When national Christian organization Catch the Fire Ministries heard about the blood-stained pillar atop a hill overlooking Australia's Parliament House, they interpreted this as further evidence to support their belief that Satan is at work in and around our policy-determining hub. In order to combat this evil, they organized a mass "prayer offensive" at the site with the triple-barreled intention of 1. reversing any spells cast by the witches, 2. hopefully changing politicians' minds about things they disagree with (such as abortion and gay people) and 3. sending out good vibes to ensure a bushfire-victim free summer. Really, what on earth could go wrong?This is Pastor Danny Nalliah. He's the self-proclaimed leader of the Catch the Fire Ministries. He led the three hour prayer session through his little megaphone and the 200 followers who turned up thought he was pretty great. For three hours he prayed, led sing-alongs, and intermittently spoke in tongues. Hearing 200 people speak in tongues together sounds kind of amazing, to be honest--something like a room full of hallucinating indians. Danny used to be in a rock band before Jesus found him and set him on the right path.This is the blood-stained altar that sparked this to-do. Now, I haven't seen too many blood-stained altars in my time but I'd bet my life on the fact that this wasn't blood. Besides, it had been raining all week in Canberra and even with my rudimentary understanding of chemistry and biology I'm pretty sure that blood would wash off. Anyhoo, semantics.Here are the Christians, with an assortment of banners, lost in the moment.Oh yeah, the atheists turned up to throw a spanner in the works. That's the leader of their party on the right.Here he is throwing some horns while screaming at all the tranced out Christians about why he believes God doesn't exist.A whole lot of gays and lesbians turned up, along with members of theAustralian Sex Partyto voice their disapproval too. The verdict from the Christians seemed to be that Jesus loved them but disagreed entirely with their choice of lifestyle. It was basically the impossible argument. The gay contingent responded to this with statement t-shirts and general antisocial behavior. They did seem to be having way more fun than than the Christians though and had a sausage sizzle going while they sang "I am, you are, we are Australian" really loudly. Later in the day this turned into Sir Mix-a-Lot's "Baby Got Back" and people hooning in a circle in a couple of convertibles, waving rainbow flags out the roof, and playing really loud dance music. I don't think they liked being ignored by the Christians.Nude gay guy made it his mission to stand right in the middle of the prayers and they made it their mission to ignore him.Members of the atheist party with signs that they could really have tried harder with. They say, from left to right: "ANU League of Extra-ordinary Atheists," "There's Probably No God so Stop Worrying and Enjoy Life," and "Reality is Awesome."This is Danny Nalliah's main wingman about to drink a thimble of red cordial, which represents the blood of Christ. A few times throughout the day, Danny Nalliah would move locations with the intention of having all the Catch the Fire people follow. For some reason, each time this happened, no one followed their esteemed leader. It seemed like a relatively easy and logical thing — to follow the guy with the megaphone — but it just wasn't happening. Each time Danny would frustratedly tell this guy to go and get them to follow. Wingman had a pretty rad Jesus t-shirt on. Here's the back of it.By far the most under-represented group of the day were the witches. There were a smattering of people dressed in black crushed velvet who identified themselves as being into witchcraft and white magic but they all seemed to think that the notion of Satanic sacrifices happening atop Mt. Ainslie was ludicrous. Although I guess it's not necessarily the kind of thing one readily admits to. Anyway, this girl's friends had slept in and made a last minute decision not to turn up.Some more witches.And the most deceptive witch of them all.I thought this lady might have been with the Christians and accidentally mixed up the sign of Satan with a sign that means "I love God." Turns out she was in fact on Satan's side. In hindsight, I guess the purple Docs should have been a giveaway.The climax of the day involved everyone getting really lost in the moment. There was a harp player, a guy on the bongos, and another man on the guitar who played along as everyone sang or garbled in tongues (which actually sounded really cool — almost like an un-hip and unplugged Animal Collective) while a group of gay people stood in the middle of them chanting "Jesus loves Us" over and over. At five, the prayer session petered out and everyone headed home. Whether the day had any effect beyond making gays and Christians hate each other more than they already did will obviously be impossible to determine until bushfire season or the next election.
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