Parsing an Exorcism

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The latest in my spate of scary movie viewings is The Last Exorcism. The press when it was released last year made claims of extreme fright, but my impression was that I’d seen it all before. The “found footage” fantasy is difficult to maintain—although the camera work in the film is good—and the premise of demonic possession is frightening if the viewer is a believer. The hook for this movie, however, is that the exorcist himself doesn’t believe and becomes a victim of his own unbelief. The pattern overall follows The Exorcist, but without the creepy soundtrack and staged lighting effects, The Last Exorcism relies heavily on the viewer’s willingness to believe. The demonic possession is presented as extreme contortionism and self-destructive behavior, as well as the uncharacteristic violence by the victim. When Nell Sweetzer gives birth to a demonic child, a la Rosemary’s Baby, the role of good Christian gone occult feels a little hackneyed.

I’ve tried to analyze what scares so many people with movies of demonic possession. The core fears seem to come down to two: belief in the reality of demonic possession and the fear of being out of control. Historically the concept of possession was originally relegated to the gods with demon possession apparently arising as a pre-scientific attempt to explain epilepsy. The fact that most Christian denominations no longer recognize physical demon possession (a fact exploited by The Last Exorcism) makes it more frightening still. For a generation of media-saturated viewers convinced that cover-ups are common the credibility of the church, struggling with its own metaphorical demons, is suspect. Perhaps demons are out there—a common enough assertion on the reality show Ghost Hunters—and the church has lost control over them. When Jason and Grant explain what demons are, however, they are pretty far afield from Legion being cast into a herd of swine.

If the Internet is any kind of reliable measure of people’s fears, zombies and demons appear to be nearly on a level when it comes to belief. Both are supernatural and neither stretches credulity to the point of humans growing fangs or matted fur. Both participate in the idea that there is more to be feared beyond death. Both fail in the court of science. The Exorcism of Emily Rose raised the ambivalence of demonic possession to the level of the courtroom. One thing I learned on jury duty last week is that the truth is measured on the basis of the judgment of a quorum of rational individuals. The implications of this are frightening indeed: those who accept the reality of non-physical monsters (the jury is still out on ghosts) are fully capable, in a legal setting, of deciding the truth of the matter. The only corrective to witch-hunts and state-sponsored exorcisms would seem to be education. Today education comes via the media where zombies and demons freely roam.

Natural Born Killers

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Every year I spend some time at the local 4-H fair. I grew up not knowing about 4-H, and the discovery of the organization as an adult has been an education for me. The local university extension that supports 4-H is Rutgers, although on campus you never hear about this rural aspect of the sophisticated world of academia. My daughter has been a member of the cat club for years, and although not a member myself, they are cordial and always offer me a chair (something no university has ever done) to spend a few hours in the shade while the kids showcase their skills and knowledge. Young potential is one of the few sources of optimism I find in a culture obsessed with selfish gain. My daughter’s cat club shares a tent with the alpacas, the epitome of herbivorous tranquility. With wool so soft as to be unbelievable, the alpacas with their long, graceful necks and huge brown eyes, look to be the least offensive creatures at the fair (except maybe the bunnies).

People in crowds, however, often shift dynamics and stress systems that would otherwise find their own balance. While many of the thousands of visitors at the 4-H fair are respectful of the animals, many others seem unaware that loud voices and running children and constant noise can stress even docile animals kept in small enclosures. Kids will find a cat in its cage and bark at it to get a reaction, and we all know the glass-tapping behavior that drives the reptiles wild. The fair has been part of my life for three years now and I’ve never noticed a stressed alpaca. They seem above it all. Yesterday, however, one stressed animal took on a surprisingly human behavior and began to bully a smaller alpaca in its pen. Apart from the caricatured spitting, the larger animal began licking and biting the smaller one, snaking its long neck after the smaller camelid’s head, biting its ears, and generally making its life miserable. The aggression lasted only a few minutes, but it felt to me like the tension of seeing bullies rough up a kid on the playground. The fairgoers felt uncomfortable, with some even wagging their fingers at the larger, aggressive animal.

