Leaving "Grace City"

*** I will periodically interject in the middle of quoting people in this blog. My interjections will be in parenthesis... ***

If you are a local to Las Vegas you are familiar with the free publication "The Las Vegas Weekly". In the February 21-27 issue pastor Dave Earley is featured on the cover with the headlines, "This Man Wants to Save Las Vegas: For a year, Pastor Dave Earley asked God where to start his church. Now, he's ready to turn Sin City into Grace City." The article was written by journalist, Rick Lax. I have to say I don't know Rick personally, but I'm familiar with who he is. He frequents where I work often to do his writing with his laptop. I have never spoken to him before, but now I will after I realized he was the one who wrote this article. I picked up the copy of this issue at an antique mall - where religious ideas belong. The whole concept is quite dated to say the least, however I decided to read the article and critique it. So here it is:

The article starts,

In 2012, 19 evangelists from Liberty University moved to the Valley to start a church. Now, Grace City is ready to save your soul. The author follows with, Pastor Dave Earley prays the way you and I scroll through Facebook news feeds, the way we watch TV, the way we breathe. All day, nonstop. As someone who no longer has Facebook I guess this doesn't include me. (Don't get me wrong, I am absolutely bragging.) However, I do watch TV and breathe on occasion. The article says that God woke up pastor Earley in the middle of the night by saying "Google Las Vegas". OK. I haven't even reached the end of the first paragraph of this piece and I'm already shaking my head. I just love how the God who is vulnerable to iron chariots (Judges 1:19) or doesn't understand modern medicine (Leviticus 14) is very much familiar with our largest internet search engine, Google. This modern day Christianity if so fucking ridiculous.

Paster Dave obviously then used google to look at Las Vegas (God despises "Bing" and "Yahoo" by the way) he saw a "broken city, a city that needed to be saved." What did pastor Dave do? He decided to donate money to nonprofit organizations like Three Square or Citizens United that help feed the homeless in Las Vegas first then fly out to Vegas to volunteer personally with these organizations. He decided to end hunger in Vegas. Oh, no I'm sorry... He decided to fly out here and proselytize to these poor people instead. Eh, same thing I guess. Nothing satisfies the aching hunger pangs like a good dose of "you are a sinner and you need to accept Christ or else burn in hell forever. But remember God loves you.". Yum!

Pastor Dave Earley used to teach "church planning" at Liberty University in Lynchburg, Virginia. Yeah, that's right, that's the Jerry Falwell church. The crazy man who said homosexuals are causing hurricanes or some dumb ass shit. To his credit our journalist, Rick Lax addresses this in the article and asks him bluntly,

Liberty is a big school. We're all trying to follow the Bible the best way we know how, the good pastor says.

I loved the public relations contortion (for Liberty University) he gives to spin his way out of that. Apparently the group prayed for 40 days, seven hours a day for Las Vegas. This group must not have read the multiple scientific studies proving that prayer does not work. They raised financial support so they could pray "full time". I wonder if they took lunch breaks? Do you think they get benefits? Their mission was to pray away the sin in sin city and turn it into "Grace City".

Gag.

Before we go any further, I should be upfront about my impression of the author of this article - the journalist Rick Lax. He could be described as a "pretty boy". He is always looking through the "Dating/Relationships" section at the bookstore I work at. On more than one occasion he has picked up the book The Game: Penetrating the Secret Society of Pickup Artists by Neil Strauss. The title says it all. To give him the benefit of the doubt he may have been doing research for a new article, but my guess is it was for personal use. He wears those jeans with these ornamental crosses and glittery gold gems all over the pockets. You know the jeans. He wears black v-neck t-shirts. He sits there, cocky with his laptop checking his facebook status constantly. So that's who's writing this. That's whose eyes we're viewing this pastor Dave through.

So ever-so-cool Mr. Lax sets the scene for us next:

We're in front of the UNLV Franklin J. Koch Auditorium. Winter break just ended a few days back and Grace City is trying to recruit new members by handing out fliers in a booth across from Kaplan Test Prep and next to 5-Hour Energy. The Grace City booth has free coffee but as Rick says, "it's hard to compete with free energy." Right, Rick, ... that's right. Our gonzo journalist Rick Lax goes on about a girl in the group saying "I like your shirt" to a passerby. A guy in the group (and I quote) "majestically bows" to other students passing by. This breaks the ice, the guy stops, and the associate pastor Sam Frye talks to this dude,

. . . and this is fucking boring. I'll skip ahead...

