Spectator's Journal/Mom, Can I Go Out to Pray
Rocca, Francis X.
T he Baltimore Arena is a forlorn place. Less than half a mile away are the expensive shops of Harborplace and the state-of-the-art ballpark at Camden Yards, but the Arena's neighbors are porno...
...Constitution, all for sale along with video tapes and Miracle Day T-shirts at tables by the entrances...
...It all hinges on the banishment of prayer...
...his blond mane is cut like a rockabilly musician's, short on the sides and down past his shoulders in back...
...Inside, its concrete walls are crumbling...
...On Thursday, June 17, it is the setting for "Miracle Day 93: The Baltimore Revival...
...He interweaves AIDS and crime statistics with revelations of his mother's occultism and his own childhood boozing...
...Among them are a tall, blond teenager whose T-shirt, emblazoned with the portrait of a thorn-crowned Christ, proclaims him "Won by One...
...They are your mission field...
...To great cheers, Phil Driscoll runs on stage...
...Supreme Court precisely thirty years ago today...
...It is an angry voice, but its words are not those of belligerence, which some hear in all but the most blandly tolerant religious exhortations...
...After a proficient jazz trumpet solo he launches into a series of rock songs: a mournful ballad on the Passion leads into an everybody-clap-your-hands number called "He's Alive Again," which sounds like the theme to one of the Rocky movies...
...From the rafters hang mementos of the Baltimore (now Washington) Bullets, including a banner proclaiming them "1947-1948 BAA Champions...
...CI...
...He is a veteran of "Sally Jesse Raphael," "Today," and "Good Morning America...
...Stayer makes his case with quotes from Aristotle, Martin Luther, Patrick Henry, John Quincy Adams, Thomas Huxley, and Calvin Coolidge...
...I know the truth better than any man in America...
...Then Damiani introduces the first major attraction of the evening, the man who "ministered to our church on Super Bowl Sunday—and it was a super Sunday...
...Baltimore has a special link to that event, since it was the city of Madalyn Murray O'Hair, the atheist who brought the suit that led to the ruling...
...Murray's eccentric notoriety may account for a bit of tonight's attendance, but this event is co-sponsored by four churches in Maryland and nearby Pennsylvania, and most of the 5,000 people here (in a facility that holds 12,000) will show that they have come out of more than idle curiosity...
...The date marks thirty years since the Supreme Court ruled that prayer in public schools was unconstitutional...
...any in the audience are crying M as Murray makes a promise to the despairing: "If the Lord Jesus Christ could knock me off a bar stool and put me up on this pulpit, then He can reach out with His nail-scarred hands to you...
...If my mother herself would walk up this aisle and ask for forgiveness, she could be saved...
...The social and the personal are inextricably linked, historically and providentially: "I was part of the family that kicked God out of America...
...This is followed by a jazzed-up, hip-grinding "How Great Thou Art...
...Drugs were unknown here, except among the sailors who came into port...
...The response is a fervent collective "Amen...
...The driving, throbbing beat reminds one of the debate among conservative Christians as to whether or not rock music is compatible with devotional lyrics...
...Perhaps his anger at her is so great that nothing less than a crusade is adequate for its expression...
...J. R. Damiani, master of ceremonies, introduces the leaders of local high school bible clubs—part of a growing movement sanctioned by the 1990 Supreme Court decision in Board of Education v. Mergens—half of them are black...
...a paunchy, unshaven laborer in a tank-top...
...That is why God picked me to tell it...
...It is the message of repentance and salvation that dignifies his suffering, and it is for this—with Murray's coaxing, little by little at first and then by the hundreds—that the people come walking up the aisle...
...now the city has "a mayor who wants to legalize crack-cocaine...
...At the end, when he asks his listeners if they will join him in the struggle, he has them repeatedly shouting, "Yes...
...Instead of basketball, this is now a venue for indoor soccer and lacrosse...
...The audience, which whistled and chuckled appreciatively when told that Stayer "speaks fluent Greek, Aramaic, Hebrew, and Syriac'," listens absorbedly to him now...
...It is tempting to speculate on the psychology of a man who blames his mother for the ills of his country...
