American Entertainment 1982

  Chapter 252 I have been at home

(More than 400 words were deleted in the last chapter, mainly because after the outbreak of the American Civil War, the black fleeing north discovered that the Southern Baptist missionaries preached in the South for two hundred years was completely different from that in the North, and Nick’s description of the image of Jim Jones Tommy is the same, Martin's concluding speech and other lines~~ Good guy, get up and open it, it is a deleted version, and there is no way to restore or even keep a copy, because it is coded by a writer's assistant, there is no draft, or Said, the manuscripts have been deleted...mainly because I don't know how to write some anecdotes that actually happened in the history of the United States, why are they also deleted...)

   Bay County, Florida, Garden City.

To be honest, Nick came to see that Gary Duney today with the idea of ​​a pilgrimage. After all, the other party’s image that Tommy mentioned a few nights ago was too legendary. What kind of demeanor is the world's top "Bible" interpreter, a believer in God who can be exiled by mainstream sects?

It's a pity that after Tommy finished speaking that night, there was no more to follow. Instead, while reading a book, he mysteriously made many phone calls in a few days, and went to a nearby church to worship. It was not until five days later that he announced that he would Going to see Gary Duney, for this reason, Nick, who couldn't bear it for a long time, picked up the camera himself. He hoped that he could follow Tommy and see the legendary man as closely as possible. big shot.

According to the address left in the other party's brochure, Nick and two men who helped carry the spare battery accompanied Tommy from the bustling metropolis of Miami to Panama City, the capital of Bay County, and then drove to the final destination, Gaden. town.

  Garden Town, also known as Garden City, has a nice name and a good town environment, with grassy trees and clean streets, but there are no vehicles or pedestrians on the road.

The commercial vehicle at the airport drove the car to the parking lot outside the Huayuan City town building as agreed. In the parking lot, a white man with a weathered face but a friendly smile was leaning on a large pickup truck, smiling and looking at the jumper. Tommy, who got out of the car, approached the opening tentatively and asked:

   "Tommy Hawk?"

   "It's me, you are Dr. Duni's assistant, Mr. Hankins?" Tommy smiled and stretched out his hand, holding it with the middle-aged man, and said with a smile.

The middle-aged man named Hankins looked at the three Nicks who came down from the commercial vehicle with the shooting equipment. Tommy introduced: "Mr. Jeff Lavin's campaign documentary filming team, a veteran donor of the Democratic Party in California, In addition to the donation, a small gift for Jeff, Jeff... You know, Jeff can't come here in person, but he hopes to record all this with the camera, and he really, really admires Dr. Duney."

Nick felt a little bad when Tommy lied, the **** told him the other night, Martin and Page, that he was in awe of Gary Duney's Second Coming Church, and it turned out To speak is to lie.

  How could these people be Jeff’s campaign documentary filming team? Stephen Bean is out of his mind, sending a team from California to make a campaign documentary for a guy who believes in a flat earth? And Nick was sure that Jeff had never heard Gary Duney's name.

   "In short, welcome to Garden City." The middle-aged white man named Hankins nodded to the three of Nick.

  Nick carried the camera, looked at the large pickup truck next to Hankins and asked, "So, shall we continue to get in the car and set off?"

   "Let's go? Where are you going?" Hankins asked suspiciously.

  Nick pointed to the pickup truck: "Church, see Mr. Gary Duney, I thought this pickup truck was here to pick us up."

"He's in the municipal building. Yes, this municipal building was bought by our 'Road to the Second Coming of Christ' to make it convenient for everyone to worship. The price is so cheap that it seems like a free gift." Hankins turned his head and looked closer. The three-storey building in close proximity makes a gesture:

"Garden City was disbanded five years ago. The police station, city government, and firefighters... were all disbanded. This is an unincorporated area in the official sense. Today, it is just a human gathering place that does not deserve to appear on the map of the United States. Everything here is now under the responsibility of the county government of Bei County."

