Sex and Violence in Ancient Pompeii

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The earthquakes and tsunami that have devastated northern Japan have me thinking about natural disasters. Currently in New York City there is a display of artifacts from Pompeii, an exhibit I have not yet had a chance to visit. The parallelism of the two tragedies, however, has not escaped me. Pompeii’s destruction by Mount Vesuvius in 79 of the Common Era and its subsequent rediscovery and excavation are the stuff of legend. An unsuspecting city in the shadow of a sleepy volcano, at the pinnicle of its civilization, suddenly snuffed out. Forgotten for centuries, and eventually rediscovered. But rediscovery led to embarrassing revelations.

How will you be remembered?

Some of the first artifacts recovered from Pompeii were the erotic frescos that adorned many of the buried structures. Further, such images as super-sized phalli and other cultic implements of questionable morality led to reburial of some of the material because of more recent sensibilities. We judge ancient and extinct societies on the basis of modern predispositions on decency and propriety without considering that it is our view that is the innovation. Even a cursory read through the Holy Bible will reveal many stories where sexuality plays a prominent role. This suggests that biblical writers, like most people of antiquity, were less shy of sexuality than their post-Victorian heirs.

Natural disasters have a way of stopping time. Not just in the sense of speeding up the rotation of the earth by another 1.6 microseconds either. Surveying the wreckage of what we believed was a stable status quo, priorities are suddenly shifted. Compassion, rescue, and survival outweigh the petty differences of just the night before. Disasters are snapshots of the human condition. As the hot ash settled on Pompeii, lovers clasped in their final moments, never imagining that some two millennia further on that more modern, civilized tourists would be embarrassed by so human a response. Disasters are harsh teachers, but we may learn in the face of an unfeeling nature that we are all humans after all.

Thy King Dumb Come

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Is it legal to be Muslim? It is against the law to be religious? What about an extremist? The Peter King Trials, under the auspices of the almighty House Homeland Security Committee, are attempting to put radical Islamists on trial. My question is: when was the last time they cleaned their own backyard? Religions make extreme claims. As long ago as Yahweh thundering from Mount Sinai, adherents to monotheistic religions have claimed that their interpretation of God demands many unsavory actions – genocide, infanticide, war-time rape – all permissible in the Holy Bible. When terrorists draw their inspiration from the Quran, however, it crosses that invisible line in the sand. During the deepest chill of the Cold War nobody thought to bring Russian Orthodox Christians to trial. After all, they are cut from the same monotheistic cloth.

The damage done by Christian extremists is less visible, or at least more forgivable, in American eyes. Innocent mistakes, people doing what they thought that God demanded. It could happen to anybody. As long as they are Christian. As we daily watch the infectious creeping of Fundamentalism and its subtle (or overt) violence against those who are different, in a great move of theatrical diversion, King and his minions try to focus blame on “pagans.” Right belief, the afterbirth of monotheism, has taken on a life of its own. It can brook no rivals. If it is Christian right belief it can support the sale of fellow human beings, the dehumanization of prisoners of war, the starvation of the young. They are, after all, not Christian. Not like us.

In the words of the King, “Too many of the leaders of the Muslim community… are not cooperative and are not willing to speak out and condemn this radicalization that’s going on.” Physician, heal thyself. Radicalization in the name of Christianity is acceptable, even laudable. It is just part of the frontier, pioneering spirit of this great nation. Other religions, however, need not apply for freedom. After all, what do they think this is – a democracy?

Just following the king of kings

In the Beginning FIRST

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Robots can be strangely emotional. Partly it’s that Colosseum atmosphere of a FIRST Robotics event, partly it’s being reminded of the vitality of youth, partly it’s hope for the future, and partly it is being part of something larger than yourself. Sounds religious. All that and lack of sleep. Yesterday was the culmination of the New Jersey Regional competition of this year’s FIRST Robotics season. As a non-scientist/engineer wannabe parent, I attend the competitions I am able to and I always leave deeply conflicted. There is a strange disconnect between science and religion that maintains an uneasy peace in many educated minds. My malaise began when I saw the following plaque, quoting the Bible, outside the Trenton Sun National Bank Center. In a state where labor is constantly under attack by its aristocratic government, it was a poignant reminder that such events as this celebration of science would not be possible without the efforts of laborers.

