Thoughts on an Ineffective Life

Yesterday, I learned that Terry Jones had died.

Jones was a member of the Monty Python comedy team. He also wrote a large number of children’s books and scholarly publications. He was an authority on Geoffrey Chaucer, the medieval British author who is famous for writing poems and a collection of coarse stories which appears to have been derived from The Decameron. Jones directed The Life of Brian, which was the story of a man who was misidentified as the Messiah by a confused public.

If you don’t know which member of the team was Jones, I can help. Here are some of his well-known roles: the prince who refused to marry Princess Lucky, the naked organist, Brian’s mother, Mr. Creosote, and Sir Bedevere. If that doesn’t help, maybe it’s best to say he was the second-least prominent of the six actors, after Terry Gilliam, who focused mainly on animation during the group’s early years.

When asked what he would like to have inscribed on his tombstone, Jones said, “Maybe a description of me as a writer of children’s books or some of my academic stuff — maybe as the man who restored Richard II’s reputation. He was a terrible victim of 14th-century political spin, you know. I think those are my best bits.”

Monty Python’s Flying Circus was a big deal to me when I was a teenager. It figured prominently in my list of toxic influences, along with Henry Miller, Fritz Perls, the cast of Saturday Night Live, and the staff of the National Lampoon.

I remember the day the first VCR was advertised in the Miami Herald. My best friend at the time–another very toxic influence–called me on the phone. He had seen the ad, too. Sony had created a TV with a built-in Betamax. We were ecstatic to think we would be able to record every episode of Monty Python. We had already memorized every line we could.

I was such a fan, I even bought Monty Python books. I bought the script of Monty Python and the Holy Grail, a film in which our loving God was depicted with the face of Karl Marx. I bought something called The Brand New Monty Python Papperbok, which was a print rehash of a lot of the TV jokes. I even bought Dr. Fegg’s Nasty Book of Knowledge, which was written by Jones and Michael Palin. Finally, I had my own copy of A Liar’s Autobiography, which was written by Graham Chapman.

This week people are praising Terry Jones for his life’s work. All I can think is, “Thank God I didn’t end up like him.” He has a lot to answer for.

When I was young, I thought my gift for humor was a big deal. I didn’t get over this misconception until I was middle-aged. I thought I was put on earth to make easy money making people laugh. I thought irreverence and verbal cruelty were wonderful things. I thought humorists did a lot of good by attacking people who behaved badly. I didn’t understand how sanctimonious many humorists, including the Python crew, truly were. Humor is a great cover for self-righteousness and ruthlessness.

People like Terry Jones, John Belushi, Chevy Chase, George Carlin, Bill Murray, John Hughes, Doug Kenney, and P.J. O’Rourke poisoned my life, and the lives of many others, with their immature views. I’m sure they meant well, or as well as a person can, in that state of ignorance and corruption, but they did a great deal of damage. Young people like me identified with them and emulated them. This may work out well when you have a Hollywood support system behind you, but it’s not so smart when you’re a typical young person who needs the goodwill of others in order to succeed in life. It didn’t work out well for me. I didn’t do much to build a decent life for myself. I fell behind other people.

I thought it was possible for a person who wrote shock humor to be a good human being. If I was nice to people I liked, and I didn’t steal or kill people, I was a good person. I barely knew God. I knew almost nothing about him. I didn’t realize I was supposed to be full of the Holy Spirit or that my purpose was to help people to be like God. I didn’t know verbal cruelty was the same thing as murder in God’s eyes.

Satan is like a three-card monte dealer. Three-card monte is a game played by criminals. They set cardboard boxes up on city sidewalks and use them for tables until the cops come along. In three-card monte, there are two black cards and a red card. The dealer holds the cards face-down and moves them around the box, and then he invites people to pick the red card. It looks easy, and to make it easier, the dealer will always have a shill who appears out of nowhere, plays, and wins. The game is rigged, however, so there is no way to beat the dealer.

Satan tries to get us to do unprofitable things with our lives, and he allows a few people to appear to succeed so we will be encouraged to keep trying. Example: there are very few successful rock musicians compared to the number of people who never make it. Most people who try to make it in rock end up playing in local bars until they die or get real jobs. We admire people like Steven Tyler, who behave badly all their lives and still become rich and famous. We don’t feel quite the same way about our 50-year-old siblings who dress like teenagers, sleep on our couches, and pawn our silver because they’re still on the verge of making it.

Jones, whether he knew it or not, was a shill, just like the rest of his team. For every humorist who makes it, there are millions who screw up their lives and their relationships with God. Many of the shills, for that matter, have lives that go bad toward the end, and many go to hell. John Belushi overdosed. Doug Kenney fell off a cliff and died. Douglas Adams, a fierce atheist, died young. Sam Kinison, a shock comedian who abandoned a career as a Pentecostal minister, died in a car wreck on his way to a casino town. For Satan, a few shills are a very profitable investment.

