“15 But some men came down from Judea and were teaching the brothers, “Unless you are circumcised according to the custom of Moses, you cannot be saved.” 2 And after Paul and Barnabas had no small dissension and debate with them, Paul and Barnabas and some of the others were appointed to go up to Jerusalem to the apostles and the elders about this question. 3 So, being sent on their way by the church, they passed through both Phoenicia and Samaria, describing in detail the conversion of the Gentiles, and brought great joy to all the brothers. 4 When they came to Jerusalem, they were welcomed by the church and the apostles and the elders, and they declared all that God had done with them. 5 But some believers who belonged to the party of the Pharisees rose up and said, “It is necessary to circumcise them and to order them to keep the law of Moses.” 6 The apostles and the elders were gathered together to consider this matter. 7 And after there had been much debate, Peter stood up and said to them, “Brothers, you know that in the early days God made a choice among you, that by my mouth the Gentiles should hear the word of the gospel and believe. 8 And God, who knows the heart, bore witness to them, by giving them the Holy Spirit just as he did to us, 9 and he made no distinction between us and them, having cleansed their hearts by faith. 10 Now, therefore, why are you putting God to the test by placing a yoke on the neck of the disciples that neither our fathers nor we have been able to bear? 11 But we believe that we will be saved through the grace of the Lord Jesus, just as they will.” 12 And all the assembly fell silent, and they listened to Barnabas and Paul as they related what signs and wonders God had done through them among the Gentiles. 13 After they finished speaking, James replied, “Brothers, listen to me. 14 Simeon has related how God first visited the Gentiles, to take from them a people for his name. 15 And with this the words of the prophets agree, just as it is written, 16  “ ‘After this I will return, and I will rebuild the tent of David that has fallen; I will rebuild its ruins, and I will restore it, 17  that the remnant of mankind may seek the Lord, and all the Gentiles who are called by my name, says the Lord, who makes these things 18 known from of old.’ 19 Therefore my judgment is that we should not trouble those of the Gentiles who turn to God, 20 but should write to them to abstain from the things polluted by idols, and from sexual immorality, and from what has been strangled, and from blood. 21 For from ancient generations Moses has had in every city those who proclaim him, for he is read every Sabbath in the synagogues.”” (Ac 15:1–21 ESV)

Christianity behooves those who bear its image to bear as well an Education in being stern, in being principled, in being “uptight”, even, so long as the Creed is Intact: Christ—and we—dies for sin, until Resurrection—His on our behalf—saves the day.

Not to fuss, not to be “uptight”, is to go boldly into a night perilous and laden with mines. To speak from “lived experience” is immediately to reckon with a world Not Right, Not Perfect, Not Amenable to weaker theologies and dogmatics, those weaker Principles of Living (none on the surface to far-fetched or radical: ours, after all, posits a cretin Man Raised from the Dead) do not cut the cake, pass muster, echo Truth in the hallowed halls of the National Mind.

Our hallowed halls are Broad and Meaningful, strange teachings that undo the doctrine of Hard Work, these strange obsessions and cat-calls, blame games, scapegoating, and “gosh darnit all” thinking can in panicky moments literally Undo an entire credo of Work and Suffering and Doing what is Dutiful by way of our family, friends, and peers. To the Christian, this is mesmerizing insofar as it points us with alacrity to the Game Day object: Christ, the One Chosen to bear the Cross, and His factual sufferings thereby, His factual “bah humbug” reactions woken, His blame game and even the appearance of Negotiations around slander, the threat of Slander, the threat of Excommunication and Exorcision alleged: as if He was the one Demon-Possessed.

Because Religion broadly understood, herself meets concessions and magical thinking, all manner of Errant Teaching, seen in light of the Demonic and the Cultic, in light of the Ghoul and the Goblin… is traditional “magical thinking”, “cult of the Saints”, “Tokens and rosaries of superstition”: is all this so bad after all? Rather, our Christ isn’t at the pinnacle of a gradually-descending level of saintliness: He is either All Things Holy, or He is satanic. Demonic. Possessed. Undoing of what is Holy. And to us, He has afforded that Luxury of being Firm, Principled, Opinionated, Unrelenting: no matter how we Err, His salvation is meted out for all of us.

The devil in us charges, but the Saint in us, swords aflame and drawn, launches sadly, boldly, with conviction into the Melee, the Night, the Beach, the Tussle. We have this Truth innate, that Christ came for sinners, of which we as firstborn are the Truest, Severest, Worst exemplars. And in this Mercy, we immediately—not a gradual growth, but Immediately—were imputed and declared Righteous. Our faultlines, they became desiccated, dried out, in the Heavenly Fittedness, the Health Club of Saintliness Joined, the spa and Solar-Directed Spacecraft fit to our mortal frames.

So strange days… that that “Horror flick” points to a miasma of Possibilities: either it is True, or it is Compromised and Hopeless. The fact of Satan amok and we, her or his Targets, Hated Pundits, Zealots for the Opposite (for Christ), do stir a fine Polemic and Sinlessness. We are sinful, but we are “gosh darnit” Determined, to live on cloud Nine a bit, to live a few steps ahead, the walk on water, the “Taking it by Faith”, the loving Embrace or two souls leaning against each other, of our Favorite, of Christ For Us, of the fruits of how many long hours dutifully labored in upon, did act Principled and did Bank a Savings Moral, Saintly, Offensive to Sin, Opportunistic for Reform.