Although the United States often disbands some incorporated towns, Nick is still a little unbelievable, because generally speaking, the dissolution occurs in the metropolitan area, which is easier to manage. Such small towns in remote countryside generally do not appear to be disbanded. After all, the county government It is too far away from here, and it is very inconvenient to manage.

  He turned the camera and looked at the well-organized surroundings: "Such a beautiful place? Why did you disband it?"

"Everyone doesn't know... It seems to be cheated. We voted to elect two new Garden City government committee members that year. Then that year, the committee with five committee members passed an application with a vote of 3:2. Regarding the resolution to disband Garden City, the people here were at a loss, not understanding what had happened, and then approached the Bay County government and said they wanted to cancel the resolution, but the county government said that the federal and state governments had agreed to our request, but When did we ask? The county government also said that the five committee members who passed the resolution were elected by all of us. Since we have chosen them, it is equivalent to empowering them to exercise rights and obligations on our behalf and make correct decisions on our behalf. Speaking of the two **** committee members, after the dissolution resolution, the whole family moved to Miami, but fortunately they moved, otherwise I guarantee that more than 30 civil servants who lost their jobs for this will kill them." Hankins sighed a little Shaking his head, he led a few people towards the building:

"The county government has been calculating for four years, but it has not yet figured out how many assets and debts Garden City has, and it has been four years since I owed my severance pay. By the way, I am also among the more than 30 people who are unemployed. I used to be a Sergeant of the Garden City Police Department, thanks to disbandment, I'm out of a job."

Hankins walked in the front, nagging, and didn't care whether Tommy and Nick heard his complaints, but Nick came from the big city of Los Angeles. He suddenly thought of a possibility, so he looked at Tommy next to him, Uncertainly asked in a low voice: "Do you think, is it possible that it is what I guessed? It's the same as New York, a big city like Los Angeles?"

  Tommy nodded without denying: "Otherwise? There is no second answer, and there is only one reason for each dissolution."

"But real estate developers generally only play this kind of trick in big cities, and it's more subtle than what they do here. Why does it happen here?" Nick looked around again, and after confirming that this place has nothing to do with big cities, he continued to ask road.

The metropolitan area of ​​Los Angeles and New York continues to expand with the influx of population, and some surrounding small towns will also be disbanded and accepted the management of the city government. Generally, this kind of dissolution seems to be the choice of the people, but in fact there are real estate developers. Well, the problem is that it doesn't make sense for real estate developers to go to a rural place like Garden City to do this kind of trick. There isn't even a decent beach in this place, and there isn't even a resort to build.

"It's not only real estate businessmen who will play this trick. Mining companies, forestry companies, fishing companies...any one is possible, and the possibility of mining companies is higher. Maybe the mining companies have quietly discovered ore veins nearby. Once they are disbanded, the garden All assets and debts of the city will be handed over to the county government, including public security, planning, finance, franchising, judicial proceedings, land use rights, etc., and everything has nothing to do with the residents here. The county government is willing to transfer the land You can sell to whoever you sell to, and you don’t need to get the consent of the residents. Moreover, at the county and state levels, the public relations and lobbying companies of large companies can be more subtle, more flexible, and more efficient. In the end, you’d better not take this Record a paragraph." Tommy flicked Nick's camera with his fingers:

"As for the way you say those real estate developers acquire land is more subtle, that's because the residents of big cities are too smart, but this is Bay County, Florida, 30% of the families live below the US standard poverty level, do you think they are smart? If they were really smart, they wouldn’t have elected a few commissioners who had been bought off long ago, and destroyed their homes for them, and the big companies would be blatantly bullying the country folks here for their lack of brains.”

Nick could only shake his head in the end, admitting that what Tommy said made sense, but there was nothing they could do about it, even as Tommy said, it’s better to delete Tommy’s words, so as not to cause trouble, this is **** America, Politicians and capitalists can easily treat the country people as fools if they want to, and trick them into giving up their magical country of power.

