Billy Graham, Franklin Graham. Fathers, Sons and Time.

An atheist crashes the Franklin Graham gig in Wellington, New Zealand.

This article was written by one of our conference attendees. He blogs at Atheist Addiction. If you like his work, please visit his site. He'd appreciate a follow!

On March 15, 1959, evangelist ‘crusader' Billy Graham extorted a full Melbourne Cricket Ground (MCG) crowd, 130,000 people, to commit to his particular brand of Jesus. This event had ramifications on a global scale, bringing Christian revival to the colonies and making a splash back home in the States, and is still heralded on the Graham corporation's website. The MCG was the location for the 1956 Olympics, so a venue very much within the global cultural awareness. Young conservative Boomers who had never before witnessed this heady, aggressive Christianity, who were used to the dour mainline Protestantism of their parents, had their lives permanently altered. They found Jesus, poured money into the Graham coffers, and started the momentum of evangelical Protestantism which was to become the dominant force in American Christianity in the present day. Graham was clever, never upsetting anyone too much, reaching across the aisle to Catholics, receiving the blessing and publicity from William Randolph Hearst, smart enough to dodge around the growing Civil Rights movement. He was a man perfectly of his time, navigating the thin centre between politics and religion, and even now is looked on with fondness by a wider group than the Falwells and Bakkers of the world.

My father, whom I call ‘There Dad' in the book because he was just … there, he existed, was at the MCG in 1959. He told the story that he was about 18, a child of the war, and went with a buddy of his. Graham called the audience down to receive Jesus, like a stern schoolmaster, glowering and reeking of charisma, my father poked his friend in the ribs and asked, ‘I'll go if you do?'

His friend didn't. Neither did he. Maybe he should have? I would have turned out a lot different. Or not? Who's to say?

My father had a tragic life. His mother was knocked up on the Melbourne docks by an anonymous Scottish soldier in 1940, had him out of wedlock (for shame!) and married George Kennedy to legitimize the bastard. That's where we get the name. There Dad never knew his biological father's identity; his mother took it to the grave with her. Over the years he was sexually abused, at one point the family lived in a garage and ‘had to shit on newspaper,' was a bit dumb, and always carried a knife. He was a chronic alcoholic and died at sixty of prostate cancer, although the drinking got him.[1] His mother became Baptist after Billy Graham (although she didn't attend), which was radical in conservative white Melbourne of the 1950s. My mother's mother, a staunch Methodist, peered at that side of the family in suspicion. ‘They're Baptist,' she would hiss.

Sixty years later, I am surfing YouTube and I see that Franklin Graham, Billy's son and heir to the Graham legacy, is playing ONE NIGHT ONLY at the TSB Arena in Wellington. All the greatest hits, the ‘God Loves You' tour. It's not the 130,000 seats of the MCG, the Arena seats about 6000, but Franklin is also not the only game in town when it comes to evangelism. He's competing with YouTube and his best days are behind him, like when I saw Bob Dylan at the TSB Arena. So dull. The last time I was at TSB Arena was for Faith No More, who were at the end of a tour, did NOT want to be there, finished early and screamed at the audience. It was great! I decided to go, to see whether I could span the seas of time and make the same decision. Should I go up and receive Jesus? Maybe if I go up and receive Jesus I will understand my father more?

We shall see.

Just to clarify, there is zero chance of me converting or finding Jesus. I have spent forty-eight years fleeing the shackles of faith and wrote a book about it, strobe lights and a smoke machine aren't going to dismantle that. But I might find a lost connection with my tormented father, a filament of understanding before time washes all away.

I am a huge fan of skeptical/atheist podcasts, including Oh No, Ross and Carrie, and this is the perfect opportunity to play undercover investigator. All the heavenly omens were pointing me there: I had just arrived home from caring for 11-year-old L'il Cutie Timmy[2] and his chronic asthma, and ran into Mikey, my evangelical charismatic Trump-seems-like-a-good-man election-was-rigged landlord.[3] I have been forced to keep my atheism quiet from Landlord Mikey during five years at this house, or I would have been out on my ear during the pandemic. Their family live in the other half of the house, home-school their son and would have convinced themselves I would taint his pure, insular Christianity. They were probably right. Mikey was over to check on the toxic black mold problem, I mentioned I had to leave at 5pm to see Franklin Graham. He was amazed, his jaw dropped, I gained infinite evangelical kudos and hopefully extended my time here for a bit, or until the black mold kills me. He said, ‘I thought you were Anglican?'

