D Magazine

How North Texas became the production hub for Christian entertainment:

And as North Texas grew, the region—with its affordable acreage to site large-scale production facilities and its mostly conservative and religious-minded population—proved attractive to faith-based entrepreneurs. It helped, too, that in the 1980s, a film- and television-production tradition was established here, with secular fare like JFK, RoboCop, and Walker, Texas Ranger.

The early ’90s also saw a flurry of production activity in Dallas. In 1988, the family-friendly, Allen-based Lyrick Studios (originally known as Lyons Group) was born and began turning out the TV series Barney and Wishbone, and distributing the Christian-themed cartoon VeggieTales. Five years later, Trinity Broadcasting Network, which later became the first major network to air T.D. Jakes’ sermons, bought a 50,000-square-foot studio in Irving. Then competing Christian-based Daystar Television Network was founded in Dallas by Joni and Marcus Lamb.

Put all of these elements together—a filmmaking infrastructure; oil, gas, and real estate wealth; religiosity; the eternal, irresistible allure of the silver screen—and you can see how Dallas wound up at the center of the modern faith-based entertainment market.

A community in Texas grapples with the deaths of two high school students:

“The Friday night before that Sunday at Possum Kingdom Lake, Coppell played an away game at Hebron High School in Carrollton. Jacob went up to Solomon and said, ‘What’s wrong with you? You haven’t gotten any sacks all season!’ The two had worked out a signature move: Solomon, after a sack, would bring his palms together and bow to the crowd. The very next play, Solomon got a sack and took his bow. ‘Jacob went crazy,’ Solomon says. ‘He chest-bumped me and said, ‘That was the sickest celebration!’ He was screaming and laughing and so pumped up.’

“Cam McDaniel, Gavin’s older brother, a running back at Notre Dame, was the first to reach Solomon on the phone that Sunday afternoon to give him the terrible news. ‘What should I do?’ asked Solomon, shaken. Cam said, ‘Solly, pray. And just keep the faith.’ The 6-foot-3, 260-pound athlete hung up the phone and fell to the floor.

“As word spread, CHS students flocked to the one place they felt closest to Jacob—Buddy Echols Field, where hundreds held a prayer vigil Sunday night.”

The writer visits West, Texas, the town where he grew up, and talks to residents who experienced the fertilizer plant explosion that destroyed its surrounding area on April 17, 2013:

“Less than a minute later, he saw a bright flash and heard a deep boom. ‘I thought I was imagining this, but others saw it, too: for a split second, I could see wavy, ripple-y air,’ he says. ‘It was the shockwave. I could see it hover. I could see it come right above the treeline.’ Then he was blown onto his back on the driveway. Out front, Becky was thrown into the grass. And inside, Abby was buried under collapsed drywall. A ceiling fan fell on her, too.

“Jeff doesn’t know how long he was on the ground. When he was able finally to go back to the house days later, he saw what could have been. On the driveway, maybe a foot from where he had been standing, there was chalky residue from where a piece of concrete had landed, before smashing against the back of his house. In his mother Carolyn’s backyard there was a 16-foot length of auger pipe, a foot in diameter, thrust into the back wall, near the roofline. Judging from its path—where it clipped a tree, smashed through a fence, and landed hard enough to gouge a foot-deep gash in Carolyn’s lawn before cartwheeling into her house—it, too, had been headed straight for him.”

A writer recalls his family’s move to Dallas, and what he learned from his father about work and life:

“Because my dad had preached the importance of critical acumen in all areas, I couldn’t help but apply that principle to him. I studied his sales techniques and concluded that, although he seemed to have mastered complex economic matters, he had major limitations. I was not surprised that in the course of his 25-year career he did only moderately well. At a time when many of his colleagues became wealthy, wealth eluded him. He earned little more than a middle-class income and at times barely that. When he and my mother fought, which was often, she would ask the question that I believe haunted him until the end of his life. ‘If you’re so smart, Milton,’ she’d say, ‘why aren’t you making more money?’

“The answer had to do with his style and the imperfect nature of his reinvention. My father was amiable. He was also charismatic. He bristled with energy and had his own distinct charm. He was gregarious and curious about people. He expressed interest in their stories and was sympathetic with their problems. He also believed in his own vision of the world. These are the qualities of a great salesman, and yet, by large measure, he missed that mark. The reason was obvious: in selling others, he was also attempting to sell himself. Because his self-doubts cut so deep, that process was exhausting. As a result, he overexplained and oversold.”

