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The End of Days by Gershom Gorenberg

Here is yet another alarmist tome by an author who can’t seem to see the truth that is exploding all around him. I suppose I can be considered a fundamentalist. I believe that because the scripture compels me to “love my neighbor just as I love myself” that I should actually do everything in my power to do just that. I know hundreds of other fundamentalists and I am dismayed by these books from journalists or commentators who are clearly secular if not agnostic/atheist in their world view who attempt to analyze the state of fundamentalism. How absurd. It’s alike a rich white kid from Beverly Hills writing books about the pitfalls of being a welfare mother in Compton.

Sam Harris also writes with apocalyptic alarm about the millenarianism of fundamentalist Christians. He loves to cite studies which show that a large percentage of Christians believe in the imminent return of Jesus Christ. The scares the pants off of people like Harris and Gorenberg because they immediately conclude that every decision made by such believers is based on their belief in the imminent return of Christ. This is complete nonsense. Yes fundamentalist believe that Christ will return and many think it will be in their lifetime (though very many do not believe this) but they still have retirement funds and 30 year mortgages. They still have babies and plan for their college expenses. This belief does not change anything about ones day-to-day life because any good Christian knows that one can never discern the day or the hour of His return. Most fundamentalists that I know do not have a unified or comprehensive understanding of Revelations and most of them clearly recognize the oblique and metaphorical nature of the book. To suggest that people are voting for a President based on anything from the book of Revelations is total fabrication. If that happens, it is anomalous at best and certainly would not weigh significantly on an election. Christians vote for many reasons and the irreligionists might be surprised to find that there is a great deal of diversity of opinions in fundamentalists’ circles when it comes to politics. They speak of the religious right as if it is a monolithic body receiving its marching orders from Falwell and Dobson.

What is even stranger to me is that there exists in the world today a belief system with more than a billion adherents and by all accounts hundreds of millions of fundamentalists which plainly does advocate a doctrine which is dangerous and which is bringing death, dismemberment, slavery, inequality, and brutality to wide swaths of planet earth. These people are commanded by their god to “make war on the unbelievers who live around you.” (Sura 9:123) and they are doing that with a horrific fervor. This doesn’t alarm anyone? Even within a stones throw of these bloodthirsty zealots who are rewarded in heaven for being psychopathic killers, journalists like Gorenberg continue to feel that the more dangerous belief is that Christians in America believe the New Testament (which has none of the incitements to violence which fill the Quran). Christians aren’t exploding buses full of innocent people, or blowing up soldiers’ convoys, or cheering wildly on 9/11, or oppressing women, or beheading people and taping it to send to the adoring fans. These horrible right wingers are not denying girls the right to be educated or committing genocide and slavery in Darfur and they aren’t really killing or hurting anyone. The Christian right wing is in fact sending millions of dollars and thousands of missionaries to the poorest nations on earth to build hospitals, provide clean water, repair schools, and give tons of food and medicine away. They live lives of self-sacrifice to be teachers, nurses, doctors, and pastors to the poorest of the poor. I am in utter dismay to understand books like this and I wish that such authors would just say from the start: “this is an op ed piece….I am attempting to find justification for my own far left, West-hating views and as a sideline, I’ve never met a Palestinian I didn’t like (with bombs strapped on or without). In Palestine today, more than 80% of the school children when asked what they want to be when they grow up, say that they want to be suicide bombers. Yes, but Christians are the real problem!