God Against Us: Alien Spaceman Jesus, the World Trade Center Attack and More
GOD AGAINST US: ALIEN SPACEMAN JESUS, THE THE WORLD TRADE
CENTER ATTACK AND MORE
Alvin Miller
My second, newest article: http://www.angelfire.com/crazy/spaceman/inaugural.pdf My Inaugural Address (PDF File)
At: my site: http://www.angelfire.com/crazy/spaceman TABLE OF CONTENTS
PREFACE p. 3
CHAPTER ONE: A PLAUSIBLE TIMETABLE p. 4
CHAPTER TWO: A FIRST LOOK AT NORMAN O. BROWN p. 8
CHAPTER THREE: THE MEDIA MESSIAH, OR LOOKING FOR JESUS ON
TV p. 11
CHAPTER FOUR: THE MESSIAH RETURNS p. 16
APPENDIX: THE SECRET RAPTURE p. 19
BIBLIOGRAPHY p. 20
FILM LIST BY DATE p. 21
FILM LIST p. 26
FILM SERIALS P. 30
PREFACE
What do you call a crazy spaceman? - - An Astronut.
What follows is a nearly word for word online version of my ©1986 booklet WEIRD ESCHATOLOGY: AN ALTERNATIVE VIEW OF THE SECOND COMING (Library of Congress Call Number BT823.M55 1986). By the time you finish this, you may conclude that this particular peculiar interpretation of the Book of Revelation should be relegated to the teachings of self-appointed cranks, crackpots, prophets of doom and various other assorted fanatics. But perhaps, even so, your own view may be clarified when you read this. The first chapter deals with theology and may be slightly dull, but fasten your seatbelt, as I will get more and more weird ahead (in terms of any interpretation you have seen before). Note that I make use of mostly unobtainable texts and obscure films. Lack of access to these sources should not impede your understanding of what follows. Also, to emphasize the ostensibly momentous issues I am dealing with here, I capitalize the subject phrases I discuss.
CHAPTER ONE
A PLAUSIBLE TIMETABLE
Are you a Christian? Do you believe in the Second Coming at some future date? Is it legitimate to construct timetables for these future events?
Rhetorical questions such as these right off the bat may well put you off. A major difficulty is that no consensus as to when and in what sequence these predicted events must take place. This topic has always been a particular source of schism and polemic. I will be proposing specific dates as numerous have in each generation before me. And as many have been before me, I can be refuted by the mere passage of time.
The majority view espoused by most evangelicals is pretribulational premillennalism, which I only partially agree with. I will point out that part of this view is in fact based on a historical novelty that only traces back to the nineteenth century. What I mean here is that in terms of the glacially slow movement of theology (remember that the canon was finalized some two thousand years ago), the majority view is a relatively recent innovation.
I prefer a distinctly minority position, which would be called multiple-rapture postmillennialism. The postmillennial position holds that many of the predictions made in the New Testament, including those of the Olivet Discourse (Matt. 24, Mk 13, Luke 21), were accomplished in the early Christian era, and their past fulfillment limit’s the future events to be expected. There exists one school, represented by, for example, Max King and Timothy James, which holds that each and every prophecy of the entire New Testament was accomplished during the early Church age. However, I feel this view neglects proper consideration of the Book of Revelation.
Postmillennialism is also sometimes referred to as preterism, which implies that the text is allowed to speak without exegesis. Thus, when Jesus repeatedly predicts the Kingdom within a generation, I do not write off the statement as a mistake or excess of enthusiasm. Instead, I draw up a timetable that shows the Kingdom beginning a generation after the Crucifixion. Then, when John of Patmos says the Millennium starts at this date of the beginning of the Kingdom, I duly go to my chart (at the end of this chapter) and set the Thousand Year Clock ticking. There was in fact a specific date a generation after the Crucifixion - the pivotal date of A.D. 70. This was the historical date of the Fall of Jerusalem, which is not a particularly prominent date in more mainstream discussions. This is the date of the First Resurrection in the terminology of John of Patmos that begins the Millennium.
