Looking for Antichrist (Rant 102)

‘Is there a church nearby, Father?’ the diffident, Gothic-looking, kohl-wearing youth standing outside Chapham Common tube asked me. The kind of question a priest doesn’t mind answering, you’ll grant me that. The follow-up, though, I wasn’t prepared for.



‘I am looking for the Antichrist’ – pause – I stared at the sallow, pinched, studs-dotted face.



‘An oddball’, I thought. ‘Or maybe just taking the mickey. Has read too much Steven King. I’ll humour him, anyway.’



‘What do you want to do with him, my boy?’ I inquired, putting as much kindness into my voice as I could.



Now I really must implore your forgiveness. I owe it to the lad: the conversation that followed must remain unknown. He was an unquiet spirit. To be implicated with the dark side, the mystery of lawlessness, of iniquity – that’s never a very wise thing. I can only pray God will grant him peace.



Still, the eerie meeting had some effect on me. Did a bit of homework. Refreshing my memory, I looked up a few Bible passages. St John’s Letters, chiefly. And commentaries. I re-learnt Antichrist is a plural word – there are lots of them. Caligula, Nero, Julian the Apostate, a certain Prophet, Martin Luther, the Pope, Trotzky, Hitler, Stalin – even Charles Taze Russell, the founder of the Jehova’s witnesses - and many others have been canvassed for the job. But – Blessed Apostle, have mercy on me – I got slightly bored. Millennialism isn’t exactly my cup of tea. And the trouble is, most candidates are just too obvious. Mad Caligula, matricidal Nero (although Flaubert extravagantly dubbed Nero ‘the perfect sensualist’), pagan, war-worshipping Fuhrer, mass-murderous, atheist Uncle Joe…come on! Too perfect a rogues’ gallery. A bit like the Devil in medieval mystery plays: ugly, monkey-tailed, grotesquely done up, gnashing his teeth, putting out a forked tongue and spitting fire – would an Antichrist really be as darned predictable as that? I’d credit the with sod a little more subtlety…



‘Fr Alexander, what would Antichrist be like?’ The spoof-churchy Mad Bishop Pub, inside Paddington Station - we were relaxing there after Mass - seemed conducive to casual delving. And Fr Alex is a bit of an expert on the occult (does exorcisms and all that) – though a sane one.



He sipped his Carlsberg. Over his lunettes, he shot me a mischievous, owlish look. ‘Well, Father, the best modern writer on this subject, I would say, is Vladimir Solovyov.’



‘Who he?’



‘Russian. Died a century ago. Orthodox but also a papalist. As a young man, pilgrim in the Egyptian desert and looking pretty wild, he was himself taken for Antichrist (Dajjal) by some Bedouins. Later he wrote a dialogue, including a brief history of the Antichrist. Solovyov lays out a remarkable scenario.



There will one day appear on earth an extraordinary genius – almost a superman. Aged only 33, he is universally hailed as the greatest, noblest mind on earth. An intellectual. An idealist and a philanthropist. A fine critical scholar and a free spirit – tolerant, broad, humane. And man of action. Handsome, charismatic, of huge sex-appeal too. A lover of humanity. Think of Gandhi, Nelson Mandela, Mother Teresa, Bertrand Russell, Churchill and John Kennedy (well, possibly), Princess Diana and more, many more, all rolled into one. His book, The Open Way to Universal Well-Being and Peace, is a best seller. Marx & Engels’ Communist Manifesto, Rousseau’s Social Contract, Mill’s On Liberty, all crumble into dust by comparison. Boldly radical but immensely suasive, he wins over the world leaders to his visionary political and humanitarian program. Miraculously, he solves the unsolvable world conflicts, like Palestine, North Korea, terrorism, and so on.’



Hmm…Sounds pretty fantastic. Above all, not bad at all. ‘By their fruits ye shall know them.’ A brilliant conflict-solver like that…God knows we’d need him. Why would this guy be Antichrist?



