MATHETΩN

The pastor is an affable old man, effortlessly dominant in the way Texans can be, slim and dressed in sharp sports-clothes.

He told me a story about “30,000 people in this area unchurched” and “we got about thirty of us from suburbia and said we’re just gonna do this,” and then he said: “What we do is just, you know, preach The Life. They’re all under sin here, anyhow.”

I do not know Protestant lingo, and so I do not know what he meant, really, but it sounded a little bitter and resigned.