Sunday, September 12, 2004

It seems religious leaders advocating hate can't be used as a stick to beat Muslims with: A group of prominent Jewish rabbis have asked the Israeli army not to flinch from killing Palestinian civilians in the context of the ongoing military campaign against armed groups resisting the occupation.

Now, Kris has complained about my 'slagging off' of Christians, as opposed to my slagging off of Politicians, the Greedy, the Stupid and the point where they intersect in the Oval Office. And she is right of course, it's unfair to lump her in with the Christian American Doctors that have decided their faith allows them to overwrite the Hypocratic Oath to include the clause 'but not the queers'. It's unfair to lump her in with the Christian African Bishops who are actively teaching their congregations that condoms are evil and do not prevent the spread of sexually transmitted diseases, causing the AIDS rates to soar and so force the Governments to beg with wealthy American drugs companies to lower the cost of their anti-AIDS drugs.

My problems are not with Christians like Kris and the members of her congregation, or the churches that my grandmothers were members of while they were still alive, one side of the family owes it's existence to the fact that one of my grandfathers persuaded one of my grandmothers not to become an African missionary in the years after the Great War. I've never met, face-to-face, a nasty Christian, or at least if I have, it's not been because they're a Christian but because they are a small minded person. But, obviously, I have huge problems with Christianity (just as I do with all the religions) and I have huge problems with the structure of organised religions.

So, I'm afraid it's not going to change. I'm sorry that it upsets and annoys Kris, but I dare say most of what I have to say about religion I feel as strongly about as she does about her views. I'm open to debate on the issue up to a point, with her or anyone else, and wouldn't think to give my opinion on her blog unless invited too. Similarly I expect that people would respect that I had the right to close the gate on discussions in my little space here. I'm not demanding that she either dumps her religion or she campaigns for a massive clean-up from the inside, it's what's good for her and I respect that if I don't agree with it.

In the entry to which she objects I will agree that, in the rush of typing I wasn't specific about what I meant and caused some unintended offence, as opposed to the offence I did mean to cause. I know that many Christians did object to the West's rush to war and the continuing attempts of Bush and Blair to try and hijack morality (whether Christian or not) in their desire to dominate. I was attempting to suggest that those groups in society that supported the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq and Against Terror would not find anything to object to in the drama The Hamburg Cell as it did not glamourise or justify the terrorist's actions. Obviously, I didn't make myself clear.

Anyway, in an attempt to cause brand new offence, I recently read Soon by Jerry B. Jenkins, one half of the team behind the Left Behind series about a post-Rapture Earth. Why did I read this? Well, looking at the back cover blurb it didn't seem like a story about Christianity. Whoops.

And Jerry has plundered the Bible again for the story, rather than take a few lines from the Book of Revelation and spin out a line that is popular with American Christians but has little standing in the accepted understanding of the texts, he's basically ripping off the story of Saul/Paul, except with slightly less of his rampant misogyny and, by the end of this book at least, none of the going around telling people he knows exactly what Jesus meant, despite never having met the guy.

Anyway, Soon is set some thirty or forty years in the future. The clash of religious fundamentalists we are suffering under now caused a Third World War, so the survivors decided to outlaw all forms of religious observance. To be a practicing Christian (although all religions are outlawed the only one Jenkins is interested in, unsurprisingly, is the big 'C') carries a death penalty, normally they get shot though the book opens with someone being burned alive in a petrol barrel.

I don't know whether Jenkins believes he has created an atheistic society in which to put his little morality tale but it has surprisingly pagan touches. The story opens at Christmas, now called 'Wintermass'. Now, you can argue that you can have a non-religious festival based around the shortest day in the year, but if you were creating a non-religious society would you have a festival reminding people of Christmas? Later on we are told that New York stock market traders refer to 'seers, psychics and horoscopes'. Presumably these are all non-religious seers, psychics and horoscopes, not ones that believe they commune with the Gods, because they would be Pagan and therefore religious. Unless Jenkins doesn't believe Paganism is a religion?

The society that Jenkins has created is obviously what a Christian having to imagine what a godless society would be like. Due to the damage done by WW3 the USA is no more, now redefined as the United Seven States of America, or USSA. Do you see what he's done there? There are other Rapture-tastic touches too, such as a one-world government and a one-world currency.

Anyway, our hero Paul, works for the Government in their 'rooting out and killing Christians' department. He gets blinded while involved in an operation and, recuperating in hospital he decides to listen to the Bible on CD so he can understand the mentality that lead his long deceased father to write him a letter declaring himself a Christian (in a nice touch Jenkins blames all religions for the war but then on the next page makes it clear that only Christianity is the 'right' religion). Following this he's on a plane journey when the possibility of crashing makes him pray to God, the flight is saved and he miraculously gets his sight back. So of course he's a new man and now tries to work to protect Christians from inside an organisation dedicated to wiping them out. But there are unexplained and miraculous events happening in the country, so the authorities decide to crack down and he must do something drastic when it's clear that people in his team aren't playing fair in the battle against Christianity.

Really this book is pretty dire, full of priceless remarks like "Believe me, religion is the opposite of non-violence" and his conversion seems to make Paul unable to go for more than a few pages without having to stop for a pray. The Bible is supposed to be a verboten text, yet Paul happily chats about it and the useful life lessons it has with someone who, perhaps luckily, turns out to be another closet Christian working inside the enemy. After listening to his Bible CDs Paul finds it 'harder and harder to dismiss [Jesus] as just a teacher' (Page 130). Why? Is the idea that we should be nice to one another a completely inhuman alien concept? This would be something that I've only heard from Christians, that atheists have no morals (and that Hitler was an atheist, which is incorrect but irrelevant here). Jenkins also drags C.S. Lewis in to defend Paul's conversion to Christianity, claiming that Lewis 'proved' that Jesus was the Son of God, he could be 'one of three things: a liar, a lunatic or who He claimed to be. You couldn't have it two ways. You could not call Him a wise teacher unless you believed His claim to be Lord of all' (page 130). But for starters the Jesus I'm aware of didn't claim to be 'Lord of all', second it's possible to be a wise teacher without being the Son of God. There are various faulty and Straw Men arguments in the book. But Jenkins does get the high bodycount of the Bible right, most of the Christians we meet in this book get killed.

So, I started reading the book by accident, I don't think I'll be reading any more now I'm warned. Careless rubbish.

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