Club members eventually stepped in to separate the fighting alpacas, and the poor, smaller animal kept trembling for several minutes after the attack. No blood was let; the assault was mostly psychological. I went out to get a snack at the food tent. When I returned I was relieved to see the smaller animal had been removed from the pen, given some space. Later I learned the young animal had died from the stress of the attack. I had seen the incident, and the violence had mostly been of an unrelenting display of dominance with a minimal physical attack. The aura of threat had created the stress. Saddened, I realized that a parable had unfolded before my naïve eyes that afternoon. Like all parables, only those with perceptive eyes may be able to see through the drama and get to the heart of the matter. If only people were as perceptive as even the innocent herbivores, perhaps such parables could finally come to an end. In the meantime, maybe I’ll watch the bunnies and forget what I read in Watership Down.

Just look the other way...

Why Islam

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Radical ideas emerge in the most unlikely of places. In the world of religion the rule is generally to criticize first and then attempt to understand later. This is the burden of revealed religions where the only evidence to test is subjective experience. Lessing offered us the parable of the three rings: God gave humanity three religions (Judaism, Christianity, and Islam) without indicating which one was the correct one. Even before Lessing attempted to provide some kind of resolution to this intractable dilemma, proponents of each of the monotheistic traditions had already made up their minds. The divine buck stops here. Our society places little emphasis on learning about religion. Religion is something we do, not something we have to read about. Given the tremendous motivational force of religious belief, this situation would seem to be a set-up for disaster. Read the headlines and judge for yourself.

I was pleased, therefore, to come across the website WhyIslam.org. Written by Muslims to answer questions by non-Muslims, this non-judgmental, informative website seeks to educate. Despite its rapid growth in the western world, many people are poorly informed about Islam, what it stands for, and how it relates to Judaism and Christianity (especially). The media tends to focus on extreme cases of religious believers; unfortunately they are often the most newsworthy, capturing the limelight in the name of their faith. Whether or not religion was the motivation for an act of terrorism (certainly not limited to Muslim believers), once such an act is perpetrated the religious beliefs of the guilty parties are also suspect. Instead of trying to understand a different religion, the knee-jerk reaction is to fear it. WhyIslam.org is an attempt to counterbalance that fear. Education is the St. George to the dragon of fear. Instead, however, our governments often try to cut back on education and the trench only grows deeper.

If we are to survive the world of competing religions, open conversation is necessary. I’ve been ensconced in institutions where discussion was viewed as compromise and vehement hatred against the foe was considered the only legitimate response. This passed for education. Many seminaries are too busy indoctrinating students in the minutiae of their own tradition to open them to learning about other religions. What are they so afraid of? If a religion is really real, it should never quail in the face of competition. What is the danger in learning about fellow believers? Religions make many assumptions about their own priority—natural enough with regard to core beliefs. If they all encouraged learning about each other, perhaps religious violence would transform into religious education. Islam has much to teach the rest of the world, if the rest of the world would visit sites like WhyIslam.org and be willing to listen.

Faith on Trial

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Great white throne of judgment?

I just had a brush with the law. I was recently called up for jury duty for what looked like a very interesting case, but I was dismissed before it got started. When I left the courthouse, I felt as if I was being watched. I was trembling. The reason, I suppose, began with a simple ticket. As a teen I was reluctant to drive. Those who’ve had the annoyance of riding with me know that I rigidly adhere to speed limits and traffic laws. At a momentary lapse some years ago, I was cited for speeding in a rural setting and my sense of justice was shaken. I may have been going too fast, but it is not a habit nor a common occurrence. This happened within a year of being dismissed from a long-term job because the politics of the institution at which I’d faithfully worked for over a dozen years had changed. My faith in the system had been badly shaken. The ticket, issued on a road with very little traffic and for an offense that endangered nobody, only exacerbated the sense of something awry on a cosmic level.

