The Burning Hell, Part Eight, Tim Gets Saved

For the last couple of months I've devoted my Sunday blog space to the cinematic wonders of New Albany, Mississippi's Reverend Estus Pirkle.

Back in the mid-1970's, this guy's movies made their way through most of the Baptist churches of the southeast. Back then they were horrifying. Why? Because they were the only movies we'd ever seen about the Hell we heard preached from pulpits every Sunday.

I no longer believe in the hell for infants.
I no longer believe in the hell for Chinese 10-year-olds who die without hearing about Jesus.
I don't believe in the hell for Brazilian teenagers who die in some remote part of the Upper Amazon without access to the broadcasts of Jimmy Swaggart.
I don't believe in the hell for old men who can't believe that God created us with "original sin", then impregnated a Palestinian virgin with himself as her child so he can have himself killed as a sacrifice of himself to himself to save us from the sin that he originally condemned us to. (If you can't follow that, you're not alone.)
I've gotten to know a lot of preachers in the last few years who don't believe it either.
I don't even believe in the hell for serial killers, Chairman Mao, or Stalin. I don't believe in the justice of eternal punishment for a temporal offense.

I do believe in giving Estes Pirkle hell, though. So let's continue.

You can hit the Pirkle tab at the bottom of this post to see what's happened in previous episodes of THE BURNING HELL. In short, two hippies named Tim and Ken have rejected Brother Pirkle's theology of Hell. When they're riding away from the church, Ken has a motorcycle accident and his head is cut off, so Tim staggers back into the church for some preachin'.
Pirkle's sermon is illustrated by actors from his congregation, the B-movie troupe that followed Ron and Tim Ormond into the Christsploitation film industry, or whichever Mississippians were wandering past the set that day.
Pirkle also supports his argument with cameo appearances by Jack Hyles and Bob Gray, two famous preachers who were later accused of molesting their flocks. Especially the little ewes.

God, I know that I'm a sinner, and I ask that you, and the victims of these two witch doctors please forgive me for making that joke. Couldn't help myself.

Let's get started. If you find my commentary helpful, it continues below the final excerpt from THE BURNING HELL.



:00 An early example of waterboarding gone wrong. There are reports that Nancy Pelosi knew about this, although she denies it.

:55 Tim has hallucinations of biblical murderers.

1:10 Satan appears, looking like Cesar Romero as The Joker in the old Batman TV series.

2:30 "He's steeyull uhlaave! He's steeyull uhlaaave ! But this tahm, ah'll kill 'im !"

3:20 Tim snaps out of his Pirkle-induced trance, overcome with the vivid pulpit imagery.

4:00 The altar call begins. "Why don't you get up from where you are right now...." If I had a dollar for every time I've heard that phrase, I could outsource this website to some other bitter ex-southern baptist.

4:35 Tim kneels at the altar. In a few minutes they're going to vote him into the church, they're going to come down front and "extend the right hand of Christian fellowship", and then they're going to take up a collection to get that boy a haircut.

And that's all there is to see of THE BURNING HELL. I think next week I'm going to start dissecting another Pirkle production called "If footmen tire you, what will horses do?"

The Burning Hell, Part Seven, Dr. Bob Gray Edition

This is a picture of Dr. Bob Gray, who died in prison shortly before his pedophilia trial was scheduled to begin.

We'll get to Dr. Bob in just a moment, because another Sunday morning is here and it's time to visit the Mississippi Baptist Hell of Reverend Estus Pirkle.

Filmed in the early 1970's with the help of B-movie kings Ron and Tim Ormond, Pirkle's "The Burning Hell" scared the daylights out of every church youth group that saw it. I'm posting excerpts from the film each week because I saw the movie when I was twelve or thirteen, believed every minute of it, built a lot of my life around it, and therefore suffered extreme mental, spiritual, psychic, and emotional harm.

Now I'm getting even by parsing it every Sunday morning. This is cheaper than a psychotherapist, and causes less long-term harm to the community than climbing into a tower with an assault rifle.

