Viva Lost Vegas: a tale of spiritual searching and US evengelicals

Johnny Vegas, is a English comedian and self confessed celebrator of sin. At one time though he thought of becoming a catholic priest and on a TV documentary for Channel 4: Johnny Vegas's guide to evangelical christianity he went on a spiritual quest to see if US evangelism could help him rediscover his faith.

Now my expectation of this show was 'car crash' telly - you know line up a few right wing nutter christians to be made mince meat for easy laughs but this was a much more personal and serious show. Maybe that's cos i'm so used to reading blogs of my american friends in the emerging church who are usuaully coming from a post-evangelical and post-megachurch perspective so my lens of US evangelicalism has been coloured to expect some kind of super smiley, super spiritual super-church junkies.

What was impressive was the everyday ordinary side of US evangelicals - yes there was the guy who believed in a literal 6 day creation but he was friendly not fanatical - so much so that Johnny observed that teaching literal creation in schools would lead to a few confused kids rather than throwbacks from the 50's (18 or 19? you call)...

There was the mega church evangelical pastor who told Johnny that church was not a place for the good but a place for the sinners and struggling and that he and most of his church were struggling together - it was a beauiful moment in the film for Johnny who had clearly not been expecting such grace and acceptance towards his own self confessed sinful lifestyle. The generousity of the pastor continued as finding out about Johnny's catholic roots he recommended him a couple of catholic authors including Henri Nouwen to encourage him to see his own tradition/roots as spirtually alive.

Finally there was the ordinary family - who drank beer with Johnny and talked with him openly about their faith, in a way that was honestly refreshing. The best scene when he was interviewing an engaged couple about why they weren't having sex and the guy was busy telling him how hard it was not too but he was respecting the humanity of his fiance - Johnny turned to her and said it's easier for women as they can knit or something with their two hands - which made everyone laugh...

Johnny was clearly touched in the filming but his conclusion was that these evangelicals had not made him envious enough of their life to change straight away but they had awakened his spirtual hunger and set him off on a longer journey...

For me, with my own evangelical heritage, it was a moment of being thankful for the so many ordinary people trying to be faithful to what they know who shaped and formed my own christian faith and a reappreciation of evangelics in general...

Comments

[Johnny Laird]

I watched this too, and was really pleased to see how it panned out. It's rare to see a reasonably honest & uncynical portrayal of Christianity on the TV in the UK. There were moments when Mr Vegas was clearly moved.

I've always kinda warmed to him, because he's a genuinely funny bloke, but it was cool to see this other side to him.

Thanks for your post, Paul.

[brodie]

Paul - i did not see the show but from what you've said here it seems to have been positive.

[Paul]

Thanks Johnny - yeah makes a change from Dawkins type of approach of comparing the worst of christianity with the best of athethism - but I think that reflects on the honesty of Mr Vegas in his search.

[Paul]

Thanks Brodie, yes was a +ive show would be great to see a follow up of what Johnny did next... :)