Part 14 (2/2)

My friend David was among those who turned me down on the first pa.s.s. It made sense--he's openly gay, radically liberal, and Jewish. He's a legend at Brown for the huge, creative theme parties he throws (example: the Rubik's Cube party, where everyone comes dressed in multiple colors and you trade clothes with other partygoers until you're clad in one solid color). But a few weeks later, David e-mailed me to say that out of perverse curiosity, he was going to fly down to Lynchburg to see Bible Boot Camp for himself. He's scheduled to arrive today.

I was nervous about letting David into my Liberty life for obvious reasons. If he did anything outlandish during his visit, I'd be guilty by a.s.sociation. But he rea.s.sured me that he would try his best to blend in.

”I can pa.s.s as straight,” he said. ”I'll just talk about . . . oh, I don't know, killing animals or something.”

His comment was eerily prescient, because killing animals is exactly what we are going to be talking about. Today, I'm taking David to Thomas Road Baptist Church's fourth annual Beast Feast, an outreach event for hunters and fishermen. I'm not much of a sportsman, but when David told me he was coming, I couldn't resist signing us up. The invitation said that ”hunters, outdoorsmen and the curious of Central Virginia” were welcome to attend. And at an event like this, who could be more curious than a Quaker pacifist and a gay Jewish liberal?

David's plane is late, so we miss the afternoon seminars on topics like ”Planning an Out-of-State Hunting Trip” and ”Hunting Strategies Using Modern Technology: Fact vs. Fiction.” But we arrive at Thomas Road just in time for the ”activity stations,” a series of try-it-yourself demonstrations of hunting and fis.h.i.+ng equipment set up around the church parking lot. Among the offerings: a BB gun practice range in the shape of a Conestoga wagon, a paintball target shoot, and a contest in which guys try to cast their fis.h.i.+ng lures into the center of an old tractor tire.

David and I decide to try the archery station. I had a few archery lessons at summer camp when I was ten, so I figure I should get right back into the swing of things. But this is no recreational archery, judging by the bow. When I get to the front of the line, a man with a white beard thrusts something at me that looks like a prop from Star Trek Star Trek. It's a huge red thing with a liquid level, cushy foam grips, and a complex system of four or five pulleys.

”Take these,” the man says, handing me the bow and three arrows, ”and hit that.” He points to a bank of hay twenty or thirty feet away, with a pair of plastic deer nestled beside it and a paper target taped to the front. Squinting for accuracy, I draw back the string, take my aim, and release. The arrow sails over the hay bank, plinks off the wall of the church, and falls to the ground at the deer's feet. The next arrow goes wide right. I flub the third, and it ends up about five feet in front of me.

”Target's that way, Kev,” says David. He slaps me on the back and shoots me a surrept.i.tious wink. ”What are you, gay?” This sends the line behind us into raucous laughter.

At dinnertime, the Beast Feast organizers begin herding us into the church gym, which has been decorated with ma.s.sive mounted animals, including a brown bear, a set of caribou, and a deer the size of a Toyota Camry. For many Beast Feast attendees, the big draw is the dinner. Hunters from Thomas Road have spent months gunning down all kinds of animals for tonight's buffet, including venison, caribou, alligator, and kangaroo. Everything except the alligator and kangaroo is advertised as ”local and fresh.”

”Who's gonna try everything tonight?” asks the man in charge. Hands go up all around the gym. ”Watch out for those guys. They're going to be sick tomorrow.”

As we eat, a pastor from Anchorage, Alaska, named Jerry Prevo comes to the stage to deliver the keynote sermon. He's a board member at Liberty, and he served as a high-ranking member of the Moral Majority back in the 1980s. His sermon tonight, he says, is called ”Jesus Was a Man's Man.”

”Let me ask you a question,” Rev. Prevo says. ”Why do men follow Jesus Christ? If you're a follower of Jesus Christ tonight and you're not ashamed of it, say amen amen!”

