Disturbing Scenes From the Brick Testament

The Brick Testament claims to be, "the world's largest, most comprehensive illustrated Bible." What this description fails to say is that all of the illustrations are done with Legos. A recent article from 22 Words titled "10 disturbingly violent biblical stories depicted with Legos," selects only the most violent illustrations from The Brick Testament. Here they are:

Cain Kills Abel

The Flood

Job's Suffering

Caananite Kings Executed

Ehud Kills Eglon

 
Jephthah Kills His Daughter

The Levite Dismembers His Murdered Concubine

David Collects and Delivers Philistine Foreskins

Judas Kills Himself

Hell

 

Religion Gone Wild: The Stained Glass Windows

Thus the wild-fire of idolatry now flies furiously through all the tribe of Dan, who, like the thieves that have carried away plaguy clothes, have insensibly infected themselves and their posterity to death. Heresy and superstition have small beginnings, dangerous proceedings, pernicious conclusions.

            -Joseph Hall, Contemplations

Idolatry means making or owning an idol for religious purposes, or worshipping it, whether it be a representation of the true God or of some false god. ... the worship of the true God in the form of an idol is accounted no less grave a sin than the worship of devils.

            -John Milton, Christian Doctrine

Religious superstition is not dead.

            -Thomas E. Miller, Portraits

While sitting in my "Religion and Violence" class I heard a Christian minister tell a story, and though my memory is neither photographic nor eidetic, I have made an attempt to recount the story here:

I was preaching about the woman who was accused of adultery by a crowd (John 8:2-11), and at the end of the sermon I handed everyone in the chapel a stone and said they could throw them at me if they wished. A woman spoke up and exclaimed that, after hearing this sermon, they could not possibly throw stones at me. The congregation couldn't have stoned me in the first place. Of course, I stood in front of the stained glass windows just in case.

The last sentence was uttered in jest, the suggesting being that breaking a church's stained glass windows with a stone is more evil to a Christian than assaulting or killing another human being. Though it was intended as a joke, I felt kind of scared of the joke's implications. I know that historically, and if we're being honest, presently, there are Christians who value objects, depictions and buildings more than they value human life. I believe that a joke like this would never even be told if there weren't enough people in the world who understand the impetus behind it in her audience, and the fact that this many people understand what it is like to value objects over living human beings is the reason for my fright.

When I was in elementary school a girl once brought an odd-looking book into class. A group of people gathered around her and began gawking at the foreign characters. It looked like the sort of strange script one might find in a book of sorcery in a film, perhaps even The Necronomicon. I remember approaching this girl and saying, "What's the big deal? It's just some stupid book." The little girl's face became grave and her eyes met mine and she replied, "This is the Bible." I felt sick, like the bottom of the world had disappeared from beneath me. The sound of children saying "Ooooooh" became a din, rising and rising in volume and intensity like the score of a Kubrick film.

This scene took place at a public elementary school, and yet everyone was convinced that my act of calling the Bible stupid, even accidentally, was not only something that would get me in trouble with our teacher, but something that would invoke the wrath of God. If children had more than a thirty second attention span they might remember me to this day as a heretic for what I said that day. It was commonplace for kids to tear down other kids with words, pranks and violence - I remember girls saying "Iew" whenever I'd pass by and boys kicking me and calling me names simply because I was fat - but it was forbidden to say anything negative about the book.

It is not difficult for me to think of ways in which religious objects are treated with deference. People wear crosses and stars of David around their necks. There are some religious traditions whose Bibles are gilded with gold, incredibly ornate. It is not uncommon for people to kiss such a Bible to show respect. Most pilgrimages revolve around the idea that certain places are either more holy in and of themselves or more holy because they contain powerful religious relics, possibly even the body parts of saints and heroes. While one may think first and foremost of Muslim pilgrimages to Mecca, Jewish pilgrimages to Jerusalem, and the mass pilgrimages that Christian devotees have taken in centuries past, this trend is certainly not limited to "the people of the Book." Buddhists have, for some time, travelled and given respect at mounds called stupas which are said to contain remains of the Buddha and other relics.

