The Church

Chapter 2

I called out sick the next day. Samantha sounded none too happy. I guess that means that she may actually have to do some work.

As a lifelong atheist, I'm not exactly well-versed in what exactly I'm supposed to be preaching. Uriel told me to preach the word of God. I don't really know what the word of God is. Uriel told me to teach people to live as the Bible and Koran demands. I barely even know enough about the Bible to defend it, let alone the Koran. As far as I know, Islam is either a religion of peace or a death cult hellbent on destroying Western civilization. Or both. Frankly, I don't even know why I, an atheist until yesterday, was chosen above all others to preach the Bible.

Oh well. I guess God works in mysterious ways.

I figured I'd start with some research, so I decided to go online and read the Bible, or as much of the Bible as I could without ordering a copy of it online. Reading through Genesis helped me remember why I had been an atheist all my life. If I hadn't been personally visited by an angel yesterday, I would have told you that this was the biggest garbage I ever read in my life. Not that I didn't know the Adam and Eve story already, but I figured I ought to read it firsthand before I started preaching it. And it read like a really bad children's book; it had a wise caretaker father who created man and woman out of dust and ribs, enchanted gardens, magical but forbidden fruit, and even a talking snake. An evil talking snake. An evil talking snake!? And God expects people to believe that this really happened!? Stick an over the top musical number in there and Disney would sue for royalties.

But it did really happen, and I have to somehow show people that this seemingly absurd tale is a completely true story. That was going to be tough, considering that the Bible gives no reason for why God does anything nor any mention for what He was doing before. I hope I'm never asked what He was doing in all the millennia before He created the Earth, or why He created all the other planets in the cosmos if He only planned on putting life on this one, or why He didn't set up an electric fence around the forbidden fruit in the Garden of Eden.

And I still don't know the answer to the whole question of Original Sin. Does God still hold a grudge against humanity because our most distant ancestors disobeyed the most trivial of commands? I'll have to ask Uriel the next time I see him. D****t, Uriel! Couldn't you have given me a little more information to work with? I've got a s****y product to sell and a tough crowd to sell it to. I feel like I'm back at work.

Pacing back forth in front of my computer, I began to realize that the absurdity of biblical history would prove genuinely problematic. Even in a very religious country such as the United States, most people take what the Bible says with a grain of salt. Even the most devout don't believe that every word in the Bible was to be taken literally, and no one in this country would ever live by the Bible's, er, questionable moral code. Looking up Deuteronomy, for example, you get to see the laws God wanted us all to live by. For example, Deuteronomy 22:13-21 states that if a man marries a woman and then says that she wasn't a virgin at the time of marriage, the woman's father has to prove she was a virgin. If the husband is wrong, the man pays a fine. If the husband was right, the woman gets stoned to death.

How the hell am I supposed to preach this as a code of conduct that people should follow!?

The Bible was too much of an unreadable tome for me to plow straight through, and unfocused computer research wasn't going to get the job done. I simply was not ready to go off on my own and preach the word of the Lord to nonbelievers. I needed help, and I needed an audience that would be receptive to preachings about God. So where could I go to find a group of people with knowledge of biblical history preaching to people who wanted to learn more about God?

The answer was obvious. I brought up my resume on the computer (it was already updated, thanks to my long desire to leave Rafferty Financial), printed it out, put on my jacket and walked out the door. My next stop was the church about four blocks away from my apartment. My plan was simple; I would get a job at a church, learn more about religion, and get my start at preaching with a receptive audience before branching out on my own and preaching to nonbelievers. A plan this simple could not possibly fail.

The plan failed.

First off, you can't just apply for a job at a church. In hindsight, I really should have known that. When the church's pastor (or priest, or preacher, I really don't know) told me that no church would ever be hiring, I decided to try my luck at volunteering for the church instead. The pastor was very glad to hear of my enthusiasm and we chatted amiably for a bit. After that, he told me to leave and never to come back. And thus came the second issue with my not-so-brilliant plan; no church in the United States will actually condone men selling their daughters into slavery or stoning to death men with long hair, and as such no church would ever allow me to use them as an outlet to preach a fundamentalist version of their own belief system.

In one way, it was very hypocritical on their part. I wasn't making this up. It was right there in their own holy book that they tell everybody to read and use as a moral guide. The word of God is the word of God. But frankly, I feel a lot more comfortable knowing that churches are pretty much ignoring these passages. Trust me, we do not need our nation's churches telling U.S. troops that they can marry women in occupied countries against their will.

