L.B.: Skipping steps

Left Behind, pp. 275-281

Rayford Steele is talking to Hattie Durham (on the phone, of course).

Hattie is the flight attendant Rayford was flirting with and stringing along for years. He used to always make sure she was assigned to his flights, and they would always go out for dinner and drinks in whatever city they were staying over in. But Steele, who was married, made a point of never touching her.

Rayford was proud of this, and the authors seem to want us to share his admiration. What comes across, instead, is the sense that he's a creepy control-freak -- full of himself over his technical fidelity to his wife and even more full of himself over the idea that, if he had wanted to, he could have invited the young flight attendant back to his room at any time. Rayford was a horrible, horrible person -- unconcerned about whatever either Hattie or his wife might be thinking or feeling apart from what he imagined was their shared admiration, and desire, for him.

After The Event, everything has changed. Rayford's wife is dead and he has been born again. In the context of this book, that metaphor does not mean what it meant when Jesus used it in his rooftop conversation with Nicodemus. What it means here is that Rayford has become obsessed with pseudo-biblical "prophecy" and now regards it as his duty to explain this prophetic gnosis to others.

This duty is difficult for Rayford, since he doesn't really know anybody. Like most self-absorbed control freaks, he has no friends. He thus begins with the only two people he really knows: his daughter and Hattie.

A couple of chapters ago (i.e., earlier this same day), Rayford arranged to have Chloe ride along on a flight to Atlanta and back. He figured, correctly, that the lunchtime stopover would provide an ideal opportunity for them to have a serious talk about his newfound knowledge. At the same time, even though he is hoping for the opportunity to have the same conversation with Hattie, he has been avoiding having her assigned to any of his flights. Odd. Instead, Rayford has decided that the best setting for his gospel-ambush on Hattie would be dinner at his home, with his daughter there as chaperone.

Hattie is accustomed to mixed messages from the guy, but she is understandably confused by this latest two-step, in which he deliberately avoids her on the job while extending this unprecedented invitation to his home.

Their conversation here is too long, repetitive and garbled to allow for meaningful excerpts, but it's an interesting scene because the authors seem to be attempting something a bit more subtle than usual. I suspect that part of what they're getting at here is the futility of Rayford's "flirt to convert" approach with Hattie. Chloe has already lectured her father on this point, and she'll mention it again. He really is in no position with Hattie to attempt to evangelize her. After spending years trying to get her on her knees, he can't suddenly expect to convince her to kneel in prayer.

I wish they'd thought more about this -- about the implications of right relationship as a precondition for evangelism. That's my phrase, of course, not theirs, and I rather doubt that LaHaye and Jenkins would agree with the idea beyond its application to the narrow particulars of adultery and Rayford's clumsy attempt to witness to his former pseudo-mistress.

This is, however, an important truth, one wisely recognized by the 12-step programs. Their framework provides some insight into Rayford's troubles here, and their language provides a way of stating this without relying on seminary-classroom phrases like "right relationship as a precondition for evangelism." The Twelve Steps culminates with a kind of Great Commission "to carry this message to others." That 12th step is the final one, however, only following the 11 preceding it, including these:

8. [We] made a list of all persons we had harmed, and became willing to make amends to them all.

9. [We] made a direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others.

Rayford hasn't done this with Hattie. He has scarcely even begun to realize that he needs to. Their relationship is still governed by the predator-prey dynamic of the creepy old married guy and the young single woman. Predator-prey is not an example of right relationship between two people. Like other such examples -- master-slave, oppressor-oppressed, con-mark, abuser-abused, etc. -- this kind of relationship is not conducive to evangelism.

Again, I doubt L&J would agree with all of that. They probably wouldn't even agree with my characterization of Rayford as preying on poor Hattie. But they do, at least, seem to appreciate that their relationship is less than healthy and that therefore Rayford's attempts at evangelism are misplaced. And, notably, we can see in this passage at least the possibility that Hattie may not be wholly to blame for Rayford's thoughts of straying from his wife, even though she is a woman (and therefore sexual, and therefore dirty and evil, and therefore in need of control lest her dirty/evil/sexual ways lead men astray).

