feel like someone, some thing. The dreams haven't panned out all that well. The job's boring, the kids have left home, flatulence is common. Only here, with a nice little microphone hooked over the left ear, a soft chiffon scarf drizzled with sequins sparkling in the spotlight, are their dreams of importance and aspirations to stardom acknowledged. I have never been privy to a church service where my role was to applaud. Here, American Christianity seems reduced to its essentials. A performance. You do nothing but watch and applaud. A standing ovation for Jesus, and what the heck, one for Judas as well. Oddly perhaps, I found myself happy for all these people that they had found some place that appreciated them, some place they actually did matter, somewhere to be a star. Maybe that's what going to church does for people. Assures them that yes, they're each significant. Jesus loves them, and each hair on their head matters and is counted, even as old age claims a few additional strands daily. I think it's nice they can feel this way; I hope it, the feeling loved and all, makes them nicer to their dogs when they go home. Give your dog a bone.

I watched Scorsese and Shrader's film of the Nikos Kazantakis novel The Last Temptation of Christ last night. There, Dafoe's tortured, frightened Jesus vacillated between the misery of cowardice and the majesty of lunacy. There is no happy ending to a crucifixion, not really. But here, in the American church, all hint of suffering is gone from the story of the Passion. In fact, all the passion is gone. There's just this fat ole fellow name of Jesus who leads the crowds and fulfills all our promises. Yep. You got it. One size fits all. Faith as a great big mum-mu we all can wear without worrying how we look. Since Jesus saved us, that's right, we have a right and a reason to go to church and become a star in God's wide firmament. Given that, why should we not sing mightily. We're the annointed. Nothing else really matters.

Exiting the church, we get favors, like we've just been to a birthday party. Pluck a cheerful silk and plastic flower from the ushers' basket and read the morsel of wisdom attached to its stem. Wisdom to go. I, a fan of fortune cookies from way back, love this idea and reach in eagerly. My flower, Mady points out, is pathetic, a lopsided purple pansy that looks like it was beat up by the unseasonable winter we are re-experiencing this week of April. But my fortune is good, and I'm ready to enlist. To Thomas Edison they give the credit for my little bit of wisdom: "If we did the things we are capable of, we would astound ourselves."

All those singers on stage, doing the things they're capable of doing. A community of believers in the infinite power of Self. I'll leave is to Mady to tell you about the dancer.