Emancipation By Means Of Jennifer Lopez

A young man's journey into and emancipation from religion.

“I can’t tell if you’re a bit dim or some crazy genius,” said Bret. He was driving his van at that moment, but he still tried to fix his intense gaze on John through the central mirror. Bret’s eyes were wild, like his big frizzy permed hair, and he was demanding with his gaze -- the attention and mock love.

John was sitting on the row of seats just behind Bret, quiet as usual. In moments of delusion John thought he knew better than everyone else. He would have liked to have been some kind of genius. People in his family praised the intellect over emotions. 

Bret was clever with his flattery. John had been looking to gurus through his readings, someone to take the place of an absent father. Absent in the sense of only ever having been there for him in real emotional connection a handful of times in his life. He could remember each one of them.

In the beginning, John responded to all that Bret gave him; the focus and meaning that Bret seemed to instil in life. After all, Bret had been told things by God. He was a prophet. John wasn’t sure at first, but he had a tendency to believe people. No one had ever deceived him in his life. Why would people lie? It was hard for him to fathom the depths of self-delusion too, which might lead an individual to claim prophet-status and begin a quest of manoeuvring for a place in people’s lives.

John stayed at Bret’s house for a few days. He had nothing else to do. It was holiday time from school. It was nice to be invited. Bret would chat to him about his life. No-one else was asking him about his plans or his place in the world. The tall dominating man related everything back to his own experiences and his own history.

Bret had been an aspiring musician. The hair was a throw back to that. Clearly, he’d maintained his independence from social expectations but he’d taken a turn towards religion. Like everyone, he needed a sense of identity which the music hadn’t ever really delivered. He played John a record of the one song he’d had recorded on vinyl, in which he sang with some school children. This little bit of success, along with his self-confidence and inspiring exuberance filled a gap in John for someone to look up to. But more than this it was the attention which seduced him.

John had very few fixed ideas at this time and he fell easily to the words of someone who seemed to know what he believed; someone who had a spiritual life. He was tired of his young man searchings. Nothing seemed certain, but here was a man who was. Maybe God was speaking to him. No one else had been there to show him the way. Everything was open and John needed fixtures in his life.

Once as a young child John’s Dad had said, “But you know I love you all.” This genuinely shocked the eight year old boy. His Dad had never lived with him as a normal Dad would. It didn’t really concern him. His Mum had been the guardian he’d known. Dad had been a strict presence now and again. He hadn’t felt much concern or affection from him. In child like surprise John asked, “Do you love me? Really?”

“Of course I love you,” the father replied, surprised that he might not have conveyed his love enough. John knew that his Dad was a loving man. It was not this which had shocked him. It was merely the reference to him, John, being loved specifically. He looked up at his Dad, happy to hear the news, and his Dad smiled and laughed and tried to reassure him of his feeling.

“Why wouldn’t I love you?” he continued. John felt warm in his parents’ presence, there in the kitchen as food was being cooked and all was well in the world.

Later, coming into his teenage years, John had heard the stern words from his father, said in slow and deliberate seriousness. “You do know that alcohol is a poison, don’t you?” He was trying to scare the three children of his who’d recently begun to try out ways of both rebelling and altering consciousness.  They all sat quietly on the sofas circling the room, there in the family gathering, appreciative of this show of concern in slow kind words of advice, which came along with his pleasant fatherly grin and gentle manliness. It made John respect his father while consciously choosing the poison for a time.

John would always remember the football games they’d played together, out by the factory. John loved the continuous running back and forth on the pitch, never slowing to wait for the ball. He often ended up on the team with his father, who’d thread the ball through to him, following and understanding his young-brain runs. They had a good connection on the pitch. When they were on opposing teams his father would show his silly affection by pushing into his son with his sweaty body, imitating the professional football players who’d jostle and nudge for position. It was an oft repeated joke, father walking into son, making as if to out man him, all in play. 