Even Micah, the protagonist of Judges 17 and 18, holds a great deal of deference for religious objects: "This man Micah had a shrine, and he made an ephod and teraphim, and installed one of his sons, who became his priest" (Judg 17:5 NRSV). The New Oxford Annotated Bible describes a teraphim as "some type of household deities used for divination purposes," and though an ephod is usually understood as "an elaborate priestly vestment," in conjunction with the teraphim it is more likely to refer to "some sort of idol" (382). In Judges, David M. Gunn writes that ancient historian Pseudo-Philo identifies this teraphim as images of boys, calves, a lion, an eagle, and a dragon, "each appropriate for relaying the diving response to a particular type of request" (233). When I think of this passage I no longer think of silver statuettes. After the story I heard in my "Religion and Violence" class, I see these animals painted on glass, growing in beauty as the light shines in on a congregation. But now they have transformed into Biblical heroes, Noah courageously saving humankind from a great flood, father Abraham, Jacob who would be known as Israel, Moses the deliverer, Jesus the savior (probably in at least more than one scene), etc. Perhaps we can even throw in Constantine, Augustine and Aquinas, later heroes of the faith.

The following verse, Judges 17:6, casts the biblical figure of Micah in a different light: "In those days there was no king in Israel; all the people did what was right in their own eyes" (NRSV). This is commonly interpreted as a criticism of Micah's actions in constructing these images. It has been argued that one of the most significant themes in the entire book of Judges is that of idolatry. But can we view the importance of Bibles, crosses, and stained glass depictions of biblical stories as idolatrous in the same light as silver, gold and wooden statues of foreign or household gods? A traditional Catholic answer is that there is a distinction "between an idol, the likeness of something false, and a religious image, the likeness of something real" (Gunn, 234), but this is certainly not the end of the discussion. Many Protestant theologians have, with varying degrees of vehemence, proclaimed that likenesses, whether of "some fake god" or of "the true God," are all under the criticism of Torah commands against graven images.

Wherever you fall on this distinction, there is a discussion to be had which is less concerned with the proper application of doctrine and more concerned with the value of human life. Not to pick on the Catholics too much - I believe that nearly every religion or denomination has some sort of violence or violation in their pockets that can be revealed with enough shaking - but the extent of violence perpetrated during the Crusades alone justifies a critique of Christian attitude toward the value of objects and human lives. In Shusaku Endo's challenging novel Silence, protagonist Sebastião Rodrigues (based on real-life Jesuit Giuseppe Chiara) is forced to trample a fumi-e, the Japanese word for a carved likeness of Jesus Christ, in symbolic renunciation of Christianity. If Rodrigues refuses, thousands of Japanese Christians will be tortured and killed. Silent throughout Rodrigues's persecution, Christ finally speaks to Rodrigues in this time of important decisions, saying, "Trample! Trample! It is to be trampled on by you that I am here" (176). Endo's Christ denies power to the superficial act of trampling a carving and verbal renunciation, suggesting both that the human lives at stake far outweigh the fate of the fumi-e and that true faith cannot by limited by its superficial expression.

I read Endo's Silence for a course called "History of Christianity in East Asia," and while discussing this book there was a student who felt betrayed by Rodrigues. "Why couldn't he just remain faithful? Why did he have to trample the fumi-e?" she asked. This course was taught at a seminary which gave me good reason to believe that this student was not just a Christian but a future leader of the Christian community. I consider this Christianity gone wild. In the story of the woman accused of adultery, Jesus responds, "Let anyone among you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her" (John 8:7 NRSV). In response to the congregation who is ready to stone an adulteress in a modern-day church, there is a part of me that believes a minister would respond, "Don't you dare throw a stone in the sanctuary. If you're going to stone her to death make sure you drag her out back. Oh, and stay away from the prayer garden. Brother Judd put a lot of good money into the prayer garden and we don't want it to go to waste."

Let's hope that part of me is wrong.

Role Models, Part Two

 Role Models, Part One can be viewed here.

We, the people of the United States of America, have an incredibly bipolar relationship with our celebrities. There is nobody more beloved in this land than the actors and actresses who populate our favorite television programs and movies and the musicians who fill our ears. This should come as no surprise. After all, this country is founded on the very ideals that these celebrities embody, stories where common people rise above their circumstances and become bigger than life. We love our celebrities because our highest value is entertainment, but we also love our celebrities because they exist to remind us of what we could become. Perhaps this latter explanation leads to the reason we hate celebrities. When we haven't risen above our circumstances, and as a result these same celebrities become a target for disapproval. This one doesn't even give to charity. This one gives to charity just to look good, to sell DVDs. This one doesn't even care about politics. This one does, and that's a misuse of power and popularity. Some folk espouse a view that celebrities are prostitutes or they're nothing at all. They shout and they scream and then they come home and fall asleep watching Law and Order, NCIS or Bones. We stake our entire lives on the results of American Idol and Dancing with the Stars only to discredit the whole lot of celebrities as valid role models. If Texas is any measure, the only options left for role models are Biblical characters and sports stars.