I replied that the Anglicans were not my sort of Christianity. Not a lie. I said that I watched a bunch of religious stuff on YouTube and an advertisement popped up. Not a lie. I watch Hemant Mehta, Right Wing Watch, and have just started my own channel illuminating the insanity of Christian Nationalist podcasts. Hemant's channel is immensely funny because I always get Christian dating ads; either the algorithm can't discern atheists from believers or they think they can convert us. Mikey was impressed, almost jealous. I hadn't talked with Mikey for a good six months, God was calling me to see Franklin Graham. The clouds had opened over TSB Arena and a column of white light shone down, accompanied by the most Handel of hymns.

I leaped in the car like Batman and headed into the city. I should have caught the train, the ad said there would be ample off-street parking, which I knew there wasn't, but how busy could it be on a Wednesday evening in November? I ended up paying for parking as the devout came from far and wide to hear the son of their prophet. I guess it would be like seeing Julian Lennon. As I left the parking structure I was asked three times by passers-by the quickest way to the Arena.

I said I didn't know, which was proven correct … I popped out on Queen's Wharf and headed for the nearest entrance. I marched through the doors and was ushered to a table to sign in. Sign in? Free entry, no allocated seating! My name wasn't on the list. What list?

Turns out I had gone in the stage entrance for ‘Prayer Counsellors.' I had no idea what these were, but they sounded ominous. They had hi-vis vests. Probably tasers. Action-Bibles. If I'd been practiced at this sort of thing I would have tried to slide in as a ‘Prayer Counsellor', but I'm not and that would be taking the bullshit factor too far. I was paranoid they could smell the atheism on me, I took off my headphones and turned off notorious Chicago atheists Cognitive Dissonance. I often wear headphones with nothing playing as a ‘fuck off and don't talk to me' cloak of ambiguity.

The very sweet ‘Prayer Counsellor' wranglers ushered me into the milling throng, I entered the auditorium about 5:30. I was asked twice whether I had come with a group, and looks of surprise when I said I was alone. I already didn't fit the profile, and told them that I had seen the YouTube ad. Both ‘Prayer Counsellors' (or whatever they were) looked surprised, then happy, as if they had already capital-S Saved me through my mere presence. I was that white whale who actually may be saved by Franklin, who hadn't been bussed in with their church. I am also tall, blonde, with blue eyes and a buzzcut, I don't look like I think, so was hard to peg. All those advertising bucks were worth it! They were filling the auditorium from the front and was it pretty full by showtime. I asked a volunteer whether a replay would be televised, she scurried away and find out: it was being simulcast on Shine TV but she didn't know if it would distributed after that. Fine. Shine is the New Zealand Christian cable channel, Creationist documentaries and preachy sermons.

The audience mix was your obligatory white, middle-class family clutches who came by themselves. The reserved seating for church groups was dominated by southeast Asians. I spotted a Filipino nurse I used to work with at the hospital (Wellington is a small town), which gave me an idea of that demographic. The Filipino churches had mustered a big ‘get out the vote.' The audience was very low on Māori, some Pasifika. No COVID masks, but that isn't such a surprise as New Zealand has dropped the mandate. I haven't had COVID yet due to my reticence interacting with any society, and touch-wood I haven't got it from the event.

As the auditorium filled I listened in on some conversations. One teenage girl was lecturing the ladies behind her about how Christians were being persecuted for their beliefs at American universities, she had the fervent zeal of Mandy Moore in Saved! (2004). My section of the audience was this demographic I noticed first in the parking lot, a middle-aged white woman and an older white woman. There were cars full of them. Not sure of the dynamic there, whether it be mother/daughter, healthcare worker/client, or whatever, but it was evident hubbies had decided to stay home and watch the sportsball. ‘You go honey, I'll watch it on Shine.' The audience was predominantly female, this is common with Christian Nationalist channels I follow. Radicalised lunatics like Dave Daubenmire and Scott Kesterson continually bemoan the lack of alpha males, especially in the pulpit, to an audience of incredibly engaged women. They even had to invent the term ‘mama bear' to explain the preponderance of confrontational women in belief communities, and this extends over into the New Age side of belief as well.