Pickup Artist 101: After you move in on a set, your wingman drops by and offers body contact as a social proof. - Rick Lax. Yes this is in the article.

Must everything have to go back to "picking up chicks", Rick?

OK back to the subject matter of the article:

The associate pastor tells his story. He was working on getting his masters degree at Liberty University while working at Olive Garden. I can relate to associate pastor Sam. At around the same age (25) I too was getting a college education to eventually answer God's calling - join the ministry. Sam asked God to show him which city he wanted him to live in to carry out God's ministry by the age of 30. At the age of 29, wouldn't you know it, God pointed him to Pastor Dave and Las Vegas! Just in the nick of time! The lesson I get from this? - God is a procrastinator.

The associate pastor is asked what he saw when he arrived in Las Vegas. 

A lot of sadness. I saw a lot of homeless people - the look on their faces, the emptiness, the drug addictions, the alcohol addictions, the isolation, the loneliness. Vegas is a transient place, so people get stuck in depression, and that leads to the addictions. People need to fill that void.

Lax follows with a cheesy little joke - "I was expecting him to say, 'The Bellagio fountains.'" Really, Rick? Really? I'm just a barely a 1/4th my way through this article and I already like these Bible thumpers more than the person writing this article.

Sam goes on,

We believe that Jesus is the way - the only way. A lot of people think there are other ways to fill the void and other ways to God and other ways to Heaven. We want to let them know that the only true fulfillment is in Christ.

Lax points out that Vegas is primarily anti-Christian, in a way that's what Vegas represents. It is after all "Sin City." True. He sites examples. However, Rick seems to miss the problem with everything the associate pastor just said. First off,  yes there is a lot of drugs and alcohol addicts and a lot of sadness, blah blah, but there is a lot of this in Detroit or Miami too. We could name several cities. What about other countries? I think Sam needs to visit areas in the Middle East, Africa, North Korea. These are real concerns if you are concerned about the quality of life for citizens.

Sam believes that Jesus is the way. This first sentence is enough. That is all he needs to say. It's no longer necessary for follow up sentences after that. It's Sam's belief and that's his opinion. However he goes on saying, Jesus is the ONLY way. Well, not only is Jesus NOT the only way, but we should back up to hammer in the very legit question - "Why is there even 'a way' in the first place?" A way to save ourselves from? .. you lost me at - punishment. You lost me at - Sin. Sam explains that there are people who think there are other ways to "fill this void" (because we all know if you subtract the addiction to alcohol and drugs you must fill it with worship of an ancient Jewish desert god) Other ways to get to heaven? I've said many times the Christian version of heaven sounds like hell to me. As Christopher Hitchens said, it sounds like North Korea. (with all the constant praise and worshiping of the dear leader). We are a nation obsessed with this "going to heaven" thing right now. Just look at the bestselling NON-FICTION (I reiterate - NONFICTION) books now at your local bookstore (if you still have one) and you will see what I mean. Heaven is not real. Sorry. And not to be all progressive Christian Rob Bell on you, but neither is hell either! There isn't a shred of evidence for any of it - even in books written by children or neurosurgeons or pastors. The hypothesis lacks sufficient evidence. The extraordinary claims have not met the need of extraordinary evidence.

The next setting Lax guides us to is a Sunday morning Grace City "church" service at Desert Bloom Park. 150 people are in attendance at this particular service. There's a wide variety of people, ranging from an old man wearing rainbow suspenders and a baby or two. I don't know. According to Rick Lax the sun peers through the cloud at the particular moments when the pastor is hammering home a point. What? Really? I know he was just trying to be cute here but I still cringed when I read that part.

Gag.