Bible lesson before the games

Emulating sports events, FIRST Robotics begins its events with a ritual. This in itself goes back to classical religions where competitions were dedicated to the gods. As a local speaker stood before the crowd of several hundred youth, mentors, and advisors, he reiterated the commitment the FIRST program has to service. To make his point, he began speaking about what he’d learned in church. It was here that the conflict settled home. For many years I taught (still do, in a less direct way) those who were training for careers in the church. I am committed to teaching them that religious reactions against a scientific worldview are misguided and bound to collapse. And yet here was a highly educated scientist simply accepting the teaching of a minister. There is a deeper issue here.

I know many clergy, perhaps too many for the good of one layman. And I know that many of them are far too busy to sort out the detailed intricacies of how science and religion interact. In fact this may be the only truly honest way to engage our world. As I listened to excited kids making announcements about the millions of dollars available for budding science students in college, I reflected on our treasure lying where our hearts are. Looking around at the mess the world is in, I see religion often taking a leading role in violence and distrust, reaping the benefits of science for evil purposes. I see scientists attempting to instill a rational worldview on societies deeply mired in unreflective religion. And I find them mixing at the fringes. I salute FIRST Robotics, but I wonder if we can ever truly escape the wrath of the gods.

Shake Your Booty?

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The Roman Catholic Church has been making headlines again. Yesterday’s newspaper afforded two headlines to the great mother church – or maybe I should say “pleasant parent church.” The first story regards the Pope’s new book, Jesus of Nazareth-Part II, due for release next week. In it the Teutonic Vater exonerates the Jewish people for the death of Jesus. The embarrassing mastodon in the room, however, is why the church ever blamed the Jews in the first place. From the beginning Christian theology declared Jesus’ death part of God’s master plan. It also provided a convenient excuse for centuries of hate crimes that continue to this day. Believers, however, are quick to justify God’s actions, even when the Bible tentatively raises its own objections. In my prophet’s course, many students had trouble accepting the fact that the story of Micaiah ben-Imlah in 1 Kings 22 indicates that God sanctions lies in the mouths of prophets for a larger divine purpose. Perhaps we should also look for Micaiah ben-Imlah-Part I on the bookstore shelves soon.

The second article, already making its rounds on the Internet, concerns a new translation of the Bible. Shaking the traditional word “booty” from its vaunted position, the Ash Wednesday Bible calls it “spoils of war.” I was pleased to see my personal friend Bishop Sklba interviewed as part of the release publicity. As he rightly notes, “English is a living language,” to which some have subtly added, “and a dying art.” The article rehearses the sophomoric tittering at funny-sounding verses that has plagued the church ever since the laity have been educated. Gelding the Bible is a small price to pay for sanctity.

Regardless of efforts on the part of the religious, the Bible remains an often bawdy text set in the context of a sexist and supersessionist world. It is the world in which the Roman Catholic Church came of age. As we start to see the first, faint blooms of a distant equality beginning to push through a vast leaf-litter of decomposing, brown tradition, the theology and foundational document of the church require some window-dressing. In this world of aggressive, bully governors and oh-so-self-righteous politicians, it is encouraging to see a massive religious organization bashfully blushing and suggesting that shoving others may not be the best method of getting your own way. Could it be that the church still has some valuable lessons to teach the world?

Oh, uh, sorry about that...

Sinking Ships

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In anticipation of the Academy Awards, last night I revisited Titanic. Since I tend to view art from the perspective of metaphor, I was once again struck by how our society resembles that great ship. In particular, with the current turmoil between plutocratic governors and the average citizens who’ve elected them, the brazen upper-class passengers on the Titanic embody the interests of the self-interested. When Captain Smith leads the privileged first class travelers in “Eternal Father, Strong to Save,” in their own private chapel unsullied by the second and third class detritus, the line “for those in peril on the sea” resonates with the Prosperity Gospel. The well-to-do are that way through no fault of their own; God loves them more and made them better off than the rest. And when icebergs float, those unloved by their creator sink.