He tried his best to restore his mood to the excitement of seeing the saint, followed Tommy and chased Hankins who led the way into the empty city hall, and walked up the stairs to the second floor. Before entering the room, he just stepped into the In the corridor, Tommy and the others heard a vicissitudes of life and a kind voice:

"I want you to understand that I am just a lucky messenger who has traveled the road of life for many years. It was not until I was very old that I realized the true meaning of my being here. God sent me to deliver His message to you. Believers, remember, do what is right."

  Hearing this slightly hoarse but magnetic voice, Pilgrim Nick couldn't help but take a few deep breaths, preparing to appear in the room with a camera next second and take pictures of the other party.

   But before he was brought into the venue, the voice continued to sound:

   "What is the right thing to do?"

   "Whoever beats another shall be put to death."

  “Women who lose their virginity and falsely claim to be virgins at weddings shall be executed.”

   "Whoever learns from a married woman, both shall be put to death."

   "And you two, committed three Torah executions, I..."

"Is this the greatest **** interpreter? Is this worthy of awe?" Nick almost smashed the camera on Tommy when he heard the next few words, and cursed in a low voice: "This is more important than Jim-Temple-Jones." Damn barbaric and primitive! He wants to execute the believers, you **** still..."

"I saw that thunder and lightning will fall, and we can't stop God from being wrathful, but I sincerely hope that God will pour that thunder and lightning on me, and I will use myself to erase your sins and God's guilt." Anger, that's what I do."

"I am willing to bear the punishment you are worried about, but Nikki and Joseph, the most important thing you should do is not to appear here and pray for God's forgiveness because you are afraid of punishment. What I did was to sincerely apologize to Nikki's husband in exchange for his forgiveness. I will meet some new friends next time, so I hope you will go back and think about it now, don't go wrong again, and return to God's narrow gate. "

The imaginary line where the cult leader announced the execution of the believers in the next second did not appear. The voice inside was still gentle and friendly, without any fluctuations, and it was completely contrary to the lines he imagined. This made Nick seem to be stuck in the neck, and it took a long time to return Unexpectedly, Hankins, who was standing at the door, looked back at Nick with an idiot's eyes for a while, and then looked at Tommy with inquiring eyes, trying to figure out what's wrong with this guy.

  Tommy turned his fingers at the temple twice, and said helplessly: "He... has been under a lot of work pressure recently, and his mind is disturbed."

   "I thought... I thought Dr. Duney would execute them, and many extremist sects in the newspapers would do that, as well as in the movies." Nick explained to Hankins in a low voice: "Sorry."

Hankins looked at Nick contemptuously, and asked Tommy: "The California funder, is he sure he didn't have a grudge against the candidate, so he sent him here? You should ask clearly, maybe the funder really supports Jeff LaVine's rival."

Soon, the door opened from the inside, and two middle-aged white men, a man and a woman, came out from the inside. They wore simple clothes and were typical of the low-level poor in rural Florida. leave.

  Hankins pushed open the door: "Doctor, Tommy Hawke is outside, and he also brought the filming team of Mr. Jeff Lavin's campaign documentary to follow and shoot."

   "Please come in." Gary Duney's voice sounded.

After obtaining the consent of the other party, Hankins moved away, and Tommy and Nick, who was carrying the camera, walked in. An old white man wearing tortoiseshell glasses, a plaid shirt and jeans stood up in front of a large desk and walked over to talk to Tommy shook hands and greeted him. After the greetings were settled and Hankins withdrew, Gary Duney, who had no guru aura, looked at Tommy suspiciously:

"To be honest, although I talked with Tommy on the phone before, I still don't know why you are here, and I don't quite understand who Mr. Jeff Lavin is, what he is going to run for, and what relationship he has with me. "

At this moment, Nick even began to wonder if Tommy was joking with himself before. This old man did not look like a staid and serious religious scholar, nor did he seem like a missionary who fluently quoted scriptures, like a...someone from the city government The old staff of the department who are about to retire, except for a silver chain cross around their necks, can hardly find any other accessories related to religion.

