An Uncommon Christmas – The Rebirth 2007

"Megachurch is heaven for some..."

IVOR TOSSELL
Special to The Globe and Mail
January 26, 2008

The show running at the Prayer Palace megachurch is called An Uncommon Christmas, though a better title might have been My Christmas Pageant Can Kick Your Christmas Pageant's Backside.

For instance, most Christmas pageants pack it in at Christmas. This one kept filling up the 3,000-seat church, week after week, and here it's the end of January and it's still going.

But then, most Christmas pageants feature Jesus, Mary, a few wise men and maybe the deacon's preschooler dressed as a sheep. This one has death - lots and lots of death. It also has street gangs, drunkards, abortions, lasers, pyrotechnics, fake snow, angels floating up from the congregation, Satan grabbing sinners by the throat and throwing them into hell, and God himself, accompanied by an angel choir and a colossal amount of fake smoke.

As the Palace's cheerful congregants will tell you, An Uncommon Christmas is really a morality play: an illustration of what happens when we die that just happens to be set at Christmas.

You've probably seen the Prayer Palace yourself. The non-denominational church is a gigantic pancake-shaped structure by Highway 400 as you pass Finch. Everything about the show is equally outsized, from the three-storey heaven-and-hell set, to the $100,000 budget and cast of 90 ad-libbing volunteers.

Scene: A gang member named J.D. meets a reformed cohort on a darkened street.

"I gave up the G-unit for G-sus!" says the reformed friend.

"No sex, no drugs, no alcohol?" says J.D. "What a boring life ... that's loco, man!"

But the Christian plies him with tales of heaven, angels and eternal life, and soon the two are saying a prayer to Jesus. Moments later, a rival gang arrives and proceeds to shoot him dead. (This would be the first of several instances where new converts are immediately killed and sent to heaven.) J.D. wakes up at the foot of the Pearly Gates, along with a rival gangster who was caught in the crossfire. Heaven is a long white staircase, flanked by clouds and angels, winding toward the roof. Halfway up is a man-sized tome with "The Book of Life" painted on the front. Hell is off to the left, a giant pile of slag dotted with ruined pillars and tombstones.

There is a moment of anxiety over which side of the stage J.D. is heading for.

"J.D.," an angel intones over the loudspeakers, "your name is written in the Book of Life."

Everybody exhales. The audience whoops, the angels beckon, the music plays and God himself emerges from a cloud of smoke atop the stairs. J.D. climbs heavenward, waving for the TV cameras that project his face on giant screens.

The other gangster is out of luck, and this is where the real star of the show emerges. Satan appears in a full facial prosthetic, barrelling across the stage and scaring children. His job - as God explains later - is to "sift the hearts of mankind." Pyrotechnics explode as he drags the second gangster off to hell. Then he returns to deliver the moral of the story.

"You want to do your own thing?" he booms. "Go on! Let me help you!"

So it went, for two hours: citizen after citizen of Toronto walking through the cityscape (real, working traffic lights), getting proselytized, killed, then sorted at the Pearly Gates.

The sweet granny hit by the car goes to heaven, where her dead husband gamely comes out to greet her. The lady who kills herself after her boyfriend bullied her into an abortion goes to hell. (This would be the most pointed political moment.) The drunk who repents moments before kneeling over goes to heaven. The partying kids go to hell, and so does the feckless churchgoer who gossips instead of testifying.

"You are my prized possession, my part-time Christian!" Booms Satan, before grabbing her by the throat and throwing her off the edge of his rocky crag.

The atmosphere is festive, and the crowd is into it. The Prayer Palace bills itself as "Toronto's Multicultural Church," and you can see why: Its multicoloured crowd has a better claim to diversity than a good number of the city's liberal institutions.

Many of the churchgoers I spoke to said this was their third or fourth viewing of the show. Why? "It's reality," one told me. "Seeing this show makes me realize I could die tonight."

He wasn't kidding.

An Uncommon Christmas runs through tomorrow.

www.theglobeandmail.com

Source: The Globe and Mail (January 26, 2008)

"An Uncommon Christmas" Theatrical Slideshow
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