This story has a point. Being raised in a religion with a punishing God who spent most of his time seeking out secret sins and infractions had molded me into what I supposed was a model citizen. I read the Bible daily, attended church every week, avoided all the common sins that others seemed to enjoy with no repercussions. Nevertheless, the God I knew was angry. That anger was directed toward me. Like Michael Pedersen Kierkegaard, I was surprised when things seemed to work out so that I had a secure job in the midst of a recession. Although my thought had evolved considerably, the angry God was still stalking me; I have no doubt that he will be until my dying day. What we teach our children about religion will stay with them for a lifetime. When that job ended, sending me in a career spiral that has now lasted five years, I could feel those punitive eyes staring me down. Now if I see a police car in my rearview mirror, my pulse rate quickens and I break out in a sweat. Like God, they are seeking any little infraction to exploit.

Ironically, the jury assembly room in our county seat is in an old church. As I sat, waiting for my number to be called, I looked at the stained glass windows of Jesus, angels and saints. My first thought was how such a sight might be experienced by someone from a different faith background: what does our public space say about justice? Would a Hindu or Muslim find this welcoming, contemplating the seriousness of the juror’s role? It is a beautiful and comfortable waiting area nevertheless. As I found myself in the rarefied atmosphere of a courtroom with a judge, attorney, and many other jurors, I again felt the eyes of judgment upon me. I’d just exited a building formerly inhabited by an angry God–losing a building surely can’t put someone in a good mood, can it? Had I not been dismissed, I would have watched the drama of justice unfold. And it would have been myself that was sitting at the table of the defendant in a world where no one can ever live up to the standards set by a wrathful God.

Biblical Sex

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Legislation covering female reproductive health maintenance has finally passed. Even in a nation where equality is highly touted, women will have, until 2013, been treated as more expendable than men. A few years back I read Mary Roach’s Bonk: The Curious Coupling of Science and Sex. There I learned that even as of the publication date of her book, many aspects of the female reproductive system were still poorly understood. The reason: lack of interest by (mostly) male scientists. Of all the great equalizers of humanity, it might be expected that religions would step in to champion the cause of citizens routinely treated as objects and chattels. Instead, the opposite has been the case. Most religions, and even until the last century Christianity in the forefront of them, relegate women a secondary status to men. Religion is all about power. Now that legislation will allow women basic reproductive rights without extra fees, Catholic hospitals are concerned about the implications. “They defied the bishops to support President Obama’s health care overhaul. Now Catholic hospitals are dismayed the law may force them to cover birth control free of charge to their employees.” Thus begins an article in today’s paper by Ricardo Alonso-Zaldivar of the Associated Press.

Instead of cheering equality, the church is muttering about medieval conceptions of conception. The entire idea that life begins at conception was not even possible in the biblical world where sex did not involve sperm and ova—such things were unknown in those days. The Bible has a few clues to when human life begins, and generally it is thought to be at first breath. Semen should not be wasted, however, since it was thought to be the full set of ingredients to grow new people. The uterus was simply a waiting area, a comfy place to grow with regular womb service. Men were the creators, women were the deliverers. That idea of reproduction formed the basis for all biblical and other ancient legislation on the subject. Comprehending “conception” as now scientifically understood, was only possible with the invention of the microscope. In response, a sexually underdeveloped church decided that the new data strengthened the male hold on ecclesiastical authority. Once the seed is planted, there’s no uprooting allowed. What male, after all, has ever had to carry an unwanted pregnancy to term?

Female religious leadership was recognized in many early societies, and even in some branches of early Christianity. No legitimate rationale exists for saying half the human race is disqualified on the grounds of basic hardware. After all “male and female created he them.” Concerns of “purity” for an age when menstruation was not understood could be marshaled to the cause of male supremacy. That mystery was solved when conception became clear. An unequal result emerged nevertheless. Since women couldn’t be discounted on genetic grounds, they could on the basis of “impurity.” And here we are two thousand years after pre-scientific Christianity was conceived, still waiting while a coterie of all-male bishops castigates normal health care for females. Believers like to suppose that their leaders receive special word from the mouth of God. Those leaders tremble in the face of true equality for the very first word the Bible has to say on the subject is “So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.”