What happened in A.D. 70? After a lengthy siege by the Roman legions, Jerusalem was ransacked and leveled. To the secular eye, as detailed by Josephus in THE JEWISH WAR in gory detail, the scene was one of mass destruction in which not even the Temple was spared. But to the spiritual eye, as Russell’s PAROUSIA demonstrated more than a century ago, these events were the fulfillment of the Olivet Discourse and the return of Jesus and His conquering armies in the clouds to inaugurate the spiritual reign with the saints and martyrs. Other sources listed in the bibliography including Chilton’s PARADISE RESTORED espouse this view. Chilton proposes that the Beast of the Book of Revelation be identified with Rome and the Harlot with Jerusalem.
I need to stop for a moment to consider the question of the dating of the Book of Revelation. The presently accepted date for the appearance of the Book of Revelation is A.D. 95. If this is the correct date, the fulfillment of the predictions made so far would be merely a matter of hindsight. I recommend John A. T. Robinson’s examination of this question in REDATING THE NEW TESTAMENT. Robinson cites extensive internal and external evidence for moving the date of the Book of Revelation back to the A.D. 70 timeframe. Further, he traces the standard A.D. 95 view back to a single source. This source is a statement by Irenaeus that the Apocalypse first appeared “toward the end of Domitian’s reign.” This statement is ambiguous and may even be merely mistaken. Other sources listed in the bibliography (including Chilton and James) accept an earlier date.
The Book of Revelation represents a significant amplification of the preceding Gospels and Epistles. Here the concept of the Millennium is introduced for the first and only time. The timetable presented by John of Patmos extends forward to the future Judgment Day and the establishment of the New Jerusalem, thereby completing the New Testament Canon.
Turning to the time period of the Millennium, lasting approximately from A.D. 70 to A.D. 1070, the starting point was the spiritual event, the Parousia, as detailed by Russell and Chilton. But secular historians looking back at this time period as a whole have labeled it the Dark Ages. More recently this verdict has been tempered by the demonstration of the development and technical progress that occurred in the Middle and Far East during these years. But it does remain true that for Western Civilization, primarily Western Europe for these years, these were times of unprecedented barbarism and ignorance. During these times the blood of countless martyrs was spilled in belatedly laying down the Roman Empire and establishing the Church. Violence was the order of the day and sugarcoating or rose-colored glasses are unnecessary. The First Resurrection was an event of mass destruction and the Kingdom or Millennium was an era of barbarism. In other words, it is not an accident or coincidence that the fulfillment of the prophecies was apocalyptic. Instead, there is an important principle to remember here, since I will point out that Judgment Day will also be mass destruction and the New Jerusalem to follow will appear to secular eyes again be relative barbarism. I will take up these thoughts again in later chapters.
Why didn’t Judgment Day begin about A.D.1070 with the end of the Millennium? Historically, many of the people living then did expect to see the Messiah return. I answer instead that this was the date when Satan was unbound for his season. Here I part company with many of the sources listed in the bibliography. They prefer to see the Millennium as an indeterminate period extending potentially thousands of years with Satan loosed for his season only shortly prior to the Second Coming. They see the Church still in the Millennial period expanding and consolidating its gains to ultimately convert the entire world immediately prior to the Advent. On the contrary, I hold that John of Patmos really meant a time period of approximately one thousand years, and that Satan has been at work sowing his evil. I admit that the season has now lasted nearly a thousand years in its own right. One consolation is that this extended period is finally about to come to a close. Satan has been quite busy from my point of view during the last centuries. Examples of his infamous work would be such events as the Renaissance, the Reformation, the Counter-Reformation, the Inquisition, the Enlightenment, the Industrial Revolution on down to the contemporary horrific mass movements. I could be accused of being a feudalist or an obscurantist here. However, I do not look back to the Kingdom so much as forward to the approaching New Jerusalem. At this point in time I feel we are reaching the low point of the curve descending to Hell, immediately prior to the Messiah’s return.
