The Fabulous Destiny of Marked Accordingly

Half the fun of TV evangelism is in trying to accurately gauge how sincere the pastors actually are. Did they start out as conmen and crooks, only to find (as all great liars -and actors- do) that they had started to believe their own overblown self-sermonizing? Or were they true believers whose faith signposted the direction of their eventual charlatanry? Werner Herzog’s documentary God’s Angry Man kind of ruins the fun with a not-so-subtle hint halfway through, when Dr. Gene Scott reads out the viewer’s contributions in an attempt to elicit more; 120, 240, 360, 3600, 3600, 1800, 3600, 180, 2, 4, 6, 8, 10, 12, 14, 16, eat your heart out Fibonacci! So it’s definitely a lie, and all that remains is whether it’s a lie in the service of the Lord or a limousine.

It’s funny. When I was young, my greatest fear was of things that looked and even acted like people, but weren’t. Robots, androids, aliens, clones, these were the stuff of my nightmares, not the unambiguous evil of a Jason or Freddy Krueger. Evangelists ought to strike terror into the heart of my remaining youth, as even ordinary men of god do. But the fear inspired by Gene Scott, as it seems to me, is dull, throbbing, like (I suppose) your conscience. His angry eyes, staring out of the screen, are to be propitiated, not avoided. A pensioner’s dream, that, to bask in the anger-turned-love of his gaze!

But the singers! Every now and then, whilst Scott takes (I imagine) a toilet break, a display of flashing telephone numbers foregrounds a couple of Las Vegas-like singers whose every eye movement oozes with oily professionalism, smilingly showcasing the love of God like it was for sale on the Home Shopping Channel, buy now, don’t pay later! They are the chilling ones, scary like the soulless sparkle of Daniel O’Donnell and his dead, unsmiling eyes.