Intolerance for the Intolerable

by Will Wilkinson on July 17, 2004

Nicholas Kristof highlights the latest of the “Left Behind” series, Glorious Appearing, in which the Son of God kicks serious ass. An excerpt from the book:

Jesus merely raised one hand a few inches and a yawning chasm opened in the earth, stretching far and wide enough to swallow all of them. They tumbled in, howling and screeching, but their wailing was soon quashed and all was silent when the earth closed itself again.

hell.jpgKristof rightly notes that this Jesus-as-genocidal-angel- of-vengeance theme is fairly disturbing. “In Glorious Appearing,” Kristof writes,

Jesus merely speaks and the bodies of the enemy are ripped open. Christians have to drive carefully to avoid ‘hitting splayed and filleted bodies of men and women and horses.’

Jesus is knocking on your door. If you don’t let him in, he will. . . fillet you! Kristof makes the point that this vulgar, brutal, and vindictive crypto-Christianity, in which non-believers are splayed and sucked into “yawning chasms”, doesn’t look a whole lot better than the vulgar, brutal, and vindictive form of Islam that has us so terrified. This is, I believe, a very fair point.

However, Kristof worries about offending the delicate sensibility of sadistic Christians who thrill to “Left Behind”-style eschatological porn.

I had reservations about writing this column because I don’t want to mock anyone’s religious beliefs, and millions of Americans think “Glorious Appearing” describes God’s will. Yet ultimately I think it’s a mistake to treat religion as a taboo, either in this country or in Saudi Arabia.

That’s nice, I suppose, that he had reservations. And it’s true: religion is not a taboo subject. He concludes:

People have the right to believe in a racist God, or a God who throws millions of nonevangelicals into hell. I don’t think we should ban books that say that. But we should be embarrassed when our best-selling books gleefully celebrate religious intolerance and violence against infidels.

That’s not what America stands for, and I doubt that it’s what God stands for.

hellsmall.PNGThe “right” of which Kristof speaks is ambiguous. People have a political right to think or express anything they want. No books shall be burned. Yet people have no intellectual or moral right to think or express whatever they like. “Left Behind” Christians deserve to be criticized, chastised, and mocked for their wanton violation of the demands of reason and basic decency. Reasonable people may believe false doctrine, but reasonable people may not believe savage doctrines, and those who do are owed no moral quarter.

Kristof is right: we should be embarrassed by the fact that we live in a culture where this kind of odious filth, posing as piety between covers, shoots to the top of the best-seller list. But embarrassment is not enough. Decent people should be outraged. People reading Glorious Appearing on the bus ought to be treated with the regard we reserve for the happily nodding public reader of The Protocols of the Elders of Zion. It is not all right, and people have no right whatsoever to feel that it is.

From the Left Behind website:

I’m 12 years old, and my mom got me hooked on the Left Behind series. I’ve read most of the kids books and all of the adult books. I think Glorious Appearing is the best one yet. It conveys the feelings of the characters so well. I just want to say thank you for starting this series, it’s brought me so much closer to God. So thanks.
—Nicole, posted 5/14

That’s really not all right.

  • "Yet people have no intellectual or moral right to think or express whatever they like."

    They do have a moral right to do so, which is merely saying it would be wrong to force them to do otherwise.
  • John Sabotta
    Boy, Wilkerson, although you are publicly slavering for the day when you can harass people on buses because of their reading material (and what business is it of yours, exactly?) I wonder how often you actually do it? Does the possibilty of someone (quite rightly) punching you in the face in response to your impertinence deter you? It should, you little twit.

    Note to Gene Callahan: You are an idiot and you have no idea what Gnosticism is. Feel free to come over to no-treason.com so we can kick you around like a deflated basketball with a Gene Callahan face painted on it. Oh, yeah, and say hi to all your neo-fascist little Confederate-sucking pals over at Lew Rockwell for me.

    PS. Kennedy says to say that I am not part of his "posse," whatever that is. He seems appalled by my post.
  • John Sabotta
    Boy, Wilkerson, although you are publicly slavering for the day when you can harass people on buses because of their reading material (and what business is it of yours, exactly?) I wonder how often you actually do it? Does the possibilty of someone (quite rightly) punching you in the face in response to your impertinence deter you? It should, you little twit.