Thus, I teach hellfire and damnation, as do most of the right wing evangelists who hold the premillennial view. But, as I have said, the postmillennialists of the bibliography, who are also uniformly conservative for the most part, place much less emphasis on this aspect.
I am also in agreement with the premillennialists with respect to the Rapture. Historically, for eighteen centuries the Rapture was taken as essentially simultaneous with the Advent. This is detailed by, among others, MacPherson in THE GREAT RAPTURE HOAX and Kimball in THE RAPTURE: A QUESTION OF TIMING. MacPherson demonstrates that the nineteenth century so-called Scotch seer Margaret MacDonald in 1830 introduced the pretribulational Rapture - a temporal separation of a Secret Rapture from the Second Coming. This introduction was a theological novelty or innovation. MacPherson traces the concept from its introduction through the nineteenth century figures Darby and Scofield to the mainstream electronic evangelists of today. I have said that I accept the multiple-Rapture view, which is a variation of the pretribulational Rapture. I agree, based on the work of my sources, that this view had its origins only in the nineteenth century. I will indicate why I hold that view in the last part of Chapter Three.
I should note that because I take a preterist perspective, I place less emphasis on seeing the events that occurred with the First Resurrection exactly duplicated on Judgment Day. For example, Nero was clearly the Antichrist for A.D. 70, but I don’t necessarily expect to see a new Antichrist prior to the Second Coming. If forced to, one could select from many twentieth century candidates for this post. Similarly, I don’t expect to see the coming events occurring at the actual Jerusalem this time. I predict in Chapter Four they will more likely begin in one of the advanced Western nations.
Beginning with the next chapter, I will be using apparently incongruous sources, such as left wing sources from the sixties. I will delve into films and the media in general. These sources I will bring up are relevant to the issues of this chapter. So far I have outlined a plausible but not mainstream view of Christian eschatology. From this point forward, as promised, expect the view presented to be ‘weird‘.
CHAPTER TWO
A FIRST LOOK AT NORMAN O. BROWN
It is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury
Signifying nothing.
-Shakespeare
There is a good possibility you have never heard of Norman O. Brown or come across any of his writings. His books are now a generation old and partly out of print. Perhaps certain of the issues he raised have become moot with the passage of time.
I think when his books originally came out Brown was taken as merely a sexual radical. I say merely here in the sense that Brown would not be under discussion if I felt that was solely what he was about. A superficial reading of his cryptic, aphoristic style indeed does give this impression. However, the actual subject of two of his books, LOVE’S BODY (1966) and CLOSING TIME (1973) was religion. Of the two books, CLOSING TIME is currently out of print but necessary for a complete picture. With these two books Brown actually solved the mysteries of religion. Am I here claiming that if you comprehend these books you will have all your questions answered on religion? Yes, that is indeed what I am claiming. Brown did get all the way to the inner sanctum. If you are able to solve Brown’s puzzles, you will simultaneously solve the mysteries of religion. I say this fully aware that Brown’s erudition makes this a monumental task.
If I have piqued your curiosity, and you decide to take a look at Brown, the best procedure might be to look at some other sources as a preliminary. It’s all there in Brown in plain English, you understand, but you may have more success by circling in from the periphery. One good out of print source from the same time period is Eric Gutkind’s THE BODY OF GOD: FIRST STEPS TOWARD AN ANTI-THEOLOGY. This book is also written in an aphoristic style. Comparing the title of this book with LOVE’S BODY will give you a clue to start you on the road to solving Brown. Looking from the philosophical side, Michael Harrington’s THE POLITICS AT GOD’S FUNERAL astutely asks all the right questions. The best book ever written on Jesus is Constantin Brunner's OUR CHRIST: THE REVOLT OF THE MYSTICAL GENIUS. Here's an interesting sentence from the book: "There he hung, the blasphemer of God and slander of the most noble men, the poor malicious fool, the incorrigble wretch, the whoreson and whore monger, the swindler, the liar, the secucer." The so-called radical Freudians, in general, such as Marcuse, Reich and Roheim in addition to Brown, are pertinent.
