Well, I applaud your perseverance in this self-administered test of faith. I'm honored to be the wilderness to your Christ, the Bathsheba to your David, the absolute-shitstorm-of-disasters to your Lot, and the desire-to-avoid-filleting-your-firstborn to your Abraham. Your faith will be rewarded: not in the next life, but in this very post. As a kind of thank-you for wading through all the worldly muck, here's a more celestial post, for people like you, about people like you.
For though you may sometimes feel like a long-lost wayfarer in the firmament, drifting alone from star to cold star, suffocated in the spiritual vacuum but for the life-support system of Christ's love (this bread is my CO2 scrubber, this wine the urine recycled through the catheter of your exposure suit's integrated bioproducts/waste-reclamation system), know that you are not alone. The light of the Lord has penetrated even to the furthest reaches of galaxy! Set phasors to "save" and shout hallelujah, for the Klingons have found Jesus!
That's not just the unreasonable extension of my dumb astronaut metaphor - it's actually true [via TR].
Most of their creed seems to involve selectively reading the Bible with an eye toward the more bellicose verses (but hey, that's nothing new: Glenn Beck thinks that beating swords into plowshares is commie propaganda, and the geniuses at Conservapedia are basically doing the same thing, except in a much scarier way). You know, "Blessed be the Lord my strength, which teacheth my hands to war, and my fingers to fight..." (Psalm 144) - that sort of thing.
But what I find really fascinating, actually, is their take on Jesus. Around the turn of the last millennium, Jesus was basically that hippie Reconstructionist rabbi who's always going on about finding God in the family love of appreciating the warmth of a spring day when life is renewed through the green fuses of the flowers that shine with the divine spark of love like a baby's eyes looking at its mother. OK, Klingons, deal with that.
And they do. I quote, altering neither the color of the text nor the abundance of punctuation marks:
"Indeed, Klingons accept the teachings of Christ as part of a warrior tradition. Christ brings not peace, but a sword. And this batlh'etlh is a sword of honor indeed!Well, I've been told. They also discuss his sufferings on the cross, comparing the unpleasant proceedings to something called the Klingon Rite of Ascension. Something tells me these guys really enjoyed The Passion of the Christ, but not for the reasons Mel Gibson was hoping.
Ka Plah!!!"
Anyway, what I'm really getting at here is (surprise, surprise) something medieval. While we tend not to mention wrinkly-headed aliens in the same breath as William the Conqueror (Despite the physical resemblance. Oh snap! Alfred's thegns represent!), there are some striking parallels between the Savior of the Klingons and that of the Anglo-Saxons, at least as represented in Wulfstan's eleventh-century "Apostles' Creed."
The Creed was read as part of a short sermon entitled To Eallum Folke given by Wulfstan (bishop of Worcester, archbishop of York). Perhaps it's just my amateurish tendencies, but to me, the text reads quite a bit more rugged and manly than most Christian liturgy. Take a gander:
We believe in one mighty God who shaped and worked all things.
And we believe, and earnestly know, that Christ Godson came to mankind in our need.
And we believe that he was born to a clean maiden, Holy Mary, who never had intercourse with men.
And we believe that he endured much, and fiercely suffered for our every need.
And we believe that man hung him from the cross, and forced him unto death, and he afterwards was buried in the earth.
And we believe that he journeyed to Hell and thereof plundered all that he would.
And we believe that afterwards he rose up from death.
And we believe that afterwards he climbed up to Heaven.
And we believe, and earnestly know, that he on Doom's Day to the great doom cometh.
And we believe that all the dead must then rise up from death and seek their great doom.
And we believe that the sinful must then immediately go to Hell, and there with devils dwell in burning fire and eternal ruin—no end will ever come, not for all time.
And we believe that good, full-Christians, who here in the world well-pleased God, must then immediately go into Heaven, and there afterwards have a dwelling with God Himself, and with his angels, always in eternity. Amen.
(Translation mine)
(Emphasis on the sweet parts also mine)
(Emphasis on the sweet parts also mine)
Yeah, that's right: this is not your Lamb of God. This Jesus is here to kick ass and heal lepers, and it looks like he's all out of lepers. Seriously, I'm not taking all that much poetic license with the language, either: "Hē to helle fērde and ðærof gehergode eal þæt hē wolde." According to Bosworth, "gehergode" means "to harry or ravage," or "to make predatory attacks upon." This is, in two words, Viking Jesus.
The awesomeness of Viking Jesus is apparent, and my guess is that the language used here is intentionally geared toward the warrior culture of the Anglo-Saxons to whom it was being preached. Like a teen pastor who uses Christian rock for his youth ministry, Wulfstan knew his audience and knew what they wanted. The pagan gods were paragons of strength and cunning, warrior gods who ate frost giants for breakfast. Why believe in some Mediterranean pansy who turned the other cheek instead of swinging a battle axe?
The answer is the same for both the grim men of yore and the pimply fanboys of today: in the right light, Jesus was a badass.
As a side note, this interpretation kind of explains Mark 16:8. It's different than the version of the story told in the other gospels, and it's given people some interpretive trouble. Some women come upon the newly-arisen Christ, "And they went out quickly, and fled from the sepulchre; for they trembled and were amazed: neither said they any thing to any man; for they were afraid" (KJV). Well, no kidding. Ever seen Serenity? You know the part where the blast doors open to reveal River standing on a pile of massacred Reavers? [1. Spoiler alert! 2. I can't find a version with the original soundtrack, so... buy the DVD]. Now imagine that she's a dude in a tunic who got crucified a couple days before. I know I'd run.
Now, here we could discuss the ways in which religion is multivalent, and its amorphous nature enables it to offer something to all who seek its wisdom. Just as Jesus plundered Hell and took thereof all that he would, so too can anyone plunder the Bible and take from it exactly what he wants. But instead of expostulating any more, I'm just going to revel some more in the idea of Jesus clawing his way out of Hell, punching through the boulder at the cave mouth, and climbing - climbing! - up to Heaven. Ka Plah, indeed, my friends. Ka Plah.
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