To recap the previous episodes.... Two hippies, Ken and Tim, have a discussion with Brother Pirkle about the reality of hell. Their preacher has taught them that hell is only a metaphor. Pirkle disagrees. Pirkle vividly paints a picture of non-believers burning for eternity in a massive field of mud and slop. Ken and Tim object to Pirkle's reasoning and leave the church on their motorcycles.
Ken has an accident, and is decapitated.
Rather than wait around for the police or an ambulance, Tim decides to go to church.
You can hit the Pirkle label at the bottom of this post to see each episode in its entirety. Even if you're in a hurry, you've GOT to see episode #4 with the worms.
At the end of last week's clip, Pirkle was telling the biblical story of Dives and Lazarus. Lazarus was a good man who died poor. Dives had refused to give Lazarus any money, died suddenly, and woke up in hell. In the middle of last week's episode, Father Abraham, who has an unlikely "just south of Memphis" accent, was explaining to Dives why he wouldn't be able to warn Dives' family about hell. (Luke 16:19).

If you find my commentary helpful, it continues after the clip.




:00 Father Abraham, on loan from his job as a Memphis Mall Santa Claus, finishes his explanation about why warning Dives' family about hell just wouldn't be fair.

:08 The undead live and walk among us.

:50 Think about it. Let's assume there was a wealthy ruler named Dives. According to fundamentalists, Dives is STILL being Bar-B-Qued without a break for things that happened 2,000 years ago. This puts Stalin, Mao, Saddam and Hitler into perspective, doesn't it?

2:20 Pirkle: "Neither words nor pictures can describe all of (Hell's) terrors". Including that tie.

2:35 The timeline begins. Hundreds, Thousands, Billions, and Millions of years. Then comes the chart. Everyone who saw this movie remembers the decapitation, the worms, and this chart.

3:00 The chart. That's a lot of zeros.

3:40 Now we have a word from Dr. Bob Gray. (Pirkle likes to have guest preachers popping in and out of his movies.) While researching one of the previous guest speakers, Dr. Jack Hyles, I found that Dr. Hyles had been involved in some sex scandals.
What are the odds against Pirkle selecting two preachers with the same problem for one movie?

To read about Dr. Bob Gray dying in prison before his pedophilia trial could get underway, go here. (Gray pled the 5th amendment 150 times during questioning.)

To read about the fifteen women who came forward saying that Gray sexually abused them as children, go here.

To read about the church kinda knowing it had been going on for a long time, go here.

To read the best single page summary of the whole sordid mess this Witch Doctor created, go here.

Unbelieveable.

4:40 In an outbreak of Christian compassion, Pirkle tells Tim that Ken is roasting in Hell, and will be there forever.

5:00 Pirkle digs deep into the Book Of Revelation to find some of the creatures called Locusts that inhabit hell. They have the body of a horse, an iron breastplate, hair like a woman, a tail like a scorpion, and teeth from the Wal-Mart Halloween aisle.

5:50 Scenes of horror as the Mississippi Drama League portray Biblical and contemporary sinners of all ages being tortured forever. Why? Because they didn't, wouldn't, or couldn't agree that Jesus (1/3rd of a single supernatural being) was born to a virgin mother somewhere in Palestine 2,000 years ago and was killed by the Roman army in order to satisfy an obscure requirement in Jewish rituals about animal (blood) sacrifices being required for the forgiveness of sins.

6:45 The story of Cain and Abel.

7:24 Back to Dives, resting with his souvenir from Burger King.

I started posting clips from this movie as a joke, more or less. This thing really did have an impact on me when I was a kid. The more I look into it, 35 years later, the more perverse satisfaction I'm getting from learning that clowns like Jack Hyles and Bob Gray had no more spiritual or moral authority than anyone else.

Never, ever trust authority.

The Burning Hell, Part Six, Songs For Children edition

Another Sunday is upon us. That means it's time to visit the wonderful world of Reverend Estus Pirkle.
Back in the early 1970's, Pirkle's "The Burning Hell" terrified the crap out of every church youth group in the southeast. I'm posting excerpts from the film each week because I saw the movie when I was twelve or thirteen, believed every minute of it, built a lot of my life around it, and therefore suffered extreme mental, spiritual, psychic, and emotional harm.

Now I'm getting even by ripping the lid off of it every Sunday morning. This is cheaper than a psychotherapist.

To recap the previous episodes.... Two hippies, Ken and Tim, have a discussion with Brother Pirkle about the reality of hell. Their preacher has taught them that hell is only a metaphor. Pirkle disagrees. Pirkle vividly paints a picture of non-believers burning for eternity in a massive field of mud and slop. Ken and Tim object to Pirkle's reasoning and leave the church on their motorcycles.
Ken has an accident, and is decapitated.
Rather than wait around for the police or an ambulance, Tim decides to go to church.
You can hit the Pirkle label at the bottom of this post to see each episode in its entirety. Even if you're in a hurry, you've GOT to see episode #4 with the worms.
At the end of last week's clip, Pirkle was telling the biblical story of Dives and Lazarus (Luke 16:19).
If you find my commentary helpful, it continues after the clip.