There isn’t space for an exegesis of Brown. Instead I’ll outline a central idea - the importance of the Primal Scene. For the uninitiated, the Primal Scene is what Dad and Mom did in the bedroom. Now even Freud’s disciples had difficulty seeing the significance of the Oedipal Primal Scene and repeatedly attempted to revise their master. Perhaps the best way to get an inking of its significance is to set up a confrontation between the Joker (the little 'castrated' clown portrayed by Brown) and you. Put yourself in the following scene as a male:
You are standing on the outskirts of the big, modern city where you live as the Joker approaches.
The Joker begins, “You know, stranger, I’ve been doing a lot of traveling lately and have seen several cities, including this one. I must say I don’t like what I’ve been seeing at all. In every town the residents use elaborate locks on their doors and seen to be afraid to get outside on their own sidewalks at night. One minute they use each other’s bodies as pleasure objects, and the next they sue each other at the slightest provocation. I see noise, confusion, mayhem and worse at each turn. I can’t think of a thing that happened in Sodom that hasn’t happened here many times over. Tell me, when you first came here was the city the same as it is now?"
You reply, “More or less it was, indeed.”
The Joker says, “This town is a hard place to try to make a living in. Life is so hectic, there is such a constant rush and din, that I sometimes believe I’m really caught in a nightmare and will wake up at any moment. This is no place to try to start a family or to raise a child. There’s no place for the kids to play here. You know, although I’ve had plenty of opportunities to unzip my pants and pull out my gun here, I just haven’t felt right about it and so far decided to keep my pants zipped up. But I see by the ring on your finger that the situation here apparently didn’t deter you. You had the same opportunity, after all, to look around and see what was going on. But I see that no matter what you saw, you weren’t about to stay away. You had to have it. I admit that I am only a Fool. But I ask you - who’s the better man?”
You: (Speechless).
The Joker resumes, “ Because I care about the evil I see and you don’t particularly care, you end up with a child to carry on your line, and I don’t. I ask you, which man has the greater love?”
You finally speak, “Before I punch you out, do you have anything more to say? - Any last words?”
The Joker ignores this and pauses a moment to scan the distant skyline. He then points a finger at the tallest skyscraper, rising in the mists - a source of civic pride known to all residents (and an indisputable phallic symbol). The Joker turns and asks, “How? - that building there - Tell me how that modern Tower of Babel was constructed? No, let me answer the question. It was constructed by men who at some time or other unzipped their pants. Not that a single one of them was ever forced to you understand. It is after all a voluntary act. Now I ask you to consider for a moment with me what would have happened if not one of these same men had ever unzipped their pants at all - not even one single time. How much of what you see around here now would still be here? I’ll answer - not a bit of it would here, including the building I just pointed to. I’ve been wondering these days why we put up with the perpetual nightmares here that we go through to get these massive monuments constructed. If we could just get all the women under control, we could sit around all day and drink beer and play cards."
You reply, “Leave it to a shiftless ne’er-do-well to --”
The Joker interrupts, “What we really need here is a King - the absolute biggest Fool we can find with the largest member. I think you may agree that I am the perfect candidate for this job, as I’m absolutely no good for anything else.”
The pair glare at each other, ready to fight.
Let me make the important point about this tale that the ‘you” of the dialogue could just as well be the Joker’s father as anyone else - not a single line of the preceding would need to be changed. (In the original tale of Oedipus meeting his father at the crossroads, the pair had been separated and there was a disguise and neither seemed to recognize the other, at least consciously.) If the ’you’ of the narrative were indeed the Joker’s father, the Joker would then literally be a son of a gun. This would also make the Joker on his mother’s side literally an S.O.B.
In the dialogue that took place at the Temptation of Christ (Matt. 4:1-11, Mk. 2:13, Luke 4:1-13), Jesus rejected Satan’s offer of the kingdoms of this world. Brown says we are indeed in Satan’s kingdom, i.e., Hell, especially in the big cities. Jesus will one day accept dominion over the earthly kingdoms, but only on Judgment Day when His enemies have been made into footstools. When He does return, He will bring the keys to Hell and to Death. This implies that a massive restructuring of present urban life - our man-made Hell - will begin at this point.
