horrible book

Today I read a horrible little book called Dinner with a Perfect Stranger. Cathy gave it to me to read, and since I had such a choppy day between breakfast with her, lunch with Alisa, picking up Katie early, and the conference at 2:30, I fit in the reading of it during the day. It is a simple little book of about 90 pages, and under no circumstances should anyone read it.

Here is the good part: it is a simple story of allowing the transforming love of Jesus to make a man into a better father, husband, employee, and man. That is significant, and I in no way mean to denigrate that.

However, it is the worst sort of fundamentalist trash. The approach to the other major world religions is dismissive, arrogant, and condescending. It is the height of arrogance to presume to talk about the other world religions from a Christian perspective. What could I possibly tell a Buddhist about Buddhism? Nothing that is not superficial, stereotypical, and frankly insulting. I do not mean to imply that there should not be dialogue between the faiths; quite the opposite. But what I can do is listen to a Buddhist describe his or her experience of the divine and tell him of mine and maybe we can each deepen the other's appreciation for their own experience. That is the way of ecumenism.

Besides, the same sort of questions "Jesus" poses about the other religions could just as easily be applied to Christianity. The author waves his hands at the discrepancies and flat out contradictions in the Bible. He says they are all simply irrelevant to the story, but the same kind of contradictions in other religions are proof of their falsehood. And there are plenty of serious contradictions in the Bible. The entire passion sequence is completely different in John than in the synoptic Gospels (Matt, Mark, and Luke.) What are the last words Jesus spoke on the cross: according to Matthew and Mark, it is, "My God! My God! Why have you abandoned me?" Luke reports, "Into your hands I commend my spirit." John reports simply, "It is finished." Did Jesus suffer - was he abandoned? - as Matthew and Mark report, or was Jesus completely in control from the end of the Last Supper through his death? John's report of the passion not only does not include the exclamation of abandonment, it is contradictory of it. This is not simply irrelevant to the story, as whether Jesus healed one or two blind men beside the Sea of Galilee.

It also reports the worst of atonement Christology. I just don't buy it. I never have, and I never will. Allah is not a God of perfect justice because he must either forgive sins - which would mean eliminating justice in which every sin is punished - or everyone is denied salvation. But the God of Christianity gets around this by paying for each sin himself? Someone needs to explain to me what the difference is between forgiving sins and paying for sins himself. Wouldn't perfect justice in this formulation require not only that every sin be punished, but also that every sin's punishment is meted out to its sinner?

He goes on to talk about the fact that God could alter the laws of the universe so that the Jews could win their wars as reported in the Old Testament. But what does that say of the morality of God? Do we really want to worship a God who allows the sun to stand still - which assumes, by the way, that the earth is the flat center of the universe - so that one people can properly murder and pillage another? Yikes.

So, in sum, do not read this book. Don't do it; it is crap. If you must read this book, please let me know and I will send you this version because the thought of the author or publisher making a single extra dime from this filth really turns my stomach. In short, this is why not all book burnings are bad.