Entertaining Dr Murdock

Spectator, The, Jun 10, 2000 by Wakefield, Mary

The Shiva Naipaul Memorial Prize is awarded annually to the entrant best able, like the late Shiva Naipaul, to describe a visit to a foreign place or people. It is not for travel writing in the conventional sense, but for the most acute and profound observation of a culture evidently alien to the writer. This year the prize was once again part-sponsored by Penguin Books and is worth 33,000.

This year's judges were Antony Beevor, Patrick Marnham, Mark Amory (literary editor of The Spectator) and Boris Johnson (editor of The Spectator).

There were more than 100 entries from five continents. The runner-up was Alexander John Lester.

THERE'S a narrow road heading east out of Denton, Texas, across the hot dust and prickly yellow grass. It runs straight as a red-neck's gun barrel, passing after three miles through a huddle of run-down trailers, one squat, modern-looking church and a scattering of tiny brick houses; then on into a point on the horizon.

By the side of the road, opposite the church, sits a woman in a wedding dress, her white satin shoes covered with reddish dirt. Her hair is permed into careful ringlets. Her make-up needs constant repair. She is crying. She has been there since early morning, staring at the closed doors of the church and a painted sign which with kitsch pomposity proclaims it to be the Wisdom Center. The folds of her newly-bought dress collect dust, exhaust fumes, insects.

At about 5 p.m. a burly man with a crewcut in a tight suit emerges from the church's double doors. He leans down, helps the woman firmly to her feet and pushes her, stumbling, away from the church. She is protesting. She will not move until she has seen someone she calls her `Mentor'. She has been called by God, she says, to be the Mentor's bride. She's sure he'll have felt it too; sure he's been warned in dreams, like her. He'll know, just please tell him. Please. The man turns back, muttering into a walkie-talkie. The double doors close smoothly behind him.

As the sun's glare softens into evening orange, a policeman appears from one of the brick buildings and glances wearily at the woman, still hunched in her wedding dress by the roadside. He bundles her into the back of a police car, heading for the homeless shelters in downtown Denton.

Later that night, cars pull into the church carpark. Mellow golden light glows through the church's thin, fake-marble windows. Electric organ music drifts off into the hot night. Dressed in their religious best bright-red tailored suits, jackets, shoulder pads, fake pearls and tottering heels - a stream of middle-aged Texan women clip down a paved path and in through the Wisdom Center's doors, now opened wide.

The women wriggle through the aisles of conference-style seats, twitching with excitement; Dynasty extras interspersed with the odd shuffling man, eager to find a place nearest the front of the room.

Upstairs on a small balcony, a rat-like man called Todd starts sliding switches on a huge control panel. As the electric organ music shrieks louder, 15-year-old Israel starts a shimmering beat on his snare drum. The lights brighten and 150 now settled women swivel their varnished hairdos through 90 degrees and focus on the stage as in strolls Dr Mike Murdock, the Man, the Mentor - star of Mentor's Manna on Channel 22 - his shiny suit alive with glittery sparkles in the TV-friendly lights.

I lean forward from my seat in the back row and run a self-conscious hand through my hair. Mike Murdock is the man whom I have been sent to investigate by an American television company. He is one of the worst of an ever-growing group of mercenary televangelists, trained to squeeze every last dollar out of gullible Christians in the southern United States. I am to infiltrate the Wisdom Center and get information about his accounts, and hidden camera footage of his infamous lechery. If possible, I am to tempt him to try to seduce me.

`Oh, hallelujah. Ah just luuuurve Thursday naaghts,' begins the Mentor. `Oh hallelujah, hallelujah,' the crowd sighs back.

`They're jes' a little haven of peace and quiet in the middle of mah jet-settin' laafe.'

Dr Murdock's mouth stretches into a showbiz grin. Greased back, dyed black, too-long hair creeps like insect legs over his collar.

The women love it. `The poor man doesn't look after himself,' they whisper. `Bless him, he needs a haircut . . ' No, they decide with secret smiles, what he needs is a Good Woman - someone to stack those prayer books, straighten those cushions and pile food on his plate, just like momma used to make. Upstairs, on the balcony, Todd pumps up the volume.

`Hallelujah,' croons Dr Murdock. `Oh,

hallelujah. It's a very special day today. A special day.' As a former Amway salesman, Mike knows the value of repetition. `I can feel the Holy Spurt rising in the room tonight and oh. . . . I just had to share that with y'all. A very special day. An anointed day.' He turns, pauses, raises one eyebrow, and grins.

`While ah was in the Secret Place for my four-hour prayer session this morning, the Holy Spurt put into my heart a revelation.' Dr M. lowers his voice to a conspiratorial rasp. `Oh yes, hallelujah, a revelation. It was about the $91 seed. "Mike," the Holy Spurt said to me... [the Holy Spirit affects a Ghost-of-Christmas-Past quaver] "Mi-i-ke, I want you to spread the word tonight that anyone, yes anyone, willing to sow a $91 seed into your ministry will receive that offering back a hundredfold." The Holy Spurt sure is in a generous mood this evening, isn't he?'