A huge wave of hearty amens echoes off the walls.

”Now, some people have the impression that only women go to church, only women follow Jesus Christ. You know, in Hollywood, they portray Christ as a feminine-acting person, as a sissy, and quite frankly, I get upset about that. That could not be true! Jesus Christ, while he was here, attracted men. In the gospel of Matthew, four thousand men gathered to hear him speak. That's right--four thousand men. That'd be like two hundred thousand today. He was a man's man.

”When he chose people to become his apostles, Jesus chose fishermen. Fellas, in the year 2005, the most dangerous job in the world was commercial fis.h.i.+ng. More people get killed per capita doing that than anything else. Jesus chose commercial fishermen to be his apostles. Tough guys. If Jesus had not been a man's man, those guys would not have followed him.

”Unfortunately, there are some sissy ministers out there. But what you need to do is find a man behind the pulpit like Dr. Jerry Falwell, a man's man. When I met Dr. Falwell, he gave me a bear hug and I thought every rib in my chest was broken. How many of you been punched by Jerry Falwell? Yeah, so you all know. It hurts. He's a man's man.

”Some people think that all preachers are wimps and sissies, so once a year I'll get in the pulpit, on my TV show up there, and I'll say, 'Let me say something to you: If you break into my home, and you try to harm my wife or my house, you better come prepared to die. Because if my .357's not enough to kill you, my .45 will. If that doesn't, my .375 rifle will. If that doesn't kill you, one of my other dozen guns will.' You're not going to get a sermon when you break into my house, you're going to get shot at, and I'll read a scripture verse over your funeral service!”

The rest of the sermon is more of the same muscle-flexing, manlier-than-thou rhetoric designed to refas.h.i.+on Jesus as Rambo, and by the time Rev. Prevo prays the closing prayer, I'm feeling sort of guilty about bringing David here. I thought it would be fun to give him an extreme experience right off the bat, but I almost wish I had eased him in. As entertaining and absurd as Beast Feast has been, I'd feel bad if this were his only experience in the evangelical world. I mean, really--Jesus was a man's man a man's man? What happened to the Prince of Peace? Didn't Jesus weep when Lazarus died? Or was there just something in his eye?

As we walk through the parking lot to my car, David turns to me, looking a little dazed.

”You know that was crazy, right?” he says.

”Yeah,” I say.

”Is Liberty always like this?”

”No. I promise, it's not.”

He smiles. Somehow, I'm not sure he believes me.

David stays at Liberty for the rest of the weekend, and by the time Sunday rolls around, the oddest thing is happening: he's getting along with my friends.

n.o.body here knows anything about him, of course. Things would get interesting if David were to let it slip that he's gay, or if he started a sentence, ”See, at my my bar mitzvah . . .” But so far, he's been pleasantly surprised, like I once was, by how well Liberty students compare to their stereotype. He's spent time with Jersey Joey, Zipper, Eric, and Paul, and everyone seems to be on good behavior. There's been no overt gay-bas.h.i.+ng, no anti-evolution rants, no condemnation of non-Christians. They've all been treating him warmly and normally. bar mitzvah . . .” But so far, he's been pleasantly surprised, like I once was, by how well Liberty students compare to their stereotype. He's spent time with Jersey Joey, Zipper, Eric, and Paul, and everyone seems to be on good behavior. There's been no overt gay-bas.h.i.+ng, no anti-evolution rants, no condemnation of non-Christians. They've all been treating him warmly and normally.

On Sunday night, David and I head to the campus gym with a few guys from Dorm 22. I do my usual twenty minutes on the treadmill, leaving David with my hallmates, and when I emerge from the cardio room, I see that they've invited him into their pickup basketball game. David's laughing and high-fiving and trash-talking right alongside them.

