Redneck Nation (15 page)

The typical Protestant church service north of the Ohio River has all the evangelical fervor of a Rotary Club, except that
Rotarians are known to quote the Holy Scriptures occasionally. Having been a music major in college, I can usually find inspiration
from sacred music in the most tomblike of settings, but in mainstream northern churches even the hymnals have been neutered
and stripped of zest. In one Methodist service, I found myself confronted with the hymn “Easter People Lift Your Voices,”
formerly
known as “Angels from the Realms of Glory.” The once-inspiring hymn had been the victim of the “inclusive language” movement
led by liberal clerics, and the song featured words like “empowered” and “choices,” along with an oblique reference to
Roe v. Wade
.

According to the
Wall Street Journal
, other changes to hymnals and prayer books include still more inclusive names for the Heavenly Being Formerly Known as the
Lord. Lords are, of course, males, and usually white males at that, so obviously this would make God a Republican, and clearly,
the thinking goes, something must be wrong somewhere.

Thus the language in church services has been changed to attract a larger, Democratic-leaning demographic. The new lyrics
refer to God as “Mother and Father God,” “Great Spirit,” “Daredevil Lover,” and, in a tip of the hat to Tammy Faye, “Bakerwoman
God.”

Northern ministers have gotten into the spirit as well. Instead of sermons filled with fire and brimstone, you’re more likely
to hear a homily addressing environmental issues. Rather than railing on the swift righteousness of the Lord’s coming judgment,
sermons more often deal with the need for social justice and Christ’s call for campaign finance reform.

It may be one of my failings as a Southerner, but I like my religion served with red meat. When I was growing up, the preacher
at my small Pentecostal church in South Carolina would no more deliver a sermon on social justice than he would support legalized
abortion or oppose the death penalty. Standing through yet another three-hour Sunday night service at South Congaree Assembly
of God, weeping and praying aloud as a frumpy teenager banged
her way through “Old Time Religion” on the piano, the atmosphere was charged with purpose: We were shining with the light
of Christ, we were defying the devil, we were in the world but were loudly letting the world know that we were absolutely
not of it.

We were sincere. We were earnest, perhaps even extreme: Though we never actually handled snakes, we knew where to get them
on short notice.

And when the revival preacher came through town, speaking night after night to the same, rugged band of a hundred or so souls,
it sometimes seemed I could hear Satan himself scratching on the church house door… though it usually turned out to be a pack
of local dogs drawn by the yowling. We saw ourselves as warriors in a struggle for the soul of America, and we had a hard
time believing that anyone north of Virginia was on our side.

The rejection of reason and the embrace of passion are two of the three fundamentals of southern spirituality. The third is
Prohibitionism, which may have begun in Massachusetts with the Puritans, but found its fulfillment in the Bible Belt.

It is no coincidence that Prohibition found its strongest adherents in the South, among the same people who made the only
corn likker worth drinking. Modern Americans miss the point of Prohibition. They see it as a cry for help from an incompetent:
“Stop me before I drink again!” That’s backward. Prohibition was supported by people who thought everyone
else
should stay sober, and had no problem using the coercive force of government to keep them that way.

Southern states have blue laws which, though finally on the wane, kept many businesses closed on Sundays for
years and still restrict some commercial transactions. Not long ago, deputies arrested a cashier at a South Carolina retailer
for the crime of selling an extension cord on a Sunday morning, thus violating community standards of decency. (Hey, what
do
you
use them for?)

Excluding Louisiana, a state settled largely by Catholics and thus considered by all decent Southerners a Papist enclave controlled
by the Whore of Babylon, Southerners have always made it difficult for their neighbors to take a drink, play cards, shoot
craps, or enjoy carnal knowledge of a lady. Tobacco, being a local cash crop, is different. It is not uncommon to see a small
congregation of smokers on the front steps of a country church finishing off a quick butt during the offertory. But in nearly
every other area of perceived public vice, Southerners are enthusiastic practitioners of the puritan art of annoying their
neighbors.