While most Christians would agree that the Bible was given to us for our own good, there is a decent subsection of this group who view the characters depicted in the Bible as the ultimate example for humanity. If the Bible is the story of the relationship between humanity and the divine, then we humans are at our best when we are acting like the people in the Bible. This can work when preachers, parents and Sunday school teachers decide which stories to tell you and how they ought to be told. Where we run into difficulties is when people actually read the Bible. I haven't done the math yet, but if you flip to any page in the Bible there is a good chance that you will encounter some terrible act of violence, oppression or sin committed by someone who is supposed to be a role model. From Adam's hubris (Genesis 3) to Noah's drunkenness (Genesis 9:20-27) to Abraham not questioning the slaughter of his own son (Genesis 22) to Moses murdering an Egyptian (Exodus 2:11-15) to David seducing another man's wife (2 Samuel 11), and all the while religious leaders espouse eugenics programs of murdering other tribes occupying the promised land (Joshua) and casting out family members because their blood is "impure" (Ezra-Nehemiah). I do not mean to reduce the entire Bible to these terrible acts, but anyone reading this book and attempting to find redemption through it has to deal with these problems.

If you've read other articles I've written you probably know that I like to return to the whole Cain and Abel story for many of my purposes, probably because of my familiarity with the strange dimensions of sibling rivalry. (In other words, I have a brother.) Most of the time I reference the impact that this story had on John Steinbeck in his thoroughly American novel East of Eden. Are Cain and Abel somehow role models for modern children? Perhaps we should first review the story and then decide whether either of these men are role models. Cain and Abel are the first children of the original couple Adam and Eve. We don't know much about Cain and Abel other than the fact that Cain grows up to become a tiller of the ground whereas Abel grows up to become a keeper of sheep. Both brothers made an offering of their best to God, Cain bringing the first fruits of the Earth, fine fruits and vegetables, and Abel bringing the firstborn of his flock, the best and fattest of sheep. God prefers Abel's offering over Cain's offering, and as a result Cain, feeling alienated from his God, that the best he could offer is somehow not good enough, became angry. Cain focuses his anger not on the God who rejected him, but rather on his brother, a man who, like Cain, was simply trying to give his best to his God. This anger builds and builds until Cain can handle it no more, and he kills his brother Abel.

Most people, in reading this story, would choose Abel as their role model over Cain. Abel did his best in life and gave his best to God. But Abel is not the main character of this story. Cain is the character who undergoes change. He is the character who is placed into a difficult situation by God. He's one of the few characters in the Bible that God speaks directly with, and it is through these words that we are given the moral of the story: "The Lord said to Cain, 'Why are you angry, and why has your countenance fallen? If you do well, will you not be accepted? And if you do not do well, sin is lurking at the door; its desire is for you, but you must master it" (Genesis 4:6-7). The reason Cain is ruled out as a role model is because we don't want to promote murder as a good way of solving problems. Is Abel so much better? Whereas Abel is obedient so far as we are concerned, we have no idea what he may have done in Cain's situation. In order to hold Abel as a role model, I want to know how he would handle the feeling of rejection he would feel when God chooses Cain's offering over his. In Cain's shoes, would Abel have obeyed God's commandment to master sin's desire or would he follow the example of Cain, murdering his brother in cold blood? The answer to this question is never revealed in the scripture.