Jones wrote children’s books which were full of occult material. One of his book features a friendly goblin who offers to take a little girl to the goblin city. A goblin, like a genie or fairy, is just a demon, and demons are real. Reading stories about supernatural creatures like goblins can open doors to demons. Through such stories, your children can become ill or have severe psychological problems. When you write such stories for children, you’re literally evangelizing for Satan. You’re doing tremendous harm to people God created you to help.

If you watch Mark Hemans on Youtube, you will see him tell a woman to throw out the fairy books she got for her daughter. He says they opened the girl up to demonic attack.

Some people defend the Tolkien books because Tolkien wrote them with the aim of promoting Christianity. That’s wrong. You can’t use stories of sorcery and demons to help people serve God. Consider the hundreds of millions of people who love Tolkien. What percentage are even aware of Tolkien’s intentions? Surely less than one percent. It’s the same bunch of nerds who sit in basements playing Dungeons and Dragons. They’re not attacted to Tolkien because they love Jesus. They’re attracted because they love sorcery and demons.

I read the Tolkien books, and I was a Christian at the time, and it never occurred to me that they had anything to do with Christianity. Tolkien fooled himself. His friend C.S. Lewis made the same mistake, writing about witches and a magical wardrobe. No one should have a Narnia book in his house.

Jones was proud that he had written dangerous books for kids, and he was also proud that he had written about Chaucer. That seems very strange to me. How can you think Chaucer matters? Whose life have you improved by writing about a long-dead storyteller? What problems have you solved? It’s like being proud of graffiti. It’s meaningless.

Jones never grew up. He was spiritually stunted, and so are his friends. Take a look at what John Cleese said at Graham Chapman’s funeral:

Graham Chapman, co-author of the parrot sketch, is no more. He has ceased to be. Bereft of life, he rests in peace. He’s kicked the bucket, hopped the twig, bit the dust, snuffed it, breathed his last, and gone to meet the great head of light entertainment in the sky. And I guess we’re all thinking how sad it is that a man of such talent, of such capability for kindness, of such unusual intelligence, should now so suddenly be spirited away at the age of only 48, before he had achieved many of the things of which he was capable and before he’d had enough fun. Well, I feel that I should say, “Nonsense. Good riddance to him, the freeloading bastard, I hope he fries.” And the reason I feel I should say this is he would never forgive me if I didn’t; if I threw away this glorious opportunity to shock you all on his behalf.

Cleese, a grown man with a law degree, then went on to toss out the F-word, to the general approval of those assembled.

It reminds me of the way Dan Aykroyd behaved at John Belushi’s funeral. He showed up in a ridiculous biker costume (picture Dan Aykroyd trying to fit in with real bikers), and when the mourners entered the church, Aykroyd made a show of stepping off the sidewalk and climbing over the church’s picket fence, as if to honor his dead friend’s contempt for authority. Meanwhile, somewhere else, Belushi had already learned the fate he had earned through his own contempt.

People like this led me away from God and his peace and into a life of humiliation, failure, guilt, and depression. Their kind is still at it today. When one generation dies and goes to hell, Satan raises up a new one, and we continue to lionize them while they feed us poisoned sweets.

I wish I had had someone to tell me the truth when I was young. I had a cornucopia of voices telling me all the wrong things, but there wasn’t one person who knew the Holy Spirit and wanted to introduce me to him. I had Henry Miller, John Cleese, Joseph Heller, and the rest, but there was no Derek Prince. There was no Mark Hemans. When I tried to find God, I ran into goaltenders like Kenneth Copeland and Benny Hinn, who were actually put in my way to make sure I never found the path. I didn’t stand a chance.

Think of the contrast between Terry Jones and Mark Hemans. Jones made naughty, sophomoric jokes, like a mischievous schoolboy, and he led other people into iniquity. He wrote books about a dead man no one cares about. He made himself rich, he bathed himself in glory, and then he died. Mark Hemans shows up in churches, and he frees people from things like paralysis and autism. He delivers desperate believers from cancer. He helps people to know the Holy Spirit. He helps them and their families to live in peace, good health, victory, and the knowledge of eternal salvation.

Who is the real success?

When someone like Jones dies, Satan makes sure lots of people honor him. He wants the rest of us to want to go out the same way. I’m not fooled. In all likelihood, right now, Terry Jones would give absolutely anything–even his limbs–to be where I am at this moment, with one more chance to repent. If Graham Chapman could have spoken at his own funeral, he would have begged people not to follow him.

I’m just glad God helped me come around before I died, and I’m glad I didn’t have great success when I was pursuing the wrong things. Had I succeeded, I would be just as smug and confident as the many damned humorists who preceded me. Thank God Jones and his colleagues failed to ensnare me. I forgive them all.

Cleese, Eric Idle, Michael Palin, and Terry Gilliam are still here. Maybe some of them will wake up while there is still time.