All of which is to say that I think readers are actually supposed to sympathize with Hattie, and to recognize Rayford as foolish, during this torturously long phone conversation. For example, when Hattie says that she hopes to get Buck to introduce her to Carpathia, Rayford thinks to himself that her mention of, and interest in, these other men is a "relief." Then two pages later, he jealously asks why she's "so interested in this magazine guy and the Romanian." I think this is an intentional portrayal of Rayford's contradictory impulses, although this book contains so many unintentional contradictions it's hard to say.

Throughout this conversation, Rayford keeps Hattie at arms length while cryptically suggesting that he's got something Very Important that he needs to tell her. We know, reading this, what that Very Important something is, but based on their conversation -- and their intimate-yet-platonic history -- I'm sure Hattie was thinking he was getting ready to come out of the closet:

"So, what's changed?"

"Hattie, please. I don't want to discuss this by phone."

"Then meet me somewhere."

"I can't do that. I can't leave Chloe ..."

"Then I'll come there."

"It's late."

"Rayford! Are you brushing me off?"

"If I was brushing you off, I wouldn't have invited you to dinner."

"With your daughter at your home? I think I'm getting set up for the royal brush." ...

"If I didn't want to have anything to do with you, I wouldn't have invited you over."

"I can see what that's all about, Rayford. You can't tell me I wasn't going to get the 'let's be friends' routine."

"Maybe that and a little more."

"Like what?"

"Just something I want to tell you about."

They cycle through this same conversation several times before Rayford finally blurts out what it is he wants to tell her:

"I really have something important to talk to you about."

"Tell me what it is."

"Not on the phone."

"Then I'm not coming."

"If I tell you generally, will you?"

"Depends."

"Well, I know what the disappearances were all about, all right? I know what they meant, and I want to help you find the truth."

Hattie was dead silent for a long moment. "You haven't become some kind of a fanatic, have you?"

Rayford had to think about that one. The answer was yes, he most certainly had, but he wasn't going to say that. "You know me better than that."

"I thought I did."

"Trust me, this is worth your time."

"Give me the basics, and I'll tell you if I want to hear it."

"Absolutely not," Rayford said, surprising himself with his resolve. "That I will not do, except in person."

"Then I'm not coming."

"Hattie!"

"Good-bye, Rayford."

"Hat— "

She hung up.

I really am not sure what to make of this. Rayford certainly had it coming -- she should have hung up on him several pages back. And I really do think Rayford's confused and confusing behavior earlier in this conversation is meant to be seen as such.

Yet despite all of that, Hattie's behavior in this conversation is later characterized as "nasty." And her subsequent storyline is the classic cautionary tale of the "fallen woman" -- the kind in which the authors make it clear that they think "fallen woman" is redundant. So despite the apparent criticism of Rayford's motives and timing here, we're apparently still supposed to interpret Hattie's hanging up as a rejection not simply of Rayford's clumsy overture, but of the gospel itself.

Chapter 15 thus ends with me thinking, "Good for her!" while the authors seem to be thinking, "She must suffer for this."

Comments

[andy]

"another clumsy attempt at"...what's new, not that...

[emjaybee]

YAY! LB Fridays are my favorite kind. It's like a How Not to Write course.

Poor Hattie. Her only choices are a control freak pilot who cheats on his wife and the Antichrist.

And maybe you mentioned this in the beginning, but...HATTIE? Who names their daughter Hattie? I was born in the 70s and have yet to meet a single Hattie; presumably, she'd be my age or younger. Might as well call her Brunhilde.

[J]

Predator-prey is not an example of right relationship between two people. Like other such examples -- master-slave, oppressor-oppressed, con-mark, abuser-abused, etc. -- this kind of relationship is not conducive to evangelism.

Really?

Paul had absolutely not qualms about first evangelizing a slave . . . then spinning him right around and handing him back to his former master.

So, Fred, this precondition of right relationship for evangelism: It doesn't apply anymore once you've "got 'em"?