Over the past few weeks, in the shadow of events unfolding in Egypt and even Libya, we have seen the assertions of the aristocratic governor class assailing the workers. Attempting to make unions illegal, reducing the services offered to the poor, attempting to shorten the lives of the elderly by withdrawing medical programs (let us not ask how much profit pharmaceutical companies make for they are dearly loved by their father who art in Fort Knox), they know the rush of divine power. Indeed, populations are so complacent that as long as we have our MTV (substitute here your favorite media narcotic), that we shrug our collective shoulders and say “whatever.”

Perhaps it is not the metaphor James Cameron intended, but it is the working class Jack who sinks to an icy grave while the privileged but bankrupt Rose remains afloat. Our sympathies are with the young lady abused by privileged society, but the lifeboats should best remain half empty to preserve the upper crust rather than risk all going down together. After all, the Bible informs us that bread cast upon the waters comes back. And those who take up more than their fair share of the lifeboats wager that when that bread comes back it will be docile and subdued after its ordeals in the North Atlantic, and the Carpathia will come and restore society to its proper order. And so perhaps it is only a metaphor that more than a decade later the shoo-in for the Academy Awards is a film about the royal family. I think I see an iceberg ahead.

This is only a metaphor

Origins of Evil

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The Bible might have benefited from a good editor. The final product is a world classic, of course, but contemporary people with their busy lives prefer straight and simple answers. These, often, the Bible refuses to yield. During a discussion of prophecy in class the other night the question of the origin of evil arose. I incidentally made reference to Isaiah 45.7 where God casually drops the line, “Forming light and creating darkness, making peace and creating evil, I am Yahweh making all this.” Many English translations attempt to mask the bald use of ra‘ “evil,” in this passage with nicer words such as “woe” or “calamity.” As I explained to my students, however, in a truly monotheistic system all fingers must point the same way for the ultimate responsibility. In this passage of Isaiah, Yahweh is presented as causing evil.

Now the editing of the Bible was never undertaken with the intention of creating uniformity, despite the railing of Fundamentalists. There are plentiful internal inconsistencies and disagreements. We should expect no less of a book written over a period of about a thousand years by several different writers grappling with life’s big questions. Inevitably students ask about the Garden of Eden. Genesis 2.17 has Yahweh state that newly created people must not eat of the “tree of knowledge of good and evil (ra‘).” Here the evil grows on a tree. Who planted that tree? It’s like blatantly laying the keys before your teenager and saying, “now don’t take the car.” Who is the source of that tree? (And, less frequently noted, the eating of the fruit in Genesis 3 is never called “sin.”)

The quintessential problem with a compilation is lack of uniformity. This did not bother ancient people as much as it does modern Fundamentalists. One reason is that many people equate the Bible’s value with it being a book that has all the answers from a single viewpoint. This the Bible lacks. According to the Bible there are various sources of evil. According to a strict monotheism (late in the Hebrew Bible) there can only be one. Enter the devil. To save the goodness of God a Zoroastrian anti-God had to be introduced. But the devil must stand in line to make his patent claim on evil.

Wayward Ninevites

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“Come listen to my tale, of Jonah and the whale, way down in the bottom of the ocean;” a children’s song with a catchy tune that has a way of becoming a lifetime companion. Among the earliest Bible stories many children learn is the remarkable story of Jonah and the whale. And since the Bible is God’s word, it must be historical, right? Many modern readers have a difficult time fathoming that Jonah is not a book of history. As if living three days underwater isn’t enough of a stretch, stalwart bibliolaters ignore the tons of archival material from Nineveh itself and claim that the entire city spent a day, or a week, worshiping Yahweh. It stretches the imagination.