Of course, this meant that I wouldn't be getting an audience anytime soon. It's been weeks since I was visited by the angel, and in that time I've been to six churches, four temples, and a mosque. I can think of better things to do on my day off.

I decided to give it one last chance. I didn't know what I was going to do if I couldn't find work with this church, though admittedly I didn't really know what I'd do if they did accept me. I mean, I seriously doubted they would just stick me in front of a sermon and have me preach to people. Maybe I'd get to know the worshipers and work the word of God into my conversations with them? Or would they tell me the word of God since I really didn't know what it was myself? I guess this was never that good of a plan.

I was in the office of a church in the Bronx, not too far from Manhattan. The reverend sat down in front of me. Or was he the minister? You know, this is one thing I never got about Christianity. The Jews have rabbis. The Muslims have imams. The Christians have preachers, pastors, priests, reverends, and ministers. Why so many different people? Why did they need so many different types of religious leaders to talk about the same religion? Hey, how many Christians does it take to screw in a lightbulb? One, but it takes five to tell that person how wonderful Jesus was. Actually that joke sounded a lot funnier In my head. I don't think it came out right.

Despite the fact that churches don't hire, I still brought my resume and handed it to him. He began to look over it, just as all the preachers, priests, pastors, reverends, ministers, rabbis, and imams have done before. This conversation will go almost exactly as the ones that came before. I can feel it.

“Hmm, quite an impressive resume you've got here,” he commented in a soft, friendly voice. He adjusted his bifocals. The reverend was a man in his lower forties with dark hair arranged in a neat part. He looked exactly as you would picture a morally righteous man of God would. I could actually picture him walking down the street and giving money to needy children.

“Thank you,” I said.

“Not a lot of volunteer experience on it, though,” he continued. “Or any time spent with a church at all.”

“Well, you can see I've given my soul to Rafferty Financial for the last couple of years. Now I'd like to give it to a more honorable organization,” I said. I always tried to approach a job interviewer by winning him or her over with some light humor. I've found in my experience that it helps dispel the tense atmosphere and allows everybody at the interview to be more relaxed, and it really helped me in my interview at Rafferty. That line made the imam and a couple of priests chuckle, though for some reason it seemed to really piss off two rabbis. I don't know why.

The reverend chuckled, obviously taken on by my natural charm. “So, Jack, tell me about you and your connection to God, then. Have you always been a man of faith?”

Normally I would lie as if it were going out of style, but now that I knew for a fact that God existed and was watching me, I had to follow the Ten Commandments. And that meant following the Sixth Commandment, which prohibited lying. Was it the Sixth? I think it was the Sixth. No, maybe the Eighth? Honestly, I don't really know. I do know that there was a commandment that prohibited lying, I think. I'm just pretty sure God didn't want me lying to a reverend in a church.

“Well no, I've never been really religious before,” I answered slightly hesitantly, hoping that half-truths didn't count as lies in the eyes of God. “But I've recently felt the power of God appear before me.”

“So God spoke to you, in a manner of speaking?”

“In a manner of speaking, you can definitely say that.”

“And what did he say to you?” pressed the reverend further. “Most of those I've spoken to who found God after years of skepticism say that they have a renewed sense of purpose in life. Your desire to volunteer shows that you share the same feeling. So, what did God say to you, Jack? What is your purpose?”

I hesitated for a moment, unsure of how to answer the question. It was a question I had been trying to answer for quite awhile, long before Uriel showed up. I was unhappy with my job selling insurance and investments, and I had always hoped that there was something greater out there for me. I didn't care about the greater reasons of why I did any of what I did at Rafferty Financial, of what role I played and how my actions affected the company and community as a whole. I only concerned myself with doing what I had to do in order to get my next paycheck. After being given a holy mission by an angel from Heaven, I continued to do the same. I focused only on doing what I had to do to get by without wondering why I was even doing it. Right here, sitting in front of the reverend, was the first time I thought of the greater reasoning behind my task. Why was I chosen to preach the word of the Lord? Why did God need a Great Prophet? What was my purpose?

“To......spread the word of God?” I squeaked out meekly. Whatever my purpose was, it remained one hell of a mystery to me.

The reverend cocked his head sideways, a puzzled expression on his face. “You seem a little unsure. You want to spread the word of God? We're all here to help spread His message, but do you even know what it is?”

“I was kind of hoping that you'd tell me,” I replied, knowing full well that there was no way it would be that easy.

The reverend laughed. “I can't tell you what the Lord's message is, Jack. Only He knows what it is,” he said, pointing to the air as if I didn't know he was referring to God. “Have you ever read the Bible?”