CENTER ATTACK AND MORE
Alvin Miller
My second, newest article: http://www.angelfire.com/crazy/spaceman/inaugural.pdf My Inaugural Address (PDF File)
At: my site: http://www.angelfire.com/crazy/spaceman TABLE OF CONTENTS
PREFACE p. 3
CHAPTER ONE: A PLAUSIBLE TIMETABLE p. 4
CHAPTER TWO: A FIRST LOOK AT NORMAN O. BROWN p. 8
CHAPTER THREE: THE MEDIA MESSIAH, OR LOOKING FOR JESUS ON
TV p. 11
CHAPTER FOUR: THE MESSIAH RETURNS p. 16
APPENDIX: THE SECRET RAPTURE p. 19
BIBLIOGRAPHY p. 20
FILM LIST BY DATE p. 21
FILM LIST p. 26
FILM SERIALS P. 30
PREFACE
What do you call a crazy spaceman? - - An Astronut.
What follows is a nearly word for word online version of my ©1986 booklet WEIRD ESCHATOLOGY: AN ALTERNATIVE VIEW OF THE SECOND COMING (Library of Congress Call Number BT823.M55 1986). By the time you finish this, you may conclude that this particular peculiar interpretation of the Book of Revelation should be relegated to the teachings of self-appointed cranks, crackpots, prophets of doom and various other assorted fanatics. But perhaps, even so, your own view may be clarified when you read this. The first chapter deals with theology and may be slightly dull, but fasten your seatbelt, as I will get more and more weird ahead (in terms of any interpretation you have seen before). Note that I make use of mostly unobtainable texts and obscure films. Lack of access to these sources should not impede your understanding of what follows. Also, to emphasize the ostensibly momentous issues I am dealing with here, I capitalize the subject phrases I discuss.
CHAPTER ONE
A PLAUSIBLE TIMETABLE
Are you a Christian? Do you believe in the Second Coming at some future date? Is it legitimate to construct timetables for these future events?
Rhetorical questions such as these right off the bat may well put you off. A major difficulty is that no consensus as to when and in what sequence these predicted events must take place. This topic has always been a particular source of schism and polemic. I will be proposing specific dates as numerous have in each generation before me. And as many have been before me, I can be refuted by the mere passage of time.
The majority view espoused by most evangelicals is pretribulational premillennalism, which I only partially agree with. I will point out that part of this view is in fact based on a historical novelty that only traces back to the nineteenth century. What I mean here is that in terms of the glacially slow movement of theology (remember that the canon was finalized some two thousand years ago), the majority view is a relatively recent innovation.
I prefer a distinctly minority position, which would be called multiple-rapture postmillennialism. The postmillennial position holds that many of the predictions made in the New Testament, including those of the Olivet Discourse (Matt. 24, Mk 13, Luke 21), were accomplished in the early Christian era, and their past fulfillment limit’s the future events to be expected. There exists one school, represented by, for example, Max King and Timothy James, which holds that each and every prophecy of the entire New Testament was accomplished during the early Church age. However, I feel this view neglects proper consideration of the Book of Revelation.
Postmillennialism is also sometimes referred to as preterism, which implies that the text is allowed to speak without exegesis. Thus, when Jesus repeatedly predicts the Kingdom within a generation, I do not write off the statement as a mistake or excess of enthusiasm. Instead, I draw up a timetable that shows the Kingdom beginning a generation after the Crucifixion. Then, when John of Patmos says the Millennium starts at this date of the beginning of the Kingdom, I duly go to my chart (at the end of this chapter) and set the Thousand Year Clock ticking. There was in fact a specific date a generation after the Crucifixion - the pivotal date of A.D. 70. This was the historical date of the Fall of Jerusalem, which is not a particularly prominent date in more mainstream discussions. This is the date of the First Resurrection in the terminology of John of Patmos that begins the Millennium.