Who's superfluous here?

Livin’ On a Prayer

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Am I the only one who finds it disturbing that Neo-Con politicians are naïve enough to believe that prayer will solve all our problems? Where was God during the Bush years, for crying out loud? And yet headline after headline speculates about Texas Governor Rick Perry’s prayer-fest scheduled for Saturday. What is more disturbing than the lack of imagination on the part of would-be candidates is the sheep-like following on the part of a large segment of the electorate. If God is going to step in and take charge, he had a great chance back on May 21 and refused to pick up the option. If God was behind politics, why did George W. Bush fail to find Osama Bin Laden? If God is running things, why are so many unemployed? Ah, but the religious pundits have a pat answer: America is a sinful nation. What it takes is religion, Texas-style.

In the many years I spent at Nashotah House, the majority of our students hailed from Texas. They represented the conservative hard-line and doctrinal strappadoes that caused much suffering but still somehow didn’t placate an angry God. That, of course, says more about Nashotah House than it does about Texas. Perhaps it is the logical evolution of a country that began with prominent ministers gleefully describing sinners in the hands of an angry God. Nearly three centuries later and we are being told God is still angry. Thou shalt not hold a grudge, eh? The problem seems less about sinful folks just trying to get by (a la Bon Jovi) than about politicians using their religion to get elected. Centuries down the road it will be the topic of some new series of History’s Mysteries that an affluent, educated, and generally forward-looking nation cluttered its governing bodies with politicians who believed the answer to complex problems is to bow their heads and tell God how to fix it. Are we really half-way there, or have we spread our arms to embrace Jonathan Edwards once again?

In MSNBC’s article on Rick Perry’s prayer day, it is noted that the book of Joel is cited as an inspiration for the event. For such a brief book, Joel has been at the forefront of a ton of damage wrought by prooftexters. Joel wrote three brief chapters about a locust infestation for which the suggested response was prayer. One wonders if Rick Perry simply prays when the termites begin to gnaw on his expensive home, or does he call Ortho instead? Joel was truly old school. The locusts in his day meant literal mass-starvation. No chemical romance to solve the problem there. Unfortunately we don’t know how that one turned out—Joel doesn’t say. I’m just glad that Governor Perry hadn’t been reading Psalm 137 when inspiration struck, and can I get an amen from the pro-lifers on that?

Ricky used to work on the docks?

P.S. Matthew 6.5.

Slash and Burn

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Extinction is an evitable part of life in the universe we’ve inherited. Throughout the eons of our planet mass extinctions have occurred several times, and the new world that emerges is strange and unexpected. We as primates owe our existence to such a natural occurrence at the end of the Cretaceous Period. We evolved religion, which, in some species, bestows the right upon us to alter, or even destroy, our environment. The lame reasoning that generally accompanies such amateur theologies is that a deity is about to sweep down and reclaim those “he” (inevitably) likes. All the rest are just part of a hellish charade to make the righteous feel their entitlement more acutely. So we now find ourselves facing, as scientists warn, another great extinction. This one is of our own making.

The causes are not too difficult to discern. For centuries the dominant religions in the western world have preached messages easily mistaken for selfishness. The perverse aberration called the “prosperity gospel” is one such bastard theology. (I use that term in its literal sense here: the prosperity gospel claims false parentage in declaring that Jesus rewards the affluent with material wealth.) An article in Sunday’s New Jersey Star-Ledger points out that the unprecedented human involvement in extinctions. Using Haiti as a test-case, Faye Flam of the Philadelphia Inquirer notes that 99 percent of that nation’s forests have been wiped out as the poorest people in the western hemisphere seek wood for the basic necessities of life. Just over six hundred miles to the north begins one of the most affluent nations in the world where as long as we get our own, the rest of the world can go extinct. We are so blessed. While the loss of forest barely keeps the people of Haiti alive, it drives unnumbered species to extinction.

