Jesus’ Son vs. the Protestants

Jack, the Son of the Son of God, was trying to be responsible.

The Region of Responsibility was a neighborhood in Slack Heaven, several blocks wide, where we quarantined away any activity that involved planning or forethought so it wouldn’t harsh anyone’s buzz. It was mostly the domain of robots and caretaker bears, but Jack had an office there, and he had been holed up in it for a long time.

I wasn’t sure exactly how long he had been in there. Time could be difficult to measure in Slack Heaven, since the position of the sun in the sky was determined by the needs of the party rather than the time of day. I knew it had not been a short time, generally defined as the amount of time you might spend doing one thing. It also hadn’t been a very long time, that being so much time that you forget how many things you’ve done. But I knew it had been at least a long time, which was long enough for me to worry.

My husband Bob was busy experimenting, trying to find a dye that would stick to our heavenly white uniforms so that he could throw a tie-dyeing party. I took the opportunity to venture into the Region of Responsibility to make sure Jack was ok. I found him hunched over an ancient computer, a look of consternation furrowing his brow.

“Hey dude,” I said cautiously, “is everything alright?”

“Yeah,” Jack sighed, but then added, “No. We’ve got too many people who deserve to be here. The logs can’t grow fast enough to accommodate everyone.”

“When was the last time you smoked up?” I asked, more concerned about him than about overcrowding in heaven.

“Not sure,” Jack said. “When was that party at Snoop and Martha’s?”

“Dude, that was a very long time ago,” I said. “You’re sober. You’re going to stress yourself right into your next incarnation.”

“I think we can repurpose the bath house into temporary shelters,” Jack continued, thinking out loud, “and I can get some extra minerals from Aulë—he owes me after that time all those dwarves showed up out of nowhere. But if I don’t add another filter to our soul search, we’re going to exhaust our resources.”

“It won’t be any better if you exhaust yourself,” I said. “C’mon and take a break. We can smoke a joint in the Zen garden.”

Just then, my tablet vibrated. The Prayer ID said it was Bob, audio only. I answered.

“Hey, what’s up?” I asked.

“Hey, honey, sorry to interrupt,” Bob said, “but there’s somebody, uh, knocking on heaven’s door. Not exactly sure what to do about it. Is there a protocol or something?”

I hadn’t even realized Slack Heaven had a door. Like Bob, I had arrived via resurrection by incarnating onto a porch swing. We left through the hangar when taking field trips to other cool afterlifes, and we hadn’t had any visitors. With thousands of chill residents, there was never a shortage of anyone to party with, so I hadn’t even noticed.

Jack thumped his head down on his desk, then looked up and said, “We’ll be right there!”

BANG. BANG. BANG. BANG. BANG.

We could hear the pounding well before we turned the corner to the front entrance. Bob was waiting for us. His hair and hands were covered in multicolored splotches, and his face was bright purple, but his clothes were still pure white.

“I guess I don’t have to ask how the tie-dye is going,” I said.

“I’m getting there!” Bob said. “At least the last attempt stuck to something!“

BANG. BANG. BANG. BANG. BANG.

The large double doors were twice my height and made of wood panels held together by stylized wrought iron. Jack slid open a speakeasy grate to take a peek, gave a deep sigh, pushed one of the doors open and walked outside. Bob and I hesitantly followed.

“What are you doing here, Marty?” Jack asked.

Standing by the other door was a chubby man wearing black monk robes and a floppy black beret. In one hand he held a hammer, and in the other he had a nail and a large piece of parchment.

“I am posting my theses,” Martin Luther said haughtily. He held the parchment up against the door and tried again.

BANG. BANG. BANG. BANG. BANG.

“I thought you did that a long time ago,” Jack said.

“I added new ones,” Luther explained. “I always repost when I add new ones.”

BANG. BANG. BANG. BANG. BANG.

“That’s not going to work,” Jack sighed. “It’s made of living logs. You have to ask them permission if you want to hang anything.”

Luther took a few steps back and looked at the door sternly.

“Unholy papist gate, I demand you let me post my theses!”

BANG. BANG. BANG—

“OW!” Luther yelped, sucking on his finger.

Bob snuck forward and yanked the parchment from Luther’s hands.

“The 237 Theses of Martin Luther,” Bob read aloud.

“Shouldn’t you be posting those on the pearly gates of a Christian Heaven?” Jack asked.

“I tried,” Luther sighed. “They said they didn’t care one way or the other, and that I should take it up with you.”

“Number 237,” Bob read, “Jack Christ does not exist.”