   Moreover, it seems that this old man does not look like the kind of billionaire church figure who placed the church in such an unincorporated town, and the believers are all poor. How could he spend a lot of money to support Jeff LaVine's campaign?

   Could it be that Tommy is really in awe of the other party, so he came here to get to know the other party?

After chatting about the beautiful scenery of Garden City, Tommy looked at Gary Duni and asked earnestly in a studious tone, "That's right, Dr. Duni, I came across some information about you and your church by chance. Said, you said that the New Testament was mistranscribed, changed too much, and no one even saw the original manuscript when it was born, it is an apocrypha, unlike the Old Testament, everything is well documented."

"I was at Princeton Theological Seminary, and I mainly conducted research on the identification of religious texts. From what I know, yes, the New Testament has the problem of being reconstructed by later generations. I did not say it is apocrypha, but From a research point of view, there are various contradictions and styles in many Gospels in the New Testament." Although Tommy discussed the issue of religious classics with him when he came up, it was a bit impolite, but Gary Duney still gave it seriously and concisely. gave his own answer:

"For example, in the Gospel of John, compared with the other Gospels, the **** in it is not like Jesus, but more like a mortal who has received supernatural powers and likes to show off miracles everywhere. The more serious problem is that the first chapter of the Gospel of John Chapter 21 was added by later generations many years after the book was written. From the professional point of view of scripture identification, we can trace back the history of these Gospels. "The problem is that countless classic scholars try to trace back to the "New Testament" just as they traced back to the "Old Testament" and finally found its original text. For hundreds of years, countless scholars have followed one after another, and finally pointed to an answer. There is no original text. That’s what future generations reconstructed.”

   "My mother is a Catholic." Tommy paused for a while before speaking.

   Gary Duney said with a smile: "Catholicism is one of the three main sects of Christianity. Of course, your mother can decide which sect to attribute her beliefs to."

"I was troubled by a problem when I was very young, doctor, those portraits in the Gospels in the Bible, my mother was a devout Catholic, and my house was full of those Gospel portraits, I grew up looking at those pictures, one day , I found a problem, **** in Matthew looks like a human, **** in Mark looks like a lion, **** in Luke looks like a bull, **** in John The statue of **** in the Gospel is an eagle. At that time, I asked my mother and the priest of the church, and I got a standard answer today, that is, the different levels of images that **** showed in front of different apostles, human beings The image represents the humanity of Jesus, the lion represents the nobility of Jesus, the cow represents the humility of Jesus, and the eagle represents the arrogance of Jesus. After I got the answer, I asked a question. This time, the priest did not give me an answer, only my mother pulled I motioned for me to shut up, the question was, the four of them are all faithful apostles of Jesus, why did **** treat them differently? Why was he so proud of the apostle John, and why was he humbled towards Luke?"

Gary Duney smiled after listening to Tommy's question, and instead of giving an answer in a hurry, he praised: "Very few ordinary believers will find your first question. , Ordinary missionaries will also answer with the standard answers of different levels of images, but in fact, in the 3rd century AD, there was a scholar who raised the same question as you, but he was not a believer, he only raised it from the perspective of religion solved this problem.”

"Jesus will not change his image. It has nothing to do with the level. It's just that when the apostles preached, they faced different missionary groups, so the image of **** they described was different. They needed to convince some noble believers that **** was as noble as them The existence of other poor believers needs to make other poor believers believe that **** is humble and able to talk with the poor equally and even humbly. **** has never changed. For example, the poor believers in Rome only accept the Gospel of Luke, while the Jewish Christians Only accept the "Gospel of Matthew", not because of the image of Jesus, but because believers only accept the kind of belief that is more beneficial to them and they are more willing to believe. It is just that the early Christian groups believed that in order to let more people believe in God, There is no need to be unified in this matter, let people choose the missionary method they want to accept, which also leads to many pagans attacking Christianity from this angle, and the Christian church has compiled another book..."