Some would say that children are much more likely to find their role models in sports. This can be just as troubling as finding role models in the Bible. Mike Tyson is a spousal abuser who bit off the ear of Evander Holyfield. While linked to marijuana distribution, Michael Vick was arrested for dog fighting and gambling operations. Tonya Harding hired a thug to ruin Nancy Kerrigan's career. O.J. Simpson was never convicted for the double murder of his estranged wife and her boyfriend, but most Americans believe he is a murderer. Many athletes are now getting paid as well as the cast of FRIENDS in its heyday, forcing people to wonder if anyone is really in it for the love of the game. My personal favorite sport, hockey, is no exception. One of the best known names in hockey over the last couple of years is former Dallas Stars Sean Avery, a player who never gave much to the team and made a mockery of the NHL when he referred to Calgary Flames defenceman Dion Phaneuf's girlfriend Elisha Cuthbert as his "sloppy seconds." Chicago Blackhawks right winger Patrick Kane was arrested in Buffalo when he assaulted and robbed a cab driver. Todd Bertuzzi ended the career of Vancouver Canucks center Steve Moore when he punched him in the back of the head during a game, fracturing three vertebrae in Moore's neck. After a slap on the wrist, Bertuzzi returned to the Detroit Redwings. As for Moore, he continues to suffer from post-concussion syndrome. If you ask me, it's a miracle that the man can walk. (All these examples of horrible athletes, and all I ever hear about is the fact that Bret Favre won't stay retired. Complain about Vick of Bertuzzi, criminals that people can see playing on TV playing for their favorite teams, and I'll join in with you, but Bret Favre? Come on.)

Tiger Woods used to be considered a role model for children. His achievements in golf rank him among the greatest golfers in the history of the sport. I remember seeing commercials celebrating his humble origins, a child prodigy who was in it for the love of the game. Tiger Woods, a self-proclaimed "Cablinasian" (caucasian, black, American Indian, asian), is the most outstanding figure in recent golf history, a history dominated by privileged white men. This makes people imagine the sorts of difficulties Tiger must have had to overcome in his life, the difficulties of growing up not simply as a member of one minority group, but as a member of so many different minority groups. This is exactly what people are looking for in athletes, the reason why they are seen as such great role models.

But Tiger Woods is an adulterer, and his unfaithfulness to his wife was revealed in the most bizarre and public way. What began with a simple car crash in late 2009 evolved into a tale of abuse in which Woods was beaten by his wife for cheating on her. In no time, women began lining up to reveal details about their sexual affairs with Woods. At the same time Woods' lawyers were both furiously working toward preventing pictures and videos featuring Woods naked from surfacing and reporting that no such pictures or videos existed. By Christmas, Tiger Woods was the laughing stock of sports. Surely this is no role model for children.

Surely there are some among you who find it difficult entertaining the idea of comparing Cain and Abel to Tiger Woods and Elin Nordegren, but these individuals are fantastic examples of the difficulties one has in finding role models in Biblical literature and the sports arena. Are athletes and people of God just worse people than the rest of us? No. I could never make an argument for such a vast generalization. I will say that these people simply experience vastly different situations than the rest of us and their lives are brought to the attention to millions, if not billions, of people on a daily basis. They are humans, just like us, only they are under the magnifying glass. I mean the magnifying glass metaphor to include both sides of the double-meaning implied, that these people are both under great scrutiny and can be burned to death with the smallest shift in angle. I'm not writing this article to "burn" the Bible and professional sports. I am writing to explain that morals are tested at the extremes of life. The Bible states that those who do not do well are threatened by great temptation to sin, but before this it states that those who do well are accepted. This acceptance is exactly what lead Tiger Woods and many other athletes to great difficulties. Woods had everything - money, fame, acclaim, security, family. He could assure that generations of his descendants would have fantastic opportunities. But the underside of success is that one gains access to many more "sins." Every middle class man in America, upon hearing about Tiger Woods' infidelity, claimed that Tiger Woods is a scum bag for cheating on his wife and they would not do the same in his position (Source: South Park). But they are not in his position. They do not encounter attractive women on a daily basis who would do anything just for a kiss (and then some). In this way, the successful, athletes and other celebrities, are tested a great deal more than the rest of us. We claim to be good, but perhaps it is because we have little opportunity to be bad. If given the same opportunity, would every man resist the temptation to cheat on his wife? If not, then there are a great deal of hypocrites in America (but what's new about this?).

Upon reading the previous paragraph, one notices that I have made a moral example out of Tiger Woods in much the same way as the author(s) of Genesis made a moral example out of Cain. I did this on purpose to make a point. I believe that it is more valuable to tell stories than it is to hold individuals in such high moral acclaim. Few parents would want their children to commit the crimes and abuses of trust committed by Cain and Tiger, but many can tell the stories of Cain and Tiger in order to teach lessons about the sanctity of human life and of commitment to another human being. Though Plato is superficially against the poets and the stories they weave, it is clear, upon further investigation, that Plato values story telling as the ultimate method of raising moral awareness. In a poetic event, one places oneself into a story. Whenever a character does something, it is as if you are doing it. Thus in hearing stories we are forced to consider whether the courses of action that the characters take are the same courses of action that you would take. Stories introduce children to the vast arena in which moral decisions are made and begin the process by which moral discernment is acquired. While Cain and Tiger may have given up their titles as good role models, their narratives instruct us about the dangers of success and the lack thereof. With a little thought and a whole lot of work we can make sure that we do not commit the same mistakes as these people. We can be better for having heard their stories.