Entitlement is an odd phenomenon. Without those further down the food chain, the advantages of privilege disappear. When there are no poor to support the wealthy, the comparison fails. The same is true on a species level. As privileged Homo sapiens, we have climbed to the top of the mountain and made ourselves gods. Other species are counted as chattels to be divided up among the wealthy. The rarer they are, the more valuable. Problem is, once rarity reaches extinction there’s no turning back. Our environment placed us in this position and gave us the grey-matter to figure it out. Instead we liken ourselves to gods who do not need this world that gave us birth. Biology disagrees, as time will tell.

Icon of the prosperity gospel.

In God We Lust

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One of the entrenched ironies of human mentality is that reason will not suffice to change religious views. Many studies have repeated demonstrated that faith is impervious to logic, and this has appeared with Ektachrome clarity in the case of Warren Jeffs. Rev. Jeffs, the leader of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, has painted himself into a mental corner that makes the logic of legal proceedings appear as slapping the idiot. Logic and faith do not connect. Any Christian who has read the letter to the Hebrews should know that. Nevertheless, Rev. Jeffs, having illogically dismissed his team of lawyers, has been attempting a divine defense to justify his alleged sexual abuse of minors. He remained silent during his opening statement, despite judicial advice that such a tactic might harm his case. Breaking silence yesterday with a nearly hour-long sermon, faith responded to logic and was found wanting.

Society at large fails to consider that studies of religion have been carried out from multiple angles over many decades. We have erudite studies of the philosophy of religion, the psychology of religion, the anthropology of religion, and the sociology of religion. They all point to the human origins of this phenomenon, often demonstrating that a basic disconnect remains when religious belief is brought into the harsh light of logic. Neurologists and biologists have explored the utility of religion as a survival tactic, and evolution seems to have blessed it. Yet trial lawyers, judges, law enforcement officials, and politicians—often themselves religious individuals—are charged with apprehending and convicting others who simply take their religion to extremes. Religions make untenable demands on adherents. God has a poor record of turning up in the courtroom. His divine statements are absent from the stenographer’s tape.

Not knowing the details, it is difficult to find much sympathy for Rev. Jeffs, should he be found guilty. Yet at the same time, his interpretation of religion differs only in a matter of degree from other religious sexual ordinances. Is it normal for a clergyman to live a lifetime of enforced celibacy? Although signing on the dotted line may indicate a tacit agreement with church policy, what young man can clearly anticipate the pressures of decades fighting biology and psychology? Yet the practice is perfectly legal. Until the nearly inevitable inappropriate results squirm out. Public rancor runs high, as it should, against child molesters. The children are innocent victims. The perpetrators, however, believe themselves to be following divine dictates. It would seem that much suffering would be ended if God would go on the record here, so that we might have solid evidence with which to judge the case. If it please the court.

Photo credit: Tony Gutierrez, AP, from The Seattle Times

Defining Humanity

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Positions of power replicate themselves. In a sense this is understandable as power is the most addictive substance on the planet. Once superiority is asserted, it will never allow itself to be uprooted. With the recognition of homosexual marriage in New York, many heated reactions sprouted from the position of power man-plus-woman (always in that order) camp. Such a response was predictable and anticipated. I suspect it is largely based on fear. I have many friends with differing sexual orientations than mine. Raised to castigate such individuals, that outlook became increasingly difficult to uphold once I got to know my gay friends as people. I count them among my most loyal friends. People are people.

The problem lies in labels. Humans are natural categorizers: bird, fish, or mammal? Predator or prey? Religious or secular? We want our world to stay true to categories we devise. People, however, are seldom easily classified. Still, we try: skin color, ethnic ancestry, religious heritage, sexual orientation. People are people. The world of trite classification is ending, and those in positions of power tremble. Anything that is different might upset the economic balance that keeps those on top in their positions. (My own amateur observation, however, is that the economic balance is naturally top-heavy and readily upsets itself. It seems to have been that way since before this blog began.) Would we not do better to try to understand those who are different than ourselves?