I was getting antsy at about 6pm, the chairs were uncomfortable, probably to keep you standing up, and I am old with a bad back. I posted a couple of pictures on Facebook, mainly to fuck with my friends. My personal Facebook is a lot of work friends who have no idea about my atheism, including religious Filipino nurses. Nurses are a very believing lot, to grossly generalise. They were probably all rapturous I finally found capital-G God. My closer friends knew better and replied with LOL emojis. In the tedium I became fixated on one Billy Graham roadie who found his moment in the spotlight, quite literally –

See him? He just stood there, cool and backlit with the smoke machine chugging all over him, like the Christian Terminator. It must be such a drag being a roadie for evangelicals, all the sin has to be kept behind closed doors so the media doesn't get a whiff, and you can't tell any metal stories about getting the right M&Ms or Ozzy wouldn't play. So he stood there motionless and prayed, or did whatever evangelical roadies do, imagining what could have been if he'd stayed with the Grateful Dead … I came for the Jesus, I stayed for roadie and his smoke machine.

To my left was a whole extended family, although the husband (maybe?) didn't so much as twitch during the entire event. He sat there stony-faced. Either he was trying to be the stern patriarchal Man of the House, or just couldn't emote like normal people. At the end, during the big call-up, he went up to stand at the front, but it took him a while to commit.

The hi-vis vests started coming by to distribute pamphlets and ear plugs. I was disappointed the ear plugs weren't ‘Billy Graham' branded, but that's way too easy: ‘He's preaching again, EAR PLUGS IN!' The pamphlet was about the Billy Graham Rapid Response Team (BG-RRT). I wish I was making that up, but these daredevils of faith parachute into disaster and war zones with Bibles. Desperation is the best emotion to recruit from, you get someone at the bottom and they will cling to anything. I did with Alcoholics Anonymous for fifteen years. The theme promoting the various Graham aid organisations built throughout the night; not only is it good for recruiting, it gives believers the warm fuzzies that they actually make a difference in the world, they're not just pathologically selfish and hateful. WE'RE NOT! SEE! There were countless promotional pictures of forlorn disaster survivors in front of their wrecked homes being prayed over. Because prayer always helps. It's like if someone had a heart attack during the event, some of these hi-vis actioneer ‘Prayer Counsellors' could leap into the fray and save the patient with tactical prayers. ‘CLEAR! Stand back, I'm a professional! Our father, who art in heaven …'

One double-page from the pamphlet focussed on one guy ‘consumed by hate' with swastika tattoos, saved by Action Prayer-Team 6. This is jumping ahead a bit, but when Franklin finally came out … Franklin is so formal, Frank? Frankie? Frankie-baby? … When the Frankster finally arrived, he declared marriage was between a man and a woman. Franklin's Ministry saved this guy in the pamphlet from hate and nasty tattoos. Not swastika hate, that's too much, let's get you some good old-fashioned Biblical hate.[4]

At 7pm the warm-up act came on. The lights were still up, revealing a grizzled old guy with a steel guitar. He was Dennis Agajanian from San Diego and (no spoilers) was the best thing in the event, it was downhill from there. Apparently our boy Dennis started with Graham's revival in 1974, which means he had been playing circus tents for both father and son for the entire length of my existence. And you could tell, this dude could play! When he started up I suddenly realised how out of my depth I was, because the rest of the audience knew the words to ALL the songs. He was giving an evangelical greatest hits, Stairway and Hotel California and Smoke on the Water but for the holy holy holy crowd.

The woman in front of me started with lyrics and ended up speaking in tongues, although I didn't notice a lot of that. Jesus wasn't channelling through them tonight, or maybe they just knew it wasn't the forum for it. On speaking in tongues, which I have done, IF God was channelling through you, wouldn't this happen extemporaneously? You wouldn't have a choice; you'd just fall over and start screaming ‘EPA!' like Grandpa Simpson in The Simpsons movie. Which means keeping your babbling to yourself is either rejecting the word of God or thinking you know better.

Food for thought.

The sing-along gave me my first window into this bubble-world, where Shine is the only thing on television, YouTube the only news, church the only community, Disney is of Satan and the radio was holy holy holy holy all day.[5] I can't comprehend that sheltering. You cannot argue that with ignorance comes bliss, as Christians are very aware of the outside world closing in around them, which drives their persecution complex. Here was their safe space amongst friends, where the nasty forces of reality couldn't intervene. Dennis's first song was about ‘no grave holding me down,' which is the quintessence of their pitch, fear of death. This event wasn't about converting new people to the flock, and the reason the hi-vis's were surprised at me, it was about reinforcing existing beliefs. It was a comforting hug and a hearty handshake for those alpha-males who don't do hugs, to strengthen their faith so they can return to their lives knowing that they're right and everybody else is wrong cos they have Jesus AND THE REST DON'T. And if the rest of the world has Jesus it's not the right Jesus, like landlord Mikey's attitude to mainline Protestantism, Anglican is not the right Jesus. No True Scotsman.

