Red Admirable

Apparently I’m a week late on the mail, but I do take circulars seriously (not true), and I was briefly intrigued by the postcard that invited my fellow Residents and I to attend “GodOnFilm2007″ (when you’re spreading the Word–well, you can’t spread it. Those Words, at least. Like, you can’t spread them with text breaks. No time! The God clock is ticking).

But GodOnFilm2007 turned out to be a series of church services. With films. During church services. One of the services is held near the Newport Center Mall food court. Sesame chicken to replace communion wafers, and strawberry smoothies for the Eucharist wine. Genuflect, reader.

Journey Church has had the same epiphany that Christ did millennia ago–he gave out bread, and Journey Church is giving out multiplex tickets. If I were my parents, who are very observant Lutherans, I’d be mildly offended. As they drive past Newark, they regularly snort in the direction of a billboard on which a certain Pastor Womack’s face leering out at you. He’s promising to give passersby whatever is it that they might need “when church is just not enough.” Like, some things not covered by “church” that I would guess people in the North Ward of Newark might need are easily accessible needle exchange programs, free, high-quality health care, streets safe from organized crime, an end to institutionalized racism, and functioning, well-funded schools. I mean, seriously, if Rev. Womack can find the solutions to those issues with which the church has presumably been plagued for 2,000 years, then I STILL won’t be religious. There’d be no need. Church would have had nothing to do with it.

I’d be even more impressed, honestly, if this Journey Church could solve some of My more pressing problems. Sadly, it doesn’t deign to unravel the infinite briny strands of the third Pirates movie plot–not even Jesus could do that–but Journey does wrangle with the grand theological question of how Steve Carell’s weird Noah movie will inform parishioners that “small steps can make a big difference in our world.” Small steps, like the ones that sheep babies take up gangplanks to preserve their race. And also, Fantastic Four will not only teach you how to make a preview that is absolutely devoid of anything meaningful, but also to “find the power you need when you feel like giving up.”

Because of my own recent person history–I saw Oceans 13 on Tuesday night–I was most puzzled by what on earth that movie could teach anyone about “how to choose right when you’ve been wronged.” Journey Church may be saying that, in the final analysis, stealing diamonds, planting bed bugs and smell machines, and committing the fraud of giving Ellen Barkin nothing to do except wear magenta are all okay so long as a confused journalist with a blotchy complexion wins a gazillion dollars at an airport slot machine right before credits roll. Seriously. For that guy, church was just not enough.