I was watching a show on the History Channel called God vs. Satan. It seems that they’re playing a lot of end-of-the-world specials since the start of the new year (and just before the Obama inauguration). While I would like to say that it was a great watch, it was kind of boring since I read the book and know who wins.

But in all seriousness, the show focused a lot on the Book of Revelations, the Rapture and related concepts. Revelations is my least favorite book of the Bible. I suspect that it, along with Genesis, is the most read book of the Bible, even among non-Christians. It’s probably because folks want to find out how the story begins, get antsy (or bored), skip to the end to find out what happens. And better yet, the ending intimately involves the reader because there’s a bonus of eternal life or something of that sort.

The view of the end (according to the show) roughly goes as follows:  People disappear — accidents abound as cars and planes crash (an awesome reason to not give Christians driver’s or pilot’s licenses). Satan props up a false military leader and a false spiritual leader. People suffer. Armies are gathered by both sides. Violence breaks out in Israel (again, surprise, surprise). Jesus shows up, this time as a military leader. He opens his mouth and magically destroys Satan’s minions. The Devil’s false servants are cast into a fire. The Devil is chained up for 1000 years (the clock’s ticking). Jesus is now a political figure who reigns during this time as a king (good to see the perfect Christian world isn’t a democracy). Satan is way too tough, escapes and has the actual final show-down with Jesus, followed by the real judgment of everyone. Why Jesus doesn’t end evil the first time, is beyond me, although I can speculate (see below). Anyway this is the condensed version. Different versions exist among different Christian groups.

Somewhere during the telling of this story, my “bullshit radar” is activated. First, there are many interpretations of the Book of Revelations. One is the “preterist” interpretation that has Revelations being a coded book about what happened during the first century of the Christian era. This seems to be a plausible explanation and is the view to which I personally subscribe. However, I definitely wouldn’t discount any of the competing versions, since history frequently repeats for those who ignore its warnings.

The part that concerns me is the portrayal of Jesus in this story. A warrior-king? Jesus killing his enemies?! This reminds me more of the way God is portrayed in the Old Testament, you know — smoting folks left and right for whatever reason God had at the time. And then, instead of being a peaceful teacher and servant-leader, Jesus is cast in kingly terms, just like “God” in his most maniacal O.T. moments. The virtues of authoritarian rule in a material world, with a hat tip about how strong evil really is. Seems to me like a perfect polemic in favor of a universal church that espouses Jesus as the violent and capricious God of the Old Testament.

But here’s the real rub. Revelations 22:18 and 22:19 explicitly provide guidance to not add or subtract from the text. If I were a figure of ultimate evil, what would I do? I would do this:  create a book that no one seeking the path of righteousness may question, advocate violence and unquestionable religious authorities, juxtapose matter and spirit, make Evil into Good and make it my goal to spread these beliefs throughout the entire world.

So, it comes to this:  in the war between God and Satan, Satan wins because people are unwilling to see the deception right in front of their eyes. Too bad. And the world keeps rolling on.

I was watching the movie Serenity this evening. At a point during one of the loud, violent firefight scenes at the end of the movie, I hit the pause button and leaned back onto the living room sofa for a few moment of silences. After closing my eyes for a few minutes, I opened them and stared at the screen. I could see an evil-looking face staring right back at me. Can you see it?

Tonight, a McCain-Obama forum is being conducted at the Saddleback megachurch in California.  I’ve not been turned on by the prospects of watching this event since I’ve long supported a separation of politics and religion, no matter who the candidates are.  I probably won’t watch it.  Well, maybe I will.  While I could be bitter about this event, since my dog, and a number of dogs to whom I’m more sympathetic, were not allowed to participate.  But since this is a forum billed as being about faith and “the social gospel”, that’s what my commentary will center around, not on the horserace of who will win the most Evangelical voters.

Christians must seek to understand Christianity, which is based off of what Jesus discussed and advocated.  He most assuredly talked about the poor, the homeless, the meek, those living and dying by the sword, etc.  But the biggest problem I have with a concept of a “social gospel” that requires forums to ask political candidates what they will do as government officials to enact these ideas is that this isn’t what government does or is supposed to do.

In Jesus’ day, he went to individuals and groups of individuals and asked them to do things about the sick, the poor, and every social problem that existed.  He could have easily gone to the government and used his awesome powers to change government and government bureaucrats.  Even if you know absolutely nothing about the Bible, if you’ve watched “The Ten Commandments“, you know how well this worked for Moses.  Thus government and politicians being what they are, Jesus and his followers would have had to deal with the Roman government — a government that believed in torturing prisoners and publicly executing them.  Now contrast that with the American government of today.

But Jesus didn’t try to change the rulers of his time.  If better government was the answer, I’m pretty sure Christ could have hooked that up.  But that’s not what Jesus did, he took his message directly to the people who could actually do something about the issues, the people who actually experienced the suffering and the hurt, he took his message to you.  He said, in a sense, “I want you to do something about poverty, sickness, and morals.”  He didn’t ask you to lobby for laws that may only help the suffering in an indirect way (if it truly helped at all) or vote for the lesser of two evils.  Jesus asked you to be more direct in your actions in order to know compassion and closeness to others, as opposed to the distance and robotic nature at which government claims to fix problems.

While I am theologically universalist and do not believe that some people go to heaven (or a desert oasis filled with virgins) and others do not, there are those who believes this is a mechanism for justice in the universe.  For those, who do believe this, believe in the importance of a social gospel, and still crawl to kings and presidents for the resolution of all perceived societal problems, what will Judgement Day be like?  Will you be held accountable for government’s failure to live up to a Christian vision of helping your fellow man?  I kind of think using “the Devil made me do it” excuse (or in this case “the government made me do it”) to describe why the homeless haven’t been given homes won’t fly.

So what we’ll see tonight is anyone’s guess.  Maybe they’ll spin, or triangulate, or have a genuine religio-politico epiphany right on stage.  I’m sure the media will continue with its nit-wit blather about “who won the Evangelicals” as if a group of people, especially Christians, could be owned by a politician or political party.  Anyway, I’m pretty certain that we’ll see the emergence of a huge Pander Bear of enormous proportions, which in this case would seem to be an eighth circle of hell situation.  We definitely won’t see much social change in this world until we all understand that what we do in this life is up to us — for good, for evil, for indifference, for apathy — and not up to the governments and politicians.