When I was 8 or 9, I was very briefly kidnapped by well-meaning lunatics. My younger sister and I were exploring the FIBArk (First in Boating the Arkansas) Festival in Salida, Colo., when we were lured by the promise of candy into a small trailer with a number of other children. It turned out that in order to get the candy we had to suffer through a short film on Jesus, which, as I recall, depicted with graphic horror the torments that await the unsaved in the next world. After the film, a clean-cut young pastor and four or five of his flock delivered some bromides. Finally the pastor said, “Before you leave, let me ask you a question. Is there anyone here who has not accepted Jesus Christ as your personal savior? Raise your hand if you haven’t been saved.”
I don’t know what perversity impelled me to raise my hand—I like to think I was registering a protest against the coercive flim-flam I had just been peddled. It wasn’t, at any rate, that the film had scared me—I knew I was already saved. I had invited Jesus into my heart, I attended church, the whole nine yards. I also knew I didn’t like these people—if I’d known the word, I’d have said they were unctuous.