The priest looked circumspect. ‘You see, one idea gnawed at him al the time. That Christ could be thought better than him – that turned all his glittering fame to dust and ashes. ‘That Galilean peasant… short, swarthy, Jewish-looking. Of uncertain origin. No education, unsophisticated, apocalyptic, with a megalomanic God-complex. All right, his love message caught the imagination of the poor, the despised and the lowly. But now it’s high time mankind came into its own. The Galilean should shove over. I am much better equipped… ’ These were some of the thoughts tormenting him.



Fr Alex was engrossed. Screwed up his fair eyebrows and went on: ‘So, this beautiful hero is elected President of the United States of Europe. (Eurosceptics, keep your cool, ok?) Then he summons the leaders of the Church. Pope, Orthodox Patriarch, Protestant bigwigs. Proposes they should elect him as their common patron and protector – another Constantine, I suppose. But they turn down his proposal.’



‘Really a superhuman bugger, if he can manage to bring together the proud, ever-squabbling top Christians’, I resisted the temptation to observe.



‘At this stage Solovyov brings up the figure of the court-counsellor, Apollonius. (He knew his Book of Revelation, no doubt.) An infernal spin-doctor with supernatural powers. Pope and Patriarch are struck down dead by his black magic. Apart for a little remnant, the terrified Church capitulates. Apollonius is acclaimed Pope. Under his sway all sort of foul abominations, such as ‘mystical fornication’ (what the hell is that?!) and idolatry, spread. It falls to a German Protestant pastor, Professor Pauli (er, symbolism, what?), to lead non-violent Christian resistance.’



Good detail. A lot to be said for solid, no-nonsense Scriptural Prots, I must say. ‘But, Fr Alex, don’t keep me in suspense. What happens in the end?’



‘The Jews ride in to the rescue. Deceived at first in receiving Antichrist as Messiah, they discover he is uncircumcised, no true Israelite. Israel’s righteous wrath knows no bounds. The beast, the false Pope Apollonius and their legions of demons are overthrown. The Jews gather in Jerusalem. The New Jerusalem descends from Heaven. Christ rules…’



His mobile rang. The break was welcome. While Fr Alex jabbered away in his funny accent, I pondered. I liked the way Solovyov used Israel to bring Antichrist to book. Call it a non-sequitur: now of all times, it helps to remember there are alternative views on Israel’s role to those of Sharon and the Neo-Cons. I only hope the Dispensationalists might not move in on the act…



‘Er, Fr Frank, dispens… What a mouthful! What’s that? And what do you conclude about Antichrist?’



About dispens… another time. As to Antichrist, he is what the word says: a figure, a force opposed to Christ. And so to love. How appropriate St John should write about him. The Apostle of love knows they who hate love, are Antichrists. I only wish Solovyov had given Muslims also a part to play. They know and detest Antichrist too. See, friend Mahadi, as we were debating things at Speakers’ Corner yesterday, that’s what was missing in your analysis. Justice’s OK, but love, love, love is what humanity yearns for.

The Sin Eater (Rant 101)

Here is the wittiest and shortest film review ever. Of an obscure B-movie entitled ‘The Thirteen Victims of Dr Caligari’. Readers were laconically informed by a waggish Viennese critic: ‘I have been the fourteenth’.



Brian Helgeland’s just released The Sin Eater might provoke a similar reaction. Wretched script, indifferent direction, risible special effects and barely passable acting (I fancy what a magnetic Jude Law would have made of Heath Ledger’s bromide Fr Alex’s role) – do I make myself clear? Despite all that, the concept is stimulating. Very. The film’s subject – death, love, sin & salvation – turned me on all right.



Anglo-Welsh folklore witnesses to the past existence of sin eaters – men who ‘devoured’ the unatoned sins of a dying person, arguably easing his admission into eternity. Crudeness of the imagery apart (plus minor unanswered questions: did gorging oneself on another’s sins entail no unpleasant side-effects at all for the eater?), I figure sin-eaters must have felt a pretty caring lot - a bit like charity workers, analysts and counsellors these more enlightened days. They provided a service to consumers, or ‘more choice’, as Tony Blair would say. The main grumblers must have been the clergy. Which closed shop likes outside competition? Surely excommunications and anathemas must have been hurled at sin eaters thick and fast. Maybe they just gobbled those up as well, quite likely.



