Lesslie Newbigin (1909–1998)

N.B. Second shortened review

I didn’t like this book. Of course, if I deleted it, I’d have to get of the Pierre Teilhard de Chardin book I read too; I think it was called “Half-Translated out of French”—a strange beginning to a strange book; it was at least as bad as this, you know. Pierre was learned and timid. He wanted to know and to let others know that they were known, but that was against the rules unless controlling people with bad tempers said it was okay, and that wasn’t going to happen, now was it. So the book was an exercise equally in self-expression and self-censorship: you gotta censor what you know about rocks, you know; gotta keep it clean —Rocks, what’s that? Cocaine or something? Shit, I don’t know drug-talk! —No, real rocks, like sedimentary, igneous…. Those kinda rocks…. ~ He had to censor himself in case the pope used his Sith mind meld to figure out what he didn’t tell anyone except his secret diary, or in case the liberals of the 1920s that he let read his secret diary—you know, his four friends or whatever— were 85% as militaristic as the Spanish Inquisition.

This book came later—another Christianity and secularism book, and I guess two is better than none, and I don’t know which one is worse—but it’s still, you know…. I mean, when I KNOW I don’t like someone, I walk away, unless there’s something about it that is genuinely confusing or something and I want to hang on and figure it out. But a lot of Christians, you know: it’s “In Christ there is no in-group no out-group, no gossipers and gossiped-about…. But you know when I meet other people, screw the bridge building thing, you know, I wanna let ‘em know they’re /stupid/; I wanna let ‘em know they’re /bad/…. At the very least, I wanna get haughty; I wanna know I’ve walked down their road to where it leads, all the way down to Hell, down where the witches go, below, below, below, yo ho, and I turned around and went back to Heaven—and made, record time in the track league!”

It’s like, if you didn’t like them, why would communication with them be something that you specialize in? Don’t any Christians have compassion for people who are in the out-group, or is just a club for people with like opinions, who have a haughty view of themselves and the world and/or a short fuse?

…. And, yes:

—I’m offended that you would say those things. The Spanish Inquisition only killed a few people, and I’m going to start World War Z, so don’t compare me to those people. Zombies vs People of Christ: whose side will you be on.
—I don’t know what that means or what I’m supposed to say, but I would be relieved if you would stop saying it.
—Puh! What makes the People of Christ different from the zombies is we have free speech! It’s, Biology!…. Christianity is very scientific, you know. We looted all the good shit from the world before we set it ablaze….. I’m so much nicer than other people in the church; I wonder why no one ever notices. Is it because I dissociate myself from everyone who’s outside the church regardless of what they’re like and back up the church in every gun fight regardless of who started it?… (mere)