Dennis spoke about his first meeting with Billy Graham. He met Saint Graham while Graham was ‘performing' his crusades. Interesting choice of word there, Dennis, ‘performing'? Not proselytising? Spreading the word of God? Trumpeting the faith to the heathens? Dennis needed to see the memo that the language has tightened since 1974, it's not a performance, although ‘crusade' seems more fitting now than it does then. A Christian crusade towards theocracy seems much more in the zeitgeist than it did in 1959.

I have been around enough evangelicals to know how to fit in, and although I was recording on the iPad, I jigged up and down in my chair, tapping my feet. I even gave my eyes a little wipe. The Academy Award beckoned. Dennis was a genuinely good musician and deserves credit; he also saddened me because he gave off the vibe of old revival tents where it was kinda fun, kinda hip, kinda new, kinda unthreatening to everyone except Jews and Catholics, kinda an oddity. 1959 through 1974 were innocent times even within the evangelical movement, and although Billy Graham was politically savvy, he believed his own ‘crusader' hype. That was before the dark times, before the Empire, when evangelism rotted to the core.

As Dennis was warm-up, he began the call-and-responses to get everyone into churchy mood. Holy HOLY holy HOLY Jesus JESUS etc. I have a note that reads ‘Christmas leave the lights on,' and I have no idea what that is about. Must have been a song? I would have thought this flavour of Christian never left the lights on under any circumstances.[6] Then Dennis told a story about being in Liberia and all the capital-S Saving he saw, and my warmth towards him faded. Africa has long been a target for evangelicals, the last untapped naïve populace who still buy religion, and I can just imagine Billy Graham hi-vis Action-Missionaries all over that failed warzone of a country, recruiting like bulls in a China shop and sinking it further into the postcolonial mire. The call-and-responses led to the first hand-waving and lightbulb-changing of the night, at about 7:15. The crane camera directly above me swung into action, the big screens lit up and the audience started feeling the spirit, they had received permission to stand and yell ‘AMEN!' Dennis was good at his job, and Christians have to be told what to do. He nearly swung me back to his side with his big finale, an absolutely cracking version of the Hallelujah Chorus. It reminded me of Tommy Emmanuel doing Classical Gas. I recorded the whole thing, thank Yog-Sothoth for iPads. If you want to hear it, it finishes the latest podcast.

There was a brief lull, then the weirdest thing happened. A young Māori guy, perhaps early twenties, stood up at the back of the floor and launched into a full haka. This was not planned, and the hi-vis's swarmed around him, although nobody touched him. That would have been a bad look. Some of the senior suit-wearing corporate Christians rolled up, so you know they were worried, this wasn't a job for mere ‘Prayer Counsellors.' They let him finish, there was a light round of applause, and he was ushered out. I don't know what this little happening was. Being Australian I'm not even going to try to determine the Māori viewpoint on Franklin Graham. Until then, there had been a big fat zero when it came to indications we were anywhere but Tennessee; no mention of New Zealand, let alone a cultural welcoming. I don't know if this was a protest or support, you can never tell because the whole point of hakas is to be scary. It was a damn fine haka. The applause could be just an instinctive reaction, that passive-aggressive Christian thing where they pray at you, while upping the persecution factor in their heads. If anyone can shed any light on this, please contact me because I would LOVE to know. As I noted when scanning the audience, there were Māori in attendance but they were few and far between.

