University of Virginia Library

Monday Notes

Now Seating For Shibboleth

By Jeffrey Ruggles
Cavalier Daily Staff Writer

Walking back from a screening of
Renais' Muriel, a group of University
students runs into several teenagers with
something to sell, at the intersection of
Mad Lane and University Avenue.

Their product: Christianity. Two of
them break off, walk over, and the boy
starts to speak. "I've got something that
will take you higher than any drug can,"
he says.

"Just try my way for a week — love
and know Jesus Christ — and you will be
higher than you've ever been before." The
other teenager is a girl, small and blond,
content to let the boy do the talking.

One of the students says something, and the
group — two child crusaders and a hairy set of
infidels, — begins an extended discussion of
Christianity, the value of print, and the history
of the Holy Land. Nobody convinces anybody
else of anything.

Limited Time Only

As it approaches the time for the teenagers
to leave, they extend an invitation to the revival
— 7:30 every night at Belmont Baptist,
featuring music and preachin' by the
Fishermen, a group of former college students
— including two former drug users — who now
tour the countryside in an old painted up
Cadillac, doing Christian deeds. The students
hem about being busy.

Two nights later, with rain pouring down,
three students find themselves asking directions
to Belmont Baptist Church from an eager but
barely coherent service station attendant. You
take the road towards Monticello, and it is a
large white building on the right.

A few people are standing around the
church door. The students walk in the door,
and after a several-second pause a fortyish man
with a crew cut shakes their hand. The students
peer about in the off-white religious air, and
move to a pew in the back of the sanctuary.

Suddenly the crusaders of the other night
catch sight of the arrivals, and the students are
surrounded by a dozen excited girls. The
students recognize the small blond one, whom
they call Saint Ann, and the two who had tears
in their eyes for their lost souls; but the rest are
sheer symphony.

Somehow the students are hustled to the
front pew as guests of honor, and then
abandoned as the flighty females take positions
in the choir stalls in the front of the church.
The church has gradually filled up until only
about a third of the downstairs pews are empty.

The revival service begins with a number by
a Fisherman at the piano. There is also a
Fisherman playing bass guitar behind the
pulpit, and one smiling in the front pew on the
other side of the main aisle.

After the initial music, during which half the
girls in the choir are staring at the three
students in the front row, two ladies speak their
pence. The second is especially interesting. She
tells of a miracle which had occurred near
Roanoke. Visiting her mother's house, she and
her husband — a service station attendant — and
son had been caught by a tornado. The winds
kept rising, and the big tree in the front yard
threatened to fall. A branch broke a window;
they covered it with a quilt and decided to
move downstairs — but her mother, who was ill,
refused to move. 'Crawl in here with me,' the
mother said, 'it's the safest place!' Well, next
morning they went outside, and the tree had
fallen within inches of the house. The lady's
version is fascinating.

Altar Call

The revival continues for hours. At one
moment those who wish to are invited to come
forward and pray. Some — including the girls —
go to the pews directly in front of the pulpit
and bury their noses in the cushions. The
Fisherman at the piano prays, and then all pray
silently.

As everyone kneels and sits quietly, the
Fisherman with the beard moves to the front.
Climbing the carpeted stairs to the nave, he
slips and silently curses. A few of the bowed
heads rise to see the post-effects of his fall, and
then return to their impress on the regal violet
seats. The bearded one reaches the mike, taps
it, and says, "Well, I guess that took care of the
serious moment!"

More quips, more singing, and more
preaching and praying from the piano, and the
revival has closed for the night. The three
students chat outside the doors with Saint Ann,
a Fisherman, and the rest of the gang, and then
leave to choruses of 'Come to the revival at
Barracks Road on Saturday morning.'

It is generally agreed that they would rather
crawl in with the mother.