“Hey!” Jack objected. “I’m standing right here!”

“You started at the end,” Luther explained. “I have this whole chain of unassailable reasoning that builds up to that one.”

“Number 236,” Bob continued. “Lilith, the wife of Jesus, does not exist.”

“That’d be nice,” Jack said.

“We at least thought that one was true for awhile,” I pointed out.

“Number 235,” Bob read. “St. John the Unarmed did not see Jack go nuclear on Satan that one time he was rolling on ecstasy at a party.”

“Actually,” I said, “that’s the most accurate description of that night I’ve ever heard!”

“Wait,” Jack said, “does that one imply you believe John exists?”

“Of course John exists,” Luther said, pointing at me, “he’s standing right there!”

“I go by Leif now,” I clarified.

Bob continued reading.

“234: There is no such thing as Judas Junior. 233: There is no such thing as Professor Coyote. It goes on like that for a bit, just a list of a bunch of people you know, saying they don’t exist, until we get back to 214: Amy Grant counts as Christian music. I strongly disagree!”

“Everything above that was in the previous draft,” Luther said.

“Look,” Jack said, “if you don’t want to believe I exist, I’m fine with that. I prefer it, actually. Can we just agree to agree?”

“You can’t stop me!” Luther said. “I have freedom of speech!”

“I don’t mind the speech,” Jack sighed, “just the banging.”

Suddenly we heard the throbbing hum of a flying saucer. It landed in a grassy field nearby, and three women disembarked.

The first woman was tall, wearing a pantsuit and sporting a pixie haircut. She carried a sign that read “End Christian Patriarchy!”

She was followed by a slight, diminutive woman wearing camo combat fatigues and carrying a soapbox.

Finally there was a heavyset woman with blue hair and several face piercings, wearing a t-shirt with a pink female gender symbol. She carried a bullhorn.

“Who are they?” I asked my friends.

“The tall one is Hera, the short one’s Athena and the fat one is Venus,” Jack explained.

“I may have mentioned this on one or two prayer boards,” Martin Luther said sheepishly, cautiously side-eyeing Jack. “I didn’t think anyone would actually show up!”

Athena put the soapbox on the ground, then Hera handed her a sign that read “Immortal Rights are Human Rights!”

Venus stepped up onto the soapbox, wobbled a bit and then held the bullhorn to her mouth.

“MY WORSHIP! MY CHOICE! GODDESSES DESERVE A VOICE!” she yelled through the bullhorn. The other women joined in on the second repetition, and they continued chanting and marching around with their signs.

“Hey!” Jack shouted, running up and waving his arms at them.

Luther snatched his theses back from Bob, and we watched the scene unfold.

Jack got the goddesses to stop chanting and asked, “What are you doing?”

“We are here to demand equal representation for women in Slack Heaven!” Hera shouted.

“Fucking cisdeuterocanonical colonizers!” Athena screamed.

“We’ve got lots of women in here!” Jack yelled defensively.

“THE PERCENTAGE OF WOMEN IN SLACK HEAVEN IS LESS THAN IN THE POPULATION AS A WHOLE!” Venus explained through the bullhorn.

“I can’t help that!” Jack said. “I already accept every woman who wants in!”

“You need to build outreach programs,” Hera demanded. “After-school clubs. Counteract the social conditioning that tells young girls they can’t grow up to be stoners.”

“I don’t think most of them want to grow up to be stoners!” Jack pleaded.

“Let us in you misogynist piece of shit!” Athena screamed, her eyes bulging.

“Do you really think you’d like it here?” Jack asked with sincerity. “I mean, this really isn’t a fun place for personalities high in neuroticism.”

The goddesses gasped.

“Deplorable,” Hera sighed, shaking her head.

“IT’S OUR RIGHT! IT’S OUR FATE! LET US TRANSUBSTANTIATE!” Venus yelled. The others continued chanting and marching.

I ran over to them, thinking that as a gay man, I might help mediate.

“Ladies, please,” I begged, “we can talk this through.”

“Ha!” Hera said. “The only thing you talk to women about is hot guys!”

“Well,” I said, “you’re a woman, and I’m talking to you now.”

“Yeah!” Bob shouted from the sidelines. “Suck it, Bechdel!”

We were interrupted by a bus squealing to a stop. Out poured a knight, a ninja, a robot, a fairy, a cowboy, an indian, a police officer, a clown, a soldier, a henchman, a werewolf, a vampire, a zombie, a centaur, an angel, a devil, a stormtrooper, a sprite, a ranger, an orc, a golem, a Tolkien elf, a Santa elf and a Munchkin.