Why yes, I've skimmed a few passages of that monstrous tome. “Why yes, I've read that inspiring book.”

For the record, I don't count that as a lie. He never asked if I read the whole thing.

“And what did you think God was trying to say?” he asked, folding his hands on his desk.

“Well, I don't really know. I think not even God knew what He was trying to say,” I answered, sensing the entire interview going down the toilet.

The reverend's puzzled look came back. After a conversation with me, that look will probably be permanently tattooed to his face. “Oh really? What do you mean?”

Damn it, I was really hoping the words “You're hired” would be his response. Hey, I know it's unrealistic, but is it wrong to hope for a miracle when you know for a fact that the presence of the Almighty is there with you all the time?

“Well, I mean, one part of the Bible has Him doing nice things, like showing mercy to, uh, bad guys while other parts of the Bible have Him flooding the Earth and stuff. You know, like killing people,” I said, which was pretty much one step below spitting in the reverend's face and mooning him insofar as disrespecting him and his faith went. My lack of knowledge about the Bible was truly uncanny as well.

An awkward silence fell across the room. I ended it with the most educated words my mind could conjure: “So, yeah, He does both..........”

The reverend shook his head slightly and rubbed his temples. His gaze fell to his desk, his eyes seemingly focused on it as if he were reading a message carved on it in really tiny font.

“You're not here to volunteer, are you?” he asked slowly, his gaze rising back up towards me.

“Well, yes I am. It's just that I have to teach people to live as the Bible tells them to,” I answered, really wanting to leave the room. Getting into a fight with a reverend about religion was not something I wanted to do, especially since that's how I've been spending my free time for the last few weeks.

“You have to?” asked the reverend quizzically.

I sighed. I hated when the conversation swung this way. Then again, I preferred telling people about Uriel than letting them think that I personally wanted to see unruly children stoned to death in the streets.

“I was told to,” I replied. “It wasn't my idea.”

“God's idea?”

“An angel.”

“So what did you come here for?” asked the reverend with a not-so-subtle hint of anger in his voice. The softness of his tone had completely vanished, replaced by a careful deliberation of an angry person who was visibly trying to control what he says in order to maintain a professional atmosphere. I was able to pick up on that so easily because I did it all the time at work. “Did you come here to use my church as a platform to tell people that God wants them to kill each other?”

“No! I'm supposed to just teach people to live as the all the religious texts�"both the Bible and the Koran�"tell them to. It's just that I think I'm supposed to tell people to do all the bad parts, too,” I answered, flustered. You have no idea how embarrassing this was. I was basically coming into this man's place of business and insulting his livelihood.

“I don't think the Lord wants people doing things like stoning women to death in the streets anymore. That worked for people back in the old days, but not in modern times.”

“Then why did God put it in the Bible, and why hasn't He updated it if He doesn't want us doing that stuff anymore? And why do you continue to tell people to read and live by the Bible when it contains all kinds of terrible things like that?” I felt like I had a legitimate point there. I've felt that way for years when I was an atheist, and even now it made no sense to me.

Still, I couldn't blame him for what he told me after the long, awkward silence that followed.

“Get out of my church.”

And this is what I get for following the Sixth Commandment.

As I left, the reverend gave me a fantastic piece of advice. “Go start a blog,” he said. Admittedly, it wasn't meant to be an actual piece of advice, but more of a way of telling me to never come back. “If you're looking for a forum to insult my faith or preach nonsense or whatever you're doing, go start a blog and stay away from my congregation,” was his full statement. Still, it gave me an idea I should have had weeks ago.

That night, I searched the Internet for ways to start up a website. It seems everyone was doing it these days, but I had no idea how to. I figured I'd get myself a cheap site, get some other religious sites to advertise on my site in order to generate the revenue needed to keep my site going, and start writing about the wonders of the Lord. Of course, I didn't know exactly what to write about, but I'd cross that bridge when I came to it. Maybe I'd start a message forum. Oh wait, then I'd have to moderate that. Screw that. I did not want to get involved in online flame wars.

“Using the Internet to help spread the Jehova's glory?” asked Uriel, peering over my shoulder.

“As soon as I get this blog up and running, yup,” I answered.

“Good luck. Everyone on Earth has a computer these days. Now you'll be able to reach people's ears no matter where they are,” he said, sitting down on my bed.

“Yeah, pretty much,” I replied, not really paying too much attention.

“Do you have anything prepared? Or will you be speaking from the heart about the Almighty as you write?”

“The second one. Totally from the heart,” I droned, wishing Uriel would stop distracting me.

After another 30 seconds, give or take, I froze. Uriel?

