Frozenwolf150
Formerly SilentKnight
- Joined
- Dec 10, 2007
- Messages
- 4,134
As I mentioned in another thread, some time ago I attended a Christian play. A former coworker of my mother's had a minor role in the play, and was giving out tickets, so my mom and I decided to check it out. I was expecting a gospel music production or an interpretive dance routine. After all, I've long held the belief that artists are trying to sell their artistic talents, not their religious beliefs.
Was I ever wrong.
The play was titled “Eternity: The Ultimate Experience – A dramatic production about life after death.” So yeah, apparently Viewers are Morons and that’s just the title. I should have suspected something was amiss when I looked at the ticket and saw the promotional line, "Admission is free. The price has already been paid!" Are they saying that Jesus died so that I could see a poorly written, poorly acted evangelical play dripping with bigotry?
Yeah, apparently they were! The play was nothing more than a cynical attempt to convert people by scaring them with Satan and the threat of hell. It reminded me of those stories I've read about those Hell Houses. Only it was free, if you don't count the sense of basic human decency you have to abandon in order to actually appreciate a play like this.
The stage was a large gold curtain with a portal in the middle to represent the gate to heaven. Silent female actors, representing angels, were lined up on either side of the gate, and one angel stood behind a podium that contained the Lamb's Book of Life. The play itself consisted of a series of acts, each starting with loud drumbeats and flashing lights, as the souls of the recently dead hurtle towards the gates of heaven. A series of flashbacks occurs, detailing significant moments in the lives of these people. Afterwards, if they were good little sycophants, Jesus came out and escorted them through the gates to much fanfare. If they sinned even once, Satan burst from the gates of hell (why they're located nearby, I don't know) cackling and whooping as he gives his exposition on what they did wrong, and summoning his demons to drag the people down into the pit.
The play starts, as all badly written plays and movies do, with a voiceover narration. There's a short scene during which Jesus punches out Satan, while the narrator explains that Jesus conquered Satan and banished him to hell with 1/3 of heaven's angels. But there's a war going on to this day for the souls of the unsaved. Satan has on a black cape, tattoos up his arm, and white facepaint that makes him look like Lord Voldemort. Jesus is a tall figure in white and red robes. The unusual thing about Jesus is that he never once says a word, all the better to make him your puppet.
I've posted a link to the relevant playlist, which should contain all parts of the play. Keep an airline sickness bag nearby just in case.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JvRXrgIyeCQ&list=PLCE54B6F718EDCD62
At the end of the play, the fat-mouthed pastor got up on stage and invited members of the audience to join him in believing with their hearts and professing with their mouths that they accept Jesus as their lord and savior. One member of the audience even screamed for Jesus, like what happens in those mega-churches. My mom and I knew it was time to leave, but the play left a lasting impression on me, and dealt a severe blow to my efforts to understand different religions and bridge the gap with my fellow human beings.
This play was godawful. It was bigoted, venomous, divisive, overacted, horribly written, and a total waste of time that made me feel like I was plumbing the depths of human depravity. The theology was contradictory and ill-thought out. I have no doubt that if the play had gone on for several more acts, it would have attacked homosexuals, atheists, and the theory of evolution.
I have a serious problem with what the play says about characters such as Jesus, Satan, and God himself. Jesus doesn't have a single line of dialogue in the entire play. His only job seems to be to just come out, smile, and walk people into heaven. He also does absolutely nothing while Satan is running around right in front of the gates of heaven and stealing souls left and right. If God doesn't intend for people to be damned, then why doesn't Jesus get off his ass and intervene? Do God and Jesus approve of Satan's actions? Are they just sitting back there jerking off while this is going on?
This is completely unlike the Jesus of the Gospels. If he saw injustice, like the crowd that wanted to stone a woman to death, he stepped in and DID something about it. For a mere rebel, Satan is given a ton of power and influence, and is practically elevated to the level of a rival deity.
In fact, it seems more like Satan is serving a designated role. He's reading off the list of sins and punishing people for them. So wait, is Satan a prime evil entity that Jesus is doing everything he can to stop, or someone God hired to enforce his own laws? Furthermore, there's a direct contradiction on the issue of whether deeds or faith are more important. People are saved by faith, but damned by their sinful deeds. These deeds are always a direct result of not accepting Jesus, as if people become irredeemably evil because of it.
The last act of the play was especially nauseating. Is it wrong for a child to feel angry that her parents were killed? When God simply allows Satan to tear the family apart like that, it reminded me of what slavers did to black families, an analogy that comes from the fact that the entire cast was African American in the version I saw (not in the YT video). Furthermore, didn't Jesus once accuse God of forsaking him? If so, he of all people ought to understand how the girl feels!
The girl's aunt told her that God acts as father to the fatherless, but here, God is more sadistic and negligent than most parents I know of. In every parent's life, there's going to be at least one time when their child rebels and says, "I hate you!" to them. Now if those parents were to behave like God, they'd throw their kid into moving traffic and let them get run over, or throw the kid to the neighbor's pit bull to be torn apart.
Even the set design is idiotic. If heaven is a place of immaterial happiness and union with God, then why in the world would it contain gold, clouds, and other things people find pretty? Material commodities are worthless if you're dead.