But John had somehow missed out on having much more than this. In his moments of searching for meaning and spirituality John had borrowed a couple of books from his father. One was a big tome about Zen Buddhism. He read about the strict practises of the monks in Japan, the koans -- riddle phrases which were supposed to help lead the practitioner to enlightenment -- and the beating of sticks upon the backs of the meditators if they slouched or dozed off or did anything else contrary to the rigid practise. It was this beating which on returning the book the young teenage son had asked his father about.

“What did you think?” asked the father, smiling brightly and inquisitively. John was nervous of his father and never really had easy chat with him. It was more reverential.

“It’s strange that the masters beat the monks.”

“Yeah, that’s the trouble with religion. It’s the same with all of them. You always find something wrong with them. You know there’s a story about a master and a novice monk. One day the novice comes to see the master and asks him to be his master and to teach him about Zen Buddhism. The master agrees. The first day he gets the young man to sweep the building and to carry the water and to cook the rice. The young monk thinks, “Okay, I can put up with this labour in exchange for the insights of the master and his training.” But the following day and the one after that and continuing for weeks on end, the master gets the novice to do the same monotonous tasks. “Maybe I’m supposed to be learning from this. But I’m really looking forward to him finally teaching me about the deeper aspects of Zen,” he thinks.  The weeks turn into months but the novice doesn’t give up. He knows it will be worth it in the end -- the lessons he’ll learn from this enlightened soul. Then the months become a year and then two years. One day, he can’t take it anymore. He flings the broom down on the floor. “I’m not going to be your slave. I will not let you treat me like this. I came here to learn from you,” he yells. The master looks at him, smiling. “Finally,” says the master.”

John enjoyed this story from his father and it went deep into his being. “Don’t just do what you’re told,” he thought.

Teenage years are never easy to get through. Bret gave him the attention and the time he’d been looking for. The religion didn’t seem easy to swallow at first but John said, “I wish I could believe.”

Not long afterwards he found that he could. It was a decision to take this road of believing, not based on fact and learning, but on a desire to believe something. People say, you can’t just decide to believe. John found that the mind can do many wondrous conjuring acts, and suddenly he was half a believer and very soon he’d turned into a believer afraid to sin against God; afraid to follow the devil; afraid of the punishment of a righteous God. One has two options: the road of uncertainty, which could mean the judgement of God, or the explicitly spoken safer way of following the dictatorial demands of a creator. It was strange. Suddenly, he wasn’t free and it would take many years of internal turmoil and finally great bravery to stand up to the fear-mongering of this breed of Christianity.

The big-haired Bret told his “disciples” that Jesus would be coming back that year. John suspended his mind and mental capacity for reasoning. He had no certainty of his own ideas and instead accepted Bret’s as his. Fear was a contributing factor in that acceptance. He had to be ready for the coming of the Lord. All those who hadn’t accepted Christ at His coming would be left on earth for the seven years of the tribulation -- a time of great suffering on earth, when the Beast would arise to lead men and women away from God.

Not only those that hadn’t accepted Christ would be left, but all those hypocrites and believers caught in sin or who had not repented of a sin. This meant that every day was a day of trying to maintain purity and continually apologising to the Almighty for one’s misdeeds and thoughts. John was always on the edge of eternal fire and damnation -- the agonies and terror of the wrath of God.

As a young man he had sexual energy which would build up in him to bursting. Even with the potential of the second coming and his being left for the tribulation, or even worse sentenced to hell forever, John would make his way to the bathroom and feel the immense release of sexual pleasure, images of the women he’d tried not to lust after during the day coming back to him and helping him to "spill his seed on the ground" (something the Bible condemns). With this sexual energy he was a sinful Christian needing forgiveness at least every three or four days, that being about the amount of time he could resist the urge. That was not to mention the little urges of passion he felt during any given day -- a little touch of anger, impatience, or jealousy. All this needed to be forgiven.