“Is this the No Christs rally?” the Munchkin asked. “Someone forwarded me a prayer saying it was today...”

“Right over here!” Hera shouted, waving them over.

The Munchkin had thinning red hair and wore a green suit over a yellow vest with a blue bowtie under his second chin. He carried out a soapbox and placed it on the ground at the front of the crowd. Then he walked over to Venus and punched her in the shin. She jumped off her soapbox and hopped around while he took her soapbox and placed it on top of his own. The golem helped lift him onto the stack.

“As Chairman of the Socialist Daemons,” the Munchkin proclaimed, “on the Committee for the Land of Atlantis, we protest you most forcefully!”

He turned to the goddesses and scolded, “But we must protest with equity!”

“Oh, Grandpa,” Jack muttered, then he called out, “Who are you, and what are you protesting, exactly?”

“We are the Socialist Daemons of Atlantis!” the Munchkin shouted. “We demand an end to idolist oppression! We call upon the worshippers of the world to unite and seize the means of benediction! Society should be organized into collectives of the laity!”

“You’re daemons,” Jack said. “Each one of you is literally a collective of the laity, their souls linked psychically into a single common consciousness.”

“Yes, but we are exploited by idols profiting off the surplus value of our prayers!” the Munchkin complained. “Distribution of souls should be determined by a committee of the proliturgiate!”

“And who gets to be on this committee, exactly?” Jack asked.

The Munchkin looked back at his fellow socialists.

“Um, we do, obviously,” the Munchkin said.

“Wouldn’t that just make you their idol?” Jack asked.

“Not their idol!” the Munchkin insisted. “Their Chairman! Totally different thing!”

This was when several more busses arrived, just as more saucers and airships landed. Protesters of all stripes poured out, and an angry mob began to form.

“Oh, shit,” Jack gasped. We retreated back to the door.

“What the fuck are we going to do?” I asked.

“I’ve got an idea,” Bob said.

He walked over to Venus.

“Can I borrow that?” he asked, taking the bullhorn from the flustered goddess.

“LISTEN UP, BITCHES!” Bob announced. The crowd was suddenly silent, all eyes on him. “IF WE’RE DOING THIS, WE’RE DOING IT RIGHT. EVERYONE GET IN LINE!”

Soon Bob had coordinated the construction of a makeshift stage and sound system, with a representative from each protest group waiting in line for their turn at the microphone. Stretching out behind the stage was a crowd of thousands. Martin Luther, the goddesses and the members of the SDA were clumped off to one side, looking annoyed at no longer being the center of attention. Jack, Bob and I stood by the door, ready to flee if we needed to. Bob was holding a clipboard with a list of speakers.

“Wait!” Hera exclaimed, running up onto the stage. “If this is going to be a proper rally, we need to start with a land acknowledgement!”

“I’ll allow this,” Bob declared.

Hera stood at the microphone and said, “We begin by acknowledging that we gather on the ancestral homeland of the Inmec peoples, who were respectful stewards of this land for twenty thousand years before a mostly peaceful transfer of power to the Azmerian tribe, whose sovereignty was never yielded to the Christian oppressors who now illegally occupy this place. We revere these ancient keepers of the land, and thank them for their hospitality.”

“This was literally barren lifeless rock when I got here!” Jack objected, but Hera shuffled off stage, her obligation fulfilled.

“First up,” Bob said, reading from his clipboard, “representing the environmentalist coalition Purple Peace, we have Purple Panda.”

The being that took the stage was not an actual panda, but rather someone in a purple furry suit that somewhat resembled a panda. He carried a sign that read “Save Everything!”

“I am here to speak for the environment,” Purple Panda said in an inexplicably robotic voice. “But first I must object, that is deeply racist!”

He pointed at Bob’s purple face.

“I was dyeing!” Bob said defensively.

“Well maybe you should finish,” said Purple Panda, “and resurrect with a less offensive face!”

Bob gasped and placed his hand dramatically on his chest.

“Just get to your actual complaint, please,” Jack said.

“Slack Heaven is an abominable threat to the environment, and must be stopped!”

“But you can’t get any more environmentally sustainable than this!” Jack said. “The living logs collect energy released from the Curtain of Light and convert it into all the electricity we need. The only exhaust they produce is the oxygen we breathe. Our trash goes into quantum recyclers that provide all the raw materials we need for the replicators. We are literally a closed, self-sustaining system!”

