By John Douglas Fulton

The main theme of nearly every Christmas show or movie seems to be that Christmas is in crisis and in need of saving.  And what is the crisis? Children may not get toys and gifts, and if they don’t get a present, particularly one they really want, Christmas is ruined and over. During one Christmas season, in the midst of watching Christmas shows with my girls all about Santa and not getting gifts, I found myself wanting to take my daughters to a show that would be about the Christ who was once at the heart of Christ’s Mass. When I saw an ad for a show titled “Christ the King” being put on by a local church, I thought I had found it. Finally, I thought to myself, a nativity production or some such show that will highlight for my girls why Christmas is so special and why we do all the things we do around it. A show that would be about the Christ in Christ-mas.

The night arrived and me and the girls headed out after dinner for the church putting on the show. When we walked into the church lobby it was thick with dry ice fog and theatrical smoke, and my soul cried forth, “Oh No!” The smoke screamed forth this show would not live up to its title, “Christ the King”. It would not lead us to understanding the significance of Christ but would be all about theatrical effects. Despite the sinking feeling in my heart, we walked into the sanctuary and were directed to some seats.  If the lobby was thick with theatrical smoke, the sanctuary was even thicker. 

First a man came out on stage. He identified himself as Pastor So and So and immediately began to rile up the crowd like a good announcer at a prize fight, or the lead singer of an opening act at a concert. He cried out to the crowd, “Let’s hear some noise”, “Are you ready to be entertained”, and similar such expressions. I don’t here capture exact quotes, but the spirit of the message and role of inciting the crowd into a frenzy.

Then the lights went out and my body began to thump as the bass pumped out at a level that would make a rock concert proud. The LED lights flashed so bright in their various colors that my eyes shut to protect themselves, and then the singing began as the strobe lights flashed in a way capable of inducing epileptic shocks that leave the mind reeling. The songs, all but one, were secular Christmas tunes about being home for the holidays or dreaming of a white Christmas. Only one song, Little Drummer Boy, was about Christ, but even this choice was clearly chosen as a means to justify thumping out the bass rather than pointing to Christ. If you don’t know, loud bass causes your mind to turn off and makes you more prone to manipulation.

In between songs, the master of ceremonies came out to incite the crowd into even more of a frenzy with the promise of free shirts that he threw around like one would see at any good sporting event. All that was lacking was the shirt guns that can shoot them high into the crowd. In the middle of the production, once the music, lights, and bass had done their job of turning off higher order thinking and whipped the minds of those present into a state of hyped up, frenzied emotion and excitement; the church abruptly threw the worship hall into silence to project onto its mammoth, stage-wide, state of the art displays a video of all the great things it does and how much money it gives to the world. It thumped its own chest and declared its own greatness, kindness, compassion, and generosity. Then immediately launched into a call for tithes and offerings, declaring it a mandatory duty of all present to give to the church that had so thrilled them. For only through giving would God demean to bless them.

This manipulation and demand for people’s money was followed by more painfully loud music to such Christ-centric toons as “You’re a mean one, Mr. Grinch” that even came with a man in a Grinch costume pretending to fart in the face of an audience member and other such crude and demeaning behavior. Now, one should not misunderstand, I enjoy watching How the Grinch Stole Christmas; it’s a Christmas classic to me. But, nowhere in Dr. Suess’ classic is the Grinch that terribly mean or vulgar. He’s just grinchy.

Well, with the senses properly primed, and the crowd all a buzz, the senior pastor took the stage. Now, now finally comes the message about Christ, I hoped. Maybe after an hour, we’ll have one tiny word about God, Jesus, the Christ, and why we celebrate this holiday.

No, sadly not. The message was based on something that, at the surface, may sound terribly profound. And to minds deactivated by the music, intense bass, and psychosis inducing pulsating lights, surely it came across as such. The message was, “Have you ever thought about what Christmas would be like if Christ never came?” If you don’t stop and question what you’re hearing, (which is the point of all the lights and loud music and frenzy inducing escapades), that can sound so profound and make you go, “Why no, I haven’t. Why have I been so defective as to not do that?”  And that is the point of the question: to make you feel bad about yourself, to make you feel that you have failed before God to have not pondered this great thought. 

Yet, the question is neither insightful, nor profound; it’s utterly nonsensical idiocy at its very core.  What would Christmas be like if Christ never came? Simple: it wouldn’t be. It would be nothing. 

The insightfulness of the question though was not the point. For it, and what followed, served the purpose of filling the mind with a feeling of defective sinfulness. “How is it,” the question said, “that you have not thought about what Christmas would be without Christ?” It did what was intended of inducing in the hyped-up audience the proper level of shame that they had failed Christ and God. And with their minds turned off by an hour of theatrics and amusement, they could no longer think and muse on what was really being done to them.