What happened in A.D. 70? After a lengthy siege by the Roman legions, Jerusalem was ransacked and leveled. To the secular eye, as detailed by Josephus in THE JEWISH WAR in gory detail, the scene was one of mass destruction in which not even the Temple was spared. But to the spiritual eye, as Russell’s PAROUSIA demonstrated more than a century ago, these events were the fulfillment of the Olivet Discourse and the return of Jesus and His conquering armies in the clouds to inaugurate the spiritual reign with the saints and martyrs. Other sources listed in the bibliography including Chilton’s PARADISE RESTORED espouse this view. Chilton proposes that the Beast of the Book of Revelation be identified with Rome and the Harlot with Jerusalem.
I need to stop for a moment to consider the question of the dating of the Book of Revelation. The presently accepted date for the appearance of the Book of Revelation is A.D. 95. If this is the correct date, the fulfillment of the predictions made so far would be merely a matter of hindsight. I recommend John A. T. Robinson’s examination of this question in REDATING THE NEW TESTAMENT. Robinson cites extensive internal and external evidence for moving the date of the Book of Revelation back to the A.D. 70 timeframe. Further, he traces the standard A.D. 95 view back to a single source. This source is a statement by Irenaeus that the Apocalypse first appeared “toward the end of Domitian’s reign.” This statement is ambiguous and may even be merely mistaken. Other sources listed in the bibliography (including Chilton and James) accept an earlier date.
The Book of Revelation represents a significant amplification of the preceding Gospels and Epistles. Here the concept of the Millennium is introduced for the first and only time. The timetable presented by John of Patmos extends forward to the future Judgment Day and the establishment of the New Jerusalem, thereby completing the New Testament Canon.
Turning to the time period of the Millennium, lasting approximately from A.D. 70 to A.D. 1070, the starting point was the spiritual event, the Parousia, as detailed by Russell and Chilton. But secular historians looking back at this time period as a whole have labeled it the Dark Ages. More recently this verdict has been tempered by the demonstration of the development and technical progress that occurred in the Middle and Far East during these years. But it does remain true that for Western Civilization, primarily Western Europe for these years, these were times of unprecedented barbarism and ignorance. During these times the blood of countless martyrs was spilled in belatedly laying down the Roman Empire and establishing the Church. Violence was the order of the day and sugarcoating or rose-colored glasses are unnecessary. The First Resurrection was an event of mass destruction and the Kingdom or Millennium was an era of barbarism. In other words, it is not an accident or coincidence that the fulfillment of the prophecies was apocalyptic. Instead, there is an important principle to remember here, since I will point out that Judgment Day will also be mass destruction and the New Jerusalem to follow will appear to secular eyes again be relative barbarism. I will take up these thoughts again in later chapters.
Why didn’t Judgment Day begin about A.D.1070 with the end of the Millennium? Historically, many of the people living then did expect to see the Messiah return. I answer instead that this was the date when Satan was unbound for his season. Here I part company with many of the sources listed in the bibliography. They prefer to see the Millennium as an indeterminate period extending potentially thousands of years with Satan loosed for his season only shortly prior to the Second Coming. They see the Church still in the Millennial period expanding and consolidating its gains to ultimately convert the entire world immediately prior to the Advent. On the contrary, I hold that John of Patmos really meant a time period of approximately one thousand years, and that Satan has been at work sowing his evil. I admit that the season has now lasted nearly a thousand years in its own right. One consolation is that this extended period is finally about to come to a close. Satan has been quite busy from my point of view during the last centuries. Examples of his infamous work would be such events as the Renaissance, the Reformation, the Counter-Reformation, the Inquisition, the Enlightenment, the Industrial Revolution on down to the contemporary horrific mass movements. I could be accused of being a feudalist or an obscurantist here. However, I do not look back to the Kingdom so much as forward to the approaching New Jerusalem. At this point in time I feel we are reaching the low point of the curve descending to Hell, immediately prior to the Messiah’s return.
Thus, I teach hellfire and damnation, as do most of the right wing evangelists who hold the premillennial view. But, as I have said, the postmillennialists of the bibliography, who are also uniformly conservative for the most part, place much less emphasis on this aspect.
