Once again I'm probably going to make secular humanist Terry Pratchett a bit upset.
But as I read his book "Going Postal," I can't help but to see its themes on hope and restoration as a parallel to the faith and redemption in the gospel of Jesus Christ.
Bear with me a moment.
Take, for example, these passages from pages 276-77 of my American edition:
Handing all that gold over to a copper had been a difficult thing to do, but there really was no choice. He'd got them by the short and curlies, anyway. No one was going to stand up and say the gods didn't do this sort of thing. True, they'd never done it so far, but you could never tell, with gods. Certainly there were queues outside the three temples, once the Times had put out its afternoon edition.
This had presented the priesthoods with a philosophical problem. They were officially against people laying up treasures on earth, but they had to admit, it was always good to get bums on pews, feet in sacred groves, hands rattling drawers, and fingers being trailed in the baby-alligator pool. They settled, therefore, for a kind of twinkle-eyed denial that it could happen again, while hinting that, well, you never know, ineffable are the ways of gods, eh? Besides, petitioners were standing in line with their letter asking for a big bag of cash were open to suggestion that those most likely to recieveth were the ones who had already givedeth, and got the message once you tapped them on the head with the collecting plate a few times.
Even Miss Extremelia Mume, whose small, multipurpose temple over a bookmakers' office in Cable Street handled the wordly affairs of several dozen minor gods, was doing good business among those prepared to back an outside chance. She'd hung a banner over the door. It read IT COULD BE YOU.
It couldn't happen. It shouldn't happen. But, you never know . . . this time it might.
Moist recognized that hope, It was how he'd made his living. You know that the man running the Find the Lady game was going to win, you knew that people in distress didn't sell diamond rings for a fraction of their value, you knew that life generally handed you the sticky end of the stick, and you knew that the gods didn't pick some everyday undeserving tit out of the population and hand them a fortune.
Except, that this time, you might be wrong, right? It might just happen, yes?
OF course, Pratchett and his ilk feel they've got the greed behind this kind of "religion" right. And for the most part they do. I've heard the sermons of the so-called prosperity gospels, even seen a bit of it in my own church.
But what the mockers and scoffers miss is that, at the fundament of it all, there is that sincere hope.
But it's hope combined with works. And here is where I get in trouble with most mainstream Christians, who tend to believe that faith is all that's needed.
Not so.
Many seem to forget this admonition of James (emphasis mine):
What does it profit, my brethren, if someone says he has faith but does not have works? Can faith save him? If a brother or sister is naked and destitute of daily food, and one of you says to them, “Depart in peace, be warmed and filled,” but you do not give them the things which are needed for the body, what does it profit? Thus also faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead.
And note this does not refer to works by God, or miracles, or mysterious bags of wonga falling form the sky or being dug up by charlatan postmen with winged hats.
The main word in that passage is you.
If we do not works, if we do not act in ways that could be the answers to prayers or if we do not act in godly ways, it is our faith that is dead. Not the faith of those who ask and receive not -- and receive not because some secular humanists tells them their hope in God is vain because he doe snot exist. It is because the fellow-believers in God do not act in God's name.
We have to have works, or this happens:
Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and have not charity, I am become as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal. And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries, and all knowledge; and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, and have not charity, I am nothing. And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned, and have not charity, it profiteth me nothing.
Charity suffereth long, and is kind; charity envieth not; charity vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up, Doth not behave itself unseemly, seeketh not her own, is not easily provoked, thinketh no evil; Rejoiceth not in iniquity, but rejoiceth in the truth; Beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things.
Charity never faileth: but whether there be prophecies, they shall fail; whether there be tongues, they shall cease; whether there be knowledge, it shall vanish away. For we know in part, and we prophesy in part. But when that which is perfect is come, then that which is in part shall be done away. When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things. For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known. And now abideth faith, hope, charity, these three; but the greatest of these is charity.
This, from the first letter to the Corinthians.
Good works turn faith into action, and that is what many Christians miss, and their critics rightly pick up on.
Moist von Lipwig, who prayed to the gods to pull the wool over everyone's eyes, had the works -- he knew where the money was buried. Literally.
And those who saw him had hope. Hope in a charlatan, yes. But hope in a man whose works came in time for redemption.
So again, Mr. Pratchett. Thank you for teaching me how to be a better Christian, even if I had to pray to Anoia in order to become such.
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