I stand there watching David run down the court with my Christian friends, and all the unexpected revelations from the past week come flooding into my head. Liberty students who struggle with l.u.s.t. Secular Quakers who enjoy prayer. Evangelical feminists who come to Bible Boot Camp out of academic interest. I used to think that my two worlds were a million miles apart. But tonight, the distance seems more like a hundred thousand miles. It's not a total improvement, but it's not meaningless, either.

I Made a Covenant with My Eyes

Every Monday before convocation, I eat breakfast with Pastor Seth, my spiritual mentor. Our meetings are usually pretty relaxed. We head to the local Panera Bread to talk theology, go over my Bible-reading a.s.signments for the week, and keep each other abreast of the goings-on in our lives.

Today, though, he has an agenda.

”Let's talk about l.u.s.t.”

In our first disciples.h.i.+p meeting, Pastor Seth asked me what specific sin struggles I was having. l.u.s.t was the first thing that came to mind. I figured it was a fairly typical collegiate vice, and we put it on the back burner. Now he wants to tackle the issue head-on.

”How would you say your l.u.s.t expresses itself on a day-to-day basis?” he asks.

I shrug. ”I mean, I look at girls . . . l.u.s.tfully . . . sometimes.”

Seth sets down his coffee cup.

”Let me cut to the chase: do you have a problem with masturbation?”

”Uh,” I stammer. ”I guess it depends how you define problem.” problem.”

”Well, how many times a week do you m.a.s.t.u.r.b.a.t.e?”

Man. We haven't even finished our chocolate-chip m.u.f.fins, and he's already asking me a question I'm not even sure I'd answer under a grand jury subpoena. Am I really supposed to tell an evangelical pastor? Plus, there's a family with young children in the next booth over. Is there no decency?

But in the spirit of full disclosure, I make a ballpark estimate. (I'll spare you the exact number, but if you're really curious, it's somewhere between zero and my current shoe size.) Pastor Seth nods. ”It's a widespread struggle.”

You might think that Liberty, with its unforgiving rules about s.e.xual contact between students, would look kindly upon masturbation as a safe, solo alternative. You'd be wrong. As I learned during orientation week, evangelicals of the Liberty ilk frown heavily upon self-love. The problem, in their eyes, lies not with masturbation proper, but with l.u.s.t, coveting, and the other sins that typically accompany the act.

”If you can find a way to m.a.s.t.u.r.b.a.t.e without thinking l.u.s.tful thoughts, I suppose it wouldn't be sinful,” Pastor Seth once told me. ”And if you do, you'll want to take your number out of the phone book. Christian men will be overloading your circuits.”

Today, after a brief discussion of my libido, Seth recommends I check out Every Man's Battle, Liberty's on-campus support group for p.o.r.nography addicts and chronic masturbators.

To be clear: I am nothing close to a chronic masturbator, nor am I even remotely addicted to p.o.r.nography. In fact, a semester in Liberty's neo-Victorian s.e.xual climate has caused a significant and perhaps irreparable falling-out with my loin parts. But Seth wants to make sure I have the tools to combat l.u.s.t should it ever turn into a serious problem, so he recommends that I pay a one-time visit to Every Man's Battle, a self-help group so bizarre in premise that to acknowledge its existence is to wonder whether this whole school isn't someone's idea of a practical joke.

That night, I head to the Campus Pastors Office to attend the weekly meeting of Every Man's Battle (which I've taken to calling Masturbators Anonymous). The group convenes in a small, fluorescently lit conference room. When I walk in, I see eight guys seated around the table, talking to Pastor Rick--yes, he of the reparative therapy for h.o.m.os.e.xuals. Apparently, Pastor Rick is also the leader of Every Man's Battle. Lovely. Now he thinks I'm a self-denying h.o.m.os.e.xual and and an inveterate masturbator. an inveterate masturbator.

”Come on in, Kevin!” he says.

I take a seat next to Pastor Rick, and after several minutes of idle chatter, he prays to open the meeting.

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