After this little interlude the lights went down, it was about 7:30 and the Monsters of Christian Rock descended upon us. I grappled for my ear plugs because it was LOUD. Like, ‘Get off my lawn!' LOUD. Organ-melting LOUD. I exclaimed ‘SHIT!', as you do, and got furrowed brows from my seating neighbours. Could have been worse, I could have yelled ‘JESUS FUCKING CHRIST!' In came Jeremy Camp and his band, including the lead guitarist who also plays for Satanica on the weekends[7] -

Who is Jeremy Camp, you may ask? Besides the gayest name ever? It's very hard to take a rocker named ‘Jeremy' seriously, but evidently this made him perfect for the Christian crowd. My first reaction was that Jordan Knight of New Kids on the Block had found himself a new gig in his twilight years. About the same age, black hair, bulging biceps, sexy eyes, charisma. I had to look him up on Wikipedia and now you can too! He's a big deal in Christian rock circles, with an eminent pedigree: father was a pastor, he's a fully-qualified pastor, he's been doing this his entire life. He's had umpty-hundreds of Christian top tens, Christian Grammys, Christian bubble-world plaudits and nowhere outside the bubble-world has anyone ever heard of him. The youth, including the frothing sixteen-year-old in front of me lamenting Christian persecution, rushed the stage, where they all stood in place and bobbed up and down. One thing I have learned for true and certain from this experience, evangelicals cannot party. I think it has been supernaturally removed from them, they look really uncomfortable, checking each other to make sure no one was having too much fun, or being overly sinful. Christmas with the lights on.

Jeremy introduced himself with a reference to his location in the great rock tradition, like, ‘ARE YOU READY TO ROCK … SPRINGFIELD?' He said his wife was a Springbok – ‘BOO HISS, WOO HOO!' Hitting the rugby, very well done. Big pause, then, ‘But tonight, we're going to put aside our differences and … love Jesus. Amen, C'MON!'

And the band played on, while my ulcer ulcerated. As no one could ever forget they were in church, even with the smoke machine and flashing lights, the lyrics of each song were projected behind the band. This is a peculiarly evangelical thing, in the Anglican churches of my yoof you had your blue hymn book, and everyone would turn to Hymn 91 to sing Morning Has Broken. Admittedly, in the churches of my yoof an overhead projector was an advanced technological breakthrough. All bands should be forced to write every lyric on a big board behind them, I want to see ‘Scaramoosh Scaramoosh will you do the fandango' all lit up so everyone can sing along. They played Out of My Hands, which was … a song, but the title tells you everything you need to know about Christianity. You're a big ol' victim, and if bad stuff happens to you, then it's your fault for not believing in gods enough, and if good things happen, it's because of the gods. Regardless, it's out of your hands, your responsibilities, decisions and axioms are not your own, be a submissive little clone unless anyone persecutes you, where you have the right to defend your abusing deity.

The songs were all a bit same-y, although Jeremy, Jem-Jems, Jemmy-cakes, had to apologise to the crowd after Dead Man Walking, which had some throbbing, teeth-rattling bass (even with ear plugs). ‘Some of you may think this is a rock song, I call it a worship song.' This was for the grannies who were starting to turn on the whole experience for promoting godless rock and/or roll. Between songs Jezza talked about Jesus and Jesus and Jesus, at one point saying ‘At Bible study this morning …' I believed him. I believed this person would have Bible study that morning. He might be loaded with coke, but the Bible study would still occur. The only person in the band not to show up at 6am for Jeremy-led Bible studies was the spotlight/smoke machine roadie, who was down at the waterfront staring into the seething maelstrom and wishing he had made different choices in life.

Everything rolled to a grinding stop as up came the trailer for the movie made about Jeremy the Campest a couple of years ago, I Still Believe (2020). Jeremy married his young bride in his late teens, as you do when you're evangelical so you can fuuuuuuuck, and she died of cancer a year later. But he still believed. I had to check this because it sounded too much like Hallmark channel bullshit, it was a Christian singer's wet dream, but no, it happened. He built a career on still believing after a legitimately awful tragedy. The poor sap was backed into a corner by upbringing, he really didn't have a lot of say in the matter, it was either still believing or walking away from everything, and that is nigh-on impossible for believers that far into religion. But for his career? A home run! Christians feed off tragedy, we already saw that with the disaster zones. I won't be watching the movie. The actor who played Jeremy was a Kiwi, so there is reference number two. He launched into the titular song and the auditorium lit up with phone torches, a sea of waving LED squares. Back in the day, it was lighters. This wasn't spontaneous, Jeremy had to forcefully suggest it, Kiwis are a shy bunch and Christians won't do anything unless instructed to by their authority-figure of the moment.