As an exercise in this direction, I recently read Alvin Orloff’s smart satire, I Married an Earthling. As my long-term readers know, I have a slight soft-spot for aliens, and this story of a gay man finding nothing but rejection on earth and eventually marrying an alien seemed quite fitting in the present climate. Not part of the gay subculture, many aspects of the story were foreign to me, but what was painfully clear throughout is that people are people. Some are accepting, others are not. When reality offers so few options that he must flee his own planet, Chester, one of the protagonists, takes to the stars. At a couple points before his exodus, he notes the role that religion played in his antagonists’ outlooks. The book is lighthearted and funny overall, but the serious issue remains. Those in power tend to horde privilege. When that happens, economies—material and spiritual—collapse.

Cross Swords

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Occasionally the symbol of the Prince of Peace is used as a weapon. A current case playing out in New Jersey revolves around a Livingston man and his convictions. Originally erected for Lent, the homeowner in question placed a wooden cross within a municipal right-of-way zone where signs and potential distractions to drivers are prohibited. When informed of the violation the owner removed the original cross and placed a larger one just within the right-of-way zone. When asked to remove it he contacted the Alliance Defense Fund—a group of Christian lawyers (which sounds apocryphal to me) who advocate the spread of the Gospel. This bizarre case is now being cited as a test of a land-use law that protects religious expression. A few inches would have resolved this entire mess. Had the homeowner placed his second cross beyond the restricted zone, no fuss would have been made.

I don’t really feel safe in a world where bands of renegade Christian lawyers rove about seeking to support the violation of public safety ordinances. Instead of friendly persuasion the cross is here used as a cudgel. Perhaps wearing one’s religion on one’s sleeve ought to be accompanied with a measuring tape. Certainly there are those impressed by the masculine chest-thrusting implied in defying laws to assert one’s particular take on religion. Pushing such issues to the point of public funds being spent to enforce a law throws the action into sharp relief.

Some varieties of Christianity (and other religions too, I’m sure) thrive on the fiction of persecution. Is the quality of life of the homeowner affected deleteriously by not being allowed to place a cross in a no-sign zone? Is it not rather an attempt to set, in H. Richard Niebuhr’s phrasing, Christ against culture? What friends (besides lawyers) does it win to the cause? Having gone through a phase myself where PDR (Public Display of Religion) was considered the only way to be authentic about belief, I think I might understand the original intent of the homeowner. A clergyman, however, long ago set me straight with a frank discussion of subtlety. What I came to realize is that shoving only leads to shoving back. Perhaps moving the cross six inches would be the equivalent of turning the other cheek? But when the other cheek is turned, lawyers don’t get paid.

After the Carapture

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When my wife showed me the first news article about “Carmageddon” I shrugged my shoulders with a noncommittal “meh.” Now that the nation has somehow managed to survive the two-day closure of a highway in Los Angeles, commentators are wondering what this reveals about our cardolatry. As a nation, the United States worships cars. Last week predictions were made that traffic jams of biblical proportions would disrupt the second largest city in the country and that not even God would be able to sort out the mess. In Norway, in the meantime, a right-wing conservative Christian decided to tip the scales of justice by becoming a mass murderer. Why do we glory in our own destruction?

Human beings only developed what we recognize as religion after the advent of the city. Cities require temples and temples require religious infrastructure. Priests had much to gain in antiquity by proclaiming the wrath of God—the angrier the deity the more offerings that roll in and the wealthier priests become. Religion has evolved over the five-and-a-half-thousand years of civilization, but it has never had a true conversion. It is one among many ways of coping with the stresses of becoming an urban population. We live in cities and we have traffic jams. We live in cities and learn from those far different from us. We live in cities and bomb our enemies in the belief that God finds those far different from us evil. Apparently God approves of the killing of teenagers. Just ask old Ramesses about that one.

Norway is among the most non-violent and secular cultures in the world. Los Angeles is a liberal city among one of the most religious cultures on earth. They experience the wrath of God in different ways, according to the media. Cities gave us religion. When we had had religion long enough, cities began to withdraw from that particular approach to life. When we can’t get our cars where we want, it is the wrath of God. When we can’t get the government to follow our personal religious quibbles, we take the prerogative to introduce the wrath of God. We long for the end of what we have created. No matter how we achieve such destruction, we’ll find religion planted squarely in the middle.