:01 Wild debauchery, as conceived and filmed in a 1973 Myrtle Mississippi Baptist fellowship hall. The candlesticks have appeared in two generations of wedding photos. Check out Mrs. Dives at the :12 mark - her tiara betrays her as an Ole Miss Tri-Delta pledge.

1:45 The screenplay of Pirkle, the directing of B-movie king Ron Ormond, the acting of The Mississippi thespians, and the music of Handel. Which one doesn't fit?

2:10 Lazarus discovers that in the next life, everyone gets a pre-resurrection shave.

3:05 The Santa Claus beard is pressed back into service, and this time Abraham is wearing it. The shots of heaven were filmed in whichever Magnolia State property got "Yard Of The Month" during production.

4:29 Proof that at least two trips were made to Burger King.

4:40 The Roman soldier has a Pavolovian response to the wine. Priceless editing.

5:15 The Dives Funeral - "Mr. Dives was a personal friend of mine...." "and while he was not faithful to attend many of the services...." "I'm sure that God understands that he was a busy man" All of these are straw men that Pirkle is about to kick over. Plus, how many kings are addressed as "Mr" ????

5:50 Dives in hell. "Father Abraham, have mercy on me. Send Lazarus, that he may dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue, for I am tormented in this flame".
This doesn't sound like a typical Jesus parable, does it? The folks at The Jesus Seminar, my go-to guys for biblical scholarship, are divided on whether it's authentic. The doctrine of salvation through faith hadn't yet been developed by Paul, and John 3:16 wouldn't be written down for another 60 years after the death of Jesus. So who knows?

The story did inspire a catchy African-American spiritual called "Poor Man Lazrus". The lyrics are as follows:

Poor man Lazrus sick and disabled. Dip your finger in the water, come and, cool my tongue, 'cause I'm tormented in the flame. He had to eat crumbs from the rich man's table. Dip your finger in the water, come and, cool my tongue, ‘cause I'm tormented in the flame.

Chorus:
I'm tormented in the flame. I'm tormented in the flame.
Dip your finger in the water, come and, cool my tongue,
'cause I'm tormented in the flame.

Rich man Divies he lived so well. Dip your finger in the water, come and, cool my tongue, 'cause I'm tormented in the flame. And when he died he went straight to hell. Dip your finger in the water, come and, cool my tongue, 'cause I'm tormented in the flame. (Chorus)

I love to shout, I love to sing! Dip your finger in the water, come and, cool my tongue, 'cause I'm tormented in the flame.

Jester Hairston, the great choral composer, did the best arrangement of the song. Here's the Asbury College Men's Glee Club singing in the college chapel service. Kinda like singing an upbeat ditty about Abu Ghraib.

6:30 Tim remains in the congregation listening to Pirkle explain why it is that who goes where in the next life.

6:40 Dives asks for another chance, just to warn his family about the dangers of THE BURNING HELL.

7:00 Abraham shoots him down. In full Faulkner/Tennessee Williams mode, the father of his race says "They hayuv Moses 'n' thuh prophets. Let theyum hear theyum. If they heer not Moses 'n' thuh prophets,,,,

To hear what other words of comfort Father Abraham said to the burning Dives, come back next Sunday.

The Burning Hell, Part Five, Autoharp Edition

I apologize for posting this so late in the day, since I know that many of you begin your Sunday morning devotions with a visit to this site.
For the last couple of months, I've been posting clips from the evangelical films of Reverend Estes Pirkle. Back in the early 1970's, Pirkle's "The Burning Hell" may have been required viewing for every church youth group in the southeast.

I'm posting these each week because they terrified me when I was a kid, and I've found that this is good therapy.

To recap the previous episodes.... Two hippies, Ken and Tim, have a discussion with Brother Pirkle about the reality of hell. Their preacher has taught them that hell is only a metaphor. Pirkle disagrees.
Pirkle vividly paints a picture of non-believers being burned for eternity in a massive field of mud and slop. Ken and Tim angrily disagree, and leave the church on their motorcycles.

Ken has an accident, and is decapitated.

Rather than wait around for the police or an ambulance, Tim decides to go to church.

You can hit the Pirkle label at the bottom of this post to see each episode in its entirety. Even if you're in a hurry, you've GOT to see episode #4 with the worms.

