All-American Boy

A Memoir

Scott Peck

• Publisher: Scribner
• Year: 2010
• eBook ISBN: 9781439106334
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: LGBT Studies
• Index: Social Sciences

In his memoir All-American Boy, Scott Peck poignantly relives the pain and isolation of growing up gay in a Christian Southern community. In this touching memoir, Peck finds a way through the pain from his childhood, growing up gay without acceptance in the Christian South, and through this emotional journey he learns to heal from those wounds. He doesn't hold back while reliving the time when his father, Marine Col. Fred Peck, testified before Congress that there was no place for his gay son in the military. This is merely one of the many big moments shaping the book and the author's life, on top of the religious influences that surrounded him since he was born. This is a "survivor's tale that in its universal appeal brings to mind the most compelling aspects of Gal and Shot in the Heart. Through the course of these scathing, inspiring, instructive pages, Scott Peck, writer and human being, grows into one hell of a terrific man" (Michael Dorris).

eight

Tag-team preaching.

Once a year the Holy Ghost came down on three young men who were studying to enter the ministry, during tag-team preaching. The idea was simple and allegedly inspired: each preacher-to-be delivered a fifteen-minute sermon, after which a buzzer went off, and he had better have made all of his points and convicted enough sinners, because his time was up. Then the next contestant ran to the stage, slapped the hand of his predecessor, and commenced with his sermon.

Bill and I wanted invitations so badly we salivated every time we glanced at the church calendar.

The preacher boys were usually a little rough around the edges, missing the finesse that, we were assured, comes only with experience and prayer—but what they lacked in style they made up for in intensity. Bring your earplugs. God can sound rough through a novice channel.

Winners won nothing except the admiration of the congregation and the pastoral staff—but in our tight world, recognition was status, and status was everything. And if your sermon blew the doors off the back of the church and toppled the pews, those pats on the back might just land you a pastoral internship.

Tag-team preaching was a hell of a show.

One night, one of those nights when you could die right then and there and be perfectly happy about it, Doug, our youth pastor, invited Bill and me to speak. We accepted politely and maintained our composure until safely in the church parking lot, where we proceeded to whoop and yell, and congratulate ourselves, “Yes! Yes! Yes!” until our throats were sore and our heads were light and our palms hurt from all the high fives.

I suppose I should have hesitated. But the pulpit was the center of the universe; I never wanted to be anything but a preacher. And even as my belief system rumbled internally and threatened to explode, the thought of stepping into the shoes of my childhood heroes and seeing the world from the other side of the altar was too much to resist.

I prepared for weeks, planning and replanning the sermon, arranging the notes Pentecostal style: a few sparse points with lots of room in between for the Holy Ghost to say whatever was on his mind. I drove out to the woods in central Florida, found a secluded grove, and practiced my sermon again and again while the sun quietly melted down, preaching the word to squirrels and sparrows and palm trees.

And doubts grew small and almost inconsequential in the excitement and the prestige, my own “sins” transparent and short lived, overlooked in the rush to expose the sins of others—I was the vehicle of judgment, temporarily immune from God’s wrath.

And I knew I could preach and liked myself when I preached, because I was not myself when I preached.

We are only happy when we are outside ourselves. And that exhilaration, that transcendence is a given when you are not yourself, in the most literal sense. When you are someone else, you are some thing else, you are a musical instrument, yes, that is what they taught us in school, you are violins waiting for the Master’s touch. If you surrender, the Holy Ghost will pick you up and make beautiful music come from your lips.

I had heard sermons delivered by Lutheran ministers, Methodists, and others “infiltrated and compromised” by reason and logic, and wondered if they were awake, much less experiencing the flow of rapture and emotion, the heightened helpless awareness when the Spirit of God fills your lungs and makes your fists pound the pulpit. When the world is sick and, for one second, you are the man with the antidote. You cannot believe that you might be wrong, you cannot believe that you are not the chosen one.

• • •

When I ran to the platform, slapped Bill’s hand, and opened my Bible as the audience cheered, there was nothing in the world that was out of place.

The building of excitement in a sermon is an art form, revving the congregation like a motorcycle engine. You want souls to be saved, sinners convicted, and the devil making a hasty retreat, pointed tail tucked between his legs. If you lose your train of thought, a string of “Hallelujah’s” can temporarily fill in the void; and if all else fails, you can always begin speaking in tongues, and only a charismatic with low self-esteem will ever admit that he was not spiritually attuned enough to get something out of it.

“Where is God?” I bellowed and let the church fall silent. Timing. Watch your timing.

“God … is where people are suffering.”

A hearty “Amen!” from the front row foreshadowed success.

“He didn’t see a world full of pain and say, I’ll just stay up here, out of harm’s way.’ No! He came down to us.” And at this I kneeled, holding out my hands. “He knelt, he took on a human frame, he humbled himself in the dust from which he had formed his fallen race, and said, ‘Come unto me, all ye who are weary and heavy laden, and I will give you rest.’”

“Amen’s” in abundance.

Good. A good start. Now a little conviction.

“Do you know who will enter the kingdom of heaven?” I thundered. “I’ll tell you. Not the pompous, arrogant churchgoers who put on fancy clothes once a week and pretend to love God. No, that type winds up in hell. The ones who will find a place prepared for them at the marriage supper of the Lamb are those who do as Jesus did. Those who clothe the poor, feed the hungry, heal the sick.”

We talked often of the social duty of Christians, although, in a toss-up, a new sanctuary or choir robes or a new office for the pastor got precedence over feeding the poor or the sick. Still, it was standard sermon material.

