Let us talk now of Christians and of Death.

One of our valued readers has contributed some musings in response to Crib From This's offering of August 28, titled Miscellaneous Aphorisms and Observations.

Our reader has taken issue most especially with aphorism xx, which is sub-headed, "Concerning first- and second-order hypocrisy," and which I have here undertaken to reproduce in its entirety:

To the Evangelical/"Born-Again" Christian, we say: "You're a hypocrite, and the stewards of your system of purported 'belief' are the worst kinds of hypocrites in the world. How can you live with yourself?"

She responds: "Everyone's a hypocrite. You're a hypocrite too. How can you live with yourself? At least I, having recognized and renounced my own hypocrisy, am setting out to purge from this world that which is unclean, to put into place the conditions under which man will be worthy of salvation."

Here the conversation ends, because we realize that within her self-enforced ignorance (which she calls, grotesquely, her "faith") resides a second-order hypocrisy: The worship of death.

The beef has to do with Crib From This's depiction of "Christian extremists":

I don't agree that Christian extremists worship death....I think the gobbledygook the extremists espouse are [sic] props they hide behind so that they don't really have to face or accept death...

Here's why I would disagree: The use of symbols, images, totems and rituals as -- functionally and sociologically speaking -- tools with which believers attempt to stave off or conceal the inevitability of death is characteristic of traditional/mainline -- particularly Catholic, but to some extent including, for example, Lutheran -- Christian practice.

Within mainline Protestantism, Calvinist doctrine seemingly comes closest to the kind of death-worship that the aphorism aims to get at, in that Calvinism is fierce in its resistance -- even more militantly so than is Lutheranism -- to anything vaguely representing idol worship, which it denounces as heretical, etc.

But when we talk about "Christian extremists" today, surely we're not talking primarily about Catholic or mainline Protestant Christianity? Rather, we mean various -- politically, hyper-conservative -- strains of Evangelical/"Born-Again" Christianity.

It is among these Christians that are to be found those who pose the most pressing political and cultural crises of our day. They are not the ones who douse themselves with holy water and say the rosary and visit the stations of the cross and erect giant cathedrals.

When I think of a death worshiper, my mind goes to the depiction of Jim Morrison in the silly Doors movie--"kill me! Gimme some death!"

Well, naturalment, that's the first thing I think of, too. But the aphorism refers to the conservative Evangelical/"Born-Again" Christian impulse toward the purification of the world, an impulse which is indistinguishable in its content from contempt for human life. To be human is to be flawed, to make mistakes, to be unclean. Jesus was often depicted hanging out with lepers and prostitutes and the dregs of humanity.

These right-wing religionists have no patience with humanity. They pray for the coming of The Apocalypse and will do anything they can to bring it about. (Thus, the support among many of them for the most militaristic forms of Zionism, despite their loathing of Jews.) They believe that their day of vindication is the day on which the world is enveloped in a fiery inferno. Only then will the wheat be separated from the chaff and God's chosen few accepted into His Kingdom.

Thus: the worship of death.

I just like this picture.