At the end of last week's clip, Pirkle was telling the biblical story of Dives and Lazarus (Luke 16:19). If you find my commentary helpful, it continues after the video.



:00 - Candid shots of The Mississippi Thespians, on location in Israel with their Sears & Roebuck bathrobes and Amish head scarves. Pay attention to the music. It's an autoharp.

:40 - Pirkle actually gives us a glimpse of the woman playing the autoharp. Wait a minute.... Did they have autoharps in the middle east, circa 30 A.D. ???

1:10 - A zoom shot of the autoharp ! ! In the middle of ancient Palestine ! ! And autoharps weren't invented until the 1890's ! ! Why didn't Pirkle also include someone playing a Fender Stratocaster with a whammy bar ??

1:30 - I think this guy is the one trained actor in the film, and he took an acting class for one semester at Mississippi Delta Junior College.

2:50 - Dives wants nothing to do with the evangelists. The cameraman wants nothing to do with Dives, and doesn't bother to keep his face in the frame.

4:00 - Dives proves that he's a George H.W. Bush "compassionate conservative".

4:20 - Twenty seconds of meaningless dialogue shot at an ancient amphitheatre, to justify the travel budget.

6:30 - We're back in 1970's Mississippi. Ken's headless body is bleeding in the ditch, Tim is in church, and Pirkle is preaching.

6:50 - Pirkle's vision of ancient decadence looks suspiciously like the set of The PTL Club.

That's all for this week. No burning sinners, no worms consuming the faces of heretics, and no headless hippies. All of that will change next week on THE BURNING HELL ! ! !

"The Burning Hell" - Episode Four - Where The Worm Never Dies

It's Sunday morning, and time for another visit to the video collection of New Albany Mississippi's Reverend Estus Pirkle.
Every weekend I'm posting a clip from "The Burning Hell", Reverend Pirkle's early 1970's masterpiece. The film depicts the eternal consequences of disagreeing with Brother Pirkle's theology.
This movie me nightmares when I saw it in church one night in the early 1970's. I spent years praying and worrying about friends and relatives who might be "lost".
So now I'm making fun of it every Sunday morning.

If you want to watch the previous episodes, hit the Estus Pirkle label at the bottom of this post.
To recap:

In episode one, Pirkle's troupe of Mississippi thespians reenact Israel's disobedience to Thor Zeus Santa Claus Billy Gibbons of ZZ Topp Moses, and shows the earth swallowing the disobedient Jews into hell.

Episode two begins the story of two hippies, Ken and Tim, who disagree with Reverend Pirkle's theology. They've been corrupted by someone named Dr. Long, who teaches that God would never send anyone to hell forever. Within minutes, Ken and Tim are severely punished. Ken's head is cut off in a motorcycle accident and Tim has to endure flashbacks of every incident where he rejected God's saving sacrifice.

Episode three has Tim staggering back into Reverend Pirkle's Sunday A.M. service, taking a seat near the front, and listening to stories about eternal damnation. The North Mississippi All-Stars cover themselves in mud, slime, and clothes from their tenant houses, set a pasture on fire, and run around saying "Ah Hate Chew".
One of the more influential demons reunites Ken's head with his body and carries Ken away to be roasted for a few billion decades.
Reverend Jack Hyles, who went on to financial scandals, child abuse scandals, etc., etc., etc., makes a cameo appearance to explain why he loves the idea of hell, and wouldn't bother getting out of bed in the morning without it.

That gets us to #4, the part we all remember. For those of us who saw this movie at church, at a youth retreat, or at a lock-in, this episode has the money shots. Some of us stayed up for weeks worrying about dead relatives and worms.....

If you find my commentary helpful, it continues below the YouTube clip.



:24 Reverend Hyles reads a list of Hell's characteristics, a list that sounds similar to the goings-on at his last church.

:48 Tim has a flashback to other church services where he didn't give his heart to Jesus.

1:50 For those of you who didn't grow up with altar calls, this is one of them. At the end of a worship service the choir and congregation sing something evangelical while the preacher tries to talk people into becoming Christians.

It would make sense to do this on streetcorners or in shopping mall parking lots (if you buy into the concept), but it makes absolutely no sense to do this inside of a church.

Why?

Because the people inside a church, for the most part, are already Christians. The man is fishing inside his own aquarium. But it gives the congregation the feeling that they're part of some large evengelistic outreach.

I can't tell you how many hours of my life I've spent listening to this stuff.