In the year 2002, for example, a well-respected women’s shelter in Charleston, South Carolina, declined to accept any proceeds
from a charity performance of the award-winning play
The Vagina Monologues
because, according to published accounts, several board members were “offended by the title.” Turning down much-needed money
that could aid battered women seemed a ridiculous position for the shelter to take until the local daily ran a listing for
the upcoming performance as
The V Monologues
. That’s right: just “
V
.”

Assuming that the performance advertised was not a collection of great moments from the 1980s NBC miniseries
V
or the twenty-second installment in a series of twenty-six monologues that began with “A,” the conclusion must be that a
daily newspaper in a major southern city in the year 2002 would not print the word “vagina.”
This has got to present quite a challenge for the medical reporter, not to mention the confusion in the movie listings when
D. Tracy
and James Bond’s
Octop
hit town.

And so, my northern friend, when you are ready to mock, ridicule, and denigrate the irrational, overzealous, blue-haired believers
of the American South, I say, “Mock away!” I lived it, breathed it, and frequently gagged on it. Southern religiosity is a
circus of nonsensical superstitions, overbearing zealots, and borderline lunacy, and when it’s time to start laughing, I want
you to save me a front-row seat.

I just have one request: Don’t make me sit next to the tree lady.

The tree lady is Julia “Butterfly” Hill, the St. Joan of the modern American religiosity, who lived in a tree and etched her
name in the Book of Saints of our new Redneck Nation. I met Julia Hill on the set of
Politically Incorrect
back when it was on ABC. She was on the show to promote her book,
The Legacy of Luna
, which describes her 738 days sitting atop a California redwood (Luna) to save it from the woodsman’s ax.

I was on
Politically Incorrect
to sit in the token conservative’s chair, the sacrificial goat for the smug Hollywood types who sit on the panel. If you
ever watched the show, you know the format: They bring out a conservative, tie us to a stake, and leave us there bleating
while they set the three lefties and Bill Maher (okay, make that
four
lefties) loose to devour us for the pleasure of the twenty-something TV audience.

When Julia (“Butterfly” if you’re nasty) and I were on together, the topic was “the environment,” which sounds much more profound
than saying that five slightly famous adults are going to sit around talking about trees. Which is what we did.

If you could reincarnate the Prohibition-era Anti-Saloon League and the old KKK (back when U.S. Senator Robert Byrd was a
proud member), they would be the environmentalists, the pro-choicers, and the Smoke Nazis of today. Trees, tobacco, and the
right to choose are the Holy Trinity of the new American zealot. Like good southern-style evangelicals, these true believers
are immune to facts and science. It’s strange to discover that the typical environmental activist has no more interest in
actual scientific research than a Baptist preacher has in the newest edition of the
Origin of Species
.

When the TV cameras rolled, I tried to offer a few facts—the relative stability of global temperature, the reforestation of
the American East Coast, the improvements in water quality that have come with new technology. But it was a waste of breath,
because Julia Butterfly’s position was based entirely on, for lack of a better term, religion. She knows the earth is hurting
because she feels it in the Earth Spirit. The trees are being “murdered,” the water’s fouled, and the Earth Mother is trying
to get us to become one with Her and live in peace.

Julia Butterfly knows this because the trees tell her. That’s right: According to her book, she talks to the trees. And unlike
Clint Eastwood in
Paint Your Wagon
, they did listen to her. They even talked back. Here’s how Butterfly
described conversing with a giant California redwood in a recent interview:

“When I was [ending the tree sit] I had to leave part of myself behind and it hurt. And so I prayed and asked, ‘How am I going
to be able to keep the clarity that I’ve gained up here from this literal perspective that I’ve had for two years? And how
am I going to handle losing the best friend I’ve ever had in my life?’ And
Luna spoke to me for the last time
[emphasis added] and said, ‘You know, Julia, anytime you get overwhelmed or feel ungrounded or at a loss, just put your hand
to your heart, because that’s where your experience is. And that’s something no one can take away from you. I’ll be with you
always.’ And that’s exactly what I’ve been doing.”

