Evangelists and Anti-Evangelists

[the_gneech]

I went to college in Richmond, VA, which is in many ways a very nice city, but has "issues." There is a kind of militant backwardism there, as if everyone who thinks "Jimmy Crack Corn And I Don't Care" just about describes the perfect way of life has declared Richmond their Mecca. (Actually, I would imagine that the subtle irony of "Jimmy Crack Corn" is lost on most of such people, but that discussion is for another entry.)

Anyway, another thing that Richmond tends to have a lot of, is street evangelists. Marching in front of women's clinics, speaking in tongues, heading down to the town's grand total of two gay bars and shouting hateful epithets, etc. Most of them are pretty pathetic, actually, and after a while, you just sorta learn to walk around them.

Except for my friend, who I'll call "P." ;) Whenever confronted with a street evangelist, whether good, bad, evil, or pathetic, P. instantly became Mr. Heckler. P. considered (and I would imagine, still considers) himself to be a Christian (a kind of new agey pagan Christian, but still), but nevertheless seemed to find no better sport in his life than baiting the evangelists. His particular favorite thing to do was to start pulling out "evolution vs. creation" or "pro-choice" cliches and throwing them at his target, 'cause he knew it would get them riled.

This, for the rest of us in that particular group, soon got very tiresome. We wanted to just go on our merry way and ingore them, figuring that was the best way to discourage them -- engaging somebody with an axe to grind, just gives them a target to bury their axe in.

So eventually we all rounded on him and said, "Okay, look, WHY do you do this? There's no real debate there; you're not going to convince them, they're not going to convince you. All it does is create more anger and rancor in a world that has too much of that already."

"But they're so obnoxious," P. replied, "trying to force their views on everyone around them!"

"And you aren't?" one of us said. "They believe what they're saying to be true; you believe what you're saying to be true. Your yelling at them, is just as bad as their yelling at everybody else."

"No, it's different!" P. insisted. "Because I'm right, and they're wrong!"

He seemed very frustrated by how amused the rest of us were by that assertion.

-The Gneech

Comments

[hamadryad.livejournal.com]

I live in Richmond. I have lived in Richmond since 1991.

Of all the people I've seen...I would say that you understand fully why I have wanted, for years, to move the living HELL out of Richmond.

**uuuuurgh**

[the-gneech.livejournal.com]

Sounds like you moved in right around the time I moved out.

I do miss The Fan and Maymont Park ... the rest of Richmond, generally isn't worth fretting over.

Say, is One Eyed Jack's still open?

-The Gneech

Re:

[hamadryad.livejournal.com]

Yup, One Eyed's is still open and doing brisk g33k trade. The Fan is still the same. Maymont is still the same. The outlying areas....ye freaking gods. There's a gigantic mall in Ashland. There's a gigantic mall going up right now in Short Pump. Azalea Mall is closed. Cloverleaf Mall is on the verge of closing. The retail district downtown is damned near dead.

It's ridiculous. Suburban sprawl at its worst. Combine that with the weeeeeird personalities this city seems to draw, and you can imagine what this place is getting to be like.

[torakiyoshi.livejournal.com]

Ahhh, so it's Richmond which is centered over the Hellmouth then, is it? ;)

[unciaa.livejournal.com]

Funny, and here I always thought that was Sunnydale... I've been living a lie!

[torakiyoshi.livejournal.com]

Well, you know, "names have been changed to protect the innocent" and all that. Could you imagien if people realized Richmond is the Hellmouth?

Oops, and I just blew the secret wide open!

-=TK

(Explains why it was the capitol of the Confederacy, too...)

Jimmy Crack Corn

[vakkotaur.livejournal.com]

I find myself wondering, for no good reason at all, what would be the end product(s) of running corn through a refinery's catalytic cracker.

Re: Jimmy Crack Corn

[the-gneech.livejournal.com]

Corn that smelled like sulphur? -TG

[tygermoonfoxx.livejournal.com]

There is a kind of militant backwardism there, as if everyone who thinks "Jimmy Crack Corn And I Don't Care" just about describes the perfect way of life has declared Richmond their Mecca.

Welcome to Baptistvi--- er, I mean Jacksonville where the fundamentalists are firmly in control of the city. This is a large port city with several military facilities but on weekdays everything is closed by nine in the evening (usually much, much earlier). On weekends, nothing opens until noon and it all closes at six on Saturdays and at five on Sundays (if it's open at all). New books for the library? Only if approved by the city council first (eight of twelve belonging to the First Baptist church, which dominates our downtown area and has a congregation of about 30,000 people). I'm not kidding you; the stuff in our libraries is grossly outdated and so censored I couldn't even get modern archeology texts (forget science fiction and fantasy or even comparative religion stuff).

Whenever confronted with a street evangelist, whether good, bad, evil, or pathetic, P. instantly became Mr. Heckler

Most of our street evangelists confine themselves to shouting on street corners in heavy traffic so they don't bother folk much. Heckling them is a dangerous thing to do; I've seen one or two turn into mob rule fairly quick when confronted. Either your friend is superman or has an astonishing lack of common sense when it comes to things like that.

Simtra and I will occasionally, if we've been pushed too far, play a game of similar sort amongst ourselves. Generally, we strike up a discussion (usually over dinner or a snack in a public place) that we know is going to get odd looks if overheard or that we know would normally be considered offensive....and we make certain we're overheard. It doesn't happen very often, but it DOES get the point across (in other words, they quit staring and stop trying to do stuff like hand us tracts or interrupt our conversation with their Word).

Unlike your friend though, it isn't about right and wrong for us. It's about having the right to a private conversation without someone interrupting it to preach about how wrong your jewelry is :P

[the-gneech.livejournal.com]

It's lack of common sense. :) Definitely. -TG

[jim-lane.livejournal.com]

C'mon down to St. Auggie if you want conservative. Big cathedral right downtown, as well as honking big Baptist, Presbyterian, Episcopal, Methodist, etc. buildings all within a core handful of city blocks.

Makes J'ville seem downright metropolitan---!

(hehehe!!!)

[tygermoonfoxx.livejournal.com]

We're frequent visitors to St. Auggie and I watch the foibles of their overly consumerist government via the eyes of our libertarian leaning paper, the Folio. However, St. Auggie has to maintain a certain amount of tolerance or they'll prejudice their main source of income: the tourist trade. I have been in St. Auggie late at night and still found plenty of places to eat, drink, and be merry.

Jacksonville, if it really is going to host the Superbowl, is in for a rude surprise if it doesn't get just a little more flexible. Even our "24 hour" stores are only open for 23 hours and lots of times the cops make them close down earlier than that.

I've always said that northeast Florida should just be given back to Georgia and Alabama; the middle section is fairly tolerant and we'll let Cuba have the bottom half :)

[torakiyoshi.livejournal.com]

You must be an eeeevil sinner, then. Repent or burn! ;)

Blah. Southern evangelists bug the living daylights out of me, and I belong to a Baptist church!

I thank God we don't belong to the Southern Baptist convention!

[torakiyoshi.livejournal.com]

Some people are just like that. Amazing how much "P" sounds just like the people he hated. :)

[fallwind.livejournal.com]

My grandmother had a saying that has kept my mouth shut many times when i wanted to act a little 'P'-ish


"Live and let live and shut up"


that, and a big dose of existentialism...