The modern problem with sin-eating of course is neither heresy nor grossness nor even silliness – sins, though terribly real, are not the sort of stuff anyone could ingest, anymore than thoughts and feelings could be – but sociology. A permissive society cares no more about sinful vices than it does about the virtues of virginity or fasting or, I fear, God. The word ‘sin’, when not used metaphorically or jocularly, is almost an archaism. And the Church is complicit in this attitude. ‘We hardly ever speak of sin here’, a chap called Alastair, the Vice-Principal of my Church of England very liberal theological college, once noted - approvingly. Ditto for our Beard-in-Chief, Archbishop Rowan Williams. How astounding it was to hear a Muslim cleric, Dr Bahmanpour, recently affirm in the Maida Vale mosque: ‘When we speak of tolerance, we must specify that we cannot tolerate sin.’ Is the Mosque teaching the Church, I wonder? A funny idea, coming from a priest!



The unhappy scapegoat of Leviticus XVI, upon which Aaron first laid the sins of the Jewish people and then drove into the wilderness to be devoured by the demon Azazel, I suppose, is a remote Old Covenant antecedent of the rite of sin-eating. As to the New Testament, we have it from Hebrews IX:28 that ‘Christ, having been offered once to bear the sins of many…’ Geddit?



Ahem, Fr Frank, this stuff is pretty primitive. Transferring human sins unto innocent animals? A guiltless man done to death as a substitute? Savage. Frightening. Repellent. Material only suitable for horror movies, surely?



I wish it were so – were human beings not what they actually are. Scapegoating appears so universal and endemic in ‘civilised’ societies that it must satisfy some need, not very nice, to be sure, but very necessary in fallen human nature. (The ‘fall guy’ notion is one of its modern transmutations.) Dr David Kelly, the nuclear scientist ‘sacrificed’ by the powers that be to distract public attention from the Government’s handling of the Iraqi war, looks like a classic scapegoat to me. Now it is the turn of Defence Secretary Geoff Hoon to bear upon himself the Prime Minister’s sins. I’d hazard the guess President Bush might well wish he had a rather voracious sin eater handy in the White House…



Fr Frank, forgive us, but you are getting a little too self-righteous. You snipe away at statesmen, who after all have a big job to do. What about your own sins? Don’t you ever feel you yourself may stand in need of a sin eater?



Touche’. My horrible sins are as scarlet as the blood of the Hebrew scapegoats of old, no doubt. But I am glad you brought that up. Because it leads me on to my Al-Hallaj project.



Eh? Al-Hallaj? Who he?



Al-Hallaj is a Sufi saint. Suffered atrocious death by crucifixion on a gibbet in Baghdad centuries back. Still much revered today amongst mystically-inclined Muslims. The ‘martyr of love’, they call him.



And what’s the project named after him?



The Cross, crucifixion is the key.



Doesn’t sound very nice, Fr Frank…



Aha! That’s the world’s secularist voice that speaks. But Christianity never was meant to be ‘nice’. Nor was the Cross, a dreadful instrument of torture, ever nice. Yet, it is the worldwide symbol of the religion of love.



Can we get back to Al-Hallaj, please? You still haven’t explained…



I can only hint at it. (Further hints in my modest website: www.fatherfranksrants.org.uk) But I’d better keep it simple. As Al-Hallaj suffered on a cross as a witness of love, so the project named after him centres on the need for Christians to become Christ-like, to suffer ‘pour aimer les Mussulmans’. Clear?



As mud, Fr Frank. And why French? You must be in mischievous mood today. We just hope you are not going in for sin-eating, are you?



