Page Eight

THE SUMMAER DAILY

Saturday, July 14, 1973


Gimmie that old-time religion,

HELD OVER! friends of newsreel
Alfred Hitchcock's
FRENZY
SATURDAY and SUNDAY, July 14-15
in a major film duplex with CARNAL KNOWLEDGE
7:15 and 9:30 p m.
Modern Languages Auditoriums
$1.25 single, $2 double feature at 7:15 only
Have you heard the "word of mouth" about FRENZY?
SATURDAY and SUNDAY, July 14-15
Joseph- iLe. e' preserts a Mike Nichols Film starring Jack Nichoiso'n
7"Giral KiRWIedge' I have '
experienced only three or
four movies that Uwas
genuinely sorry to see
end.lIwas sorry to see ~
'Carnal Knowledge' end!"
-Vincent Canby, N.Y. Times
E'Carnal Knowledge'i d"s one
of the best movies ever!" 0
-Liz Smith, Cosmopolitana
Mike NicholsJackNidhOsof,
( andice Belden, Arthur Garfunlkel,o
Ann-Maret and Jules Fe ker.
n.
Carnal _
o ' ' I l- nAvc* EmibassyPicture a
iaonpoia avnlnaax - sa "a saitt Aq usli'm. iiaqiS peai8 sasao
Duplex with Alfred Hitchcock's FRENZY
5HOWTIMI5 7:15 & 9:30
$1.25 single admission, $2 double feature
MODERN LANGUAGES AUDITORIUMS
769-7353 -friends of newsreel

By DAN BIDDLE
SpecialTo The Daily
YPSILANTI - In the mind of
the Reverend Percy Jordan, the
tent makes all the difference in
the world.
Percy Jordan has traveled
through the United Stites, Eur-
ope and Africa in his 13 years
as an Evangelist minister, but on
Thursday night he was thanking
the Lord for bringing a good-
old-fashioned circus tent revival
meeting to his hometown parish
of Ypsilanti.
"MY PEOPLE" - there pro-
bably aren't many ministers left
swho can speak of their congre-
gatione with the fatherlineos of
Percy Jordan - "my people feel
freer here in the tent. Before
this, the only revivals we've had
in Ypsi were inside the church.
"Now the Lord tells us in the
Bible to sing and dance and re-
joice in His greatness. But the
church, people feel the church
is God's house, that to stand up
and dance might offend Him.
They feel free out here."
The St. James Church of God
in Christ erected its first revival
tent on a dusty vacant lot in
Ypsi last week.
THE TENT is tattered and only
about 70 feet long, a far cry
from the Chatauqua tents where,
at the turn of the century, Wil-
liam Jennings Bryan, perhaps
history's only politician-evange-
list, brought the masses to their
feet with a Populist reckoning
of the Wrath of God.
But the St. James Pentacostal
congregation of Ypsilanti - most
of them poor black people - had
no need for William Jennings
Bryan Thursday night.
Bryan had a great voice, but
he never had a rented sound sys-
tem and an electric guitar to add
hot sauce to his fire-breathing.
From England-
FRI. & SAT.
MARTIN
n AwflFLIv

