Infiltration: Harborside Christian Church

Paul and I have spent the past few Sundays infiltrating fundamentalist Christian churches. When we do this, we play dress-up and watch how many people think we're a "couple" (even though he is my brother and that'd be creepy). So far he's passed as straight and we've both passed as unremarkable every time, and we've been learning what the Dominionists say when they think they're alone, and it is scary.

I should mention here that by "fundie Christian churches" I don't mean tiny little snake-handling congregations in the woods, I mean megachurches the size and shape of Wal-Marts with parking lots packed fuller than the DUI docket after New Year's. These people have slick, pre-packaged Powerpoint presentations and slick, pre-packaged messages to politicians--and the politicians listen, whether the request is for police to direct traffic leaving church at noon or for Ten Commandments displays in courthouses.

The most recent infiltration was into a megachurch that uses the New International Version of the Bible. The topic of the week was "teamwork" at this church and apparently at plenty of others (they seem to be getting a curriculum from a central location, like different franchises of the same crazy). The service started with a Powerpoint show on the large TV screen located in the front of the building. The presentation showed, among other things, local volunteers helping the homeless in New York by giving them soup and preaching at them (though I had to wonder why they needed to go so far to find homeless people--I know where they could have found them locally). So far, so okay; as long as people aren't being required to accept a religion as valid in exchange for their meal, it's not that big a deal. Then came the inevitable "Make sacrifices to your church!" speech and the semi-aggressive passing of the velvet bucket-on-a-pole. The guy passing the bucket left it stopped in front of Paul till he tossed in a couple bucks ("A show for two dollars isn't bad," he whispered to me). Then they passed the Communion stuff: again, pretty standard. Paul and I palmed the wafers and stuffed Kleenex into the bitty little wine-cups while pretending to drink. Then things got...weird.

The preacher, who seemed to have been trained as a motivational speaker, started teaching about the true meaning of teamwork, and how church members need to be a team. Then, without irony, he quoted Niccolo Machiavelli on leadership, followed by a few other motivational speakers I'd never heard of. Wait...Machiavelli?! Yep. Machiavelli as a positive example. With hardly a blink after that incongruity, the preacher segued into explaining exactly what all those Bible verses about being nice to people and not repaying evil with evil actually mean. According to him, those verses only apply to someone else who is "on the team"--that is, only to church members. Outsiders, it seems, are fair game.

Then the preacher spoke extensively about the programs for "new teammates" and how they would entirely re-teach new church members "as though they are completely unknowing of Christianity" so that the newbies would get only those ideas approved by the church. They also set newbies up with a small group of more experienced members for a "mentoring program." All of this sounded weirdly familiar: this was exactly the same tactics the ISO uses, the tactics that just seem a little too close to brainwashing...

Can't wait to watch even more deeply disturbing things; these are interesting times, and I'm going to enjoy the show as long as I can.