A profile of Rhonda Roby, a forensic scientist who has identified the bodies of victims of 9/11, victims of serial killer John Wayne Gacy, Vietnam and Korean War MIAs, bodies of the Romanov family, victims buried in Chilean mass graves, and more:

“Standing there in the middle of the smoking apocalypse of the Twin Towers, she pushed aside emotion and forced the scientist part of her brain to click. ‘I kept thinking, “These people are walking on my crime scene.”‘ She checks herself. ‘”Well, not my crime scene, but the crime scene. Of course, I wanted to identify as many remains as possible.”

“While firemen and policemen all around her desperately searched for signs of life, Roby was doing math. At the time, she was the forensic manager for Applied Biosystems, a private biotech company. She stepped into the scene at 9/11 as one of the world’s leading experts in mitochondrial DNA, with hard-core experience identifying victims of mass disasters from tiny fragments of bone. There were thousands of dead. It would be necessary to sequence about 1,000 bases of DNA information on each sample of human remains, the painstaking process required to order the building blocks of a person’s unique DNA.

“In the end, Roby led a team that processed 21,000 DNA samples dug from the rubble of the World Trade Center. She will go down in history as one of the scientists who rushed to Ground Zero, including superstar biologist Craig Venter, famous for his work deciphering the human genetic code. Venter, instrumental in tapping her expertise for 9/11, became a friend through the experience.”

How Dallas Cowboys quarterback Tony Romo went from a small Wisconsin high school football field to the NFL, and what teammates, coaches, and a local sportswriter remember about Romo’s performance at one particular game:

“‘He knew what he was doing,’ Luther says. ‘He doesn’t look like your prototypical quarterback in high school. He knew where to put it. It was probably the most exciting thing I’ve ever been involved in.’

“After watching Romo in that game, Jackson says he believes that if Romo had played with any of the Racine city schools, they would have won the state championship. ‘It just doesn’t happen,’ he says. ‘You knock a guy out, he comes back in, and he just torches you some more. It was just a game that you don’t ever forget. I think if he goes to a city school, he goes to a high Division I university. We had all the exposure in the city. At given games, Wisconsin was there, Nebraska was there, Ohio State was there. All the scouts come into the city, because you find good talent with good competition.'”

It’s still remembered as “That Night”–when bowler Bill Fong stunned the crowd at the Plano Super Bowl:

“Most people think perfection in bowling is a 300 game, but it isn’t. Any reasonably good recreational bowler can get lucky one night and roll 12 consecutive strikes. If you count all the bowling alleys all over America, somebody somewhere bowls a 300 every night. But only a human robot can roll three 300s in a row—36 straight strikes—for what’s called a ‘perfect series.’ More than 95 million Americans go bowling, but, according to the United States Bowling Congress, there have been only 21 certified 900s since anyone started keeping track.

“Bill Fong’s run at perfection started as most of his nights do, with practice at around 5:30 pm. He bowls in four active leagues and he rolls at least 20 games a week, every week. That night, January 18, 2010, he wanted to focus on his timing.”

So you have to understand, when Robert Jeffress says things like “Mitt Romney is not a Christian,” or “Islam is a false religion based on the teachings of a false prophet,” or that Oprah Winfrey is “a tool of Satan,” he’s not just trying to say something bombastic because he likes the attention. He says it out of love. He truly believes the culture is in decline and that he is slowing the decay and that this could prevent you personally from spending forever with your flesh on fire.

It’s the reason Jeffress has his own radio show, his own television show, and why he’s about to publish his 18th book, Twilight’s Last Gleaming: How America’s Last Days Can Be Your Best Days. It’s the reason First Baptist Dallas recently decided to undertake one of the most expensive church construction projects in modern American history. At a cost of $128 million, the new campus will feature a glass skywalk, a giant cross-shaped fountain, and a sleek 3,000-seat sanctuary that will rival Madison Square Garden.

Rais Bhuiyan felt his heart soften; he felt the pouring forth of something warm, something invigorating. He felt something leaving his body. He felt forgiveness. What had been pure fear, pent up for years, was now compassion. He didn’t hate Mark Stroman. He pitied him. Thinking of this man sitting in a prison cell, counting down the days he has left on this planet, he wondered if he could help him in some way. He remembered what the prosecutor had told him, and he didn’t want to break the law, but Bhuiyan wanted to talk with the man. He wanted to tell the monster haunting his dreams that he had forgiven him.

As they get settled, ready to hear about surgical manipulation of the biliary tract, Jennings notices a magazine on the coffee table. From the cover, it appears the entire magazine is dedicated to conspiracy theories revolving around the John F. Kennedy assassination. Six floors and 44 years separate the place where they are sitting from that moment in November 1963 when the president of the United States was carted into the emergency room in a condition witnesses would later describe as “moribund.” Andrew points to the magazine. “Were you here when they brought him in?” “Yeah, I helped put in the trache,” McClelland says matter-of-factly.