Perhaps it’s due to my upbringing in a temperamentally (but not politically) conservative denomination, but I’m put off by enthusiastic displays of religious fervor. The sermon and the music may indeed be inspiring, but if the person behind you repeatedly is moved to cry “Amen” or “Hallelujah”, that can be as irritating as someone talking during a movie. Is it that hard to contain a God-filled spirit, or is the worshipper just calling attention to himself? Public displays of piety don’t spring from a virtuous impulse—it even says so in the New Testament. Thankfully, it has been many years since I had witnessed such behavior, but I saw it again on Tuesday in a gathering of true believers.
Comedian Lewis Black was promoting his new book “Me of Little Faith” at the Commonwealth Club in Palo Alto. I laughed at his wry and often biting observations as I paged through its short chapters. The religious right and its allies in the Republican Party come under fire in much of the book, and he came up with new twists on their intolerance, closed mindedness, and hypocrisy, hackneyed themes though these be.
What I found revealing about the evening was the hostility that emanated from every pore in the audience toward his book’s targets. A mildly derogatory comment about former Senator Rick Santorum (R-PA) triggered a stream of hisses. A funny observation about the religiosity of the deep South prompted loud, derisive laughter. One questioner asked, “What would you do if John McCain is elected?” hoping that the horrific possibility would catalyze Lewis Black into the paroxysms for which his act is famous. He simply replied, “You have to see who his V.P. is.” He continued about McCain “He’s on the verge of being psychotic” and compared him to a large-mouth bass; these remarks were not quite the red meat that his listeners sought. Lewis Black sensed where his audience wanted to go and, I think, halted before they got there.
Lewis Black was serious, too. He talked about his brother’s battle with and death from cancer. Ron supported Lewis during his starving-artist years, and though Lewis was too disciplined to break from his stage character, his sorrow and affection for his brother were palpable.
He riffed on the writer’s life. On inspiration: “Well, first I wake up and touch myself [laughter].” On pausing to think: "The one thing I learned about writing---when you write, you get to that impasse and you say that you’re going to think about that. That doesn’t work. Does anyone really say 'I’m going to think about that' and actually get real thoughts? So I lay down and then I touch myself." On writing with a pen: "Writing longhand, you think differently than with a keyboard. I write longhand."
How has faith affected the Bush Administration? "The problem is that when you give yourself over, you stop thinking." How true. As I looked at the sea of faces raptly uplifted to Lewis Black’s words, I was struck by their similarity in appearance to the supporters of at least one Presidential candidate. Thought, I fear, will be in short supply during the next four years. © 2008 Stephen Yuen
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