Conversation at the Gate
Before Paul Parish even opened his eyes, he knew that he was dead. He did not remember how he died. He was on the train on his way to work, and then he woke up with the certain knowledge of his death.
He was not afraid or anxious. He felt a bit sad, but even the sadness sat in the background, like the slow, sweet playing of a violin providing background music to his actions.
Opening his eyes, he found himself lying on a marble slab. It was cold, and a little uncomfortable, so he sat up. The slab itself sat on top of a cloud of fog under a soft white sky with no sun.
“This is heaven,” he said to himself. At the same time he felt a sudden sadness at the world he left behind, and happiness that he had made it here. There was always this twinge of doubt in his mind, a worry that his beliefs had been nothing but wishful thinking.
The fog around him swirled gently, forming a column, revealing a man in white robes and wings, carrying a book.
“You’re an angel,” Parish said cheerfully.
“That is true,” answered the man. “My name is Chan Lin.”
It was an oriental angel, who gave him an oriental bow. Parish answered in like fashion, as well as he could while seated on his marble slab. He had thought about stepping down, but he could not see a floor through the fog at his feet, and worried about how far he might fall.
“I’m in heaven?” Parish asked.
“Not yet,” said Lin. He took his book and opened it to the first pages. “He is disappointed in the way you turned out in life. He does not think that you are the type of person He wants here. Before . . . before you take the next step, He wanted to make sure that you understood some things. He thinks he owes you an explanation.”
“He? You mean . . .”?
“God.” Lin stated.
“Disappointed? What have I done?” Parish asked, shocked. “I have followed His every word. I have devoted my life to His service? ”
“Not exactly,” said Lin. “I know that you thought you were working in His service. However, to work in His service you had to try to figure out what He wanted from you, right? I mean, you worked for several important people. You realize that doing being a good servant requires that you know what is wanted by those that you serve.”
“Of course.”
“You seem to have gotten some of that wrong.”
“Wrong?”
Lin opened his book to the first page. “God is a very kind and loving individual who created humans in great variety. Any good parent wants his children to get along and not fight amongst each other and to treat each other with decency and respect. Some of God’s children are homosexual. Now, there are certainly some among his creatures that wanted to harm others and nobody has an obligation to sacrifice themselves or those they love to them. However, the homosexual is not one of them. These are, many of them, peaceful and kind children that you regarded with disgust and contempt. God cannot smile on a child of his who treats the other peaceful and kind children this way. ”
“Fags?”
“Yes. You thought they were disgusting and repulsive, an offense to God.”
“They’re . . . unnatural. It’s sick. They’re . . .” Parish stopped and stared at Lin.
“You have free will,” said Lin. “To view them as perverse and sick was your choice, not God’s. God created them along with everything else. Do you truly find God’s work disgusting and repulsive?”
“They’re . . .”
“They are God’s children. They are a part of God’s creation. Those who are loving and kind are to be treated with love and kindness in return. God knows your loathing. He felt your disgust and contempt, and when it turned to anger at His children and a drive to deprive them of happiness, though they sought to harm nobody, he wept for them, as a parent would weep for a child who is kind and loving and is nonetheless abused and mistreated by his school mates. If you saw your children mistreated, would you not weep?”
Parish stood silent for a moment. “It says in the Bible . . .”
“Which Bible?” Lin asked. “How many different Bibles have there been in the history of humanity? Of each Bible, how many interpretations? The Bible you speak of says to condemn those who work on the day of the Sabbath ” that they are to be executed. Yet, you yourself were a diligent worker, Mr. Parish, working through the weekend on a number of occasions. The Bible you speak of, Mr. Parish, says that accepting interest on loans is a sin. Yet, this last year alone you reported over ten thousand dollars in interest.”
Parish stood speechless.
“God gave you the capacity to choose and the responsibility to choose correctly,” said Lin. “This means the will to choose which Bible is correct, and the correct way to interpret the words within. You looked into your bible and saw that it would be a mistake to read it as prohibiting work on the Sabbath and the prohibition on collecting interest were to be ignored. Why could you not look see that the interpretation you were given concerning homosexuals commanded the mistreatment of people, many of whom were kind and loving and no threat to anybody? Why did you not ask whether a God who loves all of his children would command you to mistreat those who are loving and peaceful?”
