THE NAKED CITY – THE MORMON THE MERRIER!

We have to ask – is Wolloomooloo currently the target of an onslaught of Mormom missionaries, or is the ‘proselytizing’ just a Sydney wide phenomenon, a bit like the occasional invasion of Bogong moths. No disrespect to the Church of the Latter-day Saints, but our friends in the ‘Loo report some feverish door knocking in recent weeks, with many of the young missionaries refusing to take “no” for an answer.

The kind of “no” when they buzz you early in the morning and ask to engage in a few minutes of spiritual (foot in the door) dialogue even though you reply that you are a committed atheist, a member of the local Raelian chapter or a recent convert to the Russian Orthodox Church – and not even Russian. It’s no secret that the LDS Church has somewhere around 100,000 missionaries currently buzzing and banging their way around the world. It’s seen as a rite of passage for many young Mormons who often devote up to two years of their life to the evangelist cause, abiding by a strict code of dress and behavioural conduct.

Regardless of your religious convictions, there is something about old style evangelism that strikes both a nostalgic and philosophically awakening note. In the modern technological world it’s almost completely disappeared from our city streets and the landscape at large. These days it’s the pentecostals and Hillsong who are pulling in the masses with their slick multi-media and highly choreographed Church services.

Back in 1959 Australians flocked in their hundreds of thousands to hear American Baptist evangelist Billy Graham deliver his fire and brimstone sermons on a fifteen week ‘crusade’ around the country – capturing our hearts, minds and wallets. There have been visiting American evangelists since, and some large scale congregations but nothing to match the almost rock arena fervour of the Graham crusades. The firebrand TV spruiker Jimmy Swaggart even opened a bookshop in the Sydney CBD, back in the 1980s, a short lived venture that eventually took the full brunt of his numerous prostitution scandals and ultimate defrocking by the Assemblies Of God.

But what about the good old style street preachers, Salvation Army bands and elderly women thrusting biblical text into your hands as you scurried down the Wynyard ramp during peak hour. They have all but disappeared from the mean streets of Sydney, although occasionally we witness an old style prayer meeting, complete with music from a Cassio keyboard, outside Woollies at Town Hall.

There is something about a furious religious zealot, standing on a milk crate in George Street, bellowing to all and sundry that “the end is near”. To some it might be amusing, to others a possible wakeup call – but to most of us it’s a distraction (albeit welcome) from the humdrum and monotony of urban survival.

Yes we need evangelists and proselytizers to brighten up the City. And if the Council is listening, here’s just another means of raking in some easy dollars. Unlike buskers, street evangelists don’t currently require a special permit. Why not licence them all? – the doomsayers, the Mormons, the Jehovah’s Witnesses and even the Scientologists that scout their bogus personality tests on the corner of Park and Castlereagh.

The Council could even erect dedicated proselytizing stands, dotted all over the city, rented out to prospective preachers for $50 an hour. Once a month the Pitt Street Mall could be thrown open to every religious missionary and (sorry that word again) proselytizer in Sydney erupting in a cacophony of biblical incantation not witnessed since the days of the Billy Graham rampage.

Whoops – have to go – the Mormons are knocking!