Jane: 

Gina Welch’s journey into the world of Thomas Road Baptist Church began with her experience at the Scaremare house of horrors/sins.  Room after bloody, shocking room depicted a multitude of sins.  After being told that finding Jesus was the way out of that twisted maze of sins, Gina tentatively found her way to church meetings and services.  As I definitely would have, she wondered how she would find her place among the people of TRBC, and come to some sort of understanding of this very strange culture.  Her initial hurdles of "passing" as a Christian seeker bumpily worked themselves out, and she found herself immersed in a singles ministry group.  (EPIC, Experiencing Personal Intimacy with Christ).   

And then came Sunday services… 

Lizzie and I once had a great discussion about the lofty, spiritual feeling inspired by congregational singing.  Gina was affected by this as well, and came to describe the sensation as "Feeling X": group prayer as a sort of narcolepsy.  In her case, emotion won out over her political beliefs, and the experience "made the song a kind of hypnotizing rainbow swirl".    I was bowled over by her description of Feeling X, as surely as she must have been.  Even listening to Jerry Falwell’s service on the radio, she imagined walking forward in church to be saved.  What would "it feel like, to come down that aisle through the disorienting billows of all that singing"… finding "Pastor Jerry pulpited at the end… [she'd] …approach him in a nimbus cloud of light as a new believer, even as [she] held down the dark knowledge that [she] hadn’t believed a single word".  

What *would* that feel like?  Would she go through with baptism?  How far was she willing to go for her story, for her quest to understand? And, which of the two was her leading motivation? 

Her "being saved moment" was dramatic.  It took place the first Sunday that services were held in the new TRBC building.  It was packed, emotions running high, everyone was literally in their Sunday Best.  The songs were "softening her"…  Towards the end of the service, Pastor Jerry invited people to come up for "salvation, membership and baptism".  The music again created that "Feeling X".  So with sensation and  emotion running high, Gina found herself walking, bridelike, down that long aisle. 

The less dramatic, next step was filling out an application card.  

What would be the implications of knowingly being saved under false pretenses?  I wondered if there was a bad karma attached to it.  Or did Feeling X actually create a sudden belief in God?  An illusion of belief?  Did she believe that the death of Jesus relieved her of her sins?  Did she want to believe it?  I’m not being judgmental, because honestly, how many of us go through serious religious experiences, life cycle events, with a  religious, spiritually pure heart?   How different is her quest for understanding than my own desire to follow tradition without (or at least with questionable) belief?

Fast forward several months to her big day.  With terrific wit and great detail, Gina described the ironically comical minutae and mechanics of being baptised in a mega church.  The Baptismal Culotte – not quite robe, not quite pants, designed to  protect modesty when the fabric inevitably floated upwards as you were plunging down and backwards in the water. Or my favorite: being told that she was early, "Ain’t no one up there yet!  Come back at a quarter to six!"   It was difficult to grasp the seriousness of the event while she realized she forgot extra underwear and had to run to a nearby TJ Maxx, for an extra 99 cent pair.   In comparison to my own major religious experiences (becoming bat mitzvah, confirmation, wedding, my kids’ Brit Milot)  the whole thing was rather impersonal.  She had no emotional or educational connection to the pastor who dunked her, she had to wear a name tag so he’d call out her name correctly.   Her mundane details were numerous; the meaning and implications of the event, not so much.

At this point in her story, Gina was still observing and learning in a very detached way, keeping a difficult emotional distance from both the church congregants, fellow members of her EPIC Singles Ministry, prayer,  everything she immersed herself in.  The detachment served her well in this initial "reporting" of her journey.  This allowed her to eventually become familiar with what she referred to as the "evengelical personality" complete with a serious list of do’s and don’ts.  Do submit to sudden prayer, do respond to religious music, palms lifted and accepting. No swearing, no drinking, smoking, pre-marital sex.  No suggestive clothing, no dancing.  She explored the difference between her life in Charlottesville – waiting tables, going on dates, drinking… with her new TRBC life, including Walmart and sweet tea, xenophobia and faith over logic.  It was a pretty daunting dichotomy.  The message she had received from her church experience was, "being a good person doesn’t make you a Christian,  but being a Christian guarantees you will be a good person".   That’s a lot for anyone, let alone a self-professed atheist, to chew on.   But she did examine it, and herself, in the midst of it.  

Whether Gina the atheist Jew realized it or not, there is an ancient tradition in Judaism of questioning everything.  Questioning God, Torah, Talmud, the Rabbi…  That’s a stark contrast to the unquestioning faith of the evangelicals she sought to understand –  to the point of undergoing a faithless act of faith.  Her seeking to understand this particular type of Christianity was an extremely Jewish thing to do.  

And then…  EPIC began to plan an evangelical mission to Alaska.  Which was the point in her story where Gina truly began to immerse herself in the life of Thomas Road Church, in the life of an evangelical Christian.  (Hmm… immersion: church? baptismal pool?) Dichotomies and questions faded (but always poked through at the craziest moments!) as she plunged deeper and deeper.   Would she actually go to Alaska to evangelize?  The question burned in my mind as the EPIC group’s preparations rolled along.  

Part One

Part Three