Deaths, Endings and Raptures
If you have not finished The Event, please be aware this entry contains a minor spoiler.
On Monday, Mick LaSalle, http://www.micklasalle.com, brought his turn-about-is-fair-play rapture story, The Event, to a conclusion. One of the good guys at the end of this saga, in which the Radical Reich are the ones left behind and such “undesirables” as Howard Stern and Jimmy Carter are raptured, is Jerry Falwell, who after supporting the Bush-Like President East finally gets it and realizes (B)East is the antichrist. He ends up on the side of the angels, so to speak. [At the time of writing this, LaSalle was contemplating changing the character at the end, and I hope he does not. Update: Now it's Robertson in the online novel. I wonder if Pat Robertson will suddenly die?]
My first thought, when I heard that Falwell had collapsed, was that he’d read The Event and he’d fainted dead away when he saw that at least one person left in the world considered the possibility that if he were smacked upside the head enough with the non-Christianity, even anti-Christianity, of his political allies he might, just might, start to practice a Christianity that came out of the Bible, not out of the Radical Reich political agenda. I hoped, for one brief shining moment, he “got it” and saw that not only were his actions unchristian, they were ANTI-Christian.
Of course, it was not to be. There was no deathbed conversion from the path of hatred he’d placed himself on. Here was a man who blamed people he disliked for natural events and terrorism, a man who called BILLY GRAHAM, about the most innocuous of Christians (unlike his son) there ever was, Satan’s number one henchman! We permitted him to exist and perpetuate his hatred because we were better people than he ever was- we allowed his speech to be as hateful as he wished, never stifling him, because we were his superiors. He died unrepentant, and as Christians might say, may his god have mercy on his soul.
The general reaction amongst freethinkers when they heard of Falwell’s death was relief, fear at what kind of monster might be unleashed in his place and even a touch of mirth. Here was a man who said Jesus would appear and we’d all know “the truth” in his lifetime. He was wrong about a lot of things, and apparently that was part of the great body of wrongness. Here was a man who’d been segregationist and seen that house of card collapse and had set himself up, time and time again, on the wrong side of a debate. If fairness and justice was one side of the issue, Falwell supported the other. That didn’t mean the freethinkers didn’t feel bad about feeling good, mind you.
Falwell’s story is about hubris, and those of us who follow Apollo are instructed to hate hubris as clearly, perhaps more clearly, than Christians are told to follow only one god. I found myself, as a loyal follower of Apollo and as a target of Falwell’s hatred, placed in a position where feeling relief about a person’s death, even joy at that death, made me feel like I was less of a person. How could I not feel remorse for his family, his friends, even Falwell himself, dying alone?
I could not feel remorse because while all persons are born equal, the actions of a person in this life can remove a person from that equation of equality in short order. In saying that the ACLU was culpable for the terrorist attacks of September 11th, 2001 and other equally heinous statements, Falwell removed himself from the equality that he was born to. He held other people up to a standard where death was the result of disagreeing with his god. Therefore, by his standards, his death was the result of angering his god.
It would be disrespectful to his memory to see it any other way.