No way. A priest already disposes of proper sacramental means to remit sins. And my Arkadash Network isn’t anything like a sinister, occult ‘order’ poised to take over the Vatican, as the film describes. Also, the 500-year-old eponymous movie character strikes me as thick as two short planks. ‘Knowledge is the enemy of faith…when you look into the abyss, the abyss looks back at you’, are the sort of corny phrases the sin eater trots out. That is not my theology. Knowledge comes from God. (Al-‘Alim, ‘The Knower’, in Islam is one of the 99 divine names, by the way.) The word itself appears 221 times in the New Testament. (Feel like checking that out?) My own Anglican Church had such fame for knowledge, leaning, that her priests used to be called stupor mundi, the wonder of the world. As for the abyss, well, that’s more likely to be the name for the mess the Church is in today. But the solution isn’t to look away but to face it resolutely and fearlessly.



Gosh, is this ending on an apocalyptic note, Fr Frank?



Is that bad? The Bible ends that way. In the end, God. The New Jerusalem. So, things fall out pretty well after all.

Murder Most Foul (rant 100)

Hassan-i-Sabbah. The Old Man of the Mountain. The founder of the infamous sect of the Hashshashin – the Assassins or Hashish-eaters. Marco Polo’s Travels tell the tale of this atrocious figure. Astutely, old Hassan contrived a fantastic deception, whereby drugged youths believed themselves to be tasting the pleasures of Paradise. Duped by this hallucinatory experience, the Hashish-eaters submitted blindly to their master’s evil will. Ensconced in the impregnable mountain fortress of Alamut, in Northern Persia, Hassan struck terror throughout the Middle East. Many rulers, Muslim and Christian alike, fell under the dagger of fanatical hit-men. It fell to the invading Mongol hordes eventually to exterminate the lot.



Are the Assassins reborn, skulking in our midst? The murder most foul of Sweden’s beautiful Anna Lindh last week makes me wonder whether the Old Man might have slipped back. The senselessness of the stabbing could be only apparent. An occult, resurrected Order of Assassins (and indeed Hassan in Alamut had proclaimed the advent the Resurrection) is not beyond the bounds of possibility. And it seems to me in keeping with the Assassins’ cunning to have chosen placid, peaceful, permissive Sweden as the opening stage of their dark exploits.



Mmmm….A bit far-out, Fr Frank. You don’t really believe it, do you?



It depends. There is nothing self-contradictory about the idea. As the Queen once said to Princess Diana’s butler: “There are forces at work around us of which we have no knowledge.’ I bet Her Majesty knew what she was talking about.



Cripes, Fr Frank, this is pretty worrying. What are we to do then?



Praying, for one thing. But you can also take it in a generally symbolic way. Assassination, alas, is in the air. The Sunday Telegraph reports of a virulent anti-euro campaigner who has publically praised the murder of Anna Lindh. The same man is now inciting ‘patriots’ to do likewise to pro-Europe politicians. And the newspaper also carries an article significantly headlined ‘Why Israel is right to assassinate Hamas leaders’. Indeed, the Israeli government is said to have authorised the killing of Arafat himself.



Some would say violent times invite violent responses, Fr Frank, whether we like it or not.



Noble Jews like Martin Buber and Leo Baeck surely would counter that such actions are incompatible with the high ethical standards of Judaism. Besides, even adopting a utilitarian calculus, the deluge of evil the assassination of Arafat would unleash would greatly outweigh any purported ‘good’. But I reject moral consequentialism. Assimilating the Ten Commandments to cost-benefit reasoning makes a mockery of God.



So you don’t agree the end justifies the means?



Much as I admire Machiavelli’s genius (a fellow Italian – and a Tuscan, I say, proudly – my mummy was too), I do not. Christian ethics does not permit morally evil means – even if aimed at a good end. The direct, deliberate killing of the innocent is an intrinsically evil means. It can never be justified. Caiaphas’ notorious dictum – ‘let one man die for the good of the whole people’ – constitutes a reductio ad absurdum of that noxious brand of utilitarianism – especially when we remember whose judicial killing it was the High Priest was referring to.



Er…Fr Frank, forgive us, but…Arafat, Hamas & Co. – how innocent exactly are they?



Look, I have just attended a conference on ‘Palestine: what future?’. There I have heard Israeli Professor & peacenik Ilhan Pappe persuasively connect the violence in the Holy Land with the illegal occupation of the West Bank, as effect is to cause. How many times during our lifetime have we heard it repeated, mantra-like, that resistance to occupation is a moral imperative?



