The Oh, Welcome to Home of the Brave, I'm Scott Carrier. This week I have a story from the archive, one that sort of ties into the last story about the guys holding the bird sanctuary hostage in Oregon because it's about what can happen when a group of men start praying in a circle.

It's called Saints of the Last Days and it was originally broadcast on this American life in

1996. It's one of my favorites.

At a particularly low point my career is a responsible husband and father, I worked as a carpenter's assistant for my younger brother, a contractor specializing in home renovation.

We built additions, garages, garages, finished basements,

to our bathrooms, installed new ones, and so on.

He paid me $10 an hour, which I considered to be generous.

At that time, good carpenters, men who could build an entire house from start

to finish by themselves, single-handed. We're making 12.50 an hour, and I was only an assistant,

a gopher, the guy who digs and carries and cleans up.

It was hard work, but then I'll work as hard, and it was good for me to work out my tension on

wood and concrete and dirt instead of on my family. What I didn't like about the job

was that it made me hateful. I resented working on another man's house, a man with

enough money to pay for a $40,000 bathroom, a man with enough money to pay for a $40,000 bathroom, a man who decides he wants a bigger

garage for his new motorcycle, a man who doesn't want to dig up his own sewer pipe.

The work forced me to admit that I was a slave, that somewhere in life

I'd made a big mistake. I mentioned this here because it was through this experience that I first

realized that Christianity as it's commonly practiced,

is more concerned with revenge and ultimate justice than it is about compassion and love of your

fellow man. Consider the following scenario. I am shingling a garage roof

with a lead carpenter named Dave. It's Dave's first day on the job and we're both up there

pounding shingles and talking about Star Trek.

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