March 9, 2006 by s.z.

'Soap Star or Macho Minister?'

 

 

The Miami New Times has an article on our favorite columnist/painter/big game hunter/manly pastor, Doug Giles. 

 

Let's read selections from it together, so that we might learn a little more about the enigma wrapped in pop culture references and topped off with mousse that is Doug.

It's a hot day on Indiantown's Brady Ranch. And pastor Doug Giles has his hands on a gun. A wiry man in fatigues and a crumpled cowboy hat, he crouches between two fat oak trees. Then he locks his sight on a 500-pound nilgai antelope and pulls the trigger.

The bullet hits with a force so fierce that the animal sails four feet into the air. Then for a moment it regains its footing and tries to scramble away. But a shattered front leg flops like a jelly-filled sack. When the minister fires again, the antelope tumbles to the ground.

Giles sells a video of the hunt after Sunday services at his Aventura Clash Christian Church ...

There's nothing like selling self-promoting videos in church (videos of a antelope trying to run with a bullet in its gut and a shattered front leg, no less) to remind one of Jesus. 

 

But as we noted before, it cost Doug $2000 (plus hunt costs) to bag that antelope at Brady Ranch ("The Trophy Hunter's Paradise"), so we can see why he'd want to find a way to recoup his money.  And making his parishioners buy a video of him killing God's creatures in a canned hunt is just such a way. 

 

(We want to see Doug go hunting with Dick Cheney -- there can be only one!)

Giles, now 43 years old, has always been something of a rabble-rouser. The Lubbock, Texas native says he began smoking pot at age twelve. During his teens, he stole, dealt drugs, and spent almost as much time in the principal's office as in class. His college years weren't much better. He flunked out and then drifted for a while. "His rebelliousness took its toll on the family," says his sister, Paula Winger. "All those nights they stayed up worrying really aged my parents."

Oh, if only they had taken Doug's advice on "Raising Boys That Feminists Will Hate"!

Then at age 21, Giles found Christ, and his life changed. He enrolled in Texas Tech University and graduated. Then, after dabbling in business for a while, he launched a church called Covenant Christian Fellowship in his hometown.

Does this career path remind anybody else of Elmer Gantry's?

In some ways, though, he remained the same.

He still deals drugs?

"He never lost that radical streak," explains Winger. "He doesn't worry what the fallout is going to be, who he's going to offend. He has a fierce, no-compromise attitude."

Which is good, because the Bible tells us, "Blessed are the radical, take-no-prisoner, offensive dudes who don't care about the fallout, for theirs is the kingdom of Dirty Harry."

Giles's tough talk is welcomed by the 200 members of his church. The group meets in the Royal Palm conference room of Aventura's posh Residence Inn amid bismuth pink carpeting and mahogany trim.

Oooh, la la, pink carpet and mahogany trim!  Now doesn't that sound manly?

On a recent Sunday morning, slumping teenagers, aging housewives, and muscular twentysomethings with camouflage Bibles gathered there to hear him preach.

The service began with some rocky Christian hymns. Then Giles sauntered up to the front of the room and placed his hands on his hips. "Why are you so quiet?" he asked. "You turn into Quakers?" Then he leaned over the lectern and growled, "If there's any place to make noise, it's Clash Christian Church."

But the silence lingered.

Finally a burly man with Jesus tattoos yelled, "Yeah, come on!"

"Not you," Giles jeered. "If you say, 'Come on,' again, I'm going to stuff potatoes in your mouth."

Clash Church is a manly church for manly men, and there will be lots of noise, and lots of belching, farting, and boo-yeahs during its services.  (But no "come on"s, because that sounds kind of suggestive.)

Part of the goal of his aggressive style and message is to "jerk the slack out of" slacking Christians. He urges followers to toughen up, quit complaining, and take action by stepping into the public square. This is because, like many members of the religious right, Giles believes America was founded as a Christian nation. "My ultimate goal," he wrote by e-mail, "is to help the U.S., via my little influence, retain the traditional Judeo-Christian values that have made this nation great."

And this means injecting biblical principles into government.

And we call it dominionism. 

Sam Hacman, a 30-year-old commercial real estate broker, first attended Clash Christian Church after hearing Giles's WMCU program. [...] At first Hacman was surprised by Giles's appearance. The pastor's sinewy build doesn't seem to square with his baritone voice.

I think that by "wiry" and "sinewy," the reporter is trying to say that Doug is "petite."

And he's better preened than his macho message would suggest.

Something that TBogg noted some time ago.  (But I'm glad that the paper noted this too, and gave the photo of Doug the caption that I used for the title of this entry.)

But Hacman was drawn in by the minister's charisma. "It energizes you," he explains. "When you leave, you feel alive."

Until Doug guns you down in the parking lot, as he films his next hunting video.

12:28:21 AM