Pastor Dave preaches (the parentheses are my mystery science interjections),

Jesus knows what it is to suffer emotional anguish. He knows what pain is all about. He was beaten, whipped - they basically whipped him raw, took the skin off his back, put stakes in his hands and feet. (AND good morning little children, I Hope you like descriptions of graphic torture in the morning.) He suffered. Jesus Christ suffered physically, mentally and emotionally. (Christians really love playing this gore card to pull on the heart strings. It may work if one doesn't use their brain for two seconds. If one doesn't know any history. If one doesn't compare it to much worse suffering. What about the burning of witches in early America or being pulled apart on "the rack" for being a heretic in the Middle Ages? That HAS to hurt worse then being nailed then hung to a cross for a couple of days.) All of your sin and my sin (Sin City tie in!! whoop! whoop!) was dumped on Jesus Christ. (Maybe I wanted to keep my sin, damn it. Did you ever consider that option, Jesus Christ!? I do LIVE here in "Sin City". Now I just feel like a tourist since you forcibly took my sins away, Jesus. Thank you so much.) But God took the worst event in history (really? The worst?? The mass extinctions like "The Great Dying" or K-T boundary extinctions come to mind. Black plague. I could go on.) and he turned it into the best event in human history. (Really, the best?? I would lean towards the discovery of anticeptics. Or how about language? We did escape earth's atmosphere and LAND on the moon in the 60's! Robots we sent that are roaming around Mars just recently discovered that the geology and chemistry of Mars was absolutely compatible for life billions of years ago... Come on, Dave!)

I love this typical diatribe from Christian salesmen: (Now do your best to follow this line of logic!) God set up this one rule God can not break. Except he can but only by sending himself (who is also his own son) to atone for the almost unbreakable rule he set up in the first place. You know, "the way". The ONLY way to save your soul (a fictional mystical essence we all apparently have that has no physical characteristics) come on now! Just think this through for a second, Christian readers. Not one part of this is verified by any amount of sound evidence.

According to "ladies man" Lax, pastor Dave prays, the sun peaks out, and it's time for burgers and hotdogs. He meets Jeremiah, a one-handed guitar player (he should join a band with the drummer from "Def Leopard") and a drug addict that makes as much as $65 an hour as a street performer on the strip. The article says that he had a pot addiction. A pot addiction? is that real? I mean, is that a problem? It's pot, not meth. Maybe this guy needs to just learn how to better manage his street money. There's nothing wrong with smoking some grass if you are wise about how much you spend on it and maybe use it in moderation. It's now legal in a couple states. Jeremiah was dumped by his girlfriend which was proceeded by suicidal thoughts. He didn't go through with these thoughts, but it wasn't like he didn't try. Several times he jumped out into traffic only to have the oncoming vehicles stop before colliding with him.

Jeremiah's car breaks down and he gets a ride from pastor Dave's son, Andrew. During this ride Jeremiah admits to being "addicted to pot" and they go and smash all his bongs (how dramatic! . . . and tragic!) Now Jeremiah has replaced getting high with prayer.

Gag!

(He should try getting high THEN praying.)

Pastor Dave says, 

God uses my son Andrew for people on the edge, people who are gay, addicted, homeless, suffering with mental things - they're drawn to him. Even though he's a pastor's son, he's not like a pastor's son; he has like 30 tattoos. Andrew doesn't try to recruit these people, God brings them to him. They're homeless or they're couch surfers or they're addicted... and now they're free.

Wow. Yeah, there was a lot to break down there but what I noticed most was what Rick correctly picks up on - the gay part. Equating gay with mental illness and other problems. When confronted about the gay part Pastor Dave carefully dances,

I'm just referring to people who have at one time or another been viewed as being on the fringes of mainstream society. In the Bible Belt there are many traditional families with a husband and wife and three kids. Here there are more addicts, more street people and more people with what used to be called alternative lifestyles. Dave goes on to say that there are several people with "alternative lifestyles" that attend Grace City church.

Dave and his son describe themselves as "liberators of lost souls". They describe Las Vegas after being here a short time, People don't come here to go to church; they come here to gamble . It's a sad city. (unless you win a bunch of money, of course) The suicide rate is high (True.) - Three times the national average. The divorce right is high (well duh); and the addiction rate is high (to pot?). People are isolated in this town. A lot don't have families. They're looking for a family. (A family that tells you if you don't follow their line of worship and slave service to their deity he will torture you with fire for all eternity. - you know - a loving family!)

Here's where I REALLY part ways with our cheeky local journalist ...