Fuck Christianity.

[aunursa]

Hattie ends up spending much of the series resisting our heroes' attempts to save her (both physically and spiritually).

Hattie and Nicolae is your typical romance: Boy meets girl, boy knocks girl up; boy and girl get engaged; boy and girl get unegaged; boy tries to kill girl; girl tries to kill boy. Except in this case the girl is a senior flight attendant and her boyfriend the power-hungry ruler of the world and the embodiment of evil.

Finally, when Hattie does become saved (end of Book 8), she gets killed off (beginning of Book 9).

A strange character.

[the opoponax]

waitwaitwait...

Hattie has not even properly spoken to Buck, ever (aside from any exchange they may have had on the plane at the beginning of the novel). what makes her think he'll introduce her to Carpathia, a man he has not yet met himself? her only interaction with him thus far is to leave a message on his answering machine. a message she doesn't even know if he actually got. and the only way she could possibly connect him to Carpathia at this point would be if she happened to see the bit of press conference wherein Carphathia unmasked him.

i mean, this would be about the equivalent of me expecting, say, the producer Lydia Pilcher, someone who i might have exchanged 20 words with via a work situation, to introduce me to, i dunno, Jack Nicholson, someone i have no particular reason to believe she has ever met (aside from inferring that it might have happened since she recently produced a film that Angelica Huston acted in, and don't they run in the same circles?). which, even if i had some private psychotic reason to believe, i would probably not go around announcing this over dinner.

Paul had absolutely not qualms about first evangelizing a slave . . . then spinning him right around and handing him back to his former master.

Hey, reading Philemon is hardly fair. They've been trying to keep that secret by, y'know, making it part of the canon.

It is definitely one of those places that makes you stop and think, "Hey, wait a minute..."

It also seems to be a place where Jesus and Paul are incredibly contradictory, since Jesus claimed He came to proclaim a release of the captives.

But that can't be, since, y'know, the Bible is 100% literally correct and doesn't contradict itself at any time.

[carovee]

Well, Buck is the GIRAT and is presumably famous in part for all his reporting on the movers and shakers. And if we can assume that Nicolae has some kind of supernatural charm (which I know L&J haven't really established) it might make sense for Hattie to grasp at any straw in an attempt to meet him.

I actually thought the phone call between Rayford and Hattie was written more realistically than most of the passages I've read. Except that like Fred I came away with the impression that Rayford had been treating Hattie badly for some time, and she finally wised up and called him on it.

[Joshua]

"Poor Hattie. Her only choices are a control freak pilot who cheats on his wife and the Antichrist."

From what we know of Rayford, I don't blame her for choosing the antichrist. Even if he does dispassionately recite the names of positions from the Kama Sutra before going to bed with her. Every single time.

[Jesurgislac]

Joshua: Even if he does dispassionately recite the names of positions from the Kama Sutra before going to bed with her. Every single time.

*splutter* *giggle* *choke*

And Joshua wins best comment of the week award.

[Chris Archer]

Don't start on poor Philemon! Paul says this about the slave he had met while imprisoned: "He's my brother, sending him back to you will break my heart. He was a no-good piece of trash ONCE, but he has changed radically. His life has changed. Guess what? When you recieve him, you will not be getting your slave back; you'll meet your new brother!" Philemon is the shortest and one of the best books of the Bible. You all who are critiquing that use of a scriptual example- read the book first! Try to read it with an open mind. (That is impossible for me and Left Behind. Don't read that apocalyptic piece of trash with an open mind).

[Geds]

Yeah, it's hard to top that.

Although I'll bet Nicky St. Helens will not just recite the names, he'll describe the positions in great detail, too.

There's nobody better than the imaginary enemies fundie Christians at making sex boring. Except maybe the fundies themselves.

"That is impossible for me and Left Behind. Don't read that apocalyptic piece of trash with an open mind)."

Reading Left Behind with an open mind would probably poison the reader's brain. Unfortunately, far too many readers have had their minds poisoned by this crap

You all who are critiquing that use of a scriptual example- read the book first!

