By Scott Sullivan
Editor
God’s Hammer
I repent many things: getting married, tearing labels off pillows, writing this column … And I’m better for it.
Doesn’t mean I stop doing those things. But the guilt I harbor allays my fear I’ve become another mild-mannered no one. I remain a rebel.
“Think I’m a nerd?” I say, flinging the pillow label at my accusers. The delusion serves me.
Which is why hearing news that Ryan Shands, wielding a hammer, entered five Port Huron churches within seven days demanding attendees repent inspired me.
A hammer? That’s one I hadn’t thought of.
The band Led Zeppelin was described in its time as “The Hammer of the Gods.” Shands was just trying to make “Gods” singular.
Now’s not the time to argue mono- vs. polytheism. Nor where the Trinity fits or does not. Not without a hammer.
When I was in college, back in my Zeppelin days, Brother Jed Smock toured campuses preaching outdoors to students who’d gather to further our educations, heckle him or both.
The evangelist — whose autobiography repents/brags that he was the heaviest drinker in his fraternity, then wrote a thesis on “the personal effects of smoking seven straight joints of marijuana” — converted to Christianity after being preached to by an Arab carrying a cross in Morocco.
We didn’t know all this at Purdue. We just knew Brother Jed’s confrontational style was spiced with pearls like:
- “I don’t know how the whorehouses in this town stay open — all of you sorority girls are giving it away for free!”
- “A masturbator today is a homosexual tomorrow!”
And so on, all the while carrying a cross. Brother Jed’s version of a hammer.
When you’re called to get in folks’ faces like that, guess what? They respond. I was there when Brother Jed took a pie — actually a paper plate garnished with shaving cream — in the face.
How many repented after? Had I been a journalist then I’d have done a poll. Instead, I drifted off to my Comparative Religions class. Look what good it did me.
Brother Jed inspired me: I too should write an autobiography no one reads. That would be the point.
Shands, 27, has prospects as his disciple. But the Port Huron Prophet first faces five counts of disturbing a religious service and five more of using a computer to commit a crime. I’m not sure how a computer fits in, but these days they’re a must if your goal is mayhem.
I wrote here once about sword attacks. Hammers have been popular since the Norse god Thor protected mankind with one, ruled the sky and so on.
Latter-day imitators such as Shands and Shane Schindler, a former Bay City resident sentenced last August to eight to 20 years in prison for hammering a mannequin in Las Vegas, don’t measure up.
Attempted murder of inanimate objects is a serious crime on The Strip: Think slot machines. But in Valhalla, where Thor hung out with Odin; Day, Son of Night and so on — it would have been small potatoes.
Go big or go home. Live large, I say. If your goal is to be a Hammer God, smash mountains, slay serpents and ride with the Valkyries. Whacking mannequins, Port Huron congregants and college kids may earn an “E” for effort, but is settling.
I repent I wrote this. And it’s not over. Few weapons work like laughter. Take Zeppelin’s “Immigrant Song” lyrics:
We come from the land of the ice and snow, from the midnight sun where the hot springs flow.
Hammer of the gods will drive our ships to new land.
To fight the hordes and sing, and cry. Valhalla, I am coming.
Always sweep, with threshing oar. Our only goal will be the western shore …
How soft your fields so green. Can whisper tales of gore. Of how we calmed the tides of war. We are your overlords.
So now you’d better stop and rebuild all your ruins. For peace and trust can win the day despite of all your losing.
Violent conquest to institute peace? It is popular in theology, though I’m less certain how successful. The song ends:
Ooh. Ooh. Ooh. Ooh. Ooh
Ooh. Ah. Ooh. Ooh. Ooh. Ooh. Ooh. Ooh. Ooh. Ooh. Ooh.
Say you want a resolution? Nothing beats what comes after the final line.