After the service a woman approaches pastor Dave who has cancer. Pastor Dave and his wife stand on either side of the woman and pray for her cancer to go away. Ricky goes on to talk about if this women approached him he wouldn't even know where to begin. He states its easy to be skeptical about prayer making a difference. He even references the John Templeton Foundation study that found that prayer actually harms those in recovery. Rick Lax says,

Its easy to see that this woman approached Pastor Dave looking for help, and after the prayer, she felt a little bit better. Every parishioner who showed up Sunday morning seemed to.

What?? No Rick. No. You are following for that trap. Just because the placebo effects work doesn't mean it isn't wrong. Wrong is wrong. Period. There is no "Bill O'Reilly Logical Argument" applied here (each person has their own Truth). The evidence in various studies point conclusively that prayer doesn't work. I do give Rick some credit for mentioning the John Templeton Foundation study that found prayer does not work. Another study he could have mentioned is the Study of the Therapeutic Effects of Intercessory Prayer (STEP). This study produced the same results: Prayer doesn't work. It is comical to note that in this study those patients receiving intercessory prayer actually fared worse than those not receiving it. Maybe prayer does work but only in the opposite way we expect it to. I am reminded of Bill Hicks "trickster god" he describes when talking about Creationists saying that God put fossils here to "test our faith". So the lesson here is do not pray for people that are sick unless you want them to get worse.

If you follow the evidence as all reasonable people should you would come to the conclusion that all of this (from the Pastor thinking he is helping by praying to the woman who "feels better now" to our edgy favorite local journalist saying everyone seemed better off) is a giant waste of time. The best I can personally give to prayer as a practice is the meditative benefits of doing it. I even know an atheist that prays (merely using it as a methodology, not talking to any actual deity). I know an atheist friend of mine that meditates too. It's essentially internal focus and "getting it all out" into the open, privately of course. This could be healthy at relieving some stress, but yoga and meditation work much better than prayer in my opinion.

Lax switches the scene ending this article. He takes us to Andrew's (Pastor Dave's son) apartment. As pastor Dave puts it "people on the edge" are all gathered inside. He describes those in attendance of this Bible study. People with just one arm and missing toes. (More band members!) One person who was stabbed in the chest but fully recovered. How? God of course. Atheists prepare the meals for this meeting. Atheists? Rick Lax explains that one atheist, Arturo, has constant pressure from Grace City to convert to Christianity. Arturo says, They know I prefer not to be hassled, so instead they pray for me. (useless and apparently harmful as we've previously pointed out) I just smile and thank them. This atheist doesn't get it. Don't encourage Christians by thanking them for prayer but show them how prayer doesn't work. It's just a fact. Even if there are good intentions behind these prayers, it's a complete waste of time. *See Daniel Dennett talking about Christians who prayed for him when he was recovering in the hospital.

Andrew gathers everyone into a circle in the room and tells each person to pray the "evil spirits" out of the room. He then counts down 1-2-3, then BOOM! ? What? Rick writes, "Then BOOM! Wall of sound." I have no idea what that means. And no explanation, and moving on apparently... The one arm guy is praying angrily. Another is praying like a televangelist. And yet another is laying their hands on another in prayer. After this spectacle, they go around the circle reading Bible verses and explaining what they mean to each of them. (You know - it's all relative and subjective with Bible verses. )
Rick says "it's moving stuff". I sense the sarcasm. Or maybe that's just great writing. "But truth be told I'm getting bored and eyeing the door." Andrew says to our journalist, "Thanks for staying." Rick writes, "It's like he's seen into my soul."

What? Soul? Really, Rick?! That's the way that paragraph ends. No explanation, just yeah it's like he saw into my soul and moving on... Now here we are at the end of the article and this is wear the blood begins to boil. Up until this moment it was just a comical poorly written article about fringe evangelical thinking written by a pathetic, cocky excuse for a journalist, but now it just got real:

The picture at the top of the page shows pastor Dave heading up a presentation at Jack Schofield Middle School. It shows him preaching to children with a slide that reads, "Jesus has done, is doing, and will do many things. 1. In the Past, Jesus Created. As part of the trinity, Jesus created the heavens and the earth (Genesis 1:1, 26-27, John 1:1-3, Col. 1-16, Hebrews 1:2, 7-11)" This is a public school. Yes, a PUBLIC school. This is reprehensible and screams violation between church and state. It's time to make some phone calls regarding this.

