Years ago I dated a Pentecostal woman. Why? She was pretty, she was wealthy, and she liked me. Good lord, that's enough. So when I dated her, I just kept my mouth shut when religious topics came up.

She was searching for a church. She tried several MChurches, but they were not a good fit. She dressed in long dresses, never wore makeup, and never cut her hair (she was also heavily into bondage, but that's another story).

She took me to one Penetcostal church. The sermon is hard to describe, except by analogy. Picture a Nazi party rally run by Daleks and you have a good idea. It was all so formulaic and robotic.

She finally found her church for the moent, the Pentecostal Evangelical Tabernacle (try saying that five times fast), in Granite City IL.

And, where to begin? There is a formula to Pentecostal sermons. The pastor starts out calmly. He gets all fired up, until his face turns red. He starts yelling. This particular pastor would also inhale loudly, as if he had a cold, every minute or two. He would also stop and say "Isn't that right?" every few minutes. He could literally take one sentence out of the bible and stretch it to a 90 minute sermon that way.

Someone in the congregation would shout "Praise the lord!" every few minutes at random (and yes, it was all I could do to keep from shouting "and pass the ammunition!" ).

It was not uncommon to see people start crying, and doing other histrionics. And here's the thing: the pastor's face would turn red, as I said. If the man had a stroke and tumbled to the ground, that would have been perfectly acceptable. The guy could have died up there, and everyone would have thought he had just gotten ahold of the holy spirit.

The same applies with the congregation: in the outside world, many of them had symptoms that strongly resembled schizophrenia. Yet that was perfectly normal, in fact, encouraged behavior at that church. I can't help but wonder how many mentally ill people claim to be christians because in that way they can have voices in their heads, and still be accepted.

I think the oddest part of that chuch's services was the passing of the communion plate. The pastor would be the first to donate, piously putting money in the bucket, before it was passed on.

Think of the hypocrisy of that: where is the money going? I assume it's meant as a show of faith: but how much faith is there in putting money into your own pocket?

I enjoyed talking to the pastor after the sermon. When he did a sermon about Jesus and the lepers, afterwards I would point out to him that the leprosy in the bible is not the same disease we call leprosy today. He was genuinely surprised at that, though I hastened to add "That doesn't change the meaning of the sermon." He knew his bible, and not much beyond that.

The standard image of fundamentalist pastor is that they don't believe the nonsense they spout. This guy was for real. So much the pity.

As an odd sort of postscript, my ex girlfriend is apparently still searching for a church that will accept her odd melange of beliefs. She has apparently switched to Methodism. No telling how that bondage stuff will fit in.