“Because . . .because God spoke to me. God made me feel in my heart what was right and what was wrong.”
“God spoke to you.” Lin said, his lips holding a hint of a smile now. “Others have stood before you and said God had spoken to them as well. Yet, when asked what God said to them, they do not give the same answers that you gave. Does God give different answers to different people?”
“The lied,” Parish answered. “I know that God spoke to me. If they repeated what God told me, then I know they were telling the truth. If they said something else, then I know that they lie, and God did not speak to them, because God would not tell me one thing and tell them something else.”
“I see,” said Lin. “Yet, if you would have asked those closest to you what God had said to them, you would have discovered some point of disagreement with everybody. You would have to say that all others are liars, and you are the only person ever to stand before me who only spoke the truth. Are all humans but you liars, Mr. Parish?”
“Maybe.”
“God knows your mind, Mr. Parish. You know that what I said is true. There have been times in your life when you thought God said one thing, and changed your mind later. You know that it is possible for a person to think that God has spoken to him and been mistaken. You know that it is possible for you to think that God has told you something that you later decided God did not say. When you thought you heard God say that you were to stand in the way of your brothers and sisters who had no desire to harm anybody, but a desire for a mate of the same gender, you were mistaken. You should have asked yourself whether a loving God would actually want such a thing.”
“It said in the Bible. . . ”
“We have been here before,” said Lin. His smile had vanished. “Once again, Mr. Parish, you mistreated and stood in the way of happiness for many of God’s children who were loving and kind and wish no ill will toward anybody. You thought you heard God ask you to do this. Did you question why a loving God would want these kind and loving children mistreated? Did you not question whether this was one of those instances where you thought you heard God say something, and were mistaken?”
“I was not the only one . . .”
“All humans have free will,” Lin said. “You know of societies where everybody believed something that was not true. You cannot defend your choices as being right simply because there were others who made the same choice?”
“But how am I supposed to know?”
“Your mind was one of God’s gifts. Using your mind, you have the power to look at the world around you and figure out what makes sense and what does not make sense. I have asked you a simple question, Mr. Parish. There are homosexuals who are kind and loving and wish no ill will against any of God’s children. Did you ask why a loving God would want you to mistreat these children? Did you wonder whether a loving God would want you not to give them the same kindness and love that they held for the rest of humanity?”
“Many of them are vile. They hurt children . . .”
“Many priests have hurt children as well, Mr. Parish,” said Lin. “Yet you retained the good judgment to know that the kind and helpful priests are not to be condemned along side those that hurt children. The innocent should not be condemned for the crimes of the guilty. In arguing as you have just done, Mr. Parish, you violated that rule ” right there as you stand before me, you condemned the innocent for the crimes of the guilty.”
“No. I asked God for guidance. God told me that what homosexuality was a sin.”
“No,” Lin said. “You heard a voice tell you to view God’s peaceful creatures with disgust and contempt. You are the one who decided that the voice you heard was God’s. You made the decision, because the voice was telling you something you wanted to hear. If you did not already want to hear those words, you would have not thought that they were God’s words, but some evil force tempting you to do wrong. You choose to be tempted because you wanted to be tempted.”
“Why didn’t God make it clear?”
“How fair would that test have been, if God gave you the answers? God wanted you to figure out the answers for yourself. Here is the question. Some voice — some sensation — tells you to view peaceful and loving people — God’s creatures — who wish no ill will on any other person, with contempt and disgust. The test is this: Do you realize that God would not command that you view His peaceful and loving creatures this way? Or do you allow yourself to be seduced by a message of contempt and disgust? You failed that particular test, Mr. Parish. That is why I have been sent to meet you.”
Lin turned a page in the book. “You also worked to defend petulance, disease, and suffering. These three evils found in you, Mr. Parish, a faithful and devoted servant. Without your help, these evils would have likely been driven out of the lives of many people. You, however, ensured that the numbers who would suffer these ills remained high — much higher than they would have been without your help.”
