Monday, July 01, 2002

Sometimes in the morning when I wake up and flip through the channels, I occasionally catch part of one of those religious type shows. You know the kind I'm talking about, the kind with a bunch of people with bad hair and thick southern accents constantly talking about "Jeeee-sus."

The other week they had a special segment devoted to the cause of trying to convert people in India. Because, as they kept on mentioning, there's over a billion Indians who aren't Christian! Instead, they follow some other, whacky, idol -worshipping religion and are thus damned to an eternity in hell for following some silly religion that's been around way longer than Christianity. To help convert those billions of Indians, money is, of course, needed.

To help motivate the viewing audience, they showed footage of just what things there cash, money-orders, and credit cards could help do. The hosts of the show interviewed some Indian guy who has been converted and now is going all over India trying to convert all those foolish Indians. He'd go to the poor sections, of course, because or parts because Jeeee-sus so loved the poor and because they also have pretty much nothing else to do but accept whatever's given to them. So this guy and his followers give them some food and water, and as a reward for accepting their food and water, are made to watch a movie about the life of Jeee-sus. To help those unknowingly damned Indians understand the life of Jeee-sus, the people who set up the program made the film themselves, filming it India and using Indian actors (Jeeee-sus, of course, was a very famous Indian prophet).

Of course, I had to watch clips from the movie and couldn't help notice just how much parts of the movie looked like a Bollywood flick. Same look, same feel, same kind of actors. And since Bollywood is the established norm for Indian film-making, I kind of wondered if wasn't just a movie about Jeee-sus, but a Bollywood version of Jeee-sus.

In the movie, does Jeee-sus burst into a trendy, Indian dance song upon seeing Jerusalem for the first time, with the Apostles shooking their booty like extras from a Britney Spears video? Would there be one of those great romantic duets between Jeee-sus and Mary? Probably not, which would have been a shame. That would have rocked.

And I began to wonder too, just what would happen if that movie is successful. What if, as the person on the TV show kept tantalizing the audience with, if all those poor billions of Indians who have yet to be saved were actually saved and became Christians (praise Jeeee-sus). Would that be a really good thing?

Think about it. What is India known for? It's exoticness, it's foreign airs and mysterious spiritualism- for the Karma Sutra and yoga and yogi's and belief in reincarnation and Ganeesh and Vishnu. Where would India be without all that? It'd just be one big huge area full of poor Baptists. Like West Virginia, except with more people and hotter weather.

And where would we be if India became like the South? No more yoga techniques. No more meditiation retreats. No more artists going to India for spiritual guidance. No more bougie white people going to India to get in touch with their spiritual side.

We can't allow this. India can't allow this. After all, if it turns into one big, huge Christian country, who would want to go there?

Fucking Missionaries.

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