We’re Gonna Read The Bible

A few Saturdays ago, my roommate and I were sitting in Tompkins Square, eating and pontificating and whatnot.

I’d just flown back into New York the night before and was trying to explain how airplanes renew, what I guess you could call, my Faith.

Whenever I fly, or even see planes flying overhead, I’m reminded of how things still happen to and around me that I just don’t understand. How, from that limited cavemannesque perspective, a huge heavy tube of winged metal somehow flying up into the air still seems amazing and kind of impossible. And how when I dwell on that thought for a bit, that happy, white-bearded, holy cloudman—or at least the ideas surrounding him—don’t seem totally crazy.

Mr. Atheist was in the middle of explaining wing design and aerodynamics when a crazy puppet show started blasting music from across the park. Neither of us thought much of it at first; from what we could see, it was just some blue puppet with a guitar stapled to his hands, rockin’ out to the hits of the seventies, eighties, and today.

It actually wasn’t until the second or third song when we realized it wasn’t just an ordinary street performer. Turns out, it was a Christian Bible puppet show, and it had somehow attracted a whole crowd of kids who were seriously digging it.

The song that tipped us off was Billy Joel’s, We Didn’t Start The Fire. But instead of We Didn’t Start The Fire, it was We’re Gonna Read The Bible.

The Monkees’ I’m A Believer, understandably, came shortly afterward, followed by a catchy rendition of Huey Lewis’s B2TFuture hit, The Power of Love God ("don't need money/don't need fame/don't need no credit card to praise his name").

Though the Christian puppet didn’t succeed in converting either of us, his performance did provide one revelation: If you’re looking to make a solid, Christian rock parody, all you really have to do is find a love song, and substitute the word God with Love.

A nice, little poetic core of an idea, and probably the main reason I’ve never felt the need to adopt any sort of organized religion.

Then, in some weird cosmic punctuation of a moment, a girl from a neighborhood sex-ed campaign handed us each a dozen condoms. So we put ‘em on our dicks and chewed the rest like bubblegum!