Jeremy exited stage left, the band spreading out across Wellington to track down the lost roadie and nearly-fuck some naïve young things loitering around the ‘Prayer Counsellor' entrance. We were treated to more advertising for ‘Samaritan's Purse,' another Graham disaster relief companies, more praying for people in front of their decimated lives. I wonder if any of these victims ever stopped to consider the cause and effect of a hurricane or fire if God did exist? He wipes you out, then his followers come and … do what, exactly? Recruit you? Then? It seems to work, the assumption of gods is so baked into human culture that of course it couldn't be god's fault, even with the omnipotence and omniscience. God and belief part of The System, and the System has acculturated you from a very young age.[8]

You may note by my shift in tone that my patience was starting to ebb, the sanctimonious pious attitude was rubbing thin.

Dennis was awesome, Jeremy ok, now entering from stage … everywhere … was the Random Assortment of Bods Choir, featuring Beret Dude. This was surreal. Dennis was old-school, Jeremy was clean-cut Christian slick, these people were random. That's the best way of describing them. The band had about twenty pieces in it all jammed up the back The backing vocals were, from left to right, an old lady, a couple of black ladies, a white lady and Beret Dude. The lead singer was a tall thin man in black with creepy round glasses and white hair, the last thing you see as the trapdoor closes. Except for the giant pipes on one of the black ladies, none of them could sing well, and Beret Dude looked uncomfortable just being on stage. He was wearing a sports jacket like an old Christian Bobcat Goldthwait. I couldn't take my eyes off him. Had these people won a raffle? Was there some story behind them I was missing? If I lived in bubble-world, would I immediately single out Beret Dude as the guy who fought Goliath after sixteen of his wives died tragically? I don't know, out of context, they were just milling about the stage like a local church. Maybe that was the point, but the presentation jarred wildly with the previous two performances.

They did a couple of holy holy holy songs, and good on them, especially Beret Dude, who had clearly also gone in the wrong entrance like me, but said ‘Yes' and somehow ended up on stage. I started rooting for them just because of their tepidness. Tepidity? Tepinature? I was seriously Jonesing for a vape by this point. I should have just puffed there, I'm sure the passive-aggressive around me would have said absolutely nothing, but prayed for me under their collective breaths.

It was time for the headline act, and after a couple of Wellington vistas cut into the start of a generic montage piece, out strode the man himself. The legend, the heir to the throne, give a big Wellington welcome to … THE FRANKSTER!

His father was better-looking. As an opener, Franklin dove straight into politics, declaring everyone should get the vaccine. Graham's original statement, that ‘Jesus would get the vaccine,' caused outrage amongst evangelicals in the U.S, who had already drawn ideological lines on the matter. They saw it as a betrayal from their own, even worse than Falwell the Younger, who just immolated himself. The reaction from the crowd was nothing, just ‘Yes. We know.' I don't think anyone had briefed Franklin, in what was clearly a rote speech, that the anti-vaxx fringe was considerably less powerful and more fringe-y in New Zealand,. We all kinda took the vaxx and that was that. This is the reason we have one of the lowest death tolls per capita in the world.

Graham only made one other diversion into politics, right in the middle of the sermon, where he broke off from his tepid story and stated that marriage was between a man and a woman, and abortion was murder. That was it, and although the vaxx thing is political, it wasn't in his Biblical moral wheelhouse. I found the reaction from the crowd fascinating. There were sporadic cheers at both the first and second statements, the stringy-beard guy over the aisle from me leaped up and punched the air, but the rest of the crowd was subdued. Elements of the crowd, fringes of the crowd wanted more, they smelt blood and needed some Greg Locke. But Franklin is not a hate-preacher. He preaches hate and misogyny, but it's not his stock-in-trade. He still clings to the reputation of his father, that delicate threaded needle between politics, religion, mainline Christian acceptance and full-throttle hate-mongering batshittery. The murmurs at his statements continued until he flipped back into the sermon, when they faded. That section of the crowd was teased but not satiated. Mr. Stringy Beard sank back into his chair, elated that his pet hates had been mentioned, but disappointed there was no fire and brimstone. In a world of polarisation, spectrum-ends and extremes,[9] holding to the middle is always going to further polarise the ends.

In Franklin Graham the evangelicals see a paradox, they cannot disregard him due to the family name, close to sainthood in their eyes, yet he resists the devilish temptation to push as far right as his brethren. This is the tepid centre of evangelism, a theme that snaked through the entire event – dipping one's toe into being naughty, testing the waters, playing that god-forsaken rock music then tiptoeing away. One of my big beseeching calls in the book is a return to the centre, as polarisation always ends in violence and tragedy, but I understand the fervour associated with categoric hate, and the all-consuming need to have it vindicated. Mr. Stringy Beard went home and told himself that he saw Graham, that Graham didn't like the fucking gays either, then get back on YouTube for some more verification suited to his ideology.