Regardless of the means?



No, of course not. I have just argued evils means are illicit. Even in destruction, there is a right way and a wrong way – and there are limits, as Albert Camus memorably wrote in his fine play about terrorism, Les Justes. I wish Palestinian resistance could be like Gandhi’s. Nonetheless, the question of unjust occupation still stands. With Professor Pappe, I am convinced only the community of nations can help at this critical stage – internationalise the conflict, that is.



Interesting. But where do we go from here?



The gift of prophecy God has not granted me. These are perilous times, when shadowy terrorist fraternities can strike worldwide, sovereign countries are unilaterally invaded and murder is advocated as matter of state policy. Navigating this fearful new ocean, it is vital we don’t lose sight of our moral compass. And states cannot do without ethical ballast, lest they drift into the very lawlessness they claim to combat. The philosopher Nietzsche asserted the chief of the ancient Hashshahshin was a nihilist – unbeknown to his besotted followers, the Old Man of the Mountain would believe in nothing. Or rather, he believed only in power. That’s unlikely – more a matter of wish-fulfilment than historical reality. (By the way, genuine Ismaili sources makes no mention of drug-usage.) Nietzsche’s obsession with his ‘re-evaluation of all values’, of going beyond good and evil, perhaps inclined him to view Hassan as an ideological forerunner. But I wonder whether the modern extoller of the Superman didn’t have a point – though not quite the point he thought he had.



Aargh! And what would that be, Fr Frank?



Power, sheer power, seems to be what many spokesmen for what used to be called (President Bush still does, quaintly) ‘the free world’ are falling back on. But power, of the Hobbesian variety, cannot of itself upheld the commonwealth of nations. Otherwise it’ll be a matter of miserable choice between different types of terror. As I prepare to watch tonight on BBC2 the second episode of The New Adventures of Superman, I have no doubt I’ll savour the final defeat of Tempus, the suave but megalomaniac alien sociopath who has seized control of America and banished Superman into unreality. Tempus’ lust for dominance is totally divorced from morality. The happy ending is de riguer these shallow times but, for once, I wonder whether the scriptwriter’s instincts be not basically sound. Might is not right, and murder does not pay. In fact, let me outrage all Realpolitikers: as Jesus preached on a mountain long ago, the awesome, life-giving truth must be that ‘the Meek will inherit the earth’.

9/11 Revisited

I bet my boots you remember what you were doing on 11th September 2001. I certainly do. I was watching a ghost. Relax: I am not going gaga. I swear it’s true. Anyone can do it. Just visit the Sir John Soane House here near me, in West London’s leafy Borough of Ealing - you’ll enjoy the same experience. On video.



Sir John’s phantasm was quite talkative. Whether Carl Gustav Jung would term it synchronicity, I am not sure but, with the fateful anniversary only three days away, I feel moved to call up another ghost.



Hubristic? I hope not. Surely a priest has some claim to special rapport with the spiritual world. Besides, lots of laymen have done it before. Orpheus, Odysseus, Aeneas, King Saul, Benvenuto Cellini, Jean Cocteau…a long, illustrious list.



Gulp, whose ghost, Fr Frank?



One of the victims’. In one of the Twin Towers. Maggie, a bright young executive. Unmarried. A blonde, spunky, petite person, like Madonna. (The singer, I hasten to say.) A business & management graduate, a financial analyst in one of the firms there. A determined, ambitious, sexually active female, with plenty of hopes, plans and projects about the future. Without further ado…



Maggie What do you want from me?



Me To ask you a few questions, if you don’t mind. Do you feel anger?



Maggie No, I feel sorry.



Me For yourself?

Maggie Be sharper, priest. My sorrow is directed at the living. Or rather, the half-dead.



Me (Gulp) You mean…



Maggie You understand me. The failures. Those with a denigratory, unforgiving conception of themselves and the world. The criminally stupid, who take vengeance on the wrong people. The fanatics, who bring faith into disrepute. The superstitious: those who believe evil can be warded off by other superstitions, like bombs, human rights and democracy.



