...and he says it made him a great public speaker!
This is from the L.A. Alternative. The story is called "Satan goes to Hollywood," and can be read in its entirety at http://www.laalternative.com/index.php/2006/05/26/satan-goes-to-hollywood/
There’s a young boy standing in the pulpit of the Kingdom Hall, wearing his best three-piece suit and giving all the old ladies of the Church the time of their life.
Day in and day out, the Jehovah’s Witness congregation walks the surrounding neighborhoods spreading their gospel and their warnings, their prophecies and the wisdom of past lives.
“Adam and Eve passed original sin to every man, woman and child on Earth. Satan and his minions tempt good people every day into betraying their faith. God hates birthdays.”
This kid’s just glad to be saved from going door-to-door, so he relishes the feeling of the microphone in his hand and the sound of laughter echoing through the hall. He slips a joke in where he can; they’re in the palm of his hand.
It seems an unlikely place, but there in the pulpit, preaching to a hall full of Jehovah’s Witnesses, is where Bryan Moore first became a Satanist.
And later on...
Hmmm...wonder if we know them?If Moore seems more private than most parents in terms of sharing his religion with his kids, he is. But it’s not just because his religion happens to involve lust rituals and occult magic. Moore knows too well the scars forced religion can cause. Many Satanists do. Sociologists across the board who’ve looked at the religion have found that a high percentage of Church members grew up in rigid religious backgrounds.
When Bryan was 12 his parents split, in more ways then one. His atheist father moved out. His mother became a Jehovah’s Witness. Moore and his sister spent their adolescence with their mother, canvassing neighborhoods and praying at her Kingdom Hall-what Jehovah’s Witness adherents call their church.
“I put on a suit, knocking on doors, giving out the ‘Watchtower.’ Once a month I was in the pulpit. The funny thing was I didn’t really question it at the time, until I got into my teenage years, but I found I really liked being in the pulpit because often I would use jokes in my biblical sermons, and people would laugh and it got a response. It taught me about public speaking and how you really can manipulate a crowd to see things your way. I found that I kind of liked being on stage, as it were.”
From there, Moore says, he met Satan where many others before him have, including Heather: at a bookstore.