I spun around. There was no one there. But I know I heard him sit down on my bed and talk to me.

“I hope you've found passion and love for God just as He has loved you from the day He created you,” Uriel said, his face right next to mind as he leaned towards the computer screen. I didn't hear anything past the word “found” as I had been too busy jumping straight up into the air and screaming like a little girl when he was talking.

“Jesus! You scared me!” I yelled, my heart racing.

Uriel chuckled. “Jesus? Trust me, unless you've been chosen to be the next Messiah, Jesus isn't going to be leaving Heaven to visit you any time soon. That's why I'm here.”

I rubbed my eyes, squeezing them shut and then shooting them open as if I were trying to vanish a mirage that had appeared before me. Perhaps that was what I was trying to do. Having an archangel visit me was still a very surreal experience. Having the same archangel come down from Heaven to sneak up behind me went beyond surreal and dived into the realm of underwear-ruining terror.

“So, what have you got for me so far?” asked Uriel, clasping his hands together in anticipation.

“Huh?” I asked, confused.

“Your progress. What have you got for me so far?”

“Oh, well, I've almost got the blog up and running.” I gestured towards the screen, where there was a blog that was nowhere near up and running.

“No, no, no. I don't care about your blog. I mean your progress in the mission I have brought unto you.” Uriel started clapping his hands together rhythmically, trying and failing to get me as enthusiastic as he seemed to be. “Converts. How many converts do you have for me? Thirty? Forty?”

I looked at the angel as if he were insane, Perhaps he was. If he were a human, I would've thought him to be kidding.

“Uriel, I don't have any,” I told him.

The enthusiasm melted away from Uriel's face like ice on a frying pan. His hands dropped to sides as he slowly meandered about the room.

“Uriel,” I started, speaking to him as I would a manager at a job who expected too much. “There's no way I can get you thirty to forty converts in a year, let alone a couple weeks.”

Uriel stared at a shelf with some movies on it, then turned around to face me. “That's your job. I told you to get converts.”

“Converts to what? Christianity? Islam? Help me out here,” I pleaded.

“Converts away from a life of shallow self-love. Converts towards a life of piety and worship,” said Uriel, frustrated. “What was so difficult about that?”

“Plenty, I'd say,” I answered flippantly. I really had to learn to control my frustration with people who talk down to me or start stepping out of line. I was practically one step away from picking a fight with an angel, which is probably the sort of thing you do if you want to end up in Hell. “I've got nothing to go by. There are a lot of people doing the exact same thing you want me to do. People look down on them as being crazy, and for good reason. If you want me to actually convince people to listen and heed what I say, then you're going to have to give me something to go with.”

“The Gospels. The Testaments. The Koran,” said the angel, as if the answer had been so obvious that anyone with an IQ would have gotten it. God, I hated when people did that. “In those holy books, you will find all the secrets of the universe.”

“I'll also find God's law in those books?” I questioned, leading the angel on so I can make a point.

“You will,” he said.

“And you want me to teach people to follow God's law to the letter?” I asked.

“To the letter,” he said, taking the bait.

“Ah, I see. Even the parts that tell you to stone to death people who eat shellfish?” I asked, proud of myself for getting the upper hand in a religious debate with an actual angel. And next I'll go teach a five star general all the flaws with modern military strategy.

Uriel raised an eyebrow. “Oh, people have stopped doing that?”

That was my first inkling that Heaven was filled with more crazies than Earth. I was sure it wouldn't be my last.

“Forget it,” I said, sighing. My exasperation wasn't even subtle, but if Uriel noticed, he didn't care.

“Humans don't have the right to cherry pick which of God's laws they follow,” he said. He crossed his arms over his chest. “Every law was created for a reason.”

“And what reason did He have for creating laws like that?” I asked.

“Oh, I don't know. Do I look I like Yahweh?”

“Can't you just say 'God'?” I asked the angel. I've heard plenty of names for God in the two times I've met Uriel. Perhaps that's where Christian churches got the idea to have reverends, priests, pastors, and a hundred other people performing what is essentially the same task. Of course, that could just be my lack of knowledge about Christian churches talking.

“He is who He is,” replied Uriel, staring absentmindedly out the window. After about a moment, he said, “I'm taking my leave of you right now. I have to figure out how to explain that the Great Prophet isn't living up to his name.”

“Sorry,” I murmured apologetically. I hid my irritation very well, though. I actually sounded like I felt guilty instead of pissed off. How could anyone, even Heaven itself, ask a person to tell others that they're supposed to maim and kill each other over trivial matters because a cosmic being that very few people know for a fact to exist (I may be the only person on Earth that knows that God is real) supposedly said so?

