I wanted to see if they could tell me something important about God before I go to meet the Creator, if the Creator does in fact exist. And I made two interesting observations:

1. The apparent communal atmosphere of the church, whether perceived or real. I'm inclined to think that unlike other churches, the attendees of this one were hardly as close-knit as other congregations -- this being a church on a military base and the members being diverse enough in age to lead me to suspect that they're not Bingo buddies -- and yet many of them felt comfortable sharing their difficulties and joys during the part of the service in which persons ask for the prayers of the congregation or submit their own success stories as evidence of the greatness of the Lord. Today, for example, one woman praised God for allowing her husband to return safely to her from Iraq (which struck me as being odd, since he's apparently been back for a year -- does she say the same thing every Sunday?), a child praised God for granting her visiting grandmother safe passage (cute), a man asked the congregation to pray for his ailing wife (definitely understandable), and a family lamented their car troubles and praised God because apparently the latest difficulty is covered by warranty and will therefore be fixed without incurring any additional costs. What? That last one had me scratching my head -- while I can understand the family being glad about that, if it had been me, I'm not sure I would've submitted it after the preceding testimonies and requests, as it seems kinda trivial in comparison. But perhaps the congregation truly wasn't judging or comparing the individual statements, or at least the speakers didn't expect them to. Interesting.

2. The second observation was that the sermon seemed very insubstantial -- at least to me -- but then it was highly apparent that the preacher wasn't speaking to me in the least. There were no arguments here for the greatness of God's plan, no detailed analyses of questionable or confusing passages, just highlighting of fairly simple statements of Christ (promises of Heavenly rewards for believers and whatnot) and pronouncements that God has defeated Satan and that God's plan cannot be thwarted. Which for me raises a number of interesting questions, one being that Satan was supposed to be the brightest of the angels, so why does he apparently continue to war with God if all of his efforts are futile and he's already utterly lost the battle? But I digress.

My point is that while I imagine that the sermon might have been uplifting and reassuring for a true believer (and it was a good sermon in that respect, and it wasn't without its share of interesting personal reflections -- which admittedly seemed too good to be true, but still -- and rhetorical flourishes), I didn't really derive any benefit from it -- nor did the pastor seem to intend to communicate with non-Christians except for the typical "let Christ into your heart" pronouncement. But never is there any explanation of precisely what that would entail. One could say the words, but it's pretty difficult to force oneself to believe something that one doesn't believe and has little justification for believing.

And so I found it slightly insulting -- or more confusing, I guess -- that the preacher compared what he called God's "promises" (that 1. God has defeated Satan and that 2. we, therefore, can defeat sin -- not really promises on the surface, but strength in crisis and admission to Heaven follows from them) to all you can eat buffets and declared that if anyone hears these words and still goes hungry, it's that person's fault. Which is actually a common refrain of Christians, if not Christianity itself -- that non-Christians must actively have rejected God and are therefore to be blamed for their lack of faith (though it generally sounds better when the unbelievers derive apparent delight from their ungodly lifestyles). I'm not so much confused by the belief itself, mind you -- one is pretty much committed to it if one believes in Hell, as God's condemnation of one who didn't actively reject God would be unjust (and is arguably unjust even if the unbeliever did) -- but I do find it strange that people seem to think that the Bible, or even Christianity in the absence of Biblical study (I've known quite a few fairly sincere Christians who were hardly Biblical scholars), is so easily understood and overwhelmingly compelling that one would have to be overtly defiant to not become a Christian upon even the most fleeting experience with the religion. But in spite of the fact that, given the number of Christian denominations, even Christians apparently don't agree on the meaning of the Scriptures or the specifics of what God wants from them, maybe the majority of Christians do feel as if the truth of (their particular brand of) Christianity is patently obvious to all but the most closed of hearts and minds.

I also attended a Christian comedy show on Friday night, but that review's going on Scary-Crayon. I'll link it when it's up. Until then, ja.