Good News, Bad News
Reflections of an Unconverted Jew
Doug Rand
April 1, 2001
Let's begin on the East Cape of New Zealand, where I once met a half-Maori, half-Dutch, all-Pentecostal preacher named Gary. He invited my fellow hostel-dwellers and me to a "music concert," and seemed reluctant to provide any additional details. Our Japanese hostel-owner Miki obligingly clarified the concert as, in her words, "Jesus music!" By this point, however, my fellow non-Christians and I had already agreed to attend.
We all tromped next door for a very delicious barbecue, where I met Evan, a young and pink-faced minister-in-training, and his Maori protÉgÉ Daniel, a born-again McDonald's worker and university correspondence student. These two kicked off the concert, held in a kindergarten schoolroom with groups of little kids playing around in front. It was a high-energy, no-frills affair, wherein Evan and Daniel sang their own karaoke version of Kool and the Gang's "Celebration," a song that I happen to associate most intimately with bar mitzvah parties.
"Ce-le-brate good times—JE-SUS!"
Eventually, Evan and Daniel yielded the stage to Gary and some older locals, who had stellar voices and guitar-playing prowess. "Wow," I thought to myself, "It's a Maori community practicing evangelical Christianity through American pop music." I was glad to witness it, even if not to be witnessed to.
Then Gary began to deliver a sermon—a part of the music concert that had been wholly unanticipated by we out-of-towners. In his booming Australian accent, Gary talked about Nicodemus, being born again, being scorned by secular culture, and the Time of Sorrows and the Second Coming. He even confronted what I like to call the Gandhi Problem: How can a thoroughly righteous person like Gandhi be deprived of salvation and condemned to hell not ...
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