Too close for comfort

While working at Gorgias Press I discovered, in an entirely unexpected way, just how seriously some otherwise rational adults take this tale. I had to postpone an important meeting with an influential client because it had fallen on “the Rogation of the Ninevites.” As a lifelong biblical scholar and student of ancient religions, this was a festival I’d never before encountered. A web search refused to yield too much information for as long as my curiosity lasted, but I did find out that the date is difficult to nail down (apparently sometime a week or two ago), and that it predominates among Orthodox Christians of Iraq and Syria. These believers claim the heritage of the fictionally converted Ninevites. Even if the book of Jonah were intended as history, the conversion would have been to Judaism, not Christianity.

As I tried to find a new date with our lucrative associate, I realized once again just how far faith is willing and able to stretch. The story of Jonah is a cautionary tale, almost a fable, reminding post-exilic Jews of the occasional righteousness of the other. While other interpretations have been ceaselessly floated by serious scholars, I have never discovered anyone outside the putative descendents of the fabricated Ninevites who take this non-historical event to be important enough to jeopardize an essential business deal. Anyone who attempts to introduce logic into such an equation may well find him-or-herself, Geppetto-like, slowly digesting in the enormous gastric cavity of a whale that has a taste for prophets.

Agenda in Pink

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One advantage of the technological revolution is that it is a lot easier to look things up in the Bible now. As a biblical scholar who cut his teeth the hard way by reading and rereading Holy Writ until great swaths were committed to memory, now I find it much easier to visit BibleGateway.com rather than haul out the old print concordance and crack my knuckles before straining a muscle to lift the thing. The other day while looking up a passage for class on BibleGateway, I saw an advertisement that made me cringe. Zondervan, owned by Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation, is now offering a “Precious Princess Bible.” I did a literalist double-take at the banner. My imagination began to spin: does this edition offer all the misogynistic passages in pink letters? Should not the owner of all FOX News do all that is possible to keep women in their place?

Even a short list will serve to make the point:
Exodus 21.7: And if a man sell his daughter to be a maidservant, she shall not go out as the menservants do.
Leviticus 27.3-4: And thy estimation shall be of the male from twenty years old even unto sixty years old, even thy estimation shall be fifty shekels of silver, after the shekel of the sanctuary. And if it be a female, then thy estimation shall be thirty shekels.
1 Corinthians 11.3: But I would have you know, that the head of every man is Christ; and the head of the woman is the man; and the head of Christ is God.
1 Corinthians 14.35: And if they will learn any thing, let them ask their husbands at home: for it is a shame for women to speak in the church.
1 Timothy 2.12-13: But I suffer not a woman to teach, nor to usurp authority over the man, but to be in silence. For Adam was first formed, then Eve.

The Bible is hardly a tome to affirm the “precious princess” concept that many modern parents believe they are fortunate enough to claim. No matter how much we candy-coat it, this is salvation with a double standard. One of the truly remarkable aspects of Christianity is the number of women who adhere to it despite the secondary status the foundation document lends to them. Despite a few harsh words, Jesus is depicted as treating women well. But the Bible tantalizingly refuses to tip even his hand in favor of feminism. The Bible is a man’s world. I am personally awaiting the He-Man Combat edition. It would fit many parts of the Scriptures remarkably well.

In the Name of Hate

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Saint Valentine’s Day: a minor holiday that no one gets off work or school, but which has both naughty and nice aspects to it. A day with long pre-Christian associations (sorry St. Valentine), the celebration has become an icon of love in the Hallmarkian holiday world. It is a welcome change to the weariness of winter that drags on around the northern hemisphere, reminding lovers and curmudgeons alike spring is on its way. A holiday of hope.

At the same time, an editorial in Saturday’s New Jersey Star-Ledger raises the ghosts of less pleasant times. The Mississippi Division of Sons of Confederate Veterans is attempting to sponsor state license plates honoring General Nathan Forrest, first Grand Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan. While pointing out that Forrest eventually distanced himself from the movement, state officials want to acknowledge his contribution to their state’s history. License plates advertise to the nation as a whole what states uphold as their most attractive traits. In a world where the Klan is still seething under the surface, with active groups in nearly all states, it is not hard to see that hate can not lead us forward. It has failed in the past and it has no hope of success in the future.