As the person who made the original comment, I can tell you that I have read Philemon more than a few times.

And, yes, Paul did have good things to say about Onesimus. However, somehow Paul's relationship didn't change much of anything when he commanded slaves to obey their masters and whatnot. I'm not entirely sure how he could make it a point to say that Onesimus was now a brother without at some point making issue with the situations that had in the past made people less than brothers.

When it gets right down to it, why did Paul offer two options for the "now free" Onesimus, stay and minister specifically to Paul or go back to Philemon? If Paul was actually advocating for his freedom from slavery, shouldn't the letter have said something about letting him go completely, especially since Paul offered to take on any debts himself that Onesimus had racked up through his disobedience?

It doesn't actually add up as well as I'd always been told it should.

[Geds]

Also, I was the last two anonymous posters. Not sure why my browser's decided to forget me...

[Spalanzani]

When I read the final line of this post I got a mental image of the authors glaring down at Hattie in brooding anger (for some reason my mental picture of LeHaye looks like a cross between Mr. Potter and Mr. Burns).

The further we get into this book*, the more it seems like the true villains aren't Satan, the Antichrist, or their followers but rather the authors themselves. Rather than merely being the guys telling the story, L&J act like an omnipotent force in their work. They practically control the characters at times by making them follow the script they have for the story. They reshape the geography, physics, and logic of the world to conform with their deranged perception of reality. They always make sure that the characters who displease them, like Hattie, are punished while the not-so-good Good Guys have everything go right for them. They even try to control the reader by telling them that Buck is a great reporter or that Nicky is charismatic, when this is obviously not the case. They torture the characters they've created with the horrors of the Rapture the Tribulation while trying to infect their readers with these terrible ideas. The distinction between L&J and the warped god of Left Behind seems to be very blurry.

*And by “we” I mean “Fred”. Thanks Fred!

[Izunya]

Bleh. I really dislike it when women are supposed to read the back of the book and figure out who are the good guys and who are the bad guys.

I mean, "Fully Loaded" Steele wasn't just acting slightly odd, he was being a bit creepy. And I know I, (a rather unathletic, unimposing woman who's been stalked before) get very, very cautious when guys start acting creepy. Even when I've known them for a while. If I'd gone through that conversation, I'd be confused enough to come up with all kinds of wild scenarios: including, "Rayford is about to declare his eternal love for me and then chain me up in his basement."

And the really, really irritating thing? I suspect that when women get raped or otherwise attacked, L&J are the sort of people who immediately ask, "Well, why was she dumb enough to go up to his apartment? Any moron could tell he was a Bad Guy."

This is yet another example of L&J not being able to get into their characters' heads. As far as I can tell, they don't even stop to think how this conversation sounds from the other side, let alone try to think about things from the perspective of a woman.

Izunya

[J]

Wow, Chris Archer. You're an amazing scholar. Martin Luther and John C. Calhoun BOTH got Philemon wrong, but you--you masterful fellow you--understand what it really means.

I'm a little sick of this: This assertion that the Bible means something OTHER than whatever people want it to mean. "The Bible condemns slavery!" you say. Okay, then why have Christians EVER owned slaves? More pointedly, why did THOUSANDS of Christians own MILLIONS of slaves for HUNDREDS of years?

[Geds]

Wow, Chris Archer. You're an amazing scholar. Martin Luther and John C. Calhoun BOTH got Philemon wrong, but you--you masterful fellow you--understand what it really means.

To be fair, Philemon can be taken the way Chris says. Paul isn't entirely clear on his motivations for sending Philemon back. The logical assertion is that Paul's returning a slave to his master, but the whole brother idea kind of mucks up that particular interpretation.

I tend to have more problems with Paul's claims that slaves and women and people who are generally oppressed have a responsibility to just roll over and take it, as that's a way of transmitting the Christian message.

It also pretty much indicates Onesimus should be freed, since Paul was pretty clear he wrote to Philemon as a fellow follower of Christ. Thereby, Onesimus didn't need to be a good little slave for the sake of his master's soul.