“How did I do that?” Parish gasped.
“By the work you did blocking medical research that could have cured a great many diseases. You heard that stem cells would provide a great deal of benefit to those suffering from disease and injury. You fought against these medicines, and in doing so you made yourself a soldier in the army defending disease and injury and the suffering that came from them. The policy you defended left hundreds of millions of people ill who would have otherwise been healthy, and caused the early death of thousands..”
“You cannot tell me that God condones the murder of innocent children to save a life!” Parish shouted.
Lin looked up from the book. “There lies another problem. You thought that these cures required the murder of children, and you could not accept that. This is understandable, Mr. Parish — even admirable. There is no mark in this book against you for that. It even increases your score. However, you cast any who disagree with you as people who condone the murder of an innocent child. That, Mr. Parish, is a lie. You must know that those who disagree with you would not sanction the murder of a child. Instead, they disagreed with your claim that there was a child to be killed. Here, you bore false witness against your neighbor. You lied about the nature of your disagreement with them, casting it in a false light.”
Lin looked straight at Parish. “Note what I said when I saw that you were seeking to prevent what you thought was the murder of innocent children. I said that this counts to your credit. At the same time, those who opposed you on this issue were seeking to prevent disease, heal those who had been injured, and end the suffering they endured. Did you go to them and say, ’I see that you are intending to end disease and suffering. This is commendable, and I do not hold anything against you for that.’ You did not do that Mr. Parish. You gave them no credit for their noble interests. You spoke about them as you would have spoke of a monster who would take a knife to a child for the pleasure of doing so. That, Mr. Parish, was not good.”
“Does God favor this or not?” Parish asked.
“That is not the subject,” Lin answered. “We are here to discuss the goodness of your character. Even if you were right about the murder of children, you should have given your opponent credit for their noble intentions, rather than cast them in a false light. However, since you asked, in His benevolence, God gave humanity this tool to use against the evils of disease and injury. He allowed no fetus to carry a soul until it had a brain in which to house that soul. If you look at a clump of cells and see no brain, you see no person. Until God provides that soul, there is no child to kill. You cannot murder a child if you harvest the cells before a mind and a soul are present.”
Parish stared blankly while Lin continued. “Why did you not consider that option, Mr. Parish? When disease, injury, and suffering whispered into your ear that they needed your help, when they said that there were children at stake, why did you not ask how such a small clump of cells could hold a brain, or a soul? Why were you so willing to become their champion and defender?”
Lin returned his attention to his book. “This is not the only case in which you cast the position your opponents held in a false light, Mr. Parish. You opposed abortion. Insofar as you were attempting to defend what you thought was the life of an innocent child, you showed a good heart. However, you have an obligation to be honest. This means that you are to present the views of those who disagree with you in a fair light. You held up signs of a mature fetus when you called for an end to abortion. You said this as if all abortions involved the death of such a fetus. You did not tell them that most abortions involve a very small lump of cells. If you had cared to present your case honestly, that is what you would have put on your signs.”
“No loving God can favor the murder of children.”
Lin sighed. “You are absolutely correct, Mr. Parish. If we were talking about the murder of children, then a loving God could not favor it. However, there are no children being murdered. Once again, Mr. Parish, you choose to believe something that was not true. This in itself is not so bad. A person who invests his own money in a foolish enterprise loses his own money. He is worse off, but he has done no wrong. However, if he forces all his neighbors to invest in this foolish enterprise as well, he has not only made a mistake, he has wronged his neighbors. You were wrong to think that abortion involves the murder of a child, Mr. Parish — but that is no moral failing. The moral failing is when you forced others to adopt your mistake.”
“There is no child?”
“As I said, Mr. Parish, God plants no soul in a fetus until there is a brain in place.”
“How was I to know?”
“How, indeed, Mr. Parish, except perhaps through honest debate. However, you sought to sabotage honest debate by misrepresenting the case of those who disagreed with you. In essence, Mr. Parish, you lied about the beliefs of those who disagreed with you. I look at these other issues and I can understand your concern. We do not want to condone the murder of children — none of us do. However, you lied about what your opponents believed. In order to be as persuasive as possible, you asserted that your opponents held the most contemptible of beliefs. When you did this, you bore false witness against your neighbor, Mr. Parish. You claimed to be a devout believer in a system that commanded that you not bear false witness, yet you eagerly did exactly that which even you said was prohibited.”