Role Models, Part Three can be viewed here.

Movie Ideas

Untitled Scavenger Hunt Film

A scavenger hunt movie, like Scavenger Hunt, only the guy who died is like a super-powered psychic who foresaw what items could be collected by any combination of strangers and lists, so he gathers together one particular group of strangers and lists in order to gather parts to some insane machine that resurrects him or does something cooler and more unexpected than resurrection.

Eve 6000

In an alternate future, the religious right gets its way and completes the transformation of the USA into a theocracy, and the first decree of the Holy 'Mercan Emperor is that since there aren't as many Eves on the planet as there are Adams there will be a lottery where certain people are forced to name their daughters Eve and things get all dystopian/1984/Anthem/Brave-New-World-ish because agreement becomes more important than liberty or whatever.

Iron Man: Behind the Mask

An action-packed Iron Man movie that takes place within Iron Man's armor and in real time where the back story and the actions of other characters are told via video feed and communications to the suit of Tony Stark who can't remember what has happened in the last 24 or 48 hours or more (he'd probably chalk it up to a heck of a hangover, but it would be revealed that it's so much more insidious than a hangover) while Iron Man is constantly threatened by enemy attack throughout the entire movie.

Hanging

An Indie-type film that takes place in a small apartment, narrated from the perspective of a telepathic hanging plant and based on the true story of Narrator, the telepathic hanging plant that Fiona and I had in our Brooklyn apartment.

Higher Education

 

A teen movie where gossip gets so widespread and efficient in a California high school that all the students develop telepathy and then some sort of plot ensues.

Clobber Texts in Context

The LGBTQ community finds one of its most common enemies in the church, and one of the reasons for this is that many people believe that the Bible supports their anti-homosexual perspective. For some time now, a series of Bible verses (Genesis 1:27-28; 2:18, 21-25; 19:1-25; Leviticus 18:22; 20:13; Romans 1:26-27; 1 Corinthians 6:9; 1 Timothy 1:10), commonly known as clobber texts, have been appropriated for the battle against the LGBTQ community. For decades, however, people have been questioning whether these verses ought to be used in this way. The following is a short exercise in placing these verses in context and determining what the Bible says regarding the lawfulness or unlawfulness of loving and consensual relationships between adults of the same sex.

Genesis 1:27-28; 2:18, 21-25

Perhaps I'm not the smartest banana in the bunch, but I have a lot of difficulty seeing how the Creation account has anything to do with the LGBTQ discussion. None of these passages say anything about homosexuality, positive or negative, and yet these verses continue to be used as clobber texts because of the command in Genesis 1:28 to "be fruitful and multiply."

There are two good reasons that this commandment to be fruitful does not make sense as an anti-LGBTQ passage. First of all, if all relationships are defined by their necessity of resulting in the production of children, then we really need to protest those heterosexual couples who are unable to have children due to sterilization and impotence, those heterosexual couples who remain together after the female has gone through menopause and can no longer bear children, those heterosexual couples who choose not to have children because of career motives or the guarantee that the child would be born with a debilitating disease or the feeling of irresponsibility of bringing a child into a world where hate dominates faith and common sense in religious discourse, and also those heterosexuals who remain single unto death. Second of all, if bearing children becomes a sacred law of being in a relationship, we have to deal with the difficult question of whether simply bearing one child is enough to satisfy your legal duty or whether one ought always to be pumping out children one after another in intervals of nine months or less until death.

If you are reading this you are committing an act of treason before God because you are reading a blog and not procreating, and this is only one of the ridiculously negative consequences of turning the creation story into a rant against homosexuality.

Genesis 19:1-25

 

I've heard more people talk about the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah as God's definitive expression of hatred for homosexuals than any other Biblical story. The text never explicitly names the sin of Sodom as homosexuality. We are told that Sodom is a wicked place, we are given an example of wickedness, and then the Lord completely annihilates Sodom. There are Bible verses that speak of the sins of Sodom. According to Ezekiel 16, Sodom's sin is greed and indifference. In Matthew 10:12-15 and Luke 10:10-12, Sodom's sin is simply inhospitality. Jude 7 and 2 Peter 2:10 refer to Sodom's sin as sexual immorality, not of men laying with men, but of mortals violating immortals.