Among the most distressing, if not revealing, features of various hate groups is their outspoken adherence to “old time” Christianity. Religion is but one tool in their arsenal, but what makes it so deadly is that even “peaceful” religions such as Christianity have a violent heritage. The Bible can be used to justify genocide as well as rescuing the widow and orphan. Christianity has a long history of being used for political, often hateful, ends in America. It is a trend that is dressed up in its Sunday best for glib talk-show hosts and windbag politicians who claim that “old time” values (read “white privilege”) are what America needs. Do we really need more hate? It’s Valentine’s Day. Let’s give it a break on the rhetoric of hate for at least a day. Who knows? It may become a habit.

Terror Able

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Saturday afternoons were made for B movies. After a hectic week, nothing soothes like grainy picture quality and poor dialogue. This weekend offered a chance to view The Terror. This 1963 Roger Corman film won its bad marks the honest way – by earning them. Nevertheless with Jack Nicholson playing against Boris Karloff and a plot so convoluted that I had to draw a chart to figure out what I’d just watched, the movie lived up to its grade. Throw in Francis Ford Coppola as an associate producer and it’s party time. Corman’s legendary cheapness and fondness for disproportionate claims of scares that never materialize only add to the charm. After watching the opening sequence one gets the distinct impression that Franklin J. Schaffner had watched this film before setting up the climatic scene of Planet of the Apes.

In keeping with a recent trend on this blog, the plot involved a witch. An old woman from Poland resettles in France to avenge her murdered son. The crone casts a spell transforming a bird into a beautiful young woman. The first words of the spells sent me fumbling for the “rewind” button. “Tetragrammaton, tetragrammaton,” the old woman intones to begin her spell. In a movie fraught with dialogue problems, this might be considered simply a choice of foreign-sounding, mysterious syllables to be uttered for an audience not expected to know that tetragrammaton is the title of the sacred four-letter name of Yahweh. By this point the plot was so convoluted that making God the agent behind a pagan curse seemed almost natural.

The analog with the Bible soon became clear. The Bible holds its sway over many because of its often beautiful rhetoric. Sparing the time to study what the rhetoric might have meant in its original context is an exercise few believers can afford to undertake. Our world has become so full of things that taking time to explore the implications of one’s religion must compete with ever increasing Internet options, thousands of channels of television, and plain, old-fashioned figuring out how to get along. Religion is a luxury item and, as experience tells us, it is best not to look too closely at luxuries – their flaws too readily appear upon detailed inspection. Allowing religion its exotic sounding mumbo-jumbo preserves its mystery and power. And if a witch says a theologically freighted word we can just chalk it up to entertainment. We are too busy to examine what our religions really say. Roger Corman may have unintentionally discovered a real terror in a movie that will keep no one awake at night.

Evolving in America

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Columnist Leonard Pitts Jr. is one of the most sensible men in America right now. Witty, humble, and bright, he sees clearly and shoots straight. In an allegory entitled “A tale of a giant grown stupid” he illustrates the frustration many intelligent people feel in a country where thinking is viewed askance, and accepting empirical data is rife with suspicion. He begins his article by citing a statistic in Science that indicates some 60 percent of high school biology teachers in the United States inform their students that they don’t have to believe in evolution, they just have to know enough to get through the test. And evolution is not alone in the field of falsified information. Americans are regularly fed a high-fat, low-fiber diet of poor quality religion and told it is the only correct one.

While the remainder of the developed world has moved on to more important issues, we in America are still stuck in Fundamentalist kindergarten. The constant barrage of insipid theology from self-proclaimed doyens of the Scriptures assures the masses that the price of heaven is a healthy dose of creationism. Making matters worse, most biblical scholars choose not to engage these misguided spokespersons, choosing instead to believe they’ll eventually just go away. But why go away when you’re winning the fight?

