Your Good Friday Sermon
Does anyone else struggle to choose between 14th century Catholic mysticism and postwar Satanism?
I had, and subsequently escaped from, an upbringing in hardline Evangelicalism. It becomes clearer, as each Easter goes by, just how cultic and abusive these communities are. And, unlike other forms of abuse, there doesn’t seem to be a popularised language by which to speak of it. I might go as far to say there’s no coherent language, in part because Evangelicalism hasn’t had its “Catholic abuse scandal moment”.
The reasons for this are obvious. Catholicism is a centralised organisation whereas Evangelicalism, despite their beliefs being theologically centred on scripture, is corporately decentred: churches may believe the same thing, but they’re under different management teams.
There is another reason why a popularised language for evangelical abuse is lacking. Manipulative behaviour fits annoyingly well to the cliched iceberg metaphor. It may look like Christians are being nice but there’s a world beneath their actions. I only want to talk to you about what I believe. No, you’re interrupting me. You’ve got a real problem with arrogance. I’m not condemning you. I say that out of love. OK, well. I’ll pray that God softens your heart. Let me know if you have any questions. The handful of people I know who are still in that world are so used to these behaviours they’re oblivious or, like a toxic relationship, think things can change if they just be more domineering/submissive/outgoing/humble/blunt/gentle/uncompromising/relatable/experienced/innocent. The problem wasn’t with them in the first place.
My first two chapbooks - Dance! The Statue Has Fallen! Now His Head is Beneath Our Feet! (Broken Sleep Books) and KL7 (The Red Ceilings Press) - dealt with this problem. How can one speak when a language-practice can only demarcate its absence? This impacts anyone who grew up in the West. Even if you were raised by staunch atheists, you still grew up in the ruins of Christendom. No one gets to opt out from being post-Christian (least of all practicing Christians, as they struggle to navigate the 21st century).
One way forward could lazily be called the “Meister Eckhart solve”. I always felt popular contemporary liberal theology, exemplified by emerging church groups in the early 2000s before evaporating into the Oprah Winfrey/Deepak Chopra crowd, made a mistake. Wanting to be taken seriously by mainstream Evangelicalism, they could never explicitly admit they don’t believe the Bible is The Word of God. Or at least not on Evangelicalism’s terms (Google Biblical infallibility and inerrancy). They could never fully admit authority is found in their lived experience as opposed to text, hence my sloppily referring to a mystic.
For these Christians, Easter becomes less about conservative atonement, a belief which assures one will go to heaven after death, and more about social change in this world - ‘on earth as it is in heaven’ - as idealised by their centre-left political convictions. Who doesn’t like the idea a new world can rise amongst this one? Removing all the political, theological and personal baggage, even I can appreciate its power. But then there’s Anton LaVey.
Because there are days when the baggage can’t be removed. There are days when the weight of trauma is too heavy, the gravity of what Christians got away with, and continue to get away with, too great. On these days, I don’t want to bliss out to vague statements about social change. I want to burn Christianity to the fucking ground. I want the radical freedom afforded to us who know we’re going to hell.
This is the Satanist turn. I have pursued the sex Christians are too cowardly and hypocritical to admit they want. I have done all the drugs they abhor. I have befriended their enemies and those they judge. Like a parody of the letter to the Phillipians, ‘Wherever you have shame — if anything is triggering — enter such things’. Where Christians repress and share with their leaders about how much they struggle, I have confronted and gone through desire. And they will never understand how much more powerful than them it makes me.
At risk of glibly reconciling these two positions, it still stands that, in the “LaVey solve”, a world is also created. Both routes have the same impulse: things are not OK; the old world is dying; we want what’s best for our loved ones and communities… And, annoyingly, both routes lead to freedom. Like a form of negative theology, the further away we get from the divine the further we go into it.
Whichever route you choose, Happy Easter. May a new world, sacred or profane, rise within you.