Dispatches from my first Christian rock concert

or, Stranger in a Strange Land
or, Oh My God Take Me Back to Europe
or, I Think I Am Maybe a Little Bit of an Elitist Asshole

Yeah, I don't know what I was doing there either. But, here are my observations!

De rigeur for women:

• Mullet, 80s perm, or ultra-stiff short haircut. Seriously, what is it with young, pretty Southern women sporting horrible, matronly haircuts?
• Sloppy-comfortable separates (capris and big comfy shirts with colorful graphic prints, the more colors on that sucker the more you love Jesus).
• Extra credit: long maxi skirt and cleavage-hiding undershirt à la the Duggars. So modest! So righteous!
• Bad tattoos (winner of the night: an American-flag butterfly with "JESUS" underneath!).
• Periodically raise your hands to the sky, palms open. Fist-bump God occasionally, and/or point up at Him.
• Extra credit: vigorous head-shaking in time with the music. Double extra credit if your hairstyle, like a house built on the solid rock of the gospel, cannot be moved.
• Overachieving for Jesus: close your eyes, adopt a smug/rapt/pained expression, and expressively perform along with a song in American Sign Language. Seriously. I saw at least two different women doing this.

And for the men:

• Collared/polo shirt buttoned all the way up (chest hair is for dirty Godless liberals).
• Feeling more casual? A Christian t-shirt should do the trick! Best one of the night: "In case of Rapture, you can have this shirt," you know, because I know I'm going to heaven and you're not. Vom.
• Stand with your hands in your pockets nodding your head along with the music.
• When your wife begins arm-raising/genuflecting/fist-bumping her Personal Jeezus ^TM, raise one arm with your elbow bent and don't move it. Well, okay, you can wave it back and forth at Jeezus a little, but maintain manly decorum at all times lest others think you have some gay that needs prayin' away.

For both sexes ('cause God made sex and gender binary when he created everything 6,000 years ago, y'all):

• Whiteness. I saw maybe 5 people of color out of several thousand, which is definitely not representative of my Southern, majority-black city.
• Obesity.
• One or both of the following, not necessarily in time with the music: Bouncing up and down. Ostentatious clapping.
• Sing/mouth along with every song so everyone else knows how righteous you are. Tone-deaf? Be proud of the way God made you and sing louder!
• Extra credit: close your eyes while singing/mouthing. If you have all the words memorized, Jesus will totally let you get Raptured first!

The performance itself:

• Insipid, shallow, repetitive praise-and-worship songs.
• Blinding stage lights shining out in the audience's faces the whole time.
• Fog machines for Jesus?
• Quote of the night: "All right, we're gonna take a break for a few minutes. And when we come back, we're gonna rock your face off in Jesus' name." Cue loud cheering.

Times I had to actively suppress laughter/nearly rolled my eyes right out of my head:

• 47.

Last time someone in the audience besides me voted for a non-Republican candidate:

• Haaahahahahahahaha!

I will now attempt to end on a positive note so I feel like slightly less of a judgmental jerk: 

• I did like a few of the acoustic songs.
• The lead singer shared an interesting analogy between trees and people of faith. The root systems of trees are usually the same size as the top of the tree, he said, so it's like a mirror image of the tree going down into the ground. Some people are "all root," meaning they get so caught up in rules and dogma that other people "trip" over them. Others are "all branches," so focused on reaching out to others than they lose their identity or "rootedness." I liked this idea.
• Also, the band was promoting Compassion International and, passing over the couple of weird paternalistic/xenophobic comments they made in doing so, they did appear to get a lot of people to sign up to sponsor a child in a developing country.

Just kidding, my overall verdict is totally judge-y: 

• This event encompassed pretty much everything I hate about the U.S., white people, and the conservative American Christian church all under one roof. If this is what people who've Gotten Saved ^TM look like, I'll take a one-way ticket to hell, please and thank you.