Parish started to clench his fists in anger. “You speak as if I was the only one. Those liberals used arguments that were way too outlandish to be believed. Some said that a child had to be born to have rights. They saw nothing wrong with dismembering a fetus hours before birth and discarding it.”
“Mr. Parish, if you read in the paper that somebody had robbed a bank, do you then argue that it is permissible for you to rob a bank?”
“Of course not,” Parish scoffed.
“And if you read of a man who killed his wife and kids, do you then have the right to kill your wife and kids?”
“No. What does this have to do with . . .?”
“Does the commandment say, ’Do not bear false witness unless you have a record that somebody else has born false witness and if somebody else does it then it must be okay for you to do it as well?’ Or does it say, ’Do not bear false witness?’”
“I’m not . . .”
Lin raised his hand. “Mr. Parish, you just tried to tell me that you were justified in bearing false witness against those who disagreed with you because others were bearing false witness. I am asking you whether you believe that theft and murder is okay, as long as you have heard of somebody else committing theft and murder. If not, then why do you think God would be pleased to hear you defend deceit on the grounds that you were aware of other deceivers?”
“I was fighting to save the children!”
“Actually, you were fighting to defend sickness and suffering.”
“Those were children!”
“Are you more qualified than God to know what is or is not a child?”
Parish blinked. “No.”
“Here, you are learning that God places no soul in a child until there is a brain to hold it. God did this because he is a kind and benevolent God and wanted to make available medicine that could fight disease and reduce suffering — because, in spite of all of this talk of plagues, God gets no pleasure from seeing his children suffer. You thought that you were protecting children, but you were instead standing guard over a cache of medicine that would have done God’s children a lot of good. You prevented them from getting help, and forced them to continue suffering. You thought you were defending children, but this is what you were doing in fact.”
“How was I to know?”
“Once again, Mr. Parish, I tell you that we can consider this to be an innocent mistake. It is a mistake nonetheless, but perhaps an innocent mistake. The moral crime that I am presenting to you here is the crime of bearing false witness against those who argued against you. You asserted in your newsletters, publications, letters, and testimony, that your opponents believed something that they did not believe. You cast them as child-murderers when, in fact, they were fighters of disease and suffering. You bore false witness against them time and time again. That, itself is wrong, Mr. Parish. Furthermore, if you had engaged them in honest debate instead of launching a campaign of deception, you might have discovered the truth yourself, and learned that you were not protecting any children from murder. You would have learned that you were standing guard over a cache of medicine, and preventing it from getting to those who would have benefited.”
“How was I to know?”
Lin returned to his book and flipped through a few more pages. “This is not the only time that you defended disease, suffering, and death, Mr. Parish. You opposed the teaching of evolution. You insisted that teachers call evolution a theory, so that you can sow disbelief in the minds of students. Evolution is the science of life, Mr. Parish. The science of life is the science of medicine. We can well imagine how the forces of evil would want to draw a curtain over the science of medicine. What we want to know is why you helped them.”
“We just wanted fair treatment for other theories,” said Parish.
“All other theories?” asked Lin. He leafed several pages ahead in his book, glancing at each page. “Nothing in here suggests that you ever advocated any other theory. I have no record of you advocating that teachers mention the option in which humans landed on Earth from a distant planet. In fact, I read here that when a college assigned all incoming freshmen an assignment to write about the Muslim faith, you protested and insisted that this view not be given any hearing at all. When an elementary school teacher lead her students through a religious ritual practiced by Native Americans, you protested that as well. Where was your interest in giving all views a fair hearing then, Mr. Parish?”
Parish remained silent.
“It appears, Mr. Parish, that you once again became an agent in defense of ignorance, just as you earlier became an agent in defense of disease and suffering.”
“It is just a theory,” said Parish.