I am also in agreement with the premillennialists with respect to the Rapture. Historically, for eighteen centuries the Rapture was taken as essentially simultaneous with the Advent. This is detailed by, among others, MacPherson in THE GREAT RAPTURE HOAX and Kimball in THE RAPTURE: A QUESTION OF TIMING. MacPherson demonstrates that the nineteenth century so-called Scotch seer Margaret MacDonald in 1830 introduced the pretribulational Rapture - a temporal separation of a Secret Rapture from the Second Coming. This introduction was a theological novelty or innovation. MacPherson traces the concept from its introduction through the nineteenth century figures Darby and Scofield to the mainstream electronic evangelists of today. I have said that I accept the multiple-Rapture view, which is a variation of the pretribulational Rapture. I agree, based on the work of my sources, that this view had its origins only in the nineteenth century. I will indicate why I hold that view in the last part of Chapter Three.
I should note that because I take a preterist perspective, I place less emphasis on seeing the events that occurred with the First Resurrection exactly duplicated on Judgment Day. For example, Nero was clearly the Antichrist for A.D. 70, but I don’t necessarily expect to see a new Antichrist prior to the Second Coming. If forced to, one could select from many twentieth century candidates for this post. Similarly, I don’t expect to see the coming events occurring at the actual Jerusalem this time. I predict in Chapter Four they will more likely begin in one of the advanced Western nations.
Beginning with the next chapter, I will be using apparently incongruous sources, such as left wing sources from the sixties. I will delve into films and the media in general. These sources I will bring up are relevant to the issues of this chapter. So far I have outlined a plausible but not mainstream view of Christian eschatology. From this point forward, as promised, expect the view presented to be ‘weird‘.
CHAPTER TWO
A FIRST LOOK AT NORMAN O. BROWN
It is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury
Signifying nothing.
-Shakespeare
There is a good possibility you have never heard of Norman O. Brown or come across any of his writings. His books are now a generation old and partly out of print. Perhaps certain of the issues he raised have become moot with the passage of time.
I think when his books originally came out Brown was taken as merely a sexual radical. I say merely here in the sense that Brown would not be under discussion if I felt that was solely what he was about. A superficial reading of his cryptic, aphoristic style indeed does give this impression. However, the actual subject of two of his books, LOVE’S BODY (1966) and CLOSING TIME (1973) was religion. Of the two books, CLOSING TIME is currently out of print but necessary for a complete picture. With these two books Brown actually solved the mysteries of religion. Am I here claiming that if you comprehend these books you will have all your questions answered on religion? Yes, that is indeed what I am claiming. Brown did get all the way to the inner sanctum. If you are able to solve Brown’s puzzles, you will simultaneously solve the mysteries of religion. I say this fully aware that Brown’s erudition makes this a monumental task.
If I have piqued your curiosity, and you decide to take a look at Brown, the best procedure might be to look at some other sources as a preliminary. It’s all there in Brown in plain English, you understand, but you may have more success by circling in from the periphery. One good out of print source from the same time period is Eric Gutkind’s THE BODY OF GOD: FIRST STEPS TOWARD AN ANTI-THEOLOGY. This book is also written in an aphoristic style. Comparing the title of this book with LOVE’S BODY will give you a clue to start you on the road to solving Brown. Looking from the philosophical side, Michael Harrington’s THE POLITICS AT GOD’S FUNERAL astutely asks all the right questions. The best book ever written on Jesus is Constantin Brunner's OUR CHRIST: THE REVOLT OF THE MYSTICAL GENIUS. Here's an interesting sentence from the book: "There he hung, the blasphemer of God and slander of the most noble men, the poor malicious fool, the incorrigble wretch, the whoreson and whore monger, the swindler, the liar, the secucer." The so-called radical Freudians, in general, such as Marcuse, Reich and Roheim in addition to Brown, are pertinent.
