Go Tell It on the Mountain

The threshing floor is a part of The Temple of the Fire Baptized. The name refers to the space in front of the altar where Gabriel delivers his sermons. The name is a reference to the laborious process of processing wheat as described in the Bible. In the past, the lack of farming machinery meant that wheat was to be harvested by hand and that the grain and the chaff of the wheat had to be separated by hand. To do so, people required a large, flat surface which was shielded from the wind on which the wheat could be laid out. Once laid out, people would walk oxen back and forth over the wheat. The threshing floor in the church is a symbol of the way the members of the congregation feel themselves treated like the wheat described in the Bible. They use the threshing floor to share their experiences of religion. Like the wheat, which was processed on the threshing floor, they are processed by religion and transformed into something new. The threshing floor becomes a symbol of the physical transformation that religion induces in the congregation and the seriousness with which they take the process.