Religious Magic

Mr. Jay Grant’s regular column in the local newspaper (Lifting the Veil) is aptly named for Mr. Grant skillfully uses the veil to bring drama to his act. Like a magician Grant keeps a veil over his show until, presto, the veil is quickly removed revealing the trick to a wildly applauding and surprised audience. But, Mr. Grant, there is no such thing as magic, only smoke and mirrors, misdirection, ignorance, and slight of hand.

Mr. Grant reveals his misdirection and intellectual dishonesty by resorting to the old debating trick of the “straw man argument.” This trick, skillfully used by Mr. Grant, gives him wiggle room to duck difficult questions and, at the same time, places his opponent on the defensive. For example, Grant talks about issues never brought up such as Jesus as a door and Jesus as a shepherd, but ignores why the “absolute truth” of his Bible tells us the earth does not rotate or revolve, or why the Bible tells us that the cause of gross morphological characteristics is what the parents were looking at at the moment of conception. Grant never explains how a mountain can fill a spherical earth. When Jesus says drink from me because I am the waters of life, does that mean Jesus is a glass of water? DUH!

For his next trick, Mr. Grant, reaches up with his deeply sun burnt hand, twists his oily mustache, and drops the veil again. A drum roll begins and Grant says the magic words GOINA and KANAPH. Suddenly a flash of light, a boom from the bass drum, the veil is removed and the Bible no longer says the earth is flat! Even wilder applause from the three remaining members of the audience!

Mr. Grant, today only dusty scholars speak and interpret ancient Greek or ancient Hebrew as they think it was spoken 2500 years ago. Scholars attempt to speak and understand these dead languages according to modern reconstructions. These modern reconstructions are at best approximations and not certainties. How well would you fare in China 2000 years ago if you attempted today to learn ancient Chinese by only reading Confucius in the original? Would any Chinese understand you if you suddenly got into a time machine and found yourself in China 2000 years ago? Of course not. No one knows with any certainty what the magic words GOINA and KANAPH mean. Beside, why didn’t the Bible simply say “extreme distance” rather than four corners. Seems like a major stretch to me! Is everything in the Bible metaphor and simile? Who will tell us when the Bible is speaking in symbols and when it speaks plainly? Who will unravel the symbolism of the Bible? How can we tell if the spin on Biblical symbolism is correct? Will it be you, Jay Grant?

The goal of a good magician is to entertain. But Mr. Grant’s magic is not entertaining at all. There is a mean spirit to his tricks. The largest veil in Mr. Grant’s act is the veil that goes unnoticed: the stage curtain. Behind that curtain, where Mr. Grant does not want the audience to go, is where he keeps his Black Magic. In a dark corner behind the curtain Mr. Grant keeps hidden away in his steamer trunk the Black Magic of Homophobia, Anti-Semetism, and Know-Nothing ism.

Jay Grant tells us, “I applaud Mr. Enderle and Mr. Graney for having the courage to put themselves on the firing line....they... understand there’s a culture war going on to endorse the Lord....” It was the Falangist Pat Buchanan, that intellectual apologist for the Inquisition, who coined the phrase “culture war.” Does Jay Grant criticize Mr. Graneys’s anti-Semitism? No! Does Jay Grant oppose the homophobia and just plain ignorance of Anahita Marquetant (my list of statesmen, scholars, scientists, and philosophers illustrated it was possible to believe in God(s) without being a Christian, a subtlety that totally escaped A. Marquetant). No! Does Jay Grant endorse the ramblings of Mr. Enderle, a man who has run out of ideas and now repeatedly quotes himself from his previous letters. A man who would rather preach than think. No! Why? Because Jay Grant uses his Black Magic to fan the flames of community hatred, intolerance, and ignorance. Out of hatred, intolerance, and ignorance comes fear. In a flash of light and a puff of smoke Jay Grant appears to the trembling crowd, black cape swirling about scattering harsh light. Fleetingly, a supple crimson pike appears and disappears. Grant, offering protection and revelation, loudly announces “You must believe in me first, for it is only then I will take you to Jesus!’ What sense can a community like Laguna Beach make of the snake-oil salesmen carrying a Bible in one hand and lynch rope in the other preaching from a pulpit of sun bleached bones?

Two last points. You are right, Jay Grant, the Bible is the best selling book in history. A book that no one reads, practices, or understands (thank God!). Second, you criticize me in your withered little column for writing lengthy “diatribes” in the Coastline (and indirectly criticize the Coastline for giving me half a page) but ignore the lengthy hate filled diatribes of your apostles, Graney, Enderle, and Marguetant. What can we make of this obvious hypocrisy. Could it be, Jay Grant, you are suffering from a deep seated case of Column Envy?