JESUS IS ABOUT TO GO GANGSTA ON YO' ASS

This is an Open Letter:

Dear Stephen Baldwin,

I just read the Salon profile of your evangelical movement and I must say that I am quite impressed. I had thought that you were still in rehab somewhere or maybe planning a reunion with Pauly Shore on VH1's THE SURREAL LIFE. (Who among us wouldn't want to chill with The Weasel one more time?)

But it turns out that on September 11, 2001 you apparently found God, religion, Jesus and the Holy Ghost. You are now clean and sober and you've started an evangelical movement that is sweeping the country, combining the inherent street credibility of the skater culture with old-fashioned Old Testament fundamentalism. It's a marriage not a lot of people would have thought of--maybe you stumbled onto it by accident--but it apparently works, as your ministry is credited converting tens of thoussands of teens and young adults to Christianity over the last two years. Your skater/Jesus DVD has now sold over 150,000 copies and the memoir you penned about your born again conversion is racing up the Amazon.com best seller list. Your celebrity has reached a level that hasn't been seen since you made THE USUAL SUSPECTS over ten years ago. Good for you.

But Stephen, I have a bone to pick with you (well, several bones actually). Your brand of Old Time Religion preaches no tolerance for people who don't adhere to the teachings of the Good Book and no tolerance for homosexuality. You attack Bono for being a pseudo-Christian and for rallying the world to provide debt relief to Third World nations. (Apparently, God wouldn't want us to help the impoverished attain the means to not be impoverished anymore?) You believe the Rapture is coming and that when "the fire burns" you will stand with the righteous skater dudes and cheer. I realize that Jesus wasn't in the Old Testament, but you do call yourself a "Psycho for Jesus", which leads me to believe that you do believe in him and his teachings. But Jesus had love for his fellow man and if you are a Christian you subscribe to the idea that he died for our sins and to try and set an example for us. Jesus provided loaves of bread and fishes for those who were hungry, he befriended prostitutes who were cast out of common society and he preached that we should have love for all of mankind like he did, which to me sounds like the opposite of the intolerance you are preaching.

I guess Stephen, what I'm getting at is this: the United States of America is still the greatest place in the World in which to live, but I've come to realize that we are a foolish, undereducated and horribly closed-minded country in a lot of ways. Our youth are unfortunately even more this way (for the most part) and because of the hectic, latchkey world that we live in it's easier than ever for a young person to feel overwhelmed, ill-equipped and unable to cope. Though I think that even a 12-year old who rarely goes to church can see through a lot of the crap you're preaching, that same 12-year old might sign your commitment card to Jesus and embrace your veneer of skater cool just to belong to something that they might think is a brotherhood of acceptance, even though you are unwittingly (or perhaps "wittingly") just working with the Radical Right to sign up soldiers in the fight against liberalism, intellectualism, free will and relativism. They might like the simplicity of your message because you provide easy answers in a world with hard questions and even though the answers you provide aren't based in the faith that you profess to represent, they do provide comfort even as they lead people down the wrong path in trying to confront the problems of our modern world.

Stephen, I hope you didn't cook this up just so that you could make yourself famous and rich again, because if that's the case you are creating a movement that is nothing but a "Taliban: X-Games Edition", something that will not help anyone in these troubled times and that could actually grow into a movement that threatens the very fabric of our society. And even if you really do believe everything you preach, I hope, although I am not optimistic of this, that you look in the mirror one day and then go open the Bible and try to reconcile your words and actions with the teachings that are on those pages. (If you have trouble understanding some of it, your big brother Alec can probably help you.)

I hope this letter finds you well Stephen and that you take it as the constructive, helpful criticism it is meant to be. I do not "roll with the Devil", but I do believe that if Jesus were alive today (actually alive, not just in spirit) he would step up to you and bitch slap you across the face for using his name and misrepresenting the his words and the words of Our Father Who Art in Heaven. Even if nothing else in this letter reaches you, think about the sting of His Mighty Slap across your bloated, smug face and then maybe you'll see the error of your ways.

Sincerely,

R

Peace...