Donnie Davies from Baytown, Houston, is a Christian musician and a “reformed homosexual” doing what he says is the Lords work by “letting people know that God hates a Fag.” His recent song performed with a band by the name of ‘Evening Service’ is called ‘The Bible Says’ and in an upbeat chirpy fashion not unlike a lot of Christian music you’ve heard, Donnie sings that “God hates a fag, and if you’re a fag he hates you too.”

“Being from south Houston has been as much of a factor in the tone of the music as being Christian.” Says Donnie who runs a Christian program called C.H.O.P.S. (Changing Homosexuals Into Ordinary People) “Houston is a strange place and we feel like it is reflected in our music. We live not too far from the chemical plants in Baytown and sometimes being so close to that kind of industry creates intense self-reflection, which is what we are all about.”

The video to ‘The Bible Says’ (above) shows Donnie emerging from a bright white light in a pink shirt with a guitar in hand. That’s followed by scenes of Donnie praying, singing and looking contemplative as the he sings lines like “The Bible says, plain as day, with a man, you shall not lay.”

But look a little closer at Donnie’s guitar playing in the video and you begin to get the sense of something not being on the level. He’s not playing the instrument at all, in fact he’s not even faking it well either, and in the background the guy playing the piano is also doing a terrible job. Then he launches into the chorus with “Lord help them hear me, and make clear my voice, because being gay, is nothing but a choice.”

Yes, it’s a joke. Donnie Davis is not real and neither is his band, C.H.O.P.S., Love God’s Way ministries, or any of the other elaborate internet props that have been created to pull off this audacious and fantasticaly offensive gag.

REMOVED BY YOUTUBE

The video was on YouTube, but after only a few days it was removed. It’s still available on myspace for the time being, but presumably because of the strain on ‘Donnie’s’ on website, the video is no longer available there either. In fact as fast as it appeared it seems to have dissapeared.

When I saw the video I was nearly crying with laughter, it seemed so very obviously a joke to me. The moustache, the cheesy video, the gratuitous praying, there was no way this was the real deal. But as I followed links to the ‘Love God’s Way Ministries‘ website, Donnie’s bands website ‘Evening Service‘, and even his own website, I began to question my first assumption. The language and graphics seemed genuine enough. “Christian Rock doesn’t have to be about boundries, it primarily needs to be about faith.” So says eveningservice.com. The Love Gods Way Ministries website claims to specialize in “Christian topics other Ministries do not want to talk about.”

But there are some giveaway signs of humor. At the Love Gods Way Ministries website there is a “valuable resource’ for Christian parents in the form of a list of “gay bands to watch out for.” These include Scissor Sisters, Rufus Wainwright, Wilco, The Doors, Sufjan Stevens, Metallica, The Rolling Stones, John Mayer, Eminmen, The Killers, Frank Sinatra, and many others. A similar list of “safe bands” is desperately short.

There is also another video featuring Donnie sounding suspiciously similar to prosperity preacher Joel Osteen who runs the Lakewood church, one of the largest so called mega churches in the United States, also based in Houston.

Another telling sign that this is indeed an elaborate gag is the fact that despite claims that Davies has been singing Christian music for years, a quick search on Google (performed on Jan 24th, 07) only finds two significant mentions of the a Donnie Davies in Christian music. Both of those are at websites that ‘Donnie’ is cleary associated with, and suspiciously both domain names eveningservice.com and lovegodsway.org were purchased at roughly the same time as donniedavies.com, toward the end of 2006.

UNFORTUNATELY BELIEVABLE

Despite the evidence, the gag has already been very effective at making some believe that it is indeed a genuine Christian music video. The YouTube appearance provoked some heated knee jerk reactions before it was deleted.

“This is not in the least bit funny, whether it’s meant as a joke (I doubt it) or not. Having a ‘Christian’ preaching hate toward anyone is repulsive.” Read one comment. Another response attacked the video. “You are a sick person and I hope whatever children u might have all turn out gay!” Though my favorite comment read. “$50 says this guy wears Care Bears pajamas and lives on his mom’s sofa.”

No doubt YouTube were inundated with complaints about the video and that is why they chose to remove it so swiftly. Ironic then that the video sharing site have never felt the same sense of urgency to remove any of the actual God Hates Fags spew that comes from the Westboro Baptist Church and the Reverend Fred Phelps.

As funny as this might be, it should serve as cause for alarm to Christians that so many people find it entirely believable that this could indeed a real Christian video. That fact that it doesn’t immediately scream fake perhaps tell us more about the state of our churches than Christians might otherwise be comfortable admitting.

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[MP3] God Hates A Fag
[Video] “The Bible Says” by Donnie Davies
[Video] Donnie Davies welcomes you
[Video] Another message from Donnie. “I was born this way.”
[Video] Jan 26th video message from Donnie Davies
Donnie Davis
Love God’s Way Ministries
Evening Service band
another video featuring Donnie
Joel Osteen
Southpark did the same. No one took that seriously
Reverend Fred Phelps
God doesn’t love everyone