THE SEX REBEL OF JESUSLAND, chapter 122

122. THE RALLY.

Jeremiah had graciously given Adam complementary tickets to his Madison Square Garden rally. The tickets were very expensive, more costly than a Broadway theater ticket. Ever since his appearance on Adam’s program, Adam had become Jeremiah’s favorite media figure, which was why he could get free tickets. He’d been on the road with Jeremiah. Adam was the only person in the media that Jeremiah ever communicated with.

Adam had come with Rebecca at Ezra’s suggestion. Ezra called her Scarlet. Adam had met her in Ezra’s compound. She seemed to be one of the permanent guests. Her little bungalow was outfitted with many personal belongings. She had been living there a year, she said, and helped Ezra with secretarial duties. Ezra appeared to employ a variety of secretaries, all of them very sexy, and many male personal assistants, also a very sexy lot.

They were all Beloveds, but they behaved like Blesseds. The women paraded around in bikinis and wore makeup, like V-dolls, and the men wore scant briefs and sarongs as they hung out at the pool, which was where they seemed to carry out most of their secretarial duties, phone and laptop hook-ups available everywhere.

Outside Madison Square Gardens, where Jeremiah Luther held his rally, stood the usual gang of protesters that appeared at his meetings. They called themselves the Old Christians, or the Ancients, or the Real Christians, or the Authentics, and they were a little more middle-of-the-road as Christians than Jeremiah’s radical lot. They considered Jeremiah Luther to be a dangerous upstart. They included the very few black congregations that still existed, to whom all the black Americans belonged who weren’t in jail. They were not that many, since 90% of African-Americans were incarcerated and worked in the prison factory system, a little like their original slave function in the old USA of the 19th century.

Perhaps the biggest difference between the Old Christians and Jeremiah Luther was that Jeremiah Luther was insistent that his female followers only wear dresses, while the Old Christians regarded skirts also as Approved. Jeremiah Luther furthermore took a very restricted view of the songs that could be sung in his church. He had a list of fifty Approved Psalms and Hymns, and that was that. The rest he called “devil music.”

Lately the practice of scourging that so many of Jeremiah’s followers indulged in had caused much debate and comment. The Old Christians regarded this as blasphemous. Jeremiah’s followers, they said, were trying to turn themselves into “little Christs,” believing that their blood had the same sacred meaning as the blood of Jesus himself. “Self-crucifixion” was regarded by the Authentics as an act of pride that put the blood of mere humans on the same plane as the blood of God himself. This was an abomination in the eyes of the Lord.

Accordingly, the networks never lost an opportunity of showing Jeremiah’s followers in their mutual mass bloodlettings, knowing that the controversy inevitably brought them higher ratings.

This was the first time Jeremiah had appeared in New York. He was a Southerner, whose rallies typically roamed across the south and the mid-West, concentrating on rural communities and the big suburbs. He was suspicious of cities. He called them the homes of “the decadent, liberal elite.” He called himself the leader of the ‘Y’all Christians, the jes’ plain folks.” He referred to New York as “Sodom” and the home of the seditious “Semites.”

Jeremiah was referring to those Jews who had taken the choice of conversion, after the President offered them the Three Enlightened Choices for Semites.

One: convert and stay in America as a Former Semite who might, after five years, graduate to the status of a true Beloved.

Two: become an Israeli citizen who could still stay in New York as an alien resident.

Three: move to Israel.

The first two categories were regarded as deportable immigrants. They were living in New York on sufferance. All Semites had to move to New York because it was easier to deport them from this city at a moment’s notice. It was also a quick way to clear Hollywood of all Semitic influence. It was in any event important for most of the Jews to end up in Israel because the Rapture required that they be there.

Adam had tickets for the Divine Circle at Jeremiah’s Rally, where those who had brought their finger-scourging instruments stood, right in front of the stage from which Jeremiah Luther preached. Here Adam took up his close position to the action on stage, with Scarlet standing in front of him. She wore white, like everyone else.

Jeremiah roamed the big stage like a tiger. Sometimes he sat on the floor or on the edge of the stage. At other times he would mount one of the many stairways placed on the stage. The lighting changed all the time. When his voice was low, the light would narrow around him in a spotlight, and when he suddenly blazed into a loud statement, the lighting would flicker, and burst into flashes. The lighting was synched with his voice. It was tremendously effective, Adam thought. High-tech religion.

“My children, my pilgrims,” said Jeremiah Luther, his arms raised high. “We are gathered here together to welcome the last days. I had a vision last night. An angel appeared to me, and he said: be ready. My children, are you ready? Have you cleansed yourself through the blood of the lamb? Are you ready for sacrifice? Are you ready to spill your life for Jesus? Are you ready to suffer? Jesus suffered for us. He hung from that cross in a terror of agony and cried out to heaven. My God, why have You forsaken me? Would you like to ask that question? Has God forsaken you? Have you abandoned God? Have you committed any acts of treason against him? Have you lived your life as a pilgrim, as a patriot, for Jesus?

“Here we are, in the United States Under Christ. Yes, I know it’s not a legal statement I’m making, we are still on the books as the United States Under God. But where it counts, in our hearts, we know this land of ours is the United States Under Christ. Christ! Our Lord!”

The audience erupted. This was a controversy that had raged for months, ever since Joshua Grant, now held hostage by infidel Muslims, had mentioned it in a speech. Were they a United States Under God or Under Christ? Those in favor of God said the USUG was a nation that included everybody who admitted that God was the Father of us all, but those that favored Christ said God was another name for Allah or Yahweh or any other deity for that matter, and only the appellation “Christ” said what the nation really was, a Christian nation, and therefore a nation under Christ. Now Jeremiah Luther had added his voice to the conversation. He had cast his vote for Grant as President.