Major Acid's E-Rag
It Strikes Me...
Those Hutterites Might Be on to
Something
Apparently the fear of being part of some
cosmic collateral damage is taking root in fundamentalist heads in
Canada. It’s certainly got the Canadian Hutterites in an uproar, enough
so that the normally closed-off fundamentalists have come out swinging
at those who favour the same-sex legislation.
If Canada passes the same-sex legislations, says the Hutterite Brethren
Church of Canada, then Canada will become the next Sodom and Gomorrah.
The blood-drenched hand of the Hutterites’ Old Testament god will smite
us all.
Well, maybe. Smiting all of Canada is a tall order; this is a big
country. Even nuclear weapons would be hard pressed to do the job
completely. And there are those who believe that Sodom and Gomorrah were
destroyed by atomic weapons.
Still, the Hutterites are worried. It’s that Sodom/sodomy connection one
supposes, although that brings us into a biblical textual battle that
could enliven the heart of only the most dedicated biblical scholar.
Just what was it that the Sodomites were doing that so upset God he had
to take them out to every last man, woman, and child? Not to mention
Gomorrah and either two or three other nearby cities.
The four doomed cities (or five – Zoar was supposedly spared, although
those who claim to have found the doomed cities point to five charred,
ash-filled sites) were scattered along the Dead Sea coast in a fairly
self-contained, relatively small area. Easy targets for a divine missile
strike and without any of those annoying, hardened underground bunkers
that Saddam and friends favoured in the early days of the strikes on
Baghdad.
Too, there were probably smaller settlements scattered about the
countryside, not to mention Lot’s giant herd of livestock, the reason
Lot moved to Sodom in the first place. All presumably crisped with
everything else on the fateful day. All of them – right down to every
last man, woman and child.
To be fair, the Old Testament god was not without a sense of fair play.
In fact, he bargained with Abraham over the fate of Sodom. In several
tough rounds of haggling, Abraham got God to commit to sparing Sodom if
ten righteous men could be found, which was far better than fifty, where
the bargaining seems to have started.
There’s that men thing again – righteous men. Apparently righteous women
and innocent children were of little (read no) concern. It was all up to
the men, and one of the things that upset God about those unrepentant
Sodomites was their habit of having sex with other men. Or not, which
brings us back to the textual battle. The men might only have been
adulterous. Here’s the story in brief:
For reasons unknown, Lot, himself a citizen of Sodom, was hanging about
the city gates one evening, perhaps to keep an eye on his livestock, but
no one really knows for sure. Along came a couple of angels who had been
sent to investigate the town and look for the ten righteous men. Lot,
apparently starved for suitable male company, convinced the angels not
to wander the streets that night but to have dinner with him instead.
Others in the city, wary of strangers, came banging on Lot’s door
demanding that the strangers be brought outside so that the crowd might
“know” them. The textual argument is whether the crowd just wanted to
‘know” the strangers weren’t a threat or whether they wanted to gang
rape the angels in a little manly fun.
Lot, who took his duties as host very seriously, offered his two virgin
daughters to the crowd instead. The crowd could know his daughters in
whatever way it wanted. The crowd was not appeased, although I suspect
his daughters were rather relieved. The crowd stormed the house and only
some magic from the angels, turning the crowd blind, saved the members
of Lot’s house.
The next day at the (physical) insistence of the angels, Lot and family
left Sodom and headed for Zoar, incidentally leaving behind the fiancés
of Lot’s two daughters. The angels, meanwhile, seemed pretty miffed at
their reception and didn’t bother to actually look for the ten righteous
men. Instead they called down hell on earth and Sodom, and Gomorrah,
Zeboim, and Admah were consumed by holy fire.
Lot’s wife, wanting a peek at the divine fireworks, was turned into a
pillar of salt. Lot, again for reasons unknown, decided that Zoar wasn’t
safe and headed with his daughters for a cave in the hills, there to
look down on what must have seemed like the end of his world. At the
urging of his daughters, Lot took to drink, so much so that he never
knew what was going on and fathered sons from his own conniving and
apparently randy daughters.
Or so the bible says. Personally, I suspect that Lot, looking at the
destruction and thinking that he might be the only man left, and put out
that his wife had been turned into a tall, skinny salt lick, decided he
had better do the go forth and multiply thing and so slept with his
daughters. The biblical tale of the women getting Lot so drunk he didn’t
know his daughters were having sex with him seems suspiciously like
patriarchal revisionism.