The New Testament accusations of inhospitality and sexual immorality are perhaps not worded strongly enough. While they are sufficient to suggest that the destruction of Sodom was not in reference to consensual loving relations between adults of the same sex, it is insufficient to describe the horrors of this story. The men of Sodom were attempting to violently gang rape a pair of guests, possibly the most terrifying breach of any concept of hospitality that one can imagine. When the story of Sodom and Gomorrah is twisted into an anti-homosexuality polemic, it distracts believers from the real problem of sexual violence.

Leviticus 18:22; 20:13

The prohibition of men laying with men in the Holiness Code (Leviticus 17-26) is the only place where homosexuality is directly condemned. The reason the sexual act is taboo is because one of the males must betray his masculinity and act as if he were a female. As a result of this enactment of femininity, both of the members involved are liable for the condemned act.

The Holiness Code is concerned with what is customary. Rather than dealing with ethical concepts of good and evil, right and wrong, harmful and beneficial, it deals with social etiquette. (The modern equivalent of rules of etiquette, only now-a-days we don't slaughter animals when we put our elbows on the table.) Among other things, it asks men to act like men and women to act like women. Paul writes, "There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus" (Galatians 3:28). If we're to take Paul seriously then a code of masculinity and femininity has no place in our understanding of morality.

If this is not convincing enough, consider all of the other rules modern Christians must follow if we are to condemn homosexuality. Wearing two different types of fabric together is an abomination. Eating pork, shrimp or rabbit is an abomination. Planting two different kinds of seed in the same general area is an abomination. Anyone working on the Sabbath is a criminal. Anyone with round haircuts or tattoos is a criminal. Anyone reading a fortune cookie or horoscope is a criminal. And let's hope you don't like football, because playing with the skin of a pig is prohibited as well.

Romans 1:26-27

Romans 1:26-27 is significant for two reasons: it is the only place where there is so much as a complete sentence regarding same-sex relations, and it is the only place in the Bible where female same-sex relations are referenced. While this is one of the only passages in the Bible that has anything whatsoever to do with homosexuality, it is first and foremost a polemic against idolatry.

In Paul's journeys he was able to see a great many things, Greek things, that his predominantly Hebrew audiences would have never witnessed. What he saw in Greek pagan religion was sexual practices he'd never before encountered, drunken orgies, castration, prostitution, any number of acts that Paul considered strange, and these acts as means of worshiping and honoring Aphrodite or Dionysus.

What is the message Paul intends to get across in this passage? Don't worship idols. If you do, the living God will abandon you and leave you to your empty rituals. To say that these people were abandoned by God because of homosexual acts or to say that these people were punished by being turned into homosexuals is simply a bad interpretation. This passage implies that you cannot have both the fullness of God through Jesus Christ and at the same time worship inanimate objects and statues. The choice is not one of gay versus straight; it's a choice of worship of God versus worship of false idols.

1 Corinthians 6:9; 1 Timothy 1:10

These two passages are part of a series of laundry lists attributed to Paul in which certain sins deter someone from entering the Kingdom. The two words that are commonly understood to be anti-homosexual are translated in the NRSV as male prostitutes and sodomite, but in other translations like the NIV these two terms are combined and translated as "men who have sex with men."

The translation of these two Greek words, malokois and arsenokoitai, makes all the difference in determining whether Paul was addressing people involved in homosexual relationships. Both of these words have a stronger connection with prostitution than they do with loving homosexual relationships. I doubt that we even have a word in English that describes the intended meaning of either of these words. The best understanding of the meaning of malokois is adolescent boys who prostitute themselves to older men. In this context, arsenokoitai, a very difficult word to translate, most likely refers to these old men who pay young children for sex. In English, we would call men like this lechers or pedophiles.

This is yet another example of our ignorance to serious crimes like prostitution and pedophilia as a result of misinterpreting the Bible according to our hateful biases.

Retcon Files: The Heretic

While I have serious problems with the physics of traveling back in time and changing elements of the past for a variety of reasons, I've recently decided to engage myself in serious thought experiments regarding what I would change if given the power to do so. The result of this line of thinking is a blog column devoted to retroactively changing the continuity of my character's back story. I am calling it the Retcon Files.

