The Deer Porn Incident

Just when Mt. Tam Christian Community was starting to gain some traction in Marin County, disaster struck. Pastor Bart announced that he was leaving to become a military chaplain, news that saddened our fledgling band of believers. Since we didn’t have any committees (or much organization of any kind), a team of leaders was hastily assembled to figure out what to do next.

Curiously, I was not invited to join this august body. Unaware of this oversight, the new leaders took steps to hire an interim pastor who could keep the church going until Bart’s replacement was identified. They quickly settled on my old evangelism professor Dr. B, a dignified man who brought an air of credibility to our congregation that was probably not altogether warranted.

Take, for example, the event at which Dr. B was presented to our church family. Three young women who attended Mt. Tam and shared an apartment in a wooded section of Marin hosted a party for the new interim pastor. Two dozen people packed into the cramped apartment, prompting Mike and Jim—two members of our leadership team—to invite Dr. B out onto the balcony for a breath of fresh air. Dr. B and Mike had become lost in conversation when Jim spotted two deer—a male and a female—ambling out of the trees.

What happened next was one of those moments that seem too perfect to be entirely coincidental. Jim pointed and said, “Hey, Dr. B, look at those deer!” And the buck chose that exact instant to begin, er, mating with his companion. By the time Dr. B turned around, he was greeted with a sight that was very different from the one Jim had originally intended to show him.

To his credit, Dr. B followed through on his commitment to serve as our interim pastor, and he never even treated Jim like some kind of pervert afterward. But Mike and I weren’t so nice. For months, we asked poor Jim if he was still into “deer porn.”