3am REGULARS
BAD FAITH I - DAMNATION AS PORNOGRAPHY
"When the literally faithful get theologically excited, the subject almost invariably veers towards damnation and punishment. Suffering and revenge are topics to which literal believers seem strangely drawn and upon which they seem to linger rather suspiciously. In contrast, heaven seems almost incidental to the quasi-pornographic appeal of eternal torture. If heaven is envisioned at all, it is generally depicted in terms that lack both philosophical sophistication and aesthetic flair."
David Thompson's new column for 3:AM starts here.
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Writing in American Prospect magazine, Ayelish McGarvey, a pastor's daughter, recently argued for greater religiosity in politics. "Kerry needs to get comfortable with religion," she wrote, "his future presidency may depend on it." However, in arguing her case, McGarvey outlined a problem in appealing to hard-line believers: "Back in 1976, many future leaders of the Christian Right rallied around Carter, a Baptist Sunday-school teacher, during his bid for the presidency… [But] Carter was also a nuanced thinker; his moderate positions on issues like abortion and family values lacked the harsh legalism his one-time supporters desired…"
While advocating this unconstitutional deal with the devil, McGarvey conceded that America's most "devout" voters -- meaning Southern fundamentalists, evangelical Christians and rural Pentecostals -- generally favour "harsh legalism" and apparently have difficulty with "nuanced" thinking. Curiously, McGarvey skipped over the ramifications of gearing social policy to such a mentality. Yet simplistic moral absolutes and punitive emphasis are common among the conspicuously devout; indeed, they are among the defining features of the electorate that McGarvey claims are being alienated by the Democrat's largely secular approach.
McGarvey also skipped over another defining aspect of the scripture-citing demographic. Literally-minded believers seem far more interested in hell than in heaven. Of the religious websites devoted to influencing politicians, one of the most grimly amusing is the work of Father David C Trosch, who circulates voting instructions among Catholic churches. "Voters desiring eternal life should formulate questions to be asked of candidates for political office," he says. "Moral questions should be presented that are based upon established tenets of faith. Candidates who fail to respond or who give a nebulous answer must be construed as giving an answer opposed to the moral values of Christianity."
Helpfully, Father Trosch provides an exhaustive list of "sound moral questions" for candidates, including: "Have you ever committed an act of sodomy? (Sodomy includes same sex sensuality, bestiality, oral sex and paedophilia)", "Are you a Communist or an agent of a foreign government?" and "Are you an atheist, agnostic or Satan worshipper?" Clearly, Father Trosch is as mad as a hatter and gripped by some punitive fixation. (I gave up counting how many times Trosch used the words "punish" and "punishment" after about 45 occurrences.) Unlike Ms McGarvey, I think this fixation is pertinent and revealing. A preoccupation with retribution correlates strongly with scriptural literalism, and these two features tell one much of what one needs to know about literal belief, and the psychology to which it appeals.
During my own numerous exchanges with strident believers -- from Methodist preachers in Alabama to Islamic evangelists in London -- one constant has emerged. It is a sequence of behaviour that crosses barriers of geography, culture and language, and is most vividly expressed by those who hold a literal belief in sacred texts of one kind or another. These are people who not only claim to know the mind and preferences of God, but also claim to know -- in extraordinary detail -- the penalties for transgressing those preferences. If one questions how this staggering information was acquired, answers are rarely forthcoming. More typically, one is faced with a triumphant barrage of What God Thinks, asserted more loudly than before.
If one patiently teases apart the epistemological non sequiturs of these assertions, the literal believer tends to resort to ever more emphatic citation of scripture. If one goes further, and highlights the contradiction between this authoritarian tone and the believer's pretensions to humility, this agitation escalates rather dramatically. "Surely religion is a metaphysical boast," one might say, "and should be viewed in much the same way one would view any other kind of boast." Broadly speaking, this does not go down well, and even greater excitement ensues, generally in the form of threats of post-mortem punishment, conveniently inflicted by some almighty third party. (With magnificent serendipity, God apparently dislikes exactly the same things the believer dislikes, and He is infinitely well equipped to punish those who offend, on behalf of His subscribers.)
When the literally faithful get theologically excited, the subject almost invariably veers towards damnation and punishment. Suffering and revenge are topics to which literal believers seem strangely drawn and upon which they seem to linger rather suspiciously. In contrast, heaven seems almost incidental to the quasi-pornographic appeal of eternal torture. If heaven is envisioned at all, it is generally depicted in terms that lack both philosophical sophistication and aesthetic flair. Sky, clouds and eternal stasis are recurrent motifs and, even taken symbolically, the implication is, rather depressingly, one of sleep. (Given these hackneyed visual depictions, literalist believers must also imagine that Christ walked around with a luminous disc hovering behind his head, which would surely have aroused comment from those nearby.)
Hell, however, is much more exciting, and depictions of the damned are restlessly imaginative. As I recently discovered, nothing excites a Methodist minister from the American South quite like the prospect of someone getting abused in bizarre and protracted ways. "You choose to ignore God's message," I was recently informed, "and for that you will face judgement and punishment. Beware!"
Born-again Christianity is by no means unique in this respect. The Qur'an is even more enthralled by lurid and improbable punishments and this 'book of divine love' documents any number of fanciful tortures in abundant detail. On the Day of Judgment, infidels will apparently be "dragged into the fire upon their faces" (Sura 54:48) "by their scalps" (Sura 70:16). Their faces will be "blackened" (Sura 39:60) and they will have manacles, chains, and yokes placed upon them (Sura 34:33, 40:71, 76:4). Unbelievers will then be "showered with boiling water like molten lead" and their "bellies and their skins will be melted" (Sura 18:30, 22:19-22). Rather ingeniously, these fiery mutilations will be punctuated by occasional ice-cold drinks, presenting the damned with false reprieves and thus heightening their torment (Sura 38:57-59).
The passages detailing hellish punishments are far too numerous to list here, and references to hell and punishment can be found in 92 of the 114 Suras -- which is roughly 80% of the Qur'an. Evidently, a great deal of thought has been given to these descriptions of atrocity. And one might pause to wonder why.
A fixation with sadism and physical obscenity might explain why hell is almost invariably depicted as a literal, physical realm in which physical bodies undergo physical abuse. Nonmaterial abstract concepts tend to elude the literally-minded, for whom metaphors are vertiginously difficult to grasp. Perhaps more to the point, abstract conceptions of hell would offer little to excite the sadistically inclined, unlike the travails of viscera and flesh.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
David Thompson is a freelance writer whose work appears in The Observer, The Times and The Guardian. He is also a regular contributor to Eye: the International Review of Graphic Design. An archive of his work can be found at his website.
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