girlfiend

While flipping through the Tivo guide the other night I came across the name Kirk Cameron. Since nothing better was on I changed the channel to see what Mike Seaver was up to nowadays. Like many other girls in my generation, I once had a huge, silly crush on Kirk Cameron. Goddamn, he was cute on Growing Pains. Of course he’s not so cute now.

If you’re a pop culture junkie like me, you know that Kirk turned into a born-again lunatic, as evidenced by his show on TBC (which I incorrectly assumed stood for ‘The Bible Network,’ as opposed to its true name, ‘Trinity Broadcasting Network.’ ) There’s nothing cute about a Jesus Freak who when asked how religion has impacted his life responds, “Religion hasn’t, God has! Religion makes me ralph…God makes me rejoice!”

The show was Kirk preaching about his Way of the Master Ministry. It was pretty lame in a born-again sort of way, explaining how easily Satan can take over your life. He talked about the ten commandments and how if you don’t follow them Satan has won and that Satan is so smart he can even get ministers to preach for him. They interviewed some guy from the Church of Satan then did a “man-on-the-street” type of interview segment where they interviewed kids at a concert to prove that Satan lives in rock music. The worst part of the show was when Kirk very seriously compared not believing in Satan to not believing in terrorists. To prove his point he showed a film clip of the first plane hitting the Twin Tower, because that’s what happens when you don’t believe.

The thing that confuses me most about these fire and damnation Christians is that it just seems like the complete opposite of what Jesus was all about. As a Jewish girl I don’t profess to be an expert but I always thought that Jesus preached love, forgiveness and compassion, not you’ll rot in hell if you curse. It’s just sad to me that so many people looking for something, anything to make their lives better, choose to believe in a vengeful, wrathful god who will smite you down on judgement day because you aren’t trying to convert the natives. I just can’t imagine wanting to subscribe to the “Friends don’t let friends go to hell” newsletter.