Unwavering Franklin launched into a retelling of John 9, Jesus healing the blind man. He was on auto-pilot, he'd given this sermon a million times, conservatively. So to speak. An innocuous, well known miracle, although always think of the Life of Brian believer throwing away his crutch and falling in a hole, “I can see!” or ‘Alms for a poor ex-leper?' The moral - after twenty minutes of sermonising that would have lulled the Beast himself to sleep[10] – was that Jesus was en route to Jerusalem, where all sorts of crucifixion shenanigans were to take place. The blind man, we will call him Woderwick, didn't know the shit was going down and Jesus wasn't coming back through wherever-it-was, but knew he had to see the Messiah NOW. He had to believe NOW. NOW NOW NOW. Not next week, not wait for two thousand years twiddling his thumbs waiting for Jesus to show up again, NOW. He was probably right, it's hard to see Jesus NOW.

This was the arc of the story and fit the Graham playbook all the way back to 1959, father and son. You submit to Jesus or give your soul over or claim redemption or repent or whatever, the exact terms weren't clear, but it had to be NOW. Like good sales, always be closing. NOW. This segued seamlessly into The Call, where you headed down to the front to be prayed over. Out of the 5500 people there probably three hundred went up? I suck at that kind of headcount, but the cameramen had to go in tight to make it look like a seething MCG multitude. The house lights went up, there's a queue down both aisles, a good ten minutes of people shuffling about. Some were already sneaking out. Right at the end my impassive neighbour leaped to his feet and trotted down, after Franklin threw in the steak knives that you'd get a little book of John 9 and a meeting with a ‘Prayer Counsellor' afterwards. Full-service? Maybe he was another atheist doing research? Maybe they all were? Maybe Mr. Stringy Beard just got too far into character?

Franklin stared balefully down the barrel of the main camera during the shuffling about, addressing the people at home just like his father. Get up there, or thou shalt be judged!

Did I go up?

Of course not. First, my back hurt. Second, I was exhausted and my tolerance was at an end, I would have given in to temptation and fucked with the ‘Prayer Counsellor.' Third, I wasn't giving them any of my details. I know Mark from NZ Skeptics also attended and went up to the front, so sign up for the NZ Skeptics newsletter for his analysis. I haven't read it, I wanted to keep myself pure and unspoiled for this recount. Just like Jesus.

Did I come to understand why my father didn't go up sixty years earlier? The peer pressure would have been immense in a throng of 100k+ people, it was easier not to give in to that pull in this smaller setting. I'm guessing the feeling at the MCG was electric, like a Benny Hinn congregation, everyone was swept up in the groupthink. I think the reason my father didn't go up is more telling … it was fear. He was scared of going up, scared of most decisions. He spent his life deathly afraid, which is why he addicted.[11] Which is why I addicted. My father spent his life terrified, and I identify with that, fear is the core of many of my mental health issues, my Melancholia.[12]

He always said he believed in the Christian God but was always far more interested in New Age-ism, which could have been a rebellion against his childhood or just part of the 1970's Chariot of the Gods esoteric madness. That seemed less threatening to him. Given time and the right circumstances, he could have dropped the pretence of faith altogether, and maybe learned to manage his addiction. He chose rightly that night in 1959, but unfortunately the rest of his life was stacked against him.

Amen, dad.

[1] I talk about There Dad, Toxic Mom and my fabulous upbringing in Atheist Addiction. My parents were very much of the Boomer generation, they believed in the Christian God but also dived into the Western Esoteric Movement, it was complicated and jarring and you can read all about it in the book.

[2] Also in the book, although he was 8 when I wrote it.

[3] Ditto.

[4] Although in 2022 the line between the two is pretty arbitrary.

[5] If your stuff is so wholly holey, get it fixed or trash it, amirite? Is this thing on?

[6] Rim-shot. Don't forget to tip your waiter. Try the veal!

[7] Simpsons reference.

[8] See Atheist Addiction.

[9] Lots on the book on spectrums.

[10] Maybe that's the point? Defensive drowsiness?

[11] I use ‘to addict' as a verb.

[12] Also in the book.