Dan Myers' comments

As part of a blogalogue, Dan Myers and I are commenting on each other's posts about One Punk, Under God. Here is his response to my first post.

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Great inventory of some critical issues in Episode one!

I'm intrigued in particular by two of your observations. One is the rumspringa and it makes me wonder about what are the typical kinds of teenage rebellion evangelicals and preachers' kids engage in. I knew a lot of PKs growing up, of course, and there was a general sense that PKs were either angelic or devil spawn, with not much in between. Plenty of rebellion going on, but pretty different types depending on which of these groups you were in. I always considered myself "normal" and in the middle with my non-PK friends--I did some stupid things, but wasn't exactly shooting up behind the school during lunch hour.

Second, that radio scene must have been discouraging for Jay. I don't think the interviewer really intended to get off on that track, but she did, maybe for two reasons. One was just the impact that the Bakker scandal had on America (as Jay notes at some other point in the episode). It was not a small deal as evidenced by the reaction people are still having to it 20 years later. The second was that Jay refuses to disavow his parents ministry. I'm sure some epople, including this interviewer, have a hard time giving him legitimacy if he won't blast away on that enterprise some. On the other hand, he cannot really do that because it is part of the identity integration task he is involved with for himself and for defining his own ministry. (The main subject of my post on episode one).