PicoBlog

The Gemstones’ default problem-solving strategy is violence. We’ve seen murder, pitched battles, and preemptive strikes in every season. How can Christians, with their message of peace and love, promote and embrace violence? My students often tell me that this baffles them. Watching the entirety of The Righteous Gemstones would make for a long answer to their questions, but a very good one. Failing that, maybe they could just watch this episode for a précis, as BJ gets his second baptism—this one in blood.

One of the most powerful rationales for violence available to Christians is the morality of defense—defense of self, of course, but also of family and of the innocent. And this rationale bleeds over into other kinds of presumptive immorality, like lying or obstructing justice. That’s why those who hold power in churches overcome their qualms to do all kinds of objectively terrible things (covering up abuse, for example): the imperative is to defend the institution, whose reputation and flourishing outweigh considerations of justice or morality.

So the siblings hand Stephen and his wife a big fat check to forestall a lawsuit, and require Judy to “take the L” and apologize to them. Keeping unflattering news about the Gemstones out of the public record is top priority, because as the Gemstones go, so goes the institution. Kelvin, too, becomes collateral damage as the church circles the wagons. The happier the youth are with their fun new minister Taryn (an exuberantly androgynous Maggie Winters), the more disaffected Kelvin becomes. Keefe, on the other hand, seems pretty fulfilled in the carpentry shop. Of course Kelvin has to put him down: “Jesus was a carpenter too,” he points out, “but it’s the miracles and stuff that are notable.” And of course, the moment Kelvin is goaded into somersaulting on the trampoline, to the delight of the youth, Keefe shows up with a personalized rocking chair and accuses him of a physical relationship with Taryn. The threat that Keefe poses to the church can’t be put in the rearview if Kelvin can’t move on.

Sometimes defending the church means getting into bed with people you’d rather stay far away from. That’s what happens to Jesse when Baby Billy extorts him with the Aimee-Leigh hologram. Unless the Gemstone network puts Bible Bonkers on the air, Billy will sell Aimee-Leigh to a sex show in Bangkok. Yet another image that the Gemstones can’t allow out in the world. This is how it works: Defending the faith becomes defending the institution of the church, which becomes defending the reputation of the people who are the public face of the church, which becomes a carte blanche for those people doing anything and everything because they will never be allowed to face consequences.

Eli wants to be done with all that. When Judy begs him to intervene, he fumes: “Can you fucking kids just figure out your own lives?” He has no more interest in being the face of the institution; he wants to find out what he likes doing other than running the church. But as much as he’s saying exactly what we’re all thinking, you don’t get to resign from the war that you started. The siblings are just doing what Daddy did, only with less propriety and more self-interest. Still, you have to feel for the man. He watches in horror as Jesse and Baby Billy bring his dead wife back to holographic life (“Like Jesus Christ, she has risen again!”), then be unable to turn it off as Judy’s attacks trigger DMX mode (“it’s a loaner”).

BJ’s transformation into an angel of vengeance strips away the layers of abstraction from these justifications of bad behavior in self-defense. When stalking Stephen in his little SmartCar doesn’t do the trick, Jesse convinces him that only way to heal the emotional pain of Judy’s infidelity is to beat him up, and starts him on a training program complete with Stephen-substitute heavy bag. “She was mistaken when she thought she liked you!” BJ yells before hurting his wrist (again). He gets his chance when he intercepts a sext meant for Judy and finds Stephen at home, naked and waiting for the hookup. 

The problem with violence is that the consequences simply can’t be controlled. After the initial surprise attack, Stephen easily gets the upper hand and (worse) puts Jesse’s gift brass knuckles on that hand. Dragged out to the lawn, BJ turns those tables one more time by grabbing Stephen’s family jewels, and emerges a bloody spectacle in front of God and all the neighbors. So much for keeping damaging information under wraps. 

Despite the ready availability of scripture supporting warfare, early Christians often confined violence to metaphor and embraced a pacifism so radical that it breaks my students’ brains. Believing that Jesus could return any moment, these pre-Constantinian believers wouldn’t run the risk of being caught with a bloody sword in their hands. They refused military conscription and did not defend themselves when attacked. Whatever you think of this extreme position, the fact that it bears no resemblance to the Gemstone theology of violence is telling. The Gemstones don’t fear the judgment to come, and they don’t trust God to fight for them. Or maybe they simply believe that their ministry, and by extension themselves, are so vital to God’s eventual triumph that all sins are already forgiven.

• The episode’s funniest moment comes in a brief C-plot as the Montgomery cousins leave the compound. Jesse tosses them the keys to the Redeemer (cue the Redeemer theme) and warns them to stay in their lane since “she ain’t street legal.” As they drive off into the waiting arms of Peter, who will interpret its expropriation as a humiliation for the enemy Gemstones, Jesse has second thoughts. “I instantly regret giving it to them,” he deadpans. “The monster truck was far too large a gesture.”

• Not only did Jesse get his dais and imperial backdrop, but also some very dramatic lighting in the audience room where Stephen and Christy make their demands.

• Baby Billy appoints himself Jesse’s mentor and starts right away: “Calm the fuck down. That’s my first piece of mentor advice.”

• Judy appeals to Amber for a plan how to get BJ back, and all Amber has to offer is coming to the women’s group to get support and work on herself. Judy can’t believe this is the only way: “The cheater has to eat massive piles of shit until the cheated-on person decides they’re forgiven?”

• The most touching moment of the episode, and perhaps of this season so far, occurs when Martin facilitates the meeting where Judy apologizes to Stephen and Kristy and gives them half a million dollars. When she asks why Jesse and Kelvin aren’t there, he tells her that he gave them the wrong meeting time to spare her the humiliation.

• At the end of the disastrous Aimee-Leigh demonstration, Judy and Kelvin quit (Jesse calls them “two worthless sacks of shit that do nothing but weigh me down”) and May-May reprises her karate chop to Judy’s throat from a couple of episodes ago. Quite the go-to move.

• Sword Drill: In Matthew 15, Jesus answers the Pharisees’ accusations about his followers eating with unwashed hands (i.e., not following the Mosaic law). After flipping the script and accusing them of breaking more important laws, Jesus goes into more detail for his disciples. He explains that it’s what comes out of a person that defiles them, not what goes in. “For out of the heart come evil thoughts,” he says, and goes on to list a few more behaviors that defile: murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false witness, and slander. (That ticks all the boxes for this episode.)

• “Finish him up with a one-liner, like, how do you like me now? … Then spit on him, like general disrespectful spitting.”

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