2:25 God is love. He is defined by love. He loves you so much that he sent his son (1/3rd of himself but also 100% of himself - it's a long story) to die in your place.

But if you can't believe this story, this is what he's going to do. Bring plenty of water with you.

3:15 This is what gave me the willies back in 1974. Isaiah 14:11 and Mark 9 talk about worms as a form of punishment.

3:45 Reverend Pirkle goes back to the original Greek to explain that these aren't symbolic worms. These are genuine maggots.

4:05 Number one, where did they get the maggots? Number two, how much did they have to pay these people for the stunt work? Number three, can you imagine people watching this and taking it seriously and literally? People with doctorates?

4:30 Pirkle and the Delta Dramatists are now at an amphitheatre, putting on a performance of "The Death Of Herod - With Worms", complete with costumes and special effects. Tom Savini can rest easy.

5:08 Pirkle: Herod would soon be just a dim memory as the worms devoured his organs. They feasted on his black heart, relishing his ???? intestines. They devoured his eyeballs and face and all of him until nothing was left but the odorous rotten form of what was once the evil Herod. What a horrible sight to behold. What a stench there must have been. Does this give you a nauseating feeling?

Well, yeah.

5:35 Reverend Pirkle begins the parable of Lazarus and Dives.

That's all for this week. In closing, may I direct you to one other website? Here's an account (with pictures) of a recent showing of "The Burning Hell". Be sure your sound is turned on.

Notice the contrast between the look of the website and the contents of this movie?

Come back next week for Episode 5 of THE BURNING HELL ! ! !

The Burning Hell, Part Three, with a Jack Hyles cameo appearance

It's Sunday morning, and time for another visit to the video collection of New Albany Mississippi's Reverend Estus Pirkle.
Every weekend I'm posting a clip from "The Burning Hell", Reverend Pirkle's early 1970's masterpiece. The film depicts the eternal consequences of disagreeing with Brother Pirkle's theology.
This movie scared the bejeebers out of my when I saw it as a middle-schooler in Mississippi. I spent years worrying about friends and relatives who might be "lost". I might have had a shot at becoming a normal human being if it weren't for this damn movie.
So now I'm making fun of it every Sunday morning.

In the first episode, Pirkle gave us some background on the doctrine of eternal torture. There's a reenactment of the story in Exodus where disobedient Israelites were swallowed by the earth. (They had disobeyed Santa Claus Moses.) Pirkle, as narrator, steps in and out of the picture, causing one to wonder if Phil Donahue ever did any live reporting during the Bronze Age.

The second episode begins the story of two hippies, Ken and Tim, who confront Reverend Pirkle one Sunday morning before church. Ken and Tim have been turned from The One True Path by a Dr. Long, who teaches that a loving God would never condemn anyone to be burned forever and forever in a place like Hell.

Pirkle tries to set them straight, explaining that if you die without accepting Jesus as your personal lord and savior, God is going to make Hitler look like Mary Poppins. The hippies disagree, leave Pirkle's study, and ride away on their motorcycles.

Ken, the more abrasive of the two heathens, drives his motorcyle recklessly and is beheaded.
Yes, his head and helmet are removed from his body.

Episode 3 begins after the accident, with the viewers wondering if Tim will call the police, wait on the hearse, mourn the death of his lost friend, or abandon Ken in the ditch and go back to Pirkle's church for another heaping helping of Jewish mythology.

If you find my commentary helpful, it continues below the video.




:05 Tim abandons Ken in the ditch and goes back to Pirkle's church for another heaping helping of Jewish mythology.


:40 Tim dramatically staggers down the aisle, and Pirkle stops his sermon. Tim asks if Ken is merely in his grave, or is he being tortured in Hell. Estus Pirkle puts on his Pastoral Counseling Hat and gently, lovingly tells Tim that "Chances are, he's burning in the flames of Hell right now."


1:20 Pirkle gives Tim a seat on the aisle among an assortment of Mississippi Hausfraus, and continues his sermon.


2:01 Pirkle: "There is no such thing as friendship in Hell. There will be no TV programs to watch or movies to go see. There will be no cookouts to enjoy or sunsets to watch together. No vacation trips with the family. All will be one long night of sorrow, remorse, and regret forever and ever. Ohhhh.....how such memories will haunt you in Hell, you will not be able to get away from them. Go back in your mind ! Think !! Perhaps you made fun of somebody handing out tracts on a busy street corner. You thought it all a big joke ! ! "


2:30 A flashback to Tim and Ken (?) making fun of Orville Redenbacher handing out Gospel tracts on a busy street corner, and thinking it's all a big joke.
Reverend Pirkle's films are not subtle.