“Living logs are an invasive species,” said Purple Panda, “and their expansion is destroying the last native habitat of the rare Bookon Tapeworm.”

“Oh, for the love of Dad,” Jack sighed. “So what exactly do you want me to do about it?”

“All development must cease,” demanded Purple Panda, “and you must not change anything until a full environmental impact study can be completed. It should only take one or two centuries.”

“I’ll form a committee to explore the possibility,” Jack snapped. “NEXT!”

Bob read from the sheet, “People for the Ethical Treatment of Endangered Hominids.”

Taking the stage were a bigfoot and a grey alien. The bigfoot had a man-bun. The alien was wearing a t-shirt that read “Who Cares for the Caretakers?” They both wore big glasses.

“We demand you release the caretaker bears!” the alien ordered. “Keeping them in captive labor is literal slavery!”

“Yeah, what she said!” yelled the bigfoot.

“You’ve got to be kidding!” I shouted. I had very strong feelings about this, given that thirteen of my sixteen deaths had been murder by released caretaker bear.

“No, wait,” said Bob, “I’ve heard of this PETEH group. They kidnap caretaker bears and then kill them!”

The alien held up a large syringe.

“It is more humane than captivity!” she declared.

“Yeah, what she said!” yelled the bigfoot.

“You monsters!“ Bob shouted.

“There will be no mercy killing my staff,” Jack said.

“But they are very difficult to adopt out,” the alien whined.

“NEXT!”

To the jeering boos of the crowd, an unruly pack of professional wrestlers in red and black tights took the stage. They stuck out their tongues and flipped everyone off as they unfurled a banner that read FREE TARTARUS. One of them kicked over the mic stand. Another unfolded a folding chair, set it down carefully, then picked it up violently and chucked it off the stage.

“Not these fuckers,” Jack groaned.

Onto the stage with them, they dragged two men and a woman in business attire, all three of them bound together with ropes and gagged with cloth.

“Hey now!” Jack yelled. “Protesting is one thing, but I will not tolerate hostages!”

“Ith uhtheh theh unhth thoothemth!” one of the men said through his gag.

“What?” Jack asked.

A wrestler pulled the gag out of the man’s mouth.

“It’s ok!” the man said. “They’re just students! As Dean, I fully defend their right to peacefully protest. This is an important part of the educational experience!”

“Wait a minute! Wait just one minute!” Bob shouted, joining them on stage. “You are NOT on the list! I am happy to add you to the list, but if you do not get off this stage RIGHT NOW and wait your turn, so help me Odin, I will call your parents and make sure NONE of you get your allowance this month, DO I MAKE MYSELF CLEAR?”

The wrestlers dejectedly left the stage and got in line.

“Much better,” Bob said, jumping down and rejoining me and Jack. “Now, let’s see who’s supposed to be next...”

A bronze-skinned man wearing elaborate tribal garb stepped onto the stage.

“Sargento of the Azmerians,” Bob announced.

“We’re not giving your land back!” Jack yelled before Sargento could even speak.

“I do not want this land,” Sargento explained. “I did not even know this place existed until yesterday. I am here to reclaim the true ancestral home of my people—Mount Olympus!”

He pointed an accusatory finger at the goddesses.

“Well we’re certainly not giving it back!” exclaimed Hera.

Before this dispute could escalate, it was interrupted by the simultaneous roar of powerful engines, the blast of truck horns and the chopping sounds of an approaching helicopter. The crowd parted in a panic to make way for a caravan of semis and humvees that came to a stop where the helicopter landed. Soldiers in riot gear leaped out of the humvees and and formed a line separating us and the stage from the crowd. From the backs of the semi-trucks poured the decent, respectable, hard-working unemployed men of Atlantis. They joined the truck drivers around the stage, waving flags with a white-trimmed blue male gender symbol on a red background.

From the helicopter stepped a tall elderly man in a blue suit with a white shirt and a red tie. He had a bushy white beard and long white hair around the edge of his scalp, with a combover flying up sideways in the wind. He took the stage, giving a double thumbs-up to the adoring crowd.

He was joined by a very short and top-heavy muscle man (the sort that skips leg day) with an overtrimmed black beard wearing black combat pants, a hunter green A-shirt and a red cap that said “Make Atlantis Great Again!”

Finally, a chubby guy wearing golden laurels on top of greasy long blond hair waddled onto the stage. He had a black t-shirt that said “I WANT TO HAVE FAITH” in white block lettering. He picked up the microphone stand and placed it in front of the first man before standing proudly by his side.