THE PEOPLE parked their
pickup trucks and battered old
.Cadillacs in a rocky lot that was
meant for horses and wagons,
perhaps, but never automobiles.
The young people in work
clothes and bellbottoms led the
grandparents in linens and floor-
length skirts to hard wooden
benches. The littlest children
danced in the aisles and the
babies watched in wonder, their
mothers rocking them softly as
the six-man jazz band blew out
the Lord's music.
And God, if he listened Thurs-
day night, knew His music had
come a long way since Joshua's
trumpets blew down the walls.
JOSHUA must have had one
Hell of a band back then, but un-
der the tent in Ypsi, the trum-
pet was blowing, the electric gui-
tar flowing; a sweet-talking sax-
ophone was singing the Gospel,
and the seven-year old drummer
was driving outt the Devil and
beebopping the Word of the Lord.
Percy Jordan got up and put
his feet to work.
It wasn't exactly a tap dance
or anything that could be given a
name, but in the old days it
would have reminded sharecrop-
pers and ragtimers of the hand-
jive or the turkey strut.
LORD, You must have smiled
an Almighty smile when Y o u
watched those feet hop and kick
across the dirt floor.
Now with a ragged Bible held
high, now with a face full of
anguish and then a wide grin,
Percy Jordan wiggled and hopped
down the aisles and back up to
the band.
And even the old people
couldn't sit still as the Rever-
end danced and the band blew.
The other ministers, all in dark
suits and narrow ties, danced
too, but they couldn't quite keep
up with Percy Jordan.
THE PEOPLE stood up and
clapped and shouted, "Praise
Jesus!"
Finally the band cooled down,
and the wire-limbed, bright-fac-
ed, perspiring Reverend Jordan
turned the microphone over to a
smiling, gray-haired woman in
a dark blue dress.
"Now I want to THANK YOU,
Jesus!" she cried.
And the young and the old
echoed "Thank you, Jesus!"
"WE WANT to thank you for
this beautiful opportunity t h e
LORD has granted!"
With tambourines and "Amens"
and hands held high, they thank-
ed Him.

understand: this was a middle-
aged man making that Fender
sing.
"We just want to TESTIFY to-
night to God's saving grace," and
the old woman's voice swooped
down from a holler to a hush.
The congregation knew when it
was time to rejoice in the Lord,
but now they knew just as well
it was a time for reverence, and
the "Amens" went almost to
whispers.
"We need rest, oh Lord, from
our labors . . we need rest, yes,
Jesus knows, when we have sin-
ned . . . and now we pray
in the name of the Lord, and we
thank Him for this meeting, and
for our missionaries here to-
night, and for this revival of His
word."
"PRAISE the Lord," whisper-
ed the people.
"And we know that He is com-
ing BACK one day . . . that one
day Jesus Christ will walk among
us!,
The guitar summoned a few
notes, and it looked like rejoicing
time again.
"HALLELUJAH!" And He is
comin' back to the HOLY peo-
pe!"
The holy people started to stand
up and shout.
"And WE KNOW that we are
laborin' in HIS word, and we are
livin' in the LAST day!"
"YES, yes!" they shouted.
"And we SURELY should not
put off to TOMORROW what we
can do TODAY!"
The guitar man went wild.
"HE is comin' and I can think
of that day, HALLELUJAH, and
I can feel JOY in my bones!"
And finally she sang "Pre-
ious Lord."
When she finished, the band
broke into a round of sound that
had the littlest babies and the
oldest grandmothers doing the
Rock of Ages.
PERCY JORDAN couldn't let
his people go home just yet,
though.
"NOW I want everybody here
tonight who LOVES THE LOR)
to raise their hand high!"
All the hands went up.
"I SAY, I want EVERYBODY
to raise their hand who loves the
LORD -... enough to give two
dollars."
And most of the hands went
down.
When they came by the itage
to drop money ina basket, the
band played, "When The Saints
Go Marching Io."
IT WAS a hustle, there was no
doubt about that.
But then again, Percy Jordan
had at last brought his people
to dance and sing and praise the
Lord beneath a tent.
The Devil won't set foot in
Ypsilanti for a while.
Copyright 1973, Dan Biddle

I

A I i7 I THE ELECTRIC guitar player
moved cat-like to her side and
and' made his instrument laugh' and
cry on every sentence. Now
SAT. & SUN. this was no young Chuck Berry,
Boys of Lochk
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TONIGHT ONLY-7:30 & 9:30
HUMPHREY BOGART in BEAT THE DEVIL
(John Huston 1954)
A satire on the adventure myth built by Bogart and Huston in "The Maltese
Falcon," "Treasure of Sierra Madre," & "African Queen." With Peter
Lorre, Jennifer Jones, and Gino Lollabridgida.
AUD. A.- ANGELL HALL One Dollar
SUMMER SCHEDULES AVAILABLE BEFORE SHOWINGS

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