3:59 One of the church ladies puts her hand on Tim's knee, and he looks uncomfortable.


4:05 Pirkle tells the story of Belshazzar. I believe the actors are all Mississippians, except for The Demon In Charge, who may have been played by Dom Deluise. You might also be wondering about the special effects. How did they ever convince so many asylums to coat their inmates in mud and cow manure and herd them through a burning Tupelo cotton field?
It remains a mystery.


5:25 "Ah hate chew, Ah hate chew ! !"


6:20 Ken's head, but not his helmet, is reunited with his body. Dom Deluise is waiting to carry Ken into The Outer Darkness.


7:00 It's 1974, but Pirkle's church is already equipped with a video screen ?? He shows his congregation a clip from Reverend Jack Hyles, who claims that "if there is no Hell, I'd close my Bible. If there is no Hell, I would not preach another sermon as long as I live. If there's no Hell, I would take life easy, I would not go day and night...."


And that's the end of this week's clip from The Burning Hell. I hope it has been instructive.

**********************************
But speaking of Jack Hyles....

Jack Hyles invented the Bus Ministry concept. He took a small church in Indiana and grew it into a massive organization with more than 100,000 members. Go here to read about the inevitable scandals.

Even if you distrust Wikipedia, their Jack Hyles entry has a good collection of links to mainstream media accounts of the scandals, the child abuse, and the missing money.

And this is from a website devoted to the former followers of Reverend Jack:

I remember some of the meetings that the college girls would have with "The Preacher" (Dr. Hyles). If anyone would have walked into the room, they would have thought that all these college age girls were waiting for Elvis to return. We were taught to actually worship him and treat him as an idol. There was a song that we would sing to him to make him come out to the stage:
"We love you preacher, oh yes we do, we don't love anyone as much as you. If you're not with us, we're blue, Oh Preacher we love you"!

Gag me with a dirty diaper. She continues with this:

He would not come out until the girls were in a frenzy. What happened to only preaching Christ and him crucified? Even at the time, these meetings made me very uncomfortable. They seemed to be very sexual in nature. He would speak to us as if we were his girls that he was trying to court or swoon. Being a mother today, I would NEVER allow my daughter to attend these meetings. Hyles' Church and college have hurt many people. Many of the young pastors that have looked up to him (like the one that I spoke of) carry on his legacy of man-worship. I feel mostly for the women who suffer the degrading remarks and humiliation that comes from their beliefs.

According to the theology of Estus W. Pirkle and Reverend Jack Hyles, none of this really matters. Jack Hyles believed in Jesus, and is now in paradise. Gandhi didn't, and he's now being roasted by demons.

Come back next Sunday for another episode of THE BURNING HELL ! ! !

The Burning Hell, Part Two

It's Sunday morning, and time for another visit to the video collection of New Albany Mississippi's Reverend Estus Pirkle.
Every weekend I'm posting a clip from "The Burning Hell", Reverend Pirkle's early 1970's masterpiece. The film depicts the eternal consequences of disagreeing with Brother Pirkle's theology.

But first, a review of last week's offering. This is from my college dorm mate, Scott M, who now lives in Memphis, Tennessee:

OMG, when I saw your link, I got so excited! I have told so many people about that movie, as an example of what is was like to grow up in a Baptist church in MS. I never thought to look on YouTube. My personal faves, that have always stuck with me, were the decapitated head from the motorcycle accident, and the worms gnawing at the faces. Like it did with you, this movie scared the holy crap out of me when I saw it at a lock-in. It is now the funniest thing I have ever seen in my life!

Scott, the best is yet to come. You don't remember the stuff toward the end of the film, where it looks like a Tupelo community theatre production of "Cat On A Hot Tin Roof" was dumped onto the set of a Clive Barker movie.

I followed the link to your rant on Hell -- loved it. I couldn't agree more. I never thought about the irony of Jesus becoming a sacrifice, when that's the very system he railed against.

(Please read that link before disagreeing with anything Scott says below.)

I have often thought of how it seems he really wanted to reform Judaism, and was a Jew himself, but now most Christians think the Jews are the enemy (they killed Jesus! Um, ok -- I guess the Romans didn't really have anything to do with that.).
Loved the Vonnegut/Tom Robbins reference. Sounds like we have had very similar journeys in the last twenty-five years. (Except for the political thing ;-)

Scott has left the nurturing bosom of The Libertarian Party, most likely as a result of becoming a thug for The Musicians' Union.