Evolution is such an odd issue over which to argue. Neither serious biologists nor serious biblical scholars have any problem with it. Only a society increasingly under the power of a jacked-up, over-eager, offensive Christianity buys the feeble creationist rhetoric. And buys it in bulk. That is the American way. For many, society’s ills may be blamed on too much thinking. The Bible requires no thought, just the ability to see in black and white. And the Bible has proven a more powerful weapon than an H-bomb in the educational curriculum of our bright young minds. America itself is evolving. Unfortunately it is evolving into a nation satisfied with simplistic solutions to complex problems. And Bible scholars do nothing and wonder why everyone ignores them. Once upon a time there was a giant. Only it was not sleeping, it was already dead.

Witches or Prophets?

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Some things never change. My daughter’s English class has finished its Shakespeare unit and this year’s selection was MacBeth. I recall the play from my own high school days, perhaps one of the hidden attractors that eventually drew me to Scotland. Shakespeare’s use of Holinshed’s Chronicles, however, was news to me. Raphael Holinshed was a 16th century chronicler of world history and his work gave Shakespeare the outline of MacBeth. The passage from Holinshed that stood out, concerning the witches, reads: “But afterwards the common opinion was, that these women were either the weird sisters, that is (as ye would say) the goddesses of destinie, or else some nymphs or feiries, indued with knowledge of prophesie by their necromanticall science, bicause euerie thing came to passe as they had spoken” (page 269 of volume 5, Scotland).

Being in the midst of courses on both prophecy and mythology, this passage ties a number of popular concepts together. Clearly the clairvoyance of magical females is simply accepted, and the easy association with classical characters such as the Fates or nymphs is evident. This is a world of mythical literalism. The weird sisters are able to predict the future with their necromancy. In a more nuanced view of prophecy, the concept actually incorporates effective speaking rather than future predicting. If a prophet speaks the words of Yahweh, in the Bible, then those words must of necessity transpire. When the stated events take place, it looks like prediction. Here Holinshed suggests the source of such knowledge for the women was more suspect.

Few of the biblical prophets are female. It is almost as if clandestine knowledge possessed by a woman marked her as a necromancer while a man might legitimately wield esoteric knowledge. This double standard no doubt applied in biblical times, and has lasted in various forms to the present day. The male establishment fears the knowledgeable female. Privilege takes many forms, all of them greedy. In my case I must gladly acknowledge that I would not have learned of Holinshed’s Chronicles if it weren’t for my daughter, and I am pleased for the opportunity to expand my esoteric knowledge.

Son of Stone Flies

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One of my favorite comic books growing up was Turok, Son of Stone. We couldn’t afford as many comics as our friends, but among brothers we’d share our resources and get a fair variety of reading material. Turok belonged to my older brother. It felt so ancient and sophisticated, tinged with primal urgency as Turok and Andar attempted to make their way from the Lost Valley where dinosaurs daily threatened their existence. The comics had a gravitas that even The Valley of Gwangi lacked. In one installment, a scroll-keeper joined Turok and Andar and claimed his sacred scrolls would show them the way free of this accursed valley. Turok doubted this and was rebuffed with “Fools scoff at what they don’t understand!” as their erstwhile companion decisively re-rolled his scrolls for storage in a handy leather pouch.

One pilgrim's progress

That image comes back to me when I think of how ancient writers sometimes used ridicule to castigate competing religions. It even happens in the Bible. A friend recently inquired into the figure of Baalzebub, the famous “Lord of the flies.” The Bible attributes worship of such a deity to the Philistines, the popular pagan foil of the children of Israel. The Philistines, as we know today, were a sophisticated group of Indo-European settlers on the coast of the eastern Mediterranean who showed up about the same time as the early Israelites were emerging from their “Canaanite” milieu. Since they didn’t practice circumcision and didn’t worship Yahweh, the Philistines were shackled with the worship of ineffectual fish-and-insect deities. (Dagon would never regain his proper significance until he was rediscovered by H. P. Lovecraft many centuries later.)