Now, you can call me a judgmental European heterosexual male if you want, but when a seemingly rational human being tells
me she has conversations with inanimate objects, I dismiss her as a loon. To me, she’s in the same category as the southern
Pentecostal who claims God told her to join Amway. So I proceeded to mock Julia on national television under the assumption
that the typical American would side with me and not with the young lady who gets career advice from a conifer.

I couldn’t have been more wrong. When the show was over, e-mails poured in from people who not only believed Butterfly’s story
but claimed they, too, had regular conversations with flora and fauna. Who was I to disparage the great spiritual connection
that people like Butterfly have with Mother Earth, Gaia, and the Spirit Goddess?

The Green movement in America is one step away from a tent revival. Druidism, animism, shamanism—the hard-core acolytes will
buy anything… except perhaps a
can of deodorant. They believe we live on a planet that can feel us, that the woods and waterways are filled with spirits,
and that a heaping bowl of organically grown amaranth flakes each morning will connect us to the spirit of the ancient Egyptians.

Looking back on it, I wonder why I was surprised. Gallup polling in the 1990s saw the percentage of Americans who believe
in haunted houses rise from 29 to 42; those who believe that the spirits of the dead can return to this world rose from 25
percent to 38 percent; and those who believe in witches grew from 14 percent to 26. Even among self-described Christians,
50 percent believe in ESP, and nearly as many believe in psychic healing. Not to mention the 80 percent of Americans who believe
the government is hiding the truth about aliens from us; the 25 percent who believe in channeling; the 32 percent who claim
to have seen an angel; and most bizarre, the 44 percent who believe that “good atheists will go to heaven,” though it remains
unclear what they’ll do once they get there.

This isn’t religious conviction; it’s nuttery of the first order. It’s theology as understood by the God-fearing Christians
back home who also carried rabbit’s feet and claimed to know spells that could cure warts.

That’s why I find it hard to share the dismissive attitude Northerners have about Southerner evangelicals and born-again Christians.
Do you know how exasperating it is to have a New Ager make fun of your religion? As a graduate of Oral Roberts, I am a magnet
for people who want to talk about their spiritual beliefs and/or their loathing of Christianity. My ORU experience was part
of my stand-up comedy act, and it was not uncommon to be harangued
after the show by audience members who wanted to get their licks in against organized religion.

After a set at a hotel in Washington State, I was dragged into a long, drawn-out discussion with a graying, balding New Ager
who just couldn’t get over my evangelical background. “You seem so smart,” he kept saying. “How could you buy into that stuff?”

Here’s a guy wearing a crystal around his neck to open up his chakra, who thinks that the spirit of a warrior from the lost
city of Atlantis is channeled through the body of a hairdresser from Palm Springs, and who stuffs magnets in his pants to
enhance his aura, and he finds evangelicalism an insult to his intelligence. I ask you: Who’s the redneck?

Come to think of it, I’m not sure if this guy—who believed in reincarnation, ghostly hauntings, and the eternal souls of animals—actually
believed in God. It’s not uncommon for Northerners, especially those who like to use the word “spirituality,” to believe in
all manner of metaphysical events, while not believing in the Big Guy. “Religious” people go to church and read the Bible,
and Northerners view them as intolerant, ill-educated saps. “Spiritual” people go hiking, read Shirley MacLaine or L. Ron
Hubbard, and are considered rational, intelligent beings.

What the modern American believer has in common with the fervent Southerners I grew up with is a wholehearted rejection of
reason. He feels no need to explain where his beliefs come from, or what evidence he’s discovered that led him to these beliefs,
or even that these beliefs make any sense. Mock the Pentecostal preacher denouncing eyeliner and lipstick as toys from the
devil’s
rumpus room if you must, but at least he is bound at some point by the text of the Bible. He’s not going to publicly advocate
theft, lying, wife-coveting, or any other direct violations of the Ten Commandments, no matter how often he may practice them
in private.