[Dahne]

It also seems to be a place where Jesus and Paul are incredibly contradictory,

That makes sense; judging by what (admittedly very little) I've heard about Paul, he was kind of a jerk. And Jesus wasn't, except for that bit about cursing the fig tree because figs weren't in season. That was kind of rude.

Anyway, LB:

Rayford was a horrible, horrible person -- unconcerned about whatever either Hattie or his wife might be thinking or feeling apart from what he imagined was their shared admiration, and desire, for him.

This is interesting for several reasons: first, because it's something L&J do not consider relevant. It's that same supplanting of the form of measurement over the factor is it supposed to measure that you were talking about a while ago in a business context. In LB-world, adultery isn't wrong because it hurts people; it's wrong because Exodus 20:14 says so.* It's a bizarre abdication of morality in the guise of pursuing it. You don't have to go to all the trouble of actually living a moral life and considering the effects of your actions on other people - you just have to make sure the box marked "physically, technically engaged in missionary-position intercourse with a person other than one's wife" stays unchecked.

Secondly, it's interesting in that Rayford, who is, I assume, as it would best fit the story they're going for (though that doesn't seem to be all that great a consideration, so it's not 100% certain), supposed to begin the story on the lowest rung of the Secular Slimeball ladder, stays a safe distance away from doing (to the L&J mindset) anything wrong. It's something I've seen before in bad transformation stories, like John Grisham's The Testament,** and it cripples them. It's squeemishness. This could be due to Rayford's status as one of the two-headed monster's Mary Sues, so even his wrost side lands firmly within the safe borders of mediocrity. But the heart of any transformation story is the route from Degenerate to Decent Human Being (unless it's about the route from salesman to giant dung beetle, but that's just if you're Austrian and weird). The whole point is that the starting position has to be somewhere truly lousy. If you half-ass it - "Well, he was bad, but not that bad" - it castrates the whole point. It's like starting Frodo off at the gates to Mordor because you don't want to go through all the trouble of getting him all the way across Middle Earth, and in that case, why are you writing it at all?

(Which is another interesting point - L&J keep reminding me of the way I used to write before I actually developed an interest in writing.)

Then there's poor, maligned, unfortunately-named-by-somebody-grandmother-in-1914 Hattie. Another thing I've noticed is that it takes real, conscious effort to keep a character from developing will and personality. You can see Hattie doing that here. She's trying to burst from the artificial confines of her preordained role, and you can see the cracks showing. While L&J's plan calls for a dull-eyed, obediant object of temptation, once it needs to provide an active role, you have to start treating it and thinking of it as something with needs, wants, and motivations; something sentient. They created Hattie as a passive object, and you can see them fighting the dawning realization that people don't act that way.

It takes real work to write anything at all without learning something That L&J apparently managed to, over the course of however-the-hell-many-books-there are, is an achievement of depressing scope.

Oh, well. At least she gets to meet Bill Sierra-Nevada.

*Except in that edition where the printer accidently left out the "not."
**Okay, so I only heard bits and pieces of it on tape while intermittantly sleeping in the car, and it's nowhere near the cataclysmic awfullness of LB, but it's still pretty bad.

[Dahne]

Holy crap, that was long. Apologies and genuflections.

[Bugmaster]

When I read the Bible, I get a feeling that it neither supports nor condemns slavery; it just treats it as a fact of life, a basic constant built into the Universe. Supporting or condemning slavery would be like supporting or condemning gravity, i.e. silly. Hence, all the rules for dealing with slaves, for dealing with one's masters, etc.: since slavery is a basic fact of life, there are God-approved ways of handling it, just as there are God-approved ways of dealing with rearing children, conceiving said children, trade, worship, finance, etc.

It took 2000+ years of cultural development to recognize the fact that slavery is not a universal constant, but an option that a society could choose to endorse (or not). We humans have made real progress between Biblical times and the 21st century.