And now, the audience was ripe for the harvest. Properly shamed, properly built into an emotional turmoil; the alter call could begin. The gentle, soulful piano played to inspire just the right kind of soulful emotionalism, and the call began to give your soul to a personal relationship with Jesus. And it went on and on and on.

I looked over to see a glazed expression on my 6-year old’s face. I asked if she wanted to sit on my lap and was concerned by how she looked and sounded. Her breathing was raspy and strained.  My own sinuses were plugged badly and my breathing a bit forced as well. Given her history, I was desperate to get her out to clean air and free from all the theatrical smoke. 

My natural social inclination was to hold off on leaving until the alter call was done and the last songs performed, but the sound of her breathing drove me to set such conventions aside and depart immediately.  She needed clean air, the sooner the better. So, in an awkward moment that strained against every fiber of social conditioning for proper behavior, I told the girls we were leaving. We stood up, gathered our things, and headed for the doors. 

This is when the moment that should not have surprised me, but ultimately shocked me, occurred.  I was intercepted by a woman, one of the ushers. After the message of the grace and compassion of God that had just come forth from the senior pastor during his alter call, she of course asked me what was wrong, or what we needed, or how they could help me or some such?

No, this she surely did not do. Instead, she said, “Sir, normally we would not allow you to leave, next time you need stay in your seat.” 

This is when I noticed every door out of the sanctuary, and there were many, had a member of the church staff standing right in front of it, blocking egress, and I understood she was serious about me being granted some special favor to be allowed to leave before the master on the stage below had granted his permission for all to leave. In my shock that the church’s intent was to forcibly contain people, against their will if needs be, I pointed to my daughter and started to explain the reason for our departure but cut myself short as one of the door guards opened a door for us and permitted us to make our way out. Had I been alone, without little kids, I am certain I would have been prevented from leaving.

As we walked down the stairs from the upper balcony, leaving the thousands of others locked in behind us, it struck me what the purpose of the production, or I should say service, truly was. Its purpose was to win (or coerce) my loyalty to the church and its head pastor. It was to bring me into slavish subservience, allegiance, cultish obedience to, and worship of the church that had pumped my veins full of endorphins through its fantastical show, just as surely as a drug pusher seeks to inject the first dose of cocaine. I realized as I walked out that the event which had originally inspired hope in me to be a moment that would show my girls the beauty of Christ was truly an event which was evil in the sight of the Lord. The church had continued the sin of Jeroboam, the Son of Nebat, that he had caused Israel to sin by worshiping other gods. Here, the other gods to worship were the church and its pastor, all covered in the pretensive cloak of good deeds and allegiance to Christ. A production titled “Christ the King” had not been about Christ at all, and the King who was put on display was merely a building and a man; a simple, ordinary man, gifted with a silver tongue.

On full display was the sin of at least the church in the west: a church that seeks not to inspire faith in God; but faith, worship, and slavish obedience to a pastor and a building. A church that constantly degrades and emotionally abuses (and sometimes physically abuses) those who come in their doors. In a secular setting, if someone were to constantly tell someone how awful, and terrible, and sinful they are, we would have the intelligence to not shout with joyful exultation but to know that such behavior is abusive and wrong.

On display this night was a church using every known psychological technique of the world to manipulate and drive those in attendance into a suggestive state and then take advantage of the abuse of their minds and emotions to drive them to a predetermined place. “Surely you will not die” the church said as it handed them the fruit and asked them to worship before the golden calf.

In psychology is the concept known as the negativity bias. We are preconditioned to think bad of ourselves. Psychologists describe this as a defensive mechanism that helps us stay in the group and not get voted off the island. It rose up intensely in the moment when I was debating whether or not to leave. Surely, it was sinful to leave in the middle of the alter call. But as Christ said, “Is it lawful to heal on a sabbath?” Clearly to him the answer was yes, and it was just as lawful to bring my daughter to clean air to restore her breathing. But to the Pharisees and Sadducees guarding the door, it was not.

The Church has lost its way. God created us good and showed us that we can be righteous before him (see “Can man be Righteous before God” for more on that). However, the Church abuses its congregants on a regular basis through emotional degradation and constantly beating them into thinking they are terrible. Where are the good shepherds who proclaim freedom to the prisoners?  Where are the churches that dedicate themselves to uplifting those who come and telling them they are fearfully and wonderfully made?  Where are the congregations that teach the techniques that Satan uses to tear us down so we may defend ourselves against them instead of using those very techniques to increase attendance and enrichen the coffers?

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* Image by Pete Linforth from Pixabay