What's coming to your neighborhood?

Finding Nemesis

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Philip Roth was an author unknown to me (shame on me!) until this summer. Over the past several years I’ve taken it upon myself to read my daughter’s high school novel-reading assignments so that we can stay current (in an aspect where a parent is permitted to do so). Her school requires summer reading and this year Roth’s novel Nemesis was on the roster. As a recent book, it is unusual in being assigned before the test of time has rendered its verdict. Set during a fictionalized polio outbreak in Newark in 1944, Nemesis follows the fortunes of Bucky Cantor, a Jewish physical education teacher in charge of a summer playground program in Newark. As his kids begin to fall to the disease, the protagonist flees to the Poconos to be with his fiancée at a Jewish summer camp. As the situation deteriorates, Bucky questions God’s role in the world of disease and in the war that continues to rage in Europe and the Pacific.

It is the classic issue of theodicy. Having been raised in a tradition that espouses God’s goodness, the protagonist has to face the death and disabling of children by a disease for which there is no cure (at the time). The issue of God’s role in the disaster is a recurring theme throughout the book. In the final chapter when the atheist narrator—himself a victim of polio and one of Bucky’s former students—questions Cantor about his beliefs, Bucky holds onto a dogged insistence that blame must be ascribed. His student opines: “it’s a medical enigma… His [Bucky’s] conception of God was of an omnipotent being who was a union not of three persons in one Godhead, as in Christianity, but of two—a sick f**k and an evil genius.” That statement gave me pause. Traditionally theodicy assumes the goodness of God and tries to bend the facts to fit the premise. Here God is in the dock and all interpretations are permitted in cross-examination.

The angst of dealing with the concept of omnipotence is real enough. In this Tea-Party world where selfish personal aggrandizement is seen as divine prerogative while children starve in misery and die painfully on an hourly basis, very real questions should be asked. Instead, most people assume the religion they have been taught is correct: often the facts of history are distorted to make such a belief match pre-decided outcomes. God is good as long as I get my share.

Reviews of Nemesis have been mixed, but Roth does a powerful job in his final chapter of this novel. The action is almost as predictable as the heat of summer, but the real substance, as usual, lies in the interpretation of the events. When God is brought into the equation, the temperature is sure to rise even further.

Right by the Numbers

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Reading about ancient religions helps to focus the long view. I’m brushing up on ancient Egyptian gods for my Ancient Near Eastern Religions class. Seeing how various gods rose to prominence with the fortunes of their patron kings or priesthoods suddenly struck a chord for modern-day religions as well. Many of society’s most conservative like to think that this is the day of Yahweh (or, not to put too fine a point on it, Jesus). This pre-biblical god has come into his own with the rise of the Catholic Church, following on from the conversion of Constantine, into the post-Reformation development of Evangelicalism. With the superiority of numbers and fiscal wealth, there is no disputing the one true god, is there?

What happens when the ultra-selfish free market consumes itself to a point that other cultures rise above it? Already outnumbered in souls by China and India what will Americans say when Buddhism or Hinduism outstrips Christianity? Is religion proven correct purely by the numbers? Cultural dominance has become inseparable from religious truth for many brands of Christianity. If in doubt, check out Andrew Schlafly’s Conservapedia (if any state would like to take him off New Jersey’s hands, you are certainly welcome). Being the right religion means being the might religion. Somewhere along the way it seems that the message of Christianity has become equated with bullying others around. I think Jesus must have gotten pushed around quite a bit as a kid on the playground.

What's behind that self-satisfied smile, Akhenaten?

When Amenhotep IV became king of Egypt, the priesthood of Amun had grown very strong. Probably in an effort to suppress this powerful rival, the king changed his name to Akhenaten and promulgated the sole worship of Aton. Some like to give Akenaten credit for being a monotheist. To me it seems more likely that the old pharaoh was attempting to show intolerant bullies the way to behave: use religion to political advantage. If the opposition disagrees, shut them down. Problem is, this doesn’t work well over the long term. As soon as the unpopular king died, the former religion reasserted itself and things went back to the way they had been. Tut, tut. Seems like religious bullies never learn.