The article ends with quoting pastor Dave,

Our next steps, Pastor Dave says, are, one, change the spiritual atmosphere in the city by growing and expanding our house of prayer an, two, train an army of passionate, radical young leaders who want to serve this city with the love of God. And we want to see Sin City transformed into Grace City. We want to see thousands of young people come into the kingdom of God and experience the goodness of personal relationship with Jesus. We want to see people flying into Vegas from all over the world in order to encounter God.

Rick Lax explains that it is highly unlikely Vegas, "Sin City" will turn into "Grace City" any time soon. The "Sin City" brand is much too strong. I would obviously have to agree with him here. He ends the article showing undeserved respect to Grace City,

And he's (Pastor Dave) is right when he says they need help. Whether they need Christ to fill the void or just friendship and support is up for debate (NO RICK! It's NOT up for debate!), but there's no debating that Grace City offers all three.

All three? I counted 2. OK so our young journalist is bad at math too. Or maybe it's 1. filling void. 2. friendship. 3. support. I don't know. Overall I give this article a C-. I guess when I reflect on my grade I realize that it's mostly due to my jealousy of Rick Lax. Not because of his "pickup artist skills" but because he gets to write in a newspaper about this. When I initially picked up this edition of the Las Vegas Weekly I was very excited to do a review on something I know so much about - Evangelical lifestyle. I grew up in this environment. Our family, our friends, our church loved Jerry Falwell and considered him a man of God. My cousin and a few other people I knew attended Liberty University because it was a "good school". I was highly disappointed to say the least when I realized who it was who wrote the article. Rick didn't deserve to touch this subject matter, in my opinion. Reading from the beginning it's all I could think about. How in the world did Rick Lax write this? What an asshole. In all reality I wish it was me writing an article on pastor Dave and "Grace City" for the Las Vegas Weekly.

I've started this blog with intentions to "get out" all I have to say about religion and all it's poisonous dogma. I have aspirations of being a writer of some sort in some respect some day. I suppose my jealousy got the best of me with this article. In all reality Rick Lax is probably a fine enough guy if I were to ever get to know him. After I wrote this I saw Rick lifting weights at the UNLV gym. I wanted to approach him but everyone knows you don't attack someone's writing when they are lifting dumbbells over their head. Fact is, he's writing articles for local newspapers and I'm writing a google blog. Maybe one day somehow he'll come across this blog and kick my ass when he sees me. Or maybe he'll think it's edgy and funny and we'll become best friends (Facebook friends, of course).

I wish pastor Dave and his team a healthy life, but I think they are wasting their lives with this evangelizing the damaged people of Las Vegas. At least google another city. I used to think the same. I wanted to be like Jay Bakker. He was also a tattooed street evangelist, holding sermons in broken down buildings and bars. He was delivering the message of "Christ's love" to the druggies, the prostitutes, the homeless, the rejected citizens of this country. Why can't we just show them human love and leave it at that. What I've come to learn is that it is important to help those in need, but just preaching to them about an ancient Jewish desert god and his son's murder by the Romans is not the way to do it. (even with free coffee involved) These people need help with their addiction, with money, with food. The fact is you don't need Jesus, his father, his ghost, or his book to help people in need. You don't need supernatural nonsense. You just need time and the willingness to do it. Support your local secular charities and get involved. Here's a few links below:

The original Las Vegas Weekly Article:
http://www.lasvegasweekly.com/news/2013/feb/21/liberty-university-evangelists-save-las-vegas/?fb_action_ids=10152583395915611&fb_action_types=og.likes&fb_source=aggregation&fb_aggregation_id=246965925417366

An excellent video on superstition and prayer:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LWo3kTYb8W0

A great book on Liberty University: 

The Unlikely Disciple: A Sinner's Semester at America's Holiest University by Kevin Roose

Get involved and help feed the hungry in Las Vegas:

http://www.threesquare.org/

http://www.meetup.com/actsofkindness/events/11451044/

https://pals.pioneersvolunteer.org/VM/project.aspx?ID=18714

Meet Grace City:

http://gracecityvegas.com/

Meet Rick Lax:

http://lawschoolblogger.com/

http://www.lasvegasweekly.com/staff/rick-lax/