Thanks again for making my freakin' week! We so need to get together sometime. I'll see when the Red Sox are in Arlington, maybe then.

And one day soon, we will get together. It is now destined.

Last week's episode of The Burning Hell ended with some disobedient Israelites being swallowed by the desert because they disobeyed Santa Claus Moses. If you find my commentary helpful, it's below the YouTube clip.
(P.S. - No Jewish people were harmed in the production of this video. )
(P.S.S. - I don't think any Jewish people were involved in the production of this video.)



:15 Are we to believe that Brother Pirkle has been standing by indifferently while the yawning-earth fire pit swallows half the tribe of Israel?

:45 Pirkle's wife has allowed two hippies into the preacher's office. The one on the left is nervously clutching a blue book. The one on the right says "Like, man, we come to talk to ya 'bout Jeeee-sus". I think the background music is someone playing a melody on an autoharp, which is more difficult than it sounds, since they're designed for chords only. Mother Maybelle Carter (Johnny Cash's mother-in-law) could do it, and I once heard Mike Seeger, Pete Seeger's brother, play some autoharp melodies at a book/CD signing.
If you're wondering why I'm going on and on with this digression about the soundtrack instead of focusing on the dialogue, its because at this point the script is lame. The two hippies are setting up theological straw men for Estus Pirkle to kick over.

1:50 Tim explains that his blue book is by a Dr. Long, whose church teaches "a new thing, in keeping with the trends of today's world." Well, Tim, that's what happens when you allow preachers to get doctorates.

2:07 Pirkle rises from his chair to retrieve the only book that matters. "This Bible talks about a literal hell where sinners burn forever and forever". Tim responds that according to Dr. Long, "God would never condemn anyone to a burning hell."

2:30 This section doesn't portray any beheadings, fiery punishments, or Mississippians in the afterlife, but it's still one of my favorite moments in Pirkledom. Tim, who up to this point has been portrayed as a confused hippie seeking meaning, betrays some knowledge of Greek, the King James Bible, hermeneutics, and if pressed he could probably knock out a quick commentary on what Paul really meant in 2nd Corinthians.

2:55 Listen closely.... You'll hear a clock striking four times. But everything in the plot is structured around the hippies going into the preacher's study one morning immediately before the church services begin. Whoops.

3:20 This section lets you know Ken deserves what's coming to him.

4:30 I still own some of these clothes, but don't have as much of the hair.

4:45 You may have asked yourself how many people go to hell per hour, and sometime this morning I might post the question on Yahoo! Answers, just to see how many people get it wrong.
The Pirkle Principle Of Perishing Persons is as follows: The Bible says that more people are going to hell than heaven. Statistics prove that 6,000 people die every hour. That means that every hour over 3,000 people go to hell.
Let's see Disneyworld beat those numbers.

5:20 Foreshadowing. Pirkle says "at this precise minute, someone is headed to a burning hell."

Cut to Ken riding down the highway on his motorcyle, his helmet shaking around like he's a Bobble-Head doll. (Now that I've typed that sentence, the business with Ken's head bobbling around in the helmet is intentional, and acts as a sophisticated foreshadowing device.)

6:50 If internet discussion boards are to be trusted, a staggering number of children who saw this movie in church have remembered this scene for the rest of their lives. Tim rides over the hill to see that Ken has had an accident. Ken's body is off in the woods, the motorcyle is on its side with blood on the muffler, and Ken's head is about 10 feet away from his body. Inside the helmet.

7:00 Tim's friend has died. Does Tim go somewhere to call the police? Does he wait on the ambulance to show up and take Ken's body to the morgue? Or does he abandon Ken's corpse in the woods so he can have more discussions with Reverend Pirkle about the exegetical nuances between "hell" and "hades" in the original Greek?
The ending of this YouTube clip gives us a tantalizing hint, but no more than that.

Please come back next week for episode 3.

If you think I'm beating a dead horse with these weekly rants about a bad 1970's horror film, check out these quotes from a Christian message board.

It was a very good tool and helped win untold thousands and thousands to the Lord.