Religion Underground

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Imagine a world where the affluent live in lofty houses and the poor, working class citizens trudge to long, dreary, factory shifts in order to keep the system working from their underground world. Although it’s not exactly post-recession America, it is not too hard to imagine. On my final day of vacation from relative unemployment, I watched Metropolis for the first time. A 1927 silent film, this movie of a dystopian world run by an unsympathetic ruling class is experiencing somewhat of a revival. Panned by early critics, the film is now often categorized as a classic of the silent era. It was also the most expensive silent movie ever filmed. Shot in Germany between the two world wars, the story follows a surface dweller who has fallen in love with a troglodyte. It even has robots.

This Fritz Lang film fits in this blog because of its many biblical references and themes. Freder, the protagonist, falls in love with Maria, a working-class preacher among the underground laborers. Following Maria to the underworld, Freder sees the gargantuan machinery that runs the lives of the poor, and when workers die in an accident he calls out “Molech!” Molech, the putative god of child sacrifice in the Hebrew Bible, is shown as a fiery factory door consuming the forlorn men who dutifully march inside. Maria, however, teaches love and patience in suffering. In an underground cathedral she is the sole cleric long before most denominations recognized women as ministers. She compares the skyscrapers of the rich to the tower of Babel and insists that a mediator will come. With its strange blend of Christian and communist themes, this film made a significant impact in its time.

In our own day of entrepreneurship with faux-Christian backing it goes unnoticed that the Christianity of the first century was what might be called communistic. According to the book of Acts, early Christians keep their goods in common to ensure that everyone had what they needed. Among the disciples, Judas kept the common purse. What marked these early Christians as exceptional in the eyes of their earthly overlords was the concern that they had for one another—selfishness had no part in their religion. When Christianity became the religion of empire the lure of worldly goods distorted it almost beyond recognition. Christian industrialists built the tower of Babel with its leering Molech beneath the surface of the ground. Judas, it seems, has become the ideal role model for such a religion.

Maria's underground cathedral

Black and What?

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Dystopias are not all of the same stripe, or, in this case, color. Jasper Fforde’s Shades of Grey is perhaps the most colorful look at a bleak future I have ever read. The premise, funny and strangely serious, is that in the distant future color perception ability determines social rank. A cast of odd characters who see predominantly only one color vie for superiority while keeping to the rules of the founder of this society. The hilarious results often carry profound consequences. Those who live within this highly stratified culture fear those who do not, including a mysterious group known as the monochrome fundamentalists. The founder of the social order, Munsell, has achieved god-like status and his writings have the force of scripture.

This dystopia reflects, whether intentional or not, the social impact of many religions. Reading about the prefects, the political leaders of this culture, is like reading about the clergy who mistake spiritual guidance for power. The transition from pastor to politician is simple enough among social creatures like ourselves: we need those with persuasive powers to make decisions in accord with our best interests. Prefects and priests, however, are both eminently corruptible (let us say nothing of politicians) and evolution favors those who look out for themselves. The trick is to make others buy it.

Fforde’s dismal future includes Leapbacks where useful technology from the past is discarded in order to make people more compliant. In a world where color is a rare commodity, a modern usage of the rainbow seems apropos. Everything we are learning from psychology and biology—sciences still in their youth—suggests that sexual orientation is deeply ingrained, more so that just preferences or likes. The mainstream religions, however, have actively discriminated against those who are aware of their deepest needs. I know many excellent, caring individuals who’ve been kept from the ministry because of their orientation. Others who are clearly deleterious to the church climb to positions of power based on their approved sexual appetites. And society falls into lockstep with them. I don’t know Jasper Fforde’s political views, but along with him I would suggest that the ability to see shades of gray might be the best thing for any society, whether in the distant future, or especially, in the present.