Christian horror writer tells me that
"you have no idea what you're talking about
regarding God and the Bible."

Blazing Reader,

Gary Ritter is a minister and the author of Christian horror novels. When I first heard of Christian horror, I thought, that sounds like a unique genre.

But then I paused and thought about all the horrific stories in the Bible, and realized maybe Christian horror isn’t all that unique after all.

For example, in chapter 15 of the Book of Numbers, God tells the Israelites to stone a man to death. His crime? Was he a murderer? No. Did he steal, covet his neighbour's wife, worship a golden iPhone or sodomize a goat? None of those.

So then, what did he do to warrant immediate execution?

He collected firewood on a Saturday.

For that, God commanded Moses’ entire congregation to pelt him with stones until he was dead. Considering there must have been two million of them, I wonder how they organized such an execution. Did they take turns?

It’s doubly ironic, since, later in the Bible, apparently the same God becomes incarnate as Jesus and tells the Jews that he's now okay with them taking care of necessities on a Saturday (“The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath.”)

Anyway, back to fellow novelist, the reverend Gary Ritter. He sent an email, in response to my heretical post — Was the God of the Old Testament a psychopathic tyrant? — letting me know:

“As a follower of Jesus Christ, I will lovingly say that you have no idea what you're talking about regarding God and the Bible. I'd love to give you a theology lesson, but unless you're really seeking the truth, it would be a waste of time. God reveals Himself to those who desire in their hearts to know Him; otherwise, they are blind.”

This is the typical response I get from many Christians. Instead of explaining why Yahweh is acting like a psychopath, they tell me that there's something wrong with me. They say I’m not interested in seeking the truth. They tell me that I have no desire to know the Divine. They call me blind.

Just because I can’t blindly believe that every word in the Bible is a 100% perfect reflection of a Divine and Ultimate Reality hardly means that I am not “really seeking the truth.”

Similar to how only a black person, in today’s culture, can question the Black Lives Matter movement, only an ordained Christian minister seems to be able to question the Bible without being labelled an atheist.

So here is another quote from Father Seán Ó'Laoire’s daring book, Setting God Free, that demonstrates why one would have to be blind to not question the way God is depicted in the Old Testament:

“Before Moses, dies, he has two more jobs to do, two more slaughters to supervise. First, God tells him to ensure that His regular supply of meat continues: animals must be sacrificed every morning, every evening on the Sabbath, at The New Moon festival, at Passover, at Pentecost, on New Year’s Day, on the day of Atonement, and on the Feast of Booths. It’s no bloody wonder that the Israelites had no meat left for themselves. I wonder what God’s BMI was.

“Can you imagine the stench, the bedlam, the breathing and bellowing of the terrified beasts who can smell each other’s fear? The urine and dung and the ubiquitous blood? The hordes of flies settling on everything and then cross-pollinating by crawling over people’s bodies and into all the orifices? Is it any wonder that plagues were a regular feature of life in the desert? Didn’t God know anything about hygiene? Or He just didn't give a damn as long as he could smell roasting flesh and taste mammalian blood?”

Call me blind, but it looks like a horror novel to me. Sorry, not a God that I care to know.

— John C.A. Manley

PS Fortunately, Father Seán adds enough humour to make his book palatable and hard to put down. You can buy copies of Setting God Free: Moving Beyond the Caricacture We’ve Created in Our Own Image here: https://blazingpinecone.com/shop/setting-god-free/ 

PPS And for my previous post, "Was the God of the Old Testament a psychopathic tyrant?," head over here: https://blazingpinecone.com/news/2024/02/04/

John C. A. Manley is the author of Much Ado About Corona: A Dystopian Love Story, the forthcoming All The Humans Are Sleeping and other works of speculative fiction. Get free samples of his stories by becoming a Blazing Pine Cone email subscriber at: https://blazingpinecone.com/subscribe/