He heard some Christian preachers teach that it was not in fact a sin to remove the urge through the spilling of one’s seed. One was just to not lust after a woman in his heart. The Bible was clear that if he was to lust after a woman it would be as if he’d committed adultery with her. He tried to release himself by means of imagining unreal women. One could not commit adultery with a woman who did not exist. But often in the process, his mind would flick back to real women and real desire for people in the real world. His Christian life was a going back and forth between forgiven and condemned.

 

The twelve of them sat still in the living room. It was getting close to twelve midnight on the thirty-first of December. It was very close to the coming of the Lord. Though doubts were present, none could risk rejecting Bret’s prophecy yet. Each person sat contrite, repentant, pleading for the mercy of God. They devoutly sang some Christian choruses and hymns, playing three chord guitar music and bashing tambourines. Everyone was putting on a brave face. It was tense.

Bret had decided to stay home that evening. He’d said he wanted to go through it with his family alone. The songs came to an end. The clock ticked. There was a Bible reading and then again everyone looked at the clock. There was one minute to go. They all agreed to go through it silently. They sat there with closed eyes and bowed heads. Everyone was tense and unsure what they would think if the Lord didn’t come after all. They were trying to keep out sinful thoughts of how they would lose faith in Bret as a spokesman for God. The clock continued to tick. The breath went in and out. The heart was looking to God. And then crash, the tambourine fell to the ground from the edge of the sofa. John was startled and looking up to the clock, saw that it was already one minute past midnight. The Lord had not come.

John lost his faith in Bret but he couldn’t easily disentangle himself from the web of warning and fear which kept his mind wrapped up and unable to think bravely. He had to gradually crawl out from the confines over years and years of seeking and a slow process of opening up to the mind’s natural ability at reasoning. It was so easy to fall into the mental traps; it took years to wriggle out of the cramped mental space. But wriggle John did. He read and reasoned. He found books by Christians -- that was the world he was in -- who spoke inspiring words which helped lead him on his way to freedom of mind.

"Beware of those who are more concerned that you listen to them than that you learn to listen to the quiet voice of God’s spirit inside of you."

"The Christians habit of always seeking to hear from God about His will stops the Christian from using his God-given decision making powers."

Words like these stirred John to greater confidence in his own reasoning. “If there was a God he’d agree with my rejection of all this stuff,” John said to himself. “After all, I’m only trying to find out what’s the truth. If the God of the Bible was true I’d give my whole life to Him, unreservedly. I’m confident of that.” There was no uncertainty in his mind on that point. “That means if God exists he must know that. But I don’t know that the God of the Bible is true. I genuinely doubt it. Any true God, who is just, knows this and therefore must agree with my own rejection of the faith. I’m honestly following my own reasoning.” This gave him strength. John would later read that it was the Christian esteeming of truth which was Christianity’s own undoing in Europe.

During the undoing of his faith, John needed an idealised God to give him the power of mind to walk away from the God of the Bible. He needed an equally powerful mental force. A just God would be with him in his rejection of Christianity. John decided that he would never let anyone or any belief control him again.

One day, after the long process of the dismantling of religion in his mind -- years not months -- John sat alone in his one bedroom apartment and turned on his new TV. He’d spent many years without watching much on television. Instead he’d read the Bible and Christian books. On the screen Jennifer Lopez was dancing erotically as she sang. Every few songs she’d change her clothes, revealing different degrees of flesh and sensuality. Her hips would move; her belly held in tight, smooth and muscular. John could no longer rationally find a reason to condemn himself for the pleasures of the flesh. He looked at the outline of this womanly woman’s body -- the curves. His emancipation from religion was nearly complete.

Lopez shared her body with the audience. This was not a display of her vocal talents. It was a display of her as a sexual being to be looked at and enjoyed in combination with sound, light and colour. She sat on a stool singing, lights shining down and casting a shadow as she spread her legs to the crowd and the cameras. The spectators there in person and those at home were being teased by her body and John finally felt liberated to "spill his seed" without condemnation or shame. He felt his idealised God would understand -- a God of fairness.