""Refutation of Heresy", Irenaeus' "Refutation of Heresy", in order to help the church lie, he can only say that the Gospels are the pillars and foundations of the church, and the four Gospels represent the four directions of the world and the four strongest roots of the church Pillars, a building with four pillars is the strongest." Tommy continued the other party's words.

  Gary Duney nodded, his eyes were a little surprised: "You went to a missionary school in high school? Ordinary young people don't understand this."

   "If someone is confused by the same question as I was when I was a child, what should you do?" Tommy didn't answer, but looked back at the old man calmly and asked.

  Just now, I was surprised at Tommy's understanding of Christianity, but Tommy's question made Gary Duney laugh again: "Of course it's preaching, boy, as long as they are willing to listen, I'm willing to explain it to them."

   "Can you lie?" Tommy hesitated, asking a presumptuous question.

  Gary Duney shook his head slightly: "I never lie, kid."

The expression on Tommy's face gradually became bright: "If there are too many people who confuse people and are scattered all over Florida, I mean, how much do I need to pay you for appearing before you are willing to come forward to confuse the world? Or , Mr. Jeff Lavin is willing to pay the fee."

"It's what a missionary should do to help everyone. Of course they won't get paid, but...if you're willing to bear the travel expenses or donate to the church, I'd be very grateful." Gary Duney saw Tommy's gradually changing expression , I always feel that something is wrong, but I don't know where the problem is:

   "However, I think the pastors or priests of the churches in various places may not want an outsider to intervene in their work."

"You don't need to think about those problems, Dr. Duni, I will be responsible for solving them, including travel expenses, board and lodging, and the final donation. There is only one question, that is, do you have time now? We can leave at any time, and the first stop is at the Tower Rahashi, there are about 200 people, and it will last for two days." Tommy said with twinkling eyes.

Gary Duney shrugged and said with a smile: "Of course, but... I was too surprised, I mean, I was just invited to preach, you don't have to bring a camera to see me, although I look a little old , but it’s okay to fly alone, Tallahassee, which church organized the meeting?"

   "St. Joseph's Rosicrucian Society." Tommy said a noun frankly.

The kind and sincere old man on the opposite side had a dull expression, stared at Tommy for a long time, then slowly nodded, and then slowly got up: "Of course, of course, no problem, no matter what the status of the lost people is, there is no problem, but... okay Come on, let me tell everyone, kid, are you sure you believe in Catholicism?"

   “I said before, my mom is Catholic,” Tommy said, “I never said I was.”

Nick next to him didn't know if Gary Duney's church was a cult, but the St. Joseph's Rosicrucian Church that came out of Tommy's mouth was a notorious religious organization in Florida. Seeing the old man slowly leave, Nick stared at Tommy:

"what have you done?"

  After the old man left, Tommy took out a cigarette, lit it, and took a puff: "It's nothing, find a real angel to help the devil stand on the platform, and the devil will donate 50,000 yuan to the social charity I helped Jeff set up."

Nick immediately figured out Tommy's routine. If those strange cult leaders in Florida were on the same stage with the old man, they would have more confidence to sell their own religious works to overseas believers. After all, they could boast to them that they had obtained the best Interpreters help and endorse.

"You are a devil, you will go to hell, Tommy, this is not a curse, this is a judgment that will inevitably come." Nick whispered to Tommy: "You actually want to sell this kind and sincere old man to those lunatics! Get rid of this crazy idea!"

   "Do you know what's crazier?" Tommy said with a smile seeing Nick's expression.

  Nick stared at Tommy, shaking his head slightly.

   "I sold it more than once." Tommy exhaled a smoke ring: "And, the devil, I'm already in hell, I'm always at home."

  (end of this chapter)