As a writer, I tend to notice a lot of things that I could have written better, and mistakes other writers have made. However, "Eternity" was an overwhelming onslaught of stupid. I feel sorry for anyone who got suckered in by such garbage, and I feel like the pastor who wrote it is the lowest form of scum.
Was I ever wrong.
The play was titled “Eternity: The Ultimate Experience – A dramatic production about life after death.” So yeah, apparently Viewers are Morons and that’s just the title. I should have suspected something was amiss when I looked at the ticket and saw the promotional line, "Admission is free. The price has already been paid!" Are they saying that Jesus died so that I could see a poorly written, poorly acted evangelical play dripping with bigotry?
Yeah, apparently they were! The play was nothing more than a cynical attempt to convert people by scaring them with Satan and the threat of hell. It reminded me of those stories I've read about those Hell Houses. Only it was free, if you don't count the sense of basic human decency you have to abandon in order to actually appreciate a play like this.
The stage was a large gold curtain with a portal in the middle to represent the gate to heaven. Silent female actors, representing angels, were lined up on either side of the gate, and one angel stood behind a podium that contained the Lamb's Book of Life. The play itself consisted of a series of acts, each starting with loud drumbeats and flashing lights, as the souls of the recently dead hurtle towards the gates of heaven. A series of flashbacks occurs, detailing significant moments in the lives of these people. Afterwards, if they were good little sycophants, Jesus came out and escorted them through the gates to much fanfare. If they sinned even once, Satan burst from the gates of hell (why they're located nearby, I don't know) cackling and whooping as he gives his exposition on what they did wrong, and summoning his demons to drag the people down into the pit.
The play starts, as all badly written plays and movies do, with a voiceover narration. There's a short scene during which Jesus punches out Satan, while the narrator explains that Jesus conquered Satan and banished him to hell with 1/3 of heaven's angels. But there's a war going on to this day for the souls of the unsaved. Satan has on a black cape, tattoos up his arm, and white facepaint that makes him look like Lord Voldemort. Jesus is a tall figure in white and red robes. The unusual thing about Jesus is that he never once says a word, all the better to make him your puppet.
I've posted a link to the relevant playlist, which should contain all parts of the play. Keep an airline sickness bag nearby just in case.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JvRXrgIyeCQ&list=PLCE54B6F718EDCD62
At the end of the play, the fat-mouthed pastor got up on stage and invited members of the audience to join him in believing with their hearts and professing with their mouths that they accept Jesus as their lord and savior. One member of the audience even screamed for Jesus, like what happens in those mega-churches. My mom and I knew it was time to leave, but the play left a lasting impression on me, and dealt a severe blow to my efforts to understand different religions and bridge the gap with my fellow human beings.
This play was godawful. It was bigoted, venomous, divisive, overacted, horribly written, and a total waste of time that made me feel like I was plumbing the depths of human depravity. The theology was contradictory and ill-thought out. I have no doubt that if the play had gone on for several more acts, it would have attacked homosexuals, atheists, and the theory of evolution.
I have a serious problem with what the play says about characters such as Jesus, Satan, and God himself. Jesus doesn't have a single line of dialogue in the entire play. His only job seems to be to just come out, smile, and walk people into heaven. He also does absolutely nothing while Satan is running around right in front of the gates of heaven and stealing souls left and right. If God doesn't intend for people to be damned, then why doesn't Jesus get off his ass and intervene? Do God and Jesus approve of Satan's actions? Are they just sitting back there jerking off while this is going on?
This is completely unlike the Jesus of the Gospels. If he saw injustice, like the crowd that wanted to stone a woman to death, he stepped in and DID something about it. For a mere rebel, Satan is given a ton of power and influence, and is practically elevated to the level of a rival deity.
In fact, it seems more like Satan is serving a designated role. He's reading off the list of sins and punishing people for them. So wait, is Satan a prime evil entity that Jesus is doing everything he can to stop, or someone God hired to enforce his own laws? Furthermore, there's a direct contradiction on the issue of whether deeds or faith are more important. People are saved by faith, but damned by their sinful deeds. These deeds are always a direct result of not accepting Jesus, as if people become irredeemably evil because of it.
The last act of the play was especially nauseating. Is it wrong for a child to feel angry that her parents were killed? When God simply allows Satan to tear the family apart like that, it reminded me of what slavers did to black families, an analogy that comes from the fact that the entire cast was African American in the version I saw (not in the YT video). Furthermore, didn't Jesus once accuse God of forsaking him? If so, he of all people ought to understand how the girl feels!
The girl's aunt told her that God acts as father to the fatherless, but here, God is more sadistic and negligent than most parents I know of. In every parent's life, there's going to be at least one time when their child rebels and says, "I hate you!" to them. Now if those parents were to behave like God, they'd throw their kid into moving traffic and let them get run over, or throw the kid to the neighbor's pit bull to be torn apart.
Even the set design is idiotic. If heaven is a place of immaterial happiness and union with God, then why in the world would it contain gold, clouds, and other things people find pretty? Material commodities are worthless if you're dead.
As a writer, I tend to notice a lot of things that I could have written better, and mistakes other writers have made. However, "Eternity" was an overwhelming onslaught of stupid. I feel sorry for anyone who got suckered in by such garbage, and I feel like the pastor who wrote it is the lowest form of scum.
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