Can you imagine the agony of perpetually falling with molten hot flames roaring through every part of your body, excruciating agony with no relief, pain that horrible even our worst nightmares couldn't prepare us for, pain so bad you would weep for eternity, pain so gruesome that teeth would be gnashed in an agonising frenzy, consciously aware of those deeds we have done in the flesh those we have hurt, tormented by our WORST fears and more for all eternity

I think our churches are failing people by preaching all Love and don't get around to explain the consequences of Rejecting Jesus. Hell!I like you,know where i am going and am very thankfull to God for Sending his Son to take my place on that Cross,and shed his Blood for Me, so i will be in Heaven with the rest of you and will not be in everlasting torment.

Thanks for posting that. I enjoyed watching it.

The Burning Hell is a favorite and has been used in many evangelistic meetings since I was a child.

The Burning Hell, Part One

It's Sunday, so that means it's time to review the cinematic efforts of New Albany, Mississippi's Reverend Estus Pirkle. Last week's offering was well-received. It was a short film called "Does This Excite You?", which gave us a view of heaven from The Deep South/Total Immersion States.

I first saw the next Pirkle epic, The Burning Hell, during a Sunday night church service about 35 years ago. Our Mississippi church advertised it for weeks before screening it.

This thing scared the crap out of me.
To understand why, you have to understand that Hell was, and still is, a very real concept for a lot of people. It's not just a metaphor, and it's not merely a symbol for a life removed from God.
It's the place reserved for everyone who doesn't accept Jesus Christ as the sacrifice for their sins.
After a few years, you start to wonder what kind of Being would create things with an inclination towards disobedience so they could be tortured in fire forever. Click here for a rant on that topic. (Sorry for the digression, but don't disagree with me in the comment field unless you've read that link.)

Since a Pirkle film of this length is almost like too much candy, I'll be presenting this in eight parts over the next few weeks. Unfortunately, the first section is kinda like making that first defective pancake. It includes the preliminary throat-clearing and scene setting to introduce all the characters (Moses, Dathan, Mississippi preachers, etc.). If you find my commentary helpful, it's below the YouTube clip.



:05 - You might be the most devout Baptist that ever dunked a drunkard, but if you can see that "powered by" text underneath the satellite and not laugh, then you're taking this waaaay too seriously.

:45 - Harry Truman appears.

1:40 - Estus Pirkle appears for the first time, but his voice doesn't appear for another 10 seconds. The video and sound are out of sequence on this clip. Not that it matters.

3:15 - Three of Israel's most powerful leaders, dark semitic men of the desert, are portrayed by what look like Alabama deacons.

3:40 - If that isn't an off-the-shelf Santa Claus wig....

4:30 - You've heard that same accent in a lot of other movies, usually explaining to Yankee meddlers why we Southerners don't take well to no race-mixin'.

4:40 - I think the actors were told to look terrified, but most of the facial expressions are asking the eternal question "Who Farted?"

And the clip ends just when we were getting to the good part.

If anyone thinks I'm beating a dead horse here, this is from the IMDB comments on "The Burning Hell". Someone calling herself Charlottes Web 1952 writes:

I have watched this movie several times and I am very impressed with the way it was made. It really gives a person an idea of what hell will be like, although I know hell will be much worse than anyone can imagine. Mr. Pirkle has captured a small portion of what hell will be like. I know when I watch it that I want to do the will of God and I know in my heart that Jesus did die on that tree so that I wouldn't have to go to hell. This movie was made in the seventies I believe, and as far as the actors and actresses were concerned, I believe they did a wonderful job with their parts. I noticed someone was talking about the fake beards but most movies that someone has to have a beard is almost always fake. I can say I really enjoyed watching the movie and I want to be a better person by watching it. God bless.

The mind recoils.

Does This Excite You?

Does this excite you?

Here's Reverend Estus Washington Pirkle, of New Albany, Mississippi, on the subject of what heaven will be like.
The entire video is worth watching multiple times, but if you're impatient you can skip to the 1:10 mark to learn about your new glorified body. Somehow, I was expecting better things.

The rapturous assemblies at 1:40 remind me of the crowd at Ronald Reagan's funeral, or perhaps Denver's Mile High Stadium during the Democratic Convention last year, but a little less worshipful.

If you ever allow yourself to watch from 2:05 to 3:00, you will watch it again. It's gonna be seared into your brain. You've been warned.



The looks on the congregation's faces says it all, doesn't it?

This isn't a heaven I would want any part of. Plus, it's whiter than a Mormon choir.

As Mark Twain put it, "Heaven for climate; Hell for society."

A fresh coat of Whitening to Little Green Footballs for the link.
I'm posting excerpts from Pirkle's work every weekend. Hit his name on the post labels to see the others.