7/09/2005

[God] is not an insurance agent.

It's a quote from The War of the Worlds. The narrator, who is running from the advancing Martian attack, runs into a curate whose mind has collapsed in response to the mass destruction. The editor's notes comment on Wells' portrayal of the impotency of the clergy as a representation of the outdated institution of religion, etc. The implication is that Wells is decidedly anti-clergy, if not anti-Christian in general. Nevertheless, I like the quote. When the curate bemoans the destruction and repeatedly asks why it has happened, citing such childish remonstrances as the church they just built and the great work they've done in the community, the narrator responds with "He is not an insurance agent."

I watched a sermon last night by a local charismatic pastor. In the course of his sermon, he asserted that Christians are not supposed to "barely get by." Typical prosperity teaching, I found it ironic that this man who, I believe, has a true faith in Christ believes he is insured against poverty (which he defines as "barely getting by;" lacking basic needs, which others consider poverty, is "bondage") because of his faith; meanwhile, this at-best-deist speaker in Wells' novel openly acknowledges the truth that God's rain falls on just and unjust alike.

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