Excerpts from My Childhood Study of Christianity
OR Gloria in Excelsis Deo Part I:
Why I'll Be a Pagan `Til Kingdom Come

Written and presented by Wes Browning
I'll begin with a little pre-history-
My mother called me wild sometimes,
sometimes a freak.
She often raped and beat and tortured me.
While my father just got drunk and shrieked.

At six I came to understand
that my parents were Christian
and that Good Christians are persecuted,
not persecuting.
I further learned at seven
that Christ would bless Good Christians
and support them in their suffering,
buffering them, so to speak,
presumably from the
persecutions of the BAD Christians

I learned to read, to speed my way to the grace
by which I would escape my tormentors,
or at least to face their torment.

Abraham, Isaac, and Joseph.
Ezekiel, Isaiah, and Josiah.
Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John,
666, Whore of Babylon
Paul aka Saul and all and all...

Then there were Psalms.
Psalms, Canaanite Songs
in the court of King David
"O sing praise to the almighty deity
Who makes sky, pie, and hairy flies alike..."
No, they don't say He makes pie
Mother makes pie and I don't care
Mother makes me cry and I don't care
Mother wants me to die and I don't care
The Psalms say God made the sky so I should shout Hallelujah.
How about I fart at His sky and cry out what's it to ya?
He who hath created me hath in addition created
TOO MUCH SHIT!

So I quit Psalms until the age of ten.
Then one Sunday almost asleep in my pew,
Ready to give up entirely on Christianity,
The Psalm reader began Psalm 22:
"Lord, Lord, why hast thou forsaken me?"
Like it's a question? So I grabbed my Psalm book?
So I could look for myself and read along?
It's no question he read it wrong.
It's: LORD!
LORD!
WHY hast THOU FORSAKEN me?!
It's an accusation, backed up by the facts.

And it demands that THE Lord act NOW!
Why the reader couldn't read it right,
Why the Chaplain couldn't give it light,
No matter I know it meant something
I'd find out for sure
I'd ask the Chaplain
on my way out the church-

After a wary glance at my parents
He bent down to whisper in my ear
"I believe you know too well what it means.
May God help you and forgive us all."
  • The full text, so far, with pictures
  • Dr. Wes's Sampler
  • Dr. Wes's Web Site
  • The rest of the writers