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 fianc�s 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 fianc�s 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� fianc�s represented.
It�s not enough. Even worse, the Hutterites are behaving pretty much as the two doomed fianc�s 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.
