The Great Derangement - Matt Taibbi [82]
“But Ron,” I said, “aren’t liberal judges usually against the death penalty?”
He frowned. “I guess, yes.”
“So you’re saying,” I said, “that liberal judges who are against the death penalty often make mistakes by sending people to be executed by the death penalty, which they’re against?”
He looked at me and a new expression—suspicion—came over his face. “Um,” he said, “I guess what I was saying is—wait, are you a Democrat or a Republican?”
I smiled. “Oh, I’m a Republican, of course,” I said.
“Me too,” he said, sighing in relief.
“I just didn’t understand what you were talking about,” I said.
“Oh,” he said. “Okay. I guess I was just saying, people make mistakes. It does make you think sometimes, though.”
“Yeah, sure,” I said, frowning again. “But I’m still totally for the death penalty.”
“Oh, me too,” he said.
I smiled again. I felt sorry for the guy, but Jesus—what a pussy. So afraid of being labeled a political dissident that he has to keep his doubts and his rational opinions hidden behind some half-assed tirade against “liberal judges.”
I had already seen this same phenomenon at least a dozen times. For most churchgoers it isn’t a conflict, but there are a few who struggle at times with the political orthodoxy that somewhat unexpectedly goes hand in hand with the religious orthodoxy they so enthusiastically volunteered for. Many of these people don’t mind being an ever-saluting soldier for God, but they chafe a little at some of the other restrictions. I knew one churchgoer who admitted that he smoked marijuana on occasion, and he even tried to convince me that it was harmless and just something that he did “to relax” every now and then—but when I went silent he quickly insisted that he only used it according to a doctor’s advice, and that he abhorred drug abuse, etc., etc.
I shook Ron’s hand and peered at him queerly. “Well, you have a nice evening,” I said. “It was nice to meet you.”
“You, too,” he said, tapping my shoulder. “God bless you!”
“God bless you, too,” I said, walking out.
BY THE MIDDLE of March, after many months in the church, I was finding it harder and harder to drag myself to church events. On the one hand, playing the role of a good Christian—a superficially good Christian—had become not merely easy but effortless. I was no Joel Osteen, but I could handle most biblical conversations by then, was able to pray out loud convincingly in a group in a pinch, and at any rate had mastered a blank, beatific, whacked-in-the-face-with-a-pine-plank expression that seemed effective in conveying an air of simple, sincere devotion to folks who might otherwise have been curious about what I was doing there.
But on the other hand, I was having an increasingly difficult time swallowing certain aspects of the experience. There was a deep-seated viciousness and intellectual violence interwoven into the church ideology that I simply didn’t understand, which at times made it hard for me to play my part.
There were a great many things about the church that I could readily understand and identify with—the genuine warmth and sense of community that we all felt at the Bible-study meetings, the easy intimacy with other members of the church, the sense of belonging and being a part of something, the feeling of relief that comes with the knowledge that you don’t have to figure it out all by yourself, that at least some of the answers are there for you.
I understood these things. I didn’t have to fake the friendliness, the emotional connectedness. At the Bible-study meetings I could see clearly that this chance that people had to get together and be welcomed and listened to and appreciated by others was a source of tremendous comfort, that it was an antidote for loneliness and rejection. When I saw poor confused Laurie singing and dancing with the group, or Frances and old Dr. Hiroshi holding hands as they read their Bible together, I didn’t have to fake a smile. I could feel the “spirit of gladness” coursing through the room. And even though I don’t believe in God, I felt I understood