There isn’t space for an exegesis of Brown. Instead I’ll outline a central idea - the importance of the Primal Scene. For the uninitiated, the Primal Scene is what Dad and Mom did in the bedroom. Now even Freud’s disciples had difficulty seeing the significance of the Oedipal Primal Scene and repeatedly attempted to revise their master. Perhaps the best way to get an inking of its significance is to set up a confrontation between the Joker (the little 'castrated' clown portrayed by Brown) and you. Put yourself in the following scene as a male:
You are standing on the outskirts of the big, modern city where you live as the Joker approaches.
The Joker begins, “You know, stranger, I’ve been doing a lot of traveling lately and have seen several cities, including this one. I must say I don’t like what I’ve been seeing at all. In every town the residents use elaborate locks on their doors and seen to be afraid to get outside on their own sidewalks at night. One minute they use each other’s bodies as pleasure objects, and the next they sue each other at the slightest provocation. I see noise, confusion, mayhem and worse at each turn. I can’t think of a thing that happened in Sodom that hasn’t happened here many times over. Tell me, when you first came here was the city the same as it is now?"
You reply, “More or less it was, indeed.”
The Joker says, “This town is a hard place to try to make a living in. Life is so hectic, there is such a constant rush and din, that I sometimes believe I’m really caught in a nightmare and will wake up at any moment. This is no place to try to start a family or to raise a child. There’s no place for the kids to play here. You know, although I’ve had plenty of opportunities to unzip my pants and pull out my gun here, I just haven’t felt right about it and so far decided to keep my pants zipped up. But I see by the ring on your finger that the situation here apparently didn’t deter you. You had the same opportunity, after all, to look around and see what was going on. But I see that no matter what you saw, you weren’t about to stay away. You had to have it. I admit that I am only a Fool. But I ask you - who’s the better man?”
You: (Speechless).
The Joker resumes, “ Because I care about the evil I see and you don’t particularly care, you end up with a child to carry on your line, and I don’t. I ask you, which man has the greater love?”
You finally speak, “Before I punch you out, do you have anything more to say? - Any last words?”
The Joker ignores this and pauses a moment to scan the distant skyline. He then points a finger at the tallest skyscraper, rising in the mists - a source of civic pride known to all residents (and an indisputable phallic symbol). The Joker turns and asks, “How? - that building there - Tell me how that modern Tower of Babel was constructed? No, let me answer the question. It was constructed by men who at some time or other unzipped their pants. Not that a single one of them was ever forced to you understand. It is after all a voluntary act. Now I ask you to consider for a moment with me what would have happened if not one of these same men had ever unzipped their pants at all - not even one single time. How much of what you see around here now would still be here? I’ll answer - not a bit of it would here, including the building I just pointed to. I’ve been wondering these days why we put up with the perpetual nightmares here that we go through to get these massive monuments constructed. If we could just get all the women under control, we could sit around all day and drink beer and play cards."
You reply, “Leave it to a shiftless ne’er-do-well to --”
The Joker interrupts, “What we really need here is a King - the absolute biggest Fool we can find with the largest member. I think you may agree that I am the perfect candidate for this job, as I’m absolutely no good for anything else.”
The pair glare at each other, ready to fight.
Let me make the important point about this tale that the ‘you” of the dialogue could just as well be the Joker’s father as anyone else - not a single line of the preceding would need to be changed. (In the original tale of Oedipus meeting his father at the crossroads, the pair had been separated and there was a disguise and neither seemed to recognize the other, at least consciously.) If the ’you’ of the narrative were indeed the Joker’s father, the Joker would then literally be a son of a gun. This would also make the Joker on his mother’s side literally an S.O.B.
In the dialogue that took place at the Temptation of Christ (Matt. 4:1-11, Mk. 2:13, Luke 4:1-13), Jesus rejected Satan’s offer of the kingdoms of this world. Brown says we are indeed in Satan’s kingdom, i.e., Hell, especially in the big cities. Jesus will one day accept dominion over the earthly kingdoms, but only on Judgment Day when His enemies have been made into footstools. When He does return, He will bring the keys to Hell and to Death. This implies that a massive restructuring of present urban life - our man-made Hell - will begin at this point.
Alvin Miller - 4. Apr, 16:51
