Skin Tight Jeans and the Wrath of God

When I was in elementary school, the Baptist church I attended would hold Sunday night movie nights. In my religious world, Sunday evening service was a necessity, but it also seemed like an afterthought. As a result, these evenings were often the times that the choir would present its newest cantata, or in this case, the church would show a movie that would send the congregants into a frenzy, questioning their salvation and ensuring more work for the pastor.

This was the early 1970s, and the movie A Thief in the Night was making the rounds at the more conservative churches around the country. Ours was no exception.

After reading a synopsis of the movie online, I realize I don't remember a lot about it. But there is a series of scenes that play in mind, on-command, as if I saw the movie yesterday.

On the day of the rapture, a group of teenagers is hanging out at a lake, drinking beer and flirting with each other. The girls are wearing tight jeans. That is all I had to see to know that these were bad girls. In my world, people who drank alcohol were bad. Add to that the tight jeans, and I wasn't surprised that God left them behind. (Yes, according to my research, the movie paved the way for the Left Behind series.)

Despite being only six or seven, I knew what the rapture was. In my young mind, the rapture was the day of doom when Jesus came back to earth and took all the good people and left all the bad people behind. I am sure you can guess where the tight-jeaned, beer-drinking girls ended up. Yes, when they realized the jig was up, they started running around the lake, eyes large and their long, dark hair whipping from side to side as they tried to make sense of it all. And then, before you know it, they are in line getting the mark of the devil. It was the only way for them to survive since God didn't want them.

Next thing I remember I am lying on the green and orange flowered couch in our dark den. Our house was always dark, but this particular room with its brown-paneled walls that mice skittered behind and dark brown and green carpet was the perfect room to confront one's doom. It complemented it perfectly.

I lay there for weeks. I went over it again and again in my mind. When God came back, he would take everyone I loved, but he wouldn't take me. I would be left wandering around forests looking for my parents and sister. I had asked to be saved, but, in my church, there was always a question of whether or not you really did it right.

I remember how proud my parents were when, before I saw the movie, I was overcome with emotion, and fear, and walked to the front of the church to confess my sins, conceded that Jesus had died on the cross for these sins, even though I didn't deserve it, and accepted him as my Lord and savior. But I was probably faking it. God knew I wasn't worthy.

This memory is one of the most vivid of my childhood. A few years ago, I mentioned it to my mother. Her response, "Oh I remember. I felt so guilty. You were beside yourself for weeks. You wouldn't leave the couch." WTF?

I did some research on the movie, and it turns out that it actually wreaked havoc across the fundamentalist heartland. I have to admit I was kind of pissed to learn that I wasn't the only one this movie had impacted. I wear the torment as a badge of honor. Alas, I was not the only one.

I cannot say for certain that this was the beginning of the end for me religiously. The end wouldn't come until college, where as a sophomore at a Baptist college I learned that the Bible should not be taken literally. What? How on earth could that be? This was not what I had been told. But my professors were right, and I knew it.

Between six and 19, however, I had a very, what would you say, dysfunctional relationship with God. I never believed I was saved. I "got saved" so many times that after I got married and moved across the country, I found photos of me being baptized. I was in a white robe standing in the baptismal, Brother Toppings beside me holding up his hand. I suppose he was praying for me because he knew this time wouldn't stick either.

By my permed hair, tanning bed tan and overzealous makeup, I was definitely in my teens. But that's all I've got. I have absolutely no recollection of that particular saving, But I did look pretty.

This is an ongoing journey, and you will read more about it here, but if you would like to read more about the A Thief in the Night, check out this recent article. Christian horror indeed.