    Note to Gene Callahan: You are an idiot and you have no idea what Gnosticism is. Feel free to come over to no-treason.com so we can kick you around like a deflated basketball with a Gene Callahan face painted on it. Oh, yeah, and say hi to all your neo-fascist little Confederate-sucking pals over at Lew Rockwell for me.

    PS. Kennedy says to say that I am not part of his "posse," whatever that is. He seems appalled by my post.
  • Gene Calllahan
    Whoa, Chuck, one of these Gnostics just attacked a Mideastern country that had never attacked the US, killing thousands in the process. And he said he had "asked God" about this, and so felt fine about it. (A Gnostic characteristic, to have a direct pipeline to God and use it to justify whatever one does.)
  • Gene Calllahan
    As pointed out by Eric Voegelin, movements like the "left behinders" are Christian in name only. They are reallly Gnostic movements using the name Christian as a cover.
  • Chuck
    Point conceded.
  • Abortion clinic bombings?
  • Chuck
    As far as I can determine, the Left Behind series is bad literature and worse theology. Now it appears that it's also a veritable orgy of sadistic violence done in the name of the messiah; e.g., it's blasphemous. It seems to subvert Jesus's central message of transcendent, universal love in favor of an Apocolyptic slasher flick.

    All in all, the books sound shlocky, boring, and repellent.

    But am I wrong to want to distinguish between speech-as-ideas and speech-as-action? Look, show me one--just one--example of terroristic violence on the part of an Evangelical and I will yell loudly in protest. But, as far as I can tell, this has not been a Christian tactic. Not the Pentecostals, Evangelicals, Southern Baptists, or even Branch Davidians have made it their m.o. to go out and attack in the name of JC. No, in recent times, violence in the name of religion (on this continent and in Europe and the Middle East) has been almost solely the province of another religion that I will decline to mention at this time.
  • Luka Yovetich
    Rob,

    That's right. I just thought of that today. I turned on KABC and realized that Elder's on that one. I got confused for a second.

    I guess that means that KRLA is worse than I was saying!

    That's cool that you met him.
  • Julian Sanchez
    The political/moral distinction seems pretty clean cut: You have a political right to say racist things, in that the government may not shut you up just becaue you're publishing nasty things about minority groups, say. But it's venal and immoral to do so.
  • Rob
    Actually, Elder is on KABC AM790 out here. Met him at the John Stossel book-signing event hosted by Reason last January; he's a terrific guy.
  • Luka Yovetich
    Rob,

    KRLA does have Larry Elder on. That's makes up for some of the other stuff. But not TOO much of it. Elder isn't THAT good. But he's okay.
  • Rob
    _My_ understanding of the political is that it's synonymous with the moral.
  • Rob
    But just a quibble -- do people really "have a political right to express anything they want"? I'm not sure how you mean "political" here. Do you mean in some abstract sense that people have this right? But then this seems to slide right in with the "intellectual/moral" right you speak of. Ain't sayin' you're wrong; I'm just confused here. By understanding of "the political" is that it's synonymous with "the moral."
  • Rob
    Will, of course -- I agree with you. I didn't mean to imply you were lumping all Christians together in that regard. ;)

    Excellent post all around.
  • Rob, I centainly didn't mean to lump all Christianity in together, which is why I was careful to use targeted, derisive adjectives to pick out the relevant class. That's what I meant by saying that reasonable people may believe falsehoods (orthodox forms of xtianity).
  • Rob
    It's why I hardly contain my disgust (take that Nussbaum!) for the local conservative talk-radio station 870, RKLA -- a fundamentalist, evangelical Christian establishment through which Prager, Hewitt, Laura Ingraham (whom I love), are sydicated in the L.A. region. KRLA ran on-air advertisements ad nauseam for this Left Behind book.

    It's important to point out, perhaps, that this type of bigotted, apocalyptic eschatological Christianity exists only among fundamentalist evangelical Christians. Orthodox christianity (Catholocism, etc.) and mainline (dying) Protestant sects have nothing to do with it.

    The Left Behind authors and their minions -- along with Hal Lindsay ("The Late Great Planet Earth") -- truly ARE truly repulsive, despicable people.
  • Andy
    I fully agree, although I wouldn't jump to conclusions about anyone reading them. I could see checking them out for entertainment/mocking value, but I doubt I could sit through one of the books, let alone 12 of them.
  • David
    Ah, pagan horses, raised by Druids. But of course, they must be smoted.
  • Pagan horses!
  • David
    What does Jesus have against horses?
  • Pat
    Here here.
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