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But what I wanted to highlight with this post was the way in which Heinlein's book illustrates the damage that Christians have done--and, I'm sorry to say, continue to do--to the cause of Christ. I don't know anything about Heinlein's own faith or philosophy, but I can tell you that he did his homework for this book. The main character, Alexander Hergensheimer, starts out as a conservative, fundamentalist preacher who's head of an organization called Churches United for Decency (CUD), in an alternative-universe America with only 46 states and the kind of laws fundamentalist Americans in our universe would appreciate. During a firewalking experience while on vacation in Papua New Guinea, our friend Alec finds himself in an parallel universe--the first of many--where his own morals and faith run headlong into those of cultures and Americas with decidedly different outlooks.
But although Heinlein could have resorted to the usual caricature of conservative Christians by those who are neither conservative nor Christian, he absolutely did not do so. Alec's story is told in the first person, with frequent quotations from the Bible. The character is portrayed in a completely sympathetic light, and whatever Heinlein's own predilections about faith may have been, there is not a hint of mocking or hostility toward this character. At least twice within the narrative, Alec makes a heartfelt effort to lead other characters to Christ in the context of a premillenial rapture that he is convinced is imminent (turns out he's right), and each time, the message Alec conveys is straight out of an Evangelical Christian playbook, delivered without a hint of irony or ill motive.
And yet the arc of the story is clearly not one that resonates with Christian teaching. Beyond the character's shift in his sexual standards and choice of beverages, the real issue at the climax of the story is that Yahweh doesn't play fair (a la Job), and never has. Consider this section near the end of the book:
Alec, 'justice' is not a divine concept; it is a human illusion. The very basis of the Judeo-Christian code is injustice, the scapegoat system. The scapegoat sacrifice runs all through the Old Testament, then it reaches its height in the New Testament with the notion of the Martyred Redeemer. How can justice possibly be served by loading your sins on another? Whether it be a lamb having its throat cut ritually, or a Messiah nailed to a cross and 'dying for your sins.' Somebody should tell all of Yahweh's followers, Jews and Christians, that there is no such thing as a free lunch. "Or maybe there is. Being in that catatonic condition called 'grace' at the exact moment of death--or at the Final Trump--will get you into Heaven. Right? You got to Heaven that way, did you not?"
"That's correct. I hit it lucky. For I had racked up quite a list of sins before then."
"A long and wicked life followed by five minutes of perfect grace gets you into Heaven. An equally long life of decent living and good works followed by one outburst of taking the name of the Lord in vain--then have a heart attack at that moment and be damned for eternity..."
"...I've known Him too long. It's His world, His rules, His doing. His rules are exact and anyone can follow them and reap the reward. But 'just' they are not." (Hardcover edition, pp.291-292)
OK, so first of all it's obvious in the next-to-last paragraph I quoted, that Heinlein's not referring to the "eternal security" brand of Christianity; however I doubt he'd have come out any differently in his conclusions if he were. Heinlein forces the reader face-to-face with a painful fact: the God that is portrayed by much of traditional Christian teaching is not just. No amount of wordplay can change the obvious truth of this statement. Genocide of the Canaanites, the angel of death slaughtering thousands in penalty for David's adultery, the infinite punishment of hell for the necessarily-finite violations of temporal sin, none of these is remotely akin to our basic, reasonable notion of making the punishment fit the crime. Merely shouting "but God is just" in the face of such evidence beggars belief.
I know people will defend their doctrines to the nth degree, and some will accuse me of heresy or blasphemy, but here I have to side with Heinlein's assessment (as a character says elsewhere in the book, "anyone who can worship a trinity and insist that his religion is a monotheism can believe anything--just give him time to rationalize it."
My frustration, and the one that made me finish "Job" with some sadness, is that, like so many before him and since, Heinlein may have rejected the Gospel precisely (only?) because he was fed a counterfeit "gospel!" He clearly knew--even understood--the message that churches have trumpeted for centuries. He knew all about the Old Testament sacrificial system as portrayed by Evangelicals. Like a lot of Christians, he apparently did not know that the "scapegoat" in the Old Testament wasn't sacrificed. Heinlein knew about Old Testament blood sacrifice too, again as Evangelicals teach it. He did not know that blood sacrifice in the Old Testament represents cleansing or thanksgiving, but not payment for forgiveness of sin (go back and read Leviticus!). He understood the Evangelical teaching that Jesus' death finally fulfilled the blood-for-sin paradigm upon which Penal-Substitutionary Atonement is based. But he was not equipped to realize that the PSA theory of atonement is at best a tiny fraction of the work of Jesus' death and resurrection.
Heinlein had presumably met a lot of Christians, but he had never met Jesus. How could he? The "gospel" message preached by most Christians throughout the Twentieth Century (Heinlein died in 1988) had very little Jesus in it...a "four laws and then the rapture" gospel needs Jesus for his blood and for his second coming, but completely ignores his teachings and his life, and only gives a passing nod to his resurrection. If Heinlein believed the God of Christians and Jews to be unjust, well, when did anyone in either group introduce him to the justice preached by Jesus and before him by the prophets?
And most importantly, of course, here and now and today, what portrait of God are you holding up to the world around you? If people consider your testimony of Jesus and ultimately reject him (as some will), are they rejecting the real thing?
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