A different pilgrim's progress

With the discovery of the Ugaritic tablets, the common usage of the term zbl (let’s say zebul, so it can be pronounced) was clarified. Zebul commonly designed “prince.” One of the recipients of this honored title was the deity formerly known as Baal. Baal-Zebul, “Prince-Lord,” the great thunderer Hadad. From the sketchy evidence of Philistine religious practice, it seems the new-comers did adopt some of the gods of their new land, and perhaps among them the lordly Baal. In order to disparage the cafeteria choice of their neighbors’ gods, a biblical writer renamed Baal-Zebul, Baal-Zebub, Lord of the Flies. There have been other explanations for the title, but the lessons learned from our youngest days often furnish our adult interpretative lenses. This explanation makes sense to me, and it reminds me of a bit of wisdom from Turok, Son of Stone.

Two Ghosts

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To escape the harsh realities of a fractured career, I turn to celluloid. Lest Hollywood distract me too much, I strictly limit my movie viewing to weekends when I can let down, for a few moments, my constant anxiety. Since my religious antennae are always prickling, I notice implications sometimes in unexpected places. So this weekend’s fare included two ghost stories. Both of them utilize religion to resolve the haunting, but in very different ways. An American Haunting purports to be based on real events involving the putative “Bell witch” of Tennessee. The movie takes many liberties with this scant folktale, including a church condemning a seemingly upstanding member and a Bible being dismembered as the angry spirit attacks the Bell family. In the end, the plot is confused by a revelation of family abuse and the viewer wonders who it is that tears apart Bibles.

The second part of my double-feature was The Screaming Skull, a 1958 horror film that fails to raise a single follicle in fear. Nevertheless, the moody movie does provide the Dies Irae for Stanley Kubrick’s opening theme of The Shining as well as a sense of isolation that would also inform the latter exemplar. The religious element comes in the form of a priest who is a close friend to a clandestine murderer. With the help of a ghostly screaming skull, the priest is the one who eventually solves the murder and rescues the intended victim of our erstwhile protagonist.

Nearly half a century separate these two ghost stories, and the role of religion in them has reversed. In the 1950s the clergy were society’s protectors. Even though Rev. Snow is the only main character who does not actually see the ghost, he is a safe haven for the victims of evil. Fifty years later, it is the church that sets up the haunting of the Bell family by its unyielding laws. The family quotes the Bible at the spirit and the ghost tears the Bible apart. There is no sanctuary here. Films, no doubt, reflect social attitudes. When the foundations have lost their hold, confusion results. Who is to blame for the suffering of Betsy Bell? The movie leaves that up to the viewer. There is no solid Rev. Snow to whiten the sins of this world. Only ghosts remain.

Old Deuteronomy

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Last night my family attended a performance of CATS. We can seldom afford shows, or even movies for that matter, but when CATS comes to town it is non-negotiable with my daughter. It is a must-see musical. Anyone who has seen the show knows it is all just for fun with only the thinnest of plots and the most colorful of non-religious characters (they are, after all, cats). T. S. Eliot and Andrew Lloyd Webber, however, were/are solidly C of E, and that orientation comes through in both some of the characters from Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats and the arrangement of the poems into the lyric of CATS. The basic message of the show is redemption, but the angle that I particularly noticed last night was the mosaic aspect of Old Deuteronomy.

Old Deuteronomy, the patriarch of jellicle cats and father of many of the cats in the junkyard, is a hobbled, old character who assumes the aspect of a law-giver to the younger generation. He has been to the Heavyside Lair and knows the path there. He leads Grizabella to her rebirth with the Everlasting Cat. Even his name suggests his association with the Torah, famously summarized in the book of Deuteronomy. When he is kidnapped (cat-knapped?) his return leads directly to the culmination of the show, the return to Mount Sinai.

No one would claim that CATS contains a profound religious impact, and yet the show conveys an unexpected emotional power. T. S. Eliot was not particularly known for his religious poetry, yet his personal beliefs permeate the children’s poems that form the basis for the show. His Moses is non-judgmental, a cat who was quite frisky in his younger years and who knows the value of a life well lived. A cat that believes in second chances. That simple message kept audiences returning to Broadway to see CATS on its incredibly long run. For those of us whose careers have run aground in mid-course, a Moses more like Old Deuteronomy would be a hopeful religious leader indeed.

Redemption through work