Me Er…I didn’t expect a murdered soul to be quite so sententious…



Maggie You can’t kill a soul – a cleric ought to know that. And we in this section of the Beyond are neither satanic nor seraphic. Just more lucid. Observant. And more insightful. You’d expect the dead to be, wouldn’t you?



Me I guess so. But do tell me, please, have you forgiven…



Maggie Look, I was one of those the world aghast watched jumping out of windows to escape the raging fires. The falling took a long time – it felt interminable. They are right who say dying persons see whole life passing through their mind, in a flash. In my case, the review was in slow motion. Being so absorbed, terror got nearly forgotten. It was morbid but fascinating.



Me Thoughts of…regret? Repentance? Revenge?



Maggie Regrets aplenty. Repentance is a matter between me and my Maker. Revenge, no. I am so glad. I might not have been here if I had.



Me And yet, it is said everything that has unfolded after 9/11 is at bottom a matter of taking revenge.



Maggie If it is, it proves Fr Frank has failed too.



Me I? In what way?



Maggie In what your religion teaches. Love, love, love. Forgive, forgive, forgive. Love your enemy, turn the other cheek, go the second mile. Forgive, not once but seventy times seven. I learnt that in Sunday School. America and Britain still call themselves Christian nations. Yet they have lashed out in revenge. (Though they call it something else.) You have failed. QED.



Me I suppose you have a point. But, Maggie, it’s too simple. They say Christ meant all that for special people – monks, religious and the like. We should take them as counsels, not commands, see what I mean?



Maggie Aren’t you ashamed to fall back on those smart-alecky, seminary tricks? Why can’t Christians mean what they say and do what they mean? Don’t hide your feebleness and cowardice behind these disreputable word games. Practice what your Master teaches. Otherwise you’ll convince me the last Christian died on the cross two thousand years ago. I pity you.



Me Maggie, be reasonable. Rheinold Niebuhr, the distinguished American theologian, has explained it all in Moral Man and Immoral Society. The ethics for states and rulers can’t be the same as that applying to individuals. Statesmen have responsibilities for whole communities…



Maggie Stop it! Oh, stop it! How contemptible. You priests will never learn. A long, very long atonement awaits you on this mountain, I promise you.



Me Mountain? Tell me more please. Where exactly are you?



Maggie We are forbidden to talk about that. And there is no ‘where’ in the invisible world. You ought to know something about the seven-storey mountain, anyway.



Me Hmm…Purgatory, eh? Not quite Anglican doctrine but it makes a lot of sense. But look here, surely you, of all people, realise the need to combat terrorism. To save lives. That is what Western leaders swear they are doing.



Maggie Terror on terror generates more terror. The war on terrorism is failing. It’s already lost. Anti-terrorist legislation, military interventions in Afghanistan & Iraq were supposed to make the world more safe. To undermine extremism. Instead, the invasions are rallying points for terrorists worldwide. The empire is being struck back. What a sad, tragic mess!



Me Gosh, Maggie, I’d never thought Twin Towers employees would speak like CND activists. But be fair: what could Bush do?



Maggie He could fire the neo-cons from his administration, for one thing. But let us leave party politics out of this, shall we?



Me Why don’t you tell me a bit more about yourself. Where did you live? And what of your family, your boyfriend, sex, things…you must miss them.



Maggie I lived in New Canaan, Connecticut. Like London’s stockbrokers’ belt to you. A wealthy, privileged world. My family I shall see again, I know that. My boy friend, well…he was not kind. Cruel, in fact, like many of you men are. Good riddance. As to sex, if you really want to know, dear all-too-curious priest, it was only a titillation. Here we are destined for better things. But I admit to missing Ginger, my tabby cat, sometimes.



Me Are you alone?



Maggie Never. Even in penitence one never is. And I look forward to future social joys beyond compare.



Me How do we get there, dear Maggie?



Maggie There is only one gateway to Heaven: love. There can be no others.