I turned back to my computer.

“Oh, and whatever converts you get on the computer don't count,” added Uriel very quickly, apparently hoping that I wouldn't notice that he had said it.

I spun around. “What!?”

“You can't use the computer to preach. It doesn't count.”

“Why not!?”

“Because it doesn't.”

I started getting hot, and I'm not talking about the temperature. “But you said before that a computer can help me reach people all over the world. Why wouldn't God want me to use it?”

“Because.......you can't verify that people who are following your word are sincere, or doing their part to spread the laws of Elohim themselves,” said the angel, sounding very unsure of himself. His gaze fell to his left, even though there was nothing for him to look at. “And... and you don't know if they are real people.”

“I won't know if they are real people!?” I asked incredulously. “If I am having conversations about the creation of man and the universe with them and they are answering me back, how could they not be real people?”

The angel paused for a minute, considering his answer. Perhaps he should have taken two, because his answer was, “Spam bots.”

“Spam bots!?” I exclaimed.

“Or.......people use their computers to create walls of fire,” he said, sounding more ridiculous with each sentence. I put my hand on my forehead, unable to believe I was hearing this silliness from the Fourth Archangel. “That is the magic of the Devil.”

“That's not what a firewall is,” I muttered.

Uriel ignored me. “If a miracle is not that of the Lord, then it is of the Devil. The Lord does not grant people, even His only son, the ability to create fire from their bodies. Thus, people who use their computers to create these 'firewalls' must have gotten their abilities from the Devil. Or it could be Lucifer himself, posing as a human in order to corrupt and tempt the Great Prophet.”

“That's not what a firewall is!” I repeated.

“You can't use a computer,” reaffirmed Uriel.

“Why!?” I demanded. “I'm the Great Prophet! I've been tasked with spreading the word of the glory of God, the laws of God, and I assume other things like the history of the universe and the deeds of Jesus and all that. I can go online and reach thousands of people without even leaving this room, and you're telling me I can't. I have the right to know why!”

“Because.........,” the angel's voice trailed off. He looked around the room and spoke in a low voice. “Because God doesn't know computers.”

“God doesn't know computers?” I repeated, my eyes burning a hole in Uriel's.

“God doesn't know computers,” he confirmed.

“God created the Heavens and the Earth. He established the laws of morality, the laws of physics, and all the rest. How can God not know computers?” I cried, my voice raising in pitch and volume. This had to be some sort of joke.

“They're just too complex.”

“More complex than gravity and climate and everything else that comes with creating galaxies?” I asked.

“Oh yes. You'll notice that the Earth doesn't need updates constantly. It doesn't get outdated and replaced with a new model every year. It doesn't get constant errors and malfunctions,” said Uriel, his hands clasped behind his back, all the traces of confusion from just moments ago gone. Whereas he had been keeping a low voice when he brought up the Almighty Creator's technological impotence just seconds ago, he seemed to have no problem talking openly about the wonders of the Earth.

“True,” I breathed, speaking more to myself than to him.

“Even when the Earth does erupt into chaos�"volcanoes, earthquakes, hurricanes�"it fixes itself. Computers can't even run properly without constant maintenance from human users. Some of us think that computers and the Internet were actually created by Lucifer as his darkest weapon against humanity, but there's no proof of it. I'm pretty sure it was just the horrible, horrible result of mankind trying to play God with their own inferior tools.”

“Oh........” That was all I could say to that.

“Plus it's nearly impossible to keep track of how many converts you get if you preach online,” he added. “We're a very busy lot.”

I sighed heavily.

Uriel walked towards the window, opening it. He bent down so that he could fit his body through, lifting one leg and putting it on the windowsill, preparing himself to climb out.

“You will preach the glory of the Almighty, the laws of Jehova, the truth about the creation of all, the deeds of Abraham and Moses. You will show people the depth of their sin, and show them the path to righteousness. That is your ultimate goal. Lead people from sin to piety. And you will use your own mouth like your predecessors did, and you will win your converts and engage your flock face to face like your predecessors did.” He spread his wings, preparing to fly. In spite of everything that was said, I was still taken aback by the majestic sight of the angel's wings. “And that, Jack Dufraine, is your mission.

With that, he snapped his fingers and a light engulfed him. When the light vanished, the angel was gone as well. It was amazing. After everything that we had spoken about, the fact that the angel had opened the window to fly out and then just snapped his fingers and disappeared struck me as stranger than anything else he had said or done. It can be strange what the human mind will accept and cope with and what it will dismiss as crazy.