“Actually, it is the science that governs all living things on earth. God made the earth and gave it to you to take care of. You can’t take care of something unless you know how it runs. When there were just a few of you around, you could not do much damage. However, as your numbers grew, you needed a better understanding of how the whole system works.”
“Darwinism was flawed. It was clearly flawed and these scientists were talking about it as if it was fact.”
“It was fact,” said Lin.
“The Bible says that God made the earth in seven days.”
“Which Bible? Which interpretation of that Bible? Remember, there are countless Bibles and countless interpretations of each one. The one that you read — or, at least, the interpretation that you gave to it — said God made the earth in 144 standard hours. However, there were other Bibles, and other interpretations of the same Bible you read, that said no such thing. You, Mr. Parish, picked the wrong interpretation.”
“That brings up another issue,” said Lin, as he turned another page in his book. “I have a note in here concerning your arrogance, Mr. Parish. You picked one Bible and one interpretation as the one that made the most sense to you. That is fine. Yet, you presumed that you could not possibly be wrong and that if you forced this Bible and this interpretation on everybody else, you would certainly make the world better. I cannot tell you how unspeakably arrogant that is. If you risk your own soul, I cannot say much against you. It is, after all, your soul to risk. However, when you foist that error on others, you are making an arrogant presumption of infallibility that is far beyond anything that any decent person would allow himself.”
“I knew in my heart what was true.”
“Mr. Parish, I cannot begin to tell you the list of absurdities that people who come before me claim as things that they knew in their heart to be true. The crusaders and inquisitors knew in their heart that they were right. Those who burned alive those who said that the earth was not the center of the universe knew in their heart that they were right. Every crusader and suicide bomber knew in their hearts that they were right. Hitler came here claiming that he knew in his heart that he was doing God’s will. Now, this is not news to you, Mr. Parish. You already knew that there were all these people who knew in their heart that they were right — and they were wrong. This alone is enough to hold any thinking man’s arrogance in check.”
“I did not say I was perfect.”
“One sure sign of arrogance, Mr. Parish, is when an individual is so certain that he is right that he holds contempt for those who disagree with him. A person who comes along a fork in the road, where there is no clear sign whether the right road is shorter than the left, may choose the right. However, he has to be certain that he has the right answers to hold contempt for those who decide to go left. You repeatedly said that you were in a cultural war against those who decided that a different route might be better. It is not the meek man that imposes his beliefs on others. It is the arrogant man, the man who thinks that he truly knows and understands and all others are mistaken — mentally and spiritually inferior to him — who can declare war on them.”
“ I was helping them realize the truth. . .”
“Which you knew and understood with perfect clarity, Mr. Parish. Otherwise, you would have had doubt. You would have had to ask whether you were helping them realize the truth, or whether you needed some help from them to realize the truth. With so many questions to answer, and so many people answering those questions in ways you disagreed with, you must have thought quite highly of yourself to assert so strongly that your answers were right and nothing but contempt is to be had for any who thought that you were mistaken.”
Parish bit down on his lip and stared at Lin. “This is a test, isn’t it? You’re in league with the devil. This is my final test to determine if I will give up my faith. You want me to doubt my faith. That is why I am here. This is the last chance you have to capture my soul before I enter the gates of heaven and am forever beyond your grasp.”
“Or, you were seduced a long time ago and I am giving you one last chance to save yourself,” Lin said. “You were seduced by forces who turned you into an agent to promote the maltreatment of God’s creatures who were kind and considerate and wished no harm on others. You were seduced by forces who tricked you into preventing access to medicines to fight of disease and suffering by convincing you that there were children being murdered, when there were none. When these forces told you to defend yourself by bearing false witness and misstating the views of those who disagreed with you, you listened then as well. They needed somebody to defend ignorance over learning. They needed somebody who would help them to bury the knowledge of how to care for the Earth and keep it green and fruitful. Ever the faithful servant, you worked with others to bury that knowledge and promote ignorance in its place. In spite of this, a forgiving God is always eager to give you one last chance to save yourself. However, one thing he will not do is take away your free will, or force an answer upon you. So, you must choose, Mr. Paris.”
Lin closed the book and held it against his chest with both arms. “So, Mr. Parish, the time has come.”
“It is time to choose.”