...These indictments alternate with scenes from the Passion, and after each episode comes the somber, defiant refrain: "But that was Friday...
...T hey are still walking in when the music begins at seven...
...T he message is no milder in the educational portion of the evening...
...a bearded, bespectacled office worker in a tie and short-sleeved shirt...
...And while the spirit of his words is certainly righteous, it is not self-righteous...
...America the Beautiful" in the groaning Joe Cocker manner...
...The black worshippers are the first to raise their arms at high points in the music,and they are saying "Amen" long before the preacher asks them to...
...Murray is the author of My Life Without God, Nicaragua: Portrait of a Tragedy, and an annotated edition of the U.S...
...Pause.] Sunday's coming...
...As Jimmy Swaggart used to point out, before he lost his credibility on such matters: "You know why they call it `rock 'n' roll,' don't you...
...Thirty years ago, school nurses in Murray's native Baltimore handed out Band-Aids and aspirin, the latter only with permission from home...
...It's the devil, the devil," a woman behind me exclaims...
...When the Rev...
...Matthew Stayer, a Clark Kent lookalike, spends a few minutes establishing the Judeo-Christian heritage of the United States and tracing the drift of Western culture as a wholefrom its Christian moorings: from the fractious Age of Dogmatism, through the hubristic Age of Reason and the atheistic Age of Evolution, to the current Age of De-education, a period of persecution inaugurated by the U.S...
...and a literally howling "Our Father" (yes, the prayer...
...After making a pitch for donations (a $25 "love offering" fetches a video of tonight's proceedings), Bill Murray tells the grim story of his family and his nation...
...Rogers Christians," and sings "We are the Warriors, / Storming the gates of Hell...
...Those people out there with needles in their arms are not your enemy, Church...
...While Murray reminisces, the trace of a "Bawmer" drawl is detectable, but when he comes to the scandals of today—the antics of the Clinton administration prominent among them—his raised voice shows the influence of his adopted Dallas: "I" becomes Ah and "my," mah...
...The kids aren't screaming, but they're not smirking either, and their boomer parents are tapping toes...
...Driscoll says that "the world needs warrior Christians, not Mr...
...America has ungodly leaders because America has ungodly voters...
...and a slim, middle-aged woman in a floral-print spring dress...
...he doesn't lay the final blame on liberal elites in Hollywood and Washington...
...and the organizer of tonight's rally has a special link to her: he is her son, William J. (Bill) Murray, now a Christian evangelist...
...Before one can reform the government or save anybody else's soul he must save his own, and for that he must repent...
...That is what Bill Murray is inviting everyone to do tonight...
...His voice gets louder as he recounts a series of depredations by John Frohnmayer, the ACLU, and others...
...Yet before he is done Stayer proves that he is as much a preacher as a pedagogue...
...Kurt Schmoke,mayor since 1988, has won the support of William F. Buckley, Jr...
...He wears a purple check jacket over black T-shirt and slacks...
...Less than half a mile away are the expensive shops of Harborplace and the state-of-the-art ballpark at Camden Yards, but the Arena's neighbors are porno stores and fried chicken outlets...
...Even the senior citizens are smiling, no doubt glad that, if there must be rock, at least it's about Jesus...
...The nice man's message is a tough one...
...Phil, who confesses between sets that he used to be "a hell raiser" but is now "a heaven raiser," must strike them as a nice young man, despite the funny haircut...
...for his stands on drug legalization and Norplant, but conservatives by the Book will be harder to persuade...
...At last, more than an hour-and-a-half into what was billed as a two-hour event (it will last almost three), the star arrives: a stocky, lisping man wearing either a toupee or-too much hair spray...
...Certainly he has cause for anger ("My brother and I are both illegitimate—and my mother is proud of that, she boasts of it"), but it is not the legitimacy of Murray's grievances that distinguishes his sermon from the "Mommie Dearest" recriminations of other celebrities' children...
...No more than ten percent of the congregants are black, yet it is they who seem most at home...
...now they put contraceptive implants into teenage girls' arms without telling their parents...
Vol. 26 • September 1993 • No. 9