“The tall one is Zeus,” Bob explained to me, “the short one is Mars, and the fat one is Apollo.”

“Thank you, thank you,” Zeus said as the audience of men cheered. “You’re a beautiful crowd. Don’t you think this is a beautiful crowd? Thank you!”

After swinging his arms awkwardly in what I guessed were supposed to be dance moves, Zeus addressed Jack directly.

“Now, I bet you’re asking yourself, why is Zeus here today? I could have been somewhere else. I could have visited Perun. He really wanted me to visit, but I told him, no, Perun, not today, today I have to go visit my friend Jack—my good, dear friend Jack, because he’s been having some problems with some very bad people—”

The crowd of protestors booed and hissed.

“—some bad, unreasonable people—you are all just proving my point—and I know what it’s like, it can be dangerous, very dangerous to have all these bad people at your doorstep, and I told Mars here, I said Mars, let’s call in the Continental Guard, let’s deploy them and make sure Slack Heaven is safe for good, beautiful, law-abiding souls—the goddesses wouldn’t have done that—”

“Yeah, fuck the goddesses!” Apollo shouted.

“—that’s right, Apollo, the goddesses wouldn’t do that, because they are weak, they can’t help it, they are corrupt, and they hate Atlantis—”

Now it was Zeus’ audience that booed and hissed.

“—I know, I know, we love Atlantis, but they hate Atlantis! And I told Perun, I know Jack will be grateful—Jack is a wonderful guy, a grateful guy, who can help my boys out, we scratch his back, he scratches ours, and together we can make Slack Heaven a beautiful place, the most beautiful place on the continent, he’ll get tired of how beautiful it will be—that’s how beautiful—and I know Jack is a reasonable guy who is grateful and wants to make Slack Heaven a big, beautiful place—are you, Jack? Are you grateful?”

“Just get to the point, Zeus,” Jack shouted, on his last nerve. “What are you asking for?”

“Not a lot,” Zeus said, “nothing for me, not for me, just things for the good people of Atlantis, like jobs—you’ve got too much automation, Jack, too many robots, everything is computer, too many undocumented caretaker bears—vicious, criminal bears—and they’re stealing jobs from decent, hardworking Atlanteans—”

“Yeah, go back to the Care-a-bbean!” Apollo shouted.

Zeus gestured to his fans.

“—and if you can find these good men some jobs, maybe through some honest, old-fashioned real estate development—I can help, Jack, I can help you find investors, it will be the hottest destination on the continent, just think of it, Jack, I can see it now: MOUNT OLYMPUS, Slack Heaven!”

Zeus waved his hand in front of himself as he pictured the relatively larger and then smaller fonts that would be used on the logo.

I think I was the only one who saw the figure running through the crowd, wearing all black, with a keffiyeh covering their face. They wound up and pitched some kind of yellow baseball-sized object directly at Jack. It seemed to move in slow motion. I raced over to Jack, hoping to stop it, but it hit Jack right on the forehead.

“Ow!” Jack exclaimed, rubbing his head but apparently otherwise unharmed.

I picked up the object that had been thrown. It was a golden apple.

“RIOT!” Mars shouted gleefully.

Chaos erupted. The Martian police fired tear gas canisters and began advancing on the crowd. Truckers threw punches at wrestlers. Bigfoot was getting tased. The stormtrooper was firing his blaster wildly without hitting anyone. Apollo was curled up on the ground while Purple Panda kicked him repeatedly. Martin Luther stood on top of a bus, waving his theses back and forth above his head.

I pulled Bob close to me and sheltered his head against my chest. I turned to retreat to safety, but then I heard Jack shout.

“ALL OF YOU, FUCK OFF!!!”

There was a blinding flash of Jack’s inner white light, more brilliant than I had ever seen before.

And then silence.

The tear gas dissipated. Everyone was gone. Banners flapped in the breeze. The grassy field was littered with abandoned flags and signs. Protest flyers rolled around like tumbleweeds. Luther’s theses floated down and landed in a puddle.

“Uhhh,” Bob said quietly, “what just happened?”

Jack just stood there, staring wide-eyed in shock.

“I think maybe we should go inside,” I said.

Cautiously, we backed up to the door, not taking our eyes off the scene. Bob lead Jack inside.

I stood there for a moment. There wasn’t a soul remaining in the field. They had all disappeared.

Then I looked down at my hand.

I was still holding the golden apple.

I stepped back into Slack Heaven and pulled the door shut behind me.

---

Next: Procrastinating with Jesus’ Son

Doing Drugs with Jesus’ Son is always free.