“Which category do you find yourself in tonight?”

Another pause.

“What kind of Christian are you?” And the question was a hiss, a whisper.

And the inner sermon began. A private message came from nowhere, or from someplace deep inside. It raged, it filled up my ears, it pounded in my chest, it would not be ignored.

“Which kind of Christian …”

A whitened sepulcher.

You’re a whitewashed tomb, nothing more; so clean, so pure on the outside, with your smug smile and your industrial-sized Bible. So very spiritual, so self-assured, so proper, and so predictable. But take a look at your insides, my friend. A house of corruption, a tomb full of dead men’s bones.

Shut up.

I pushed the words away, irritated, and focused on the crowd.

“When you look in the mirror, who do you see looking back at you? Someone decent? Someone honest? Someone kind? Or do you see a lie, pretension in fine church clothing, the mouth of Judas poised for the final kiss? If Jesus were here now, in human form, would he associate with you?”

If Jesus were here …

But he is here, inside. Painted up like a harlot, words of self-righteous men like yourself crammed into his mouth, mocked and ridiculed by your pretense at following in his footsteps, carrying on in his name.

“If Jesus were here tonight …”

If Jesus were here tonight and walking around on human legs, would he be sitting here listening to you? Or would he be somewhere else, with other people, other outcasts and victims like himself … ? Wouldn’t he really be out among the lost, the lonely, the outcasts, instead of sitting here soaking in pretty words and air-conditioning with you and the other pharisees?

Sweat struggled through my pores, my heart pounded like a kettledrum, and I kept my mouth in motion.

“Sin is everywhere! Homosexuals, adulterers, hordes of demonic religions! They are taking over our society! Where are the warriors who can stop their advances?”

“Amen!”

Look out at these faces, Judas. What about them? What about the young faces, some of them hiding secrets as terrible as yours, secrets that would make you and the other true believers cut them off from the Body of Christ as if they were an infected limb.

“America is a Christian nation! A nation for Christians!”

I was getting desperate. This was too typical, too common, weak.

“Amen!”

What about the hope in their eyes, searching for something, some shadow of acceptance, some portrait of the outcast Messiah who could accept them as they are, loving without favor, without discrimination?

“Hell is waiting for those who do not heed our message! Hell is closer than you think!”

“Hallelujah!”

You suck the hope out of them quickly enough, don’t you? Just as it was drained out of you? Does it make you feel better? You pump them full of the same poisons, you rip up their fragile faith, you go into heaven and then slam the door in their faces.

“There is no room in the kingdom of heaven for those who do not believe. And there can be no room for them in a Christian America!”

“Preach it, Brother!”

What are you thinking, Iscariot? That if there is a heaven, that the wounded, the different, the little ones would be sent away, and you would be welcomed in?

“Hallelujah!”

Don’t—count—on—it.

But then the buzzer rang, and I could tell by the applause that I had won.

Doug called me into his office.

“I’m impressed,” he said, tapping his pen on his desk and smiling boyishly. “Your sermon was really anointed. But then I’ve always believed that you had the call of God on your life.”

“Thank you, Pastor.”

“I think it’s time to promote you in the ministry—move you up the ladder, so to speak.”

“I don’t know …”

“We have a lot of areas with needs that you could fill. It would mean added responsibility, but I think you’re ready, and with a little guidance, we …”

If Jesus were here …

“I don’t believe in God.”

“I’m sorry … ?”

“I don’t believe in God anymore. At least not the kind of God I’ve always believed in.”

“When did this happen?”

“I don’t know. Slowly.”

Doug moved closer, wheeled his office chair next to me, put the pastoral arm around my shoulder.

“This has to do with your mother, doesn’t it?”

Bastard.

“In a way.”

“Talk to me.”

“The scripture promises healing, doesn’t it? The book of First Peter: ‘by his stripes, we are healed.’”

“Right.”

“Or Mark: ‘whatsoever you ask in my name, believing, you shall receive.’”

“Well, believing is the key word.”

The key word. The missing key. My mother lacked faith, she misplaced her key. If she had had enough faith—if only she had had enough—she would be walking around today, she would have been sitting in the audience last week when I preached, she would have gone to heaven years from now, as a saint, instead of as a failure.

Doug lowered his head, running through lists of replies. For a Pentecostal preacher, this topic was a theological minefield. He expected it from outsiders, but not from one of the sheep.

“We can’t understand everything that God—”

If Jesus were here … “We can’t understand everything that God chooses to do, and we’d better not question him. I know the answers too. They just don’t work anymore, Doug,” I said, committing the cardinal sin of calling him by his first name. “First it was her faith that was defective, now I suppose it’s mine. Now it’s me. Maybe the whole thing is defective.”

“I can understand you doubting certain doctrines, you’ve been through a lot. But to question the existence of God …”

“I don’t question his existence. I just don’t think you—or I—know much about him.”

“God,” he said, anger a slow burning bloom, “God speaks to us through his word, Scott. Through the scriptures. You remember the scriptures?”

Silence, the room was growing cold.

“The scriptures say that most of the people who have ever lived went to hell after they died. Because they didn’t choose to believe.”

“Hell is something to think about,” he said as a last resort and relaxed his shoulders and smiled. His voice became calm, soothing, talking to a child. “If you’re right, then we all go to heaven or wherever after ...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• one
• two
• three
• four
• five
• six
• seven
• eight
• nine
• ten
• eleven
• Acknowledgments