Mark's Notebook


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The Punk-Christian Son of a Preacher Man

New York Times Magazine

Sunday 23 January 2005, 1:45 pm
Keywords: Christian Topics , News Articles

By John Leland

At 29, Jay Bakker still faintly recalls the cherubic kid who appeared almost from birth with his parents, Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker, on their syndicated television show, "The PTL Club," then disappeared during the family's sexual and legal scandals in the 1980's. "We're just trying to love people with no agenda," he told the group. "That's hard, to be a Christian and have no agenda, and it's hard for people to think of a Christian with no agenda."

This was an important night for the ministry, he announced. The Masquerade, a multistory rock club, had invited them to hold their weekly services there, with cocktail waitresses and a full bar. Though the club is secular, its three levels are called Heaven, Purgatory and Hell. "Maybe this is what the postmodern church is supposed to look like," he said. "For the first time I feel we're having some peace in this, we're starting a church where there is no church. We're not the first to do this, but for Revolution, it's a big step."

Bethra Szumski, 33, a tattoo artist, said she came to Revolution in 2002 with a low opinion of Christians, whom she found judgmental. She told me she believed in God, not in church or religion. But she was drawn to Bakker because he was wrestling with his own problems and because he did not judge her. "Under my own resources, I'm incredibly ineffective to do anything except self-destruct," she said. "He said salvation wasn't anything I could find on my own. Jesus had atoned for me." At Revolution, she said, the teaching never strayed far from this core idea of grace. "We hear that a lot, it's really repetitive, but I need to hear that every single week."

Revolution is one of several thousand alternative ministries that have emerged in the last decade, meeting in warehouses, bars, skate parks, punk clubs, private homes or other spaces, in a generational rumble to rebrand the faith outside of what we think of as church. To travel among them is to feel returned to the alternative-rock scene of 15 years ago, just before Nirvana and Lollapalooza put it on the map. Instead of criticizing major record labels, these ministries criticize megachurches; instead of flattening the status of the rock star, they flatten the status of the pastor. They cluster in cells rather than in denominations or arenas, and connect through D.I.Y. zines online. They are a counterculture on two fronts: at odds with both their secular peers and conventional churches.

"We've all been damaged by fundamentalism or the traditional church," said Bakker's assistant pastor, Matt DeBenedictis, who came to Revolution after being a roadie for various rock bands, Christian and secular. "I know so many people who won't call themselves Christians but are following God and Jesus -- who walked away from seminary or Christian rock bands, and who feel completely outcast."

"We're not about issues," Bakker said. "We don't get on bandwagons. In the church today, the only two things that matter are abortion and homosexuality." He shied away from taking a position on either of these issues. "I'm not saying something's right, something's wrong," he said. "I don't have a right to judge. God's called us to love people no matter who they are or what they've done. ... You can't change people. You can for a little while, but eventually they'll rebel or be hurt or realize what's going on. I'm not in that rat race. I'm just in the game to say, 'This is who Jesus is, he loves you for who you are and hopefully you see that in my life and you see the positive things that are coming from it.'"

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/01/23/magazine/23BAKKER.html