Which ends the story and brings us back to Canada and the Hutterite
worry that same-sex legislation will make Canada the next Sodom and
Gomorrah. Heavenly fire may be our fate. Or not. Canada is a heck of a
lot bigger than the area covered by the four (or five) cities of Lot’s
day. And we have that pesky time zone problem, too.
If God does decide to strike us all down, time zones are important. He
has to get everyone roughly at the same time, and if he sets his cosmic
watch to strike at 8 AM local time, hovering, as he surely would, over
Ottawa, the instigator of all this fuss, will he remember that he has to
take out Newfoundland half an hour earlier? Dany Williams’ big mouth
will probably remind him, but in the western reaches of the country, the
sudden and fiery end of central Canada will be just a pleasant early
warning.
Ralph Kelin will probably sit swilling alcohol in his office, smug in
the belief that he’s morally superior enough to avoid divine
retribution. He’ll be wrong. I lived for a time in Calgary, and I know
there’s enough going on there to call down the apocalypse. How much
worse must it be in Edmonton!
In British Columbia, the cities will empty, although many in the fleeing
multitude will just head to Whistler. Those who don’t die on the highway
getting to Whistler will be so high they likely won’t notice their own
fiery end.
Perhaps Victoria will be spared. It seems somehow unsporting to
annihilate a population slowed by broken hips and walkers. Of course, if
God spares the locals and takes out the tourists, he might get a round
of applause. Those silly enough to pay $50 for high tea at the Empress
Hotel could do with a significant culling.
For the Hutterites, themselves mostly westerners, God messing up on the
time zones presents a real problem. Many refugees who do have time to
flee might reasonably think the Hutterite lands would make safe havens.
Which would be the end of the Hutterites. God doesn’t seem to mind
collateral damage, as the recent tsunami shows. More than one religious
leader made the case that God was making a point in southeast Asia. And,
of course, there’s Sodom and Gomorrah to remember.
Were there no children in those doomed cities? No righteous women? No
babies? Were there only debased adult men behaving as so many Canadians
do today – drinking and having sex. And yes, some of them, having gay
sex. So many men knowing so many other men in that particularly biblical
way of knowing.
God savaged every last Sodomite into the afterlife, and the Hutterites
are understandably nervous. The problem is there aren’t enough
Hutterites around to save the nation. The Hutterites are curiously like
the would-be husbands of Lot’s daughters. If Lot’s daughters really were
virgins, then maybe their fiancés were righteous men. Two down, eight to
go.
Those who style themselves as biblical archaeologists suggest that the
population of Sodom was likely about 1200. Abraham’s bargaining meant 10
out of 1200, and if God and Abraham scale that up to 10 out of every
1200 in Canada, that means Canada needs nearly 300,000 righteous men.
Ignoring the Hutterites’ occasional desire to marry their first cousins,
and assuming that they are all righteous men (including women and
children – it’s the modern world, after all) the Hutterite population
approaches 20% of the 300,000 figure. They are, in other words, the
Canadian equivalent of the two of ten righteous men that Lot’s
daughters’ fiancés represented.
It’s not enough. Even worse, the Hutterites are behaving pretty much as
the two doomed fiancés did. Yes, the hapless would-be sons-in-law were
righteous, and they probably worried that Lot might be right when he
urged them to flee with the family, but they didn’t. The Hutterites are
worried enough to send a letter to the Prime Minister warning him of the
grave danger, that Canada will become the next Sodom and Gomorrah, but
beyond that?
Beyond that, nothing. The Hutterites aren’t leaving the country despite
their own dire warnings. Of course, maybe it’s too early yet. The
same-sex legislation is still working its way through parliament with no
guarantee it will pass. If it does, then we still need to look for the
angels God sends to scope out Canada. Who knows what those angels will
look like in this modern world? Will they look like self-appointed men
of God, as George Bush styles himself? Bush has a nuclear arsenal at his
command, after all. And then, too, Islamic Ayatollahs are also closing
in on nuclear power.
It isn’t beyond the imagination to see a third party country, one with a
reputation world-wide as a peacemaker, one like Canada, offering to host
talks between two nuclear armed angels of death. Just as in Sodom and
Gomorrah, the angry mobs would certainly show up, what with the
anti-Bush protestors and the anti-Islamist protestors. I’m not sure how
an Ayatollah and a born again Christian would strike protestors blind,
but our government does have a history of the liberal use of pepper
spray.
Perhaps, after all, the Hutterites have something here. Maybe we all
should be making getaway plans. Maybe, though not me. Frankly, I am far
too interested in seeing who will be the two virgins our Prime Minister,
in Lot’s position as gracious host, offers up to appease the angry
crowds.