I'd like to think that I'm the kind of person who stands up and courageously spits in the face of everything I believe to be wrong in the world, proclaiming the word of what is right. But it's hard to sustain such a belief in the face of some events that have happened in my past. In retrospect, I would like to substitute courage where there once was cowardice. This is all vague and abstract. Let me get to the concrete.

Some years ago I went to church with a girl I was dating. She brought me to an enormous Wesleyan mega-church in an amphitheater, the kind of place where there are no longer individuals, just people huddling together in anonymity and waiting for someone to enforce what they already believe. It was a couple of years after September 11, a time when even some of the most fundamentalist churches were making sure their congregations knew there is a vast difference between the Islamic extremists who perpetrated the destruction of the twin towers and the other peace-loving believers of the Islamic faith. I remember sitting in on a Youth Group meeting at a friend's church, another mega-church in Grand Rapids, Michigan, and hearing them explain that the terrorists in question represent Islam as much as the KKK or the Third Reich represent Christianity.

The preacher at this Wesleyan church proclaimed that the God of the Koran is not the same as the God of the Bible even though the Muslim tradition is supposed to be an addition to the story that began with the Jews and moved through the Christians to them. Believe what you want about this issue: even though I don't support such a belief, I actually have little problem with those who do. The problem was the preacher's argument. Why is it impossible for Christians to believe that the God of Muhammad is the same as the God of Israel? "Because I can't believe in a God who commands His people to kill others."

I'd hope that the problem with this argument is evident. In the Old Testament of the very Bible that everyone at that church used are stories where God requires the chosen people to rid the Promised land of the unbelievers through military force. The God of Abraham would be known because this tiny force of Jews destroyed much larger forces. The impossibility of such a feat would make it so people would glorify not the Jews, but the God of the Jews. Meanwhile, the Koran only justifies force in the instance that all of Islam is threatened by a pervasive force that wishes to wipe the teachings off of the planet.

If I were to go back in time, I wouldn't worry about what my girlfriend at the time thought of me, or what her parents thought, or even what the rest of the congregation thought. I muttered angrily under my breath back then, but I now know that there was only one proper response to such ignorance. I ought to have stood up and shouted a resounding "BULLSHIT!" trusting that the amphitheater would assist my voice in being heard. I don't care if they would be required to drag me out of that church against my will and work toward getting me excommunicated from the Christian faith. That minister's words did nothing but to incense one polarized group of individuals against another polarized group of individuals. It explained a tragic act of terrorism as an inevitable result of a backwards system of ideals, when in fact it was the result of individual human beings manipulating texts toward their own ends. If nobody was killed, injured, persecuted or harmed in any way as a result of this preacher's words, then we have witnessed a miracle indeed. If somebody was harmed in some way, even on the smallest level, then the imperative for me to travel back in time and be the one voice to stand against this tyrant is even greater.

So help me, God.

Make Way For the Homo Superior

Here's an excerpt from a pretty interesting article that analyzes the works of David Bowie as if they are a religious text comparable to other religious texts.

Like Christ, Ziggy spreads a radical gospel of love. But while Christ admonishes his followers to abandon the nasty, brutish logic of the Mosaic world view (“eye for eye, and tooth for tooth”) and emulate his unconditional, turn-the-other-cheek love for all mankind (a message so revolutionary it convinces the apostle John that God, in a word, is love), Ziggy preaches a gospel of transcendental eros. “Let all the children boogie,” he decrees, in “Starman,” using a mothballed hippie verb that, back in the day, was a euphemism for doing the nasty.

In Ziggy’s erotic beatitude, the solitary self is consumed by an overmastering “idiot love”—a transport of sexual rapture that obliterates the boundaries of the conscious ego and “spark[s] the fusion,” in the song “Soul Love,” with…uh…the Cosmic Whatever. Is Ziggy’s space-hippie sermonizing about transcending adolescent alienation? Or hieing your astral ass off a dying planet through some orgasm-fueled transport of rapture? Bowie’s starman, a prophet who thinks with his crotch, isn’t big on specifics. All he knows is that “the church of man, love, is such a holy place to be,” a proverb that manages the neat trick of crossing eros with agape, reconciling them in the profane sacrament of soul love (“Moonage Daydream”).

Read the whole article here.

Good Friday