[the mocaw]

Lying for Jesus, how wonderful. Why the heck didn't Buck Turgidson. . . I mean Rayford Steele. . . just say, "Hattie, I've got religion, and I'm turning over a new leaf." Why he has to feel like he's got to wheedle and cheat and perform a bait-and-switch for Jesus? Is he an evangelist or a used car salesman?

Re: the book of Philemon - my answer to any of those times when Paul seems to contradict Jesus is simple: "I'm a Christian, not a Paulian, so Paul must have got it wrong." This leads to the fact that sometimes I feel like giving up on Christianity and becoming a Jew for Jesus: I hear if you want to convert to Judaism, the rabbi will take you aside and say, "Really, you know, you really shouldn't do this," because they don't expect you to convert unless you're fully willing to accept all that implies.

Heh, I wonder how bizarre that would look, a full-blooded Korean in a yarmulke. :P

One last note: if you think Left Behind was bad, check out Babylon Rising. I stopped reading about the time that the Mysterious Cloaked Figure in Black told an assassin over the phone that "We must strike back at the most destructive force to our secret evil agenda: EVANGELICAL CHRISTIANS!" I laughed so hard I nearly tore the page out the book.

[Bugmaster]

@Dahne:

It's a bizarre abdication of morality in the guise of pursuing it. You don't have to go to all the trouble of actually living a moral life and considering the effects of your actions on other people...

This is why, when fundamentalist-ish Christians claim that Christianity is the only possible foundation for a moral life, I like to point out that they're being moral despite Christianity, not because of it. They honestly believe that hurting people is wrong, and try to live their lives as decent human beings, when in reality what's required of them is blind obedience to their deity. Some go so far as to say that if God told them to kill someone, they wouldn't do it -- which is pretty much blasphemy, and grounds for smiting. :-)

unless it's about the route from salesman to giant dung beetle, but that's just if you're Austrian and weird

Lol ! You win the Bugmaster award for Best Literary Allusion.

[LL]

RE "What comes across, instead, is the sense that he's a creepy control-freak -- full of himself over his technical fidelity to his wife..." - maybe this has been discussed in previous posts/threads, but it just kinda jumped out at me. Yeah, for people who are supposedly way more concerned with your immortal soul than your body, many Christians seem to be really fixated on the physical, esp in regards to sex. They think homosexual sex is evil and dirty and horrible, sex between unmarried people is wrong, masturbation is wrong, abortion is wrong, etc. So to Pilot Boy, the fact that he's done everything but have sexual relations with that woman makes him relatively blameless as far as infidelity goes. I vaguely recall him mentioned as feeling kinda guilty about "leading her on," but for the most part, score one for him for not boning the stewardess, even though he could have. I think most people (women, anyway, although I could be wrong about that) would say that he's already committed infidelity, he just hasn't consummated it. I'm not married, but I get the feeling most married people feel that anything somebody does with someone else that they should be doing with their spouse (dinners, phone conversations, correspondence, sex) is infidelity. Just an observation, may not mean much...

[Hames]

[i]Even if he does dispassionately recite the names of positions from the Kama Sutra before going to bed with her. Every single time.[/i]

In how many languages?

[Erick Oppeen]

Hattie Durham's name sounds Southern, somehow...at least to me. I don't think I've ever known a "Hattie."

And while I can agree that Rayford didn't treat her well, she chose to stay around and put up with it, which gives me a pretty poor image of her intelligence and self-respect, or, otherwise, an impression that her motives were just as "creepy" as his were. Like, say, liking the feeling of being the Big Temptress luring the High-Status Married Man away from his chaste, pure wife. And knowing that she won't have to consumnate things...it's having her cake and eating it, too. She might not be into sex full stop so much as just playing footsie with someone she knows should be off-limits.

Of course, around here, it's pretty much a Given that Rayford and the GIRAT are creeps and morons. Even granting that, it doesn't make Hattie ("my name's Hattie, my IQ is flat-tie, darn, that makes me mad!") a particularly worthwhile or nice person.

Personally, I'd say that most of the main characters so far, except Chloe, would make anybody regret that Noah and company didn't miss the boat.

[Tara the anti-social social worker]

I realize it's a minor wrong in the mountains of wrongness here, but since when do pilots get to decide which flight attendants are on their flights?

[B-W]

Hattie Durham's name sounds Southern, somehow...at least to me. I don't think I've ever known a "Hattie."

Well, Hattie Durham is "Southern" in pretty much exactly the same way as Nicolae Carpathia is "Romanian," so yeah....

[the opoponax]

"she chose to stay around and put up with it, which gives me a pretty poor image of her intelligence and self-respect, or, otherwise, an impression that her motives were just as "creepy" as his were."

i'm not even going to touch this, unless jesu wants to chime in with me.

[Cactus Wren]

'Way back in one of the earliest entries, Fred pointed out:

The name of the woman about whom Steele is fantasizing is "Hattie Durham." (Eldridge Cleaver could have written volumes trying to unpack all the Southern sexual myths crammed into that name.)

[Ken]

Rather than merely being the guys telling the story, L&J act like an omnipotent force in their work.

Isn't that usually called "Playing God"?

They practically control the characters at times by making them follow the script they have for the story.

Add "Total Predestination" to the above.

They reshape the geography, physics, and logic of the world to conform with their deranged perception of reality.

You know, this is sounding less like Christianity and more like Islam, where geography/physics/logic work only because God Wills It at the moment -- "INSHALLAH!" -- and God's Will can change at any moment on any whim.

They always make sure that the characters who displease them, like Hattie, are punished while the not-so-good Good Guys have everything go right for them.

And on top of this, LaHaye & Jenkins are vengeful gods...

And while I can agree that Rayford didn't treat her well, she chose to stay around and put up with it, which gives me a pretty poor image of her intelligence and self-respect, or, otherwise, an impression that her motives were just as "creepy" as his were.

You do realize that LH&J are writing her as a weak-minded, vamp don't you? They don't exactly specialize in rounded characters. And, is there a more stereotypical male/female job constellation than pilot/stewardess? Pure Coffee, Tea, or Me.

[Ken]

One last note: if you think Left Behind was bad, check out Babylon Rising. I stopped reading about the time that the Mysterious Cloaked Figure in Black told an assassin over the phone that "We must strike back at the most destructive force to our secret evil agenda: EVANGELICAL CHRISTIANS!" -- Mocaw

(Charlie Brown sigh) Wish-fulfillment for Culture War Christians.

And Mysterious Cloaked Figure in Black (TM) and Secret Evil Agenda (TM)?

Mocaw, that sounds like a drooling fanboy's attempt at a pulp thriller. All that's missing is "THE SPIDER -- MASTER OF MEN!" instead of "EVANGELICAL CHRISTIANS!" and the ominous cackling supervillain voice. (And at least when one of his villains tried to take over the world, Norvell Page delivered over-the-top in-your-face slam-bang action instead of talking-head phone conversations...)

[Ken]

When I read the Bible, I get a feeling that it neither supports nor condemns slavery; it just treats it as a fact of life, a basic constant built into the Universe. Supporting or condemning slavery would be like supporting or condemning gravity, i.e. silly. Hence, all the rules for dealing with slaves, for dealing with one's masters, etc.: since slavery is a basic fact of life, there are God-approved ways of handling it, just as there are God-approved ways of dealing with rearing children, conceiving said children, trade, worship, finance, etc. -- Bugmaster

Slavery was universal in pre-industrial societies, a Natural Law of the Universe. So it had always been -- "A fish doesn't know it's wet."

I can't remember whether this is Lewis or Chesterton, but the line went (from memory) "He (Christ) didn't preach against slavery. He just founded a movement that could exist in a world with slavery, and could exist in a world without slavery. Nothing he taught was dependent on any external social institution, whether of His time or ours."

It took 2000+ years of cultural development to recognize the fact that slavery is not a universal constant, but an option that a society could choose to endorse (or not). We humans have made real progress between Biblical times and the 21st century. -- Bugmaster

And it took over 1800 years AD before even Christians got a clue along those lines. Again, a fish doesn't know it's wet.

While I have heard that Islam not only accepts slavery as the natural order of things (as it was in ancient/medieval Arabia), but goes so far as to say slavery is commanded by God. (I don't know whether this is word-for-word in their holy books or an interpretation; given as how the classic Islamic interpretation is hyper-literalism -- the Koran was dictated word-for-word by God to Mohammed -- I suspect the former. In Iraq a year or two ago, didn't Muqty al-Sadr exhort his followers to cut off the heads of the male Infidel soldiers and take the female ones as slaves?)

In the 21st Century, the African slave trade is back as it was in the days of Dr Livingston, with Muslims back as the slavers and main customers. ("The Slave Belt" stretches from Sudan to Mauretania, with their major customers said to be the Saudis and Libyans.)

[Izunya]

LL wrote: [i]I'm not married, but I get the feeling most married people feel that anything somebody does with someone else that they should be doing with their spouse (dinners, phone conversations, correspondence, sex) is infidelity. Just an observation, may not mean much...[/i]

I'd say you've been hanging out with some really jealous married people. I mean yeah, sex---most marriages contain an implicit or explicit agreement that the other party is your one and only sexual partner. But phone conversations? [i]Correspondence?[/i] No. You're allowed to have friends outside of marriage. In fact, you [i]should[/i] have friends outside of marriage. And if your husband/wife freaks out about this, there may be something wrong.

No, when people talk about emotional adultery, I think they're mostly talking about almost-romance situations---quasi-dates and maybe-assignations and the strong impression that these two people would be doinking their brains out if they only had a risk-free opportunity. Most of the time, when I see people talking about emotional adultery on the web, the underlying message is, "He's treating me like I'm not important anymore. He's treating her like she's me, only new and better." The problem isn't the friendship, the problem is betrayal.

A corollary: sleeping around in an open marriage would not be betrayal, therefore it is not adultery. Some people have an agreement that their spouse [i]can[/i] have sex with other people. I am not really sure how this works, but so long as they're happy, it's neither my desire nor my place to criticize. I've often thought that we might be much happier if we'd evolved from bonobos anyway.

Izunya

[Bugmaster]

As my friend explained to me, an open relationship means that you sleep with whomever you want, but you reserve your emotional love for your one and only Significant Other; i.e., in software engineering terms, an open relationship decouples sex from love. The friend in question has been in an open relationship with his girlfriend for, oh, probably about 8 years now, and they're both pretty happy, so there's at least one case where an open relationship does work quite well.

[Tehanu]

I'm not married, but I get the feeling most married people feel that anything somebody does with someone else that they should be doing with their spouse (dinners, phone conversations, correspondence, sex) is infidelity. Just an observation, may not mean much...

Izunya beat me to it. I've been married for 32 years, and I think only really, really insecure people think that talking on the phone or having dinner with a friend of the opposite sex = adultery. Having a ROMANTIC dinner or a phone sex conversation -- well, that's another story. But couples who insist that they never do anything separately? That's not a marriage, it's a prison sentence.

[Hob]

Not to detour the discussion entirely into Northern California territory, but to the previous two comments I'll just say that when it comes to fidelity there are clearly more than two or three kinds of marriages (or marriage-like relationships), and each kind can work well or badly for different people. Some people get jealous about a phone call, some don't care where your pants have been as long as you never said the L-word, and many have made up some combination of rules in between: don't tell me anything, tell me everything, make sure you're here at least 4 nights a week, only go on a date if I have a date too, make sure it's someone I like, make sure I never see them, don't call them a girlfriend/boyfriend unless it's really serious, don't be really serious, don't do X/Y/Z except with me, just make sure you make me chicken soup when I have a cold, etc. Some people handle that very well and treat everyone with respect, and others manage to be just as weaselly and self-deceiving as Rayford regardless of how much license they have; that's a universal human risk, not just for religious reactionaries.

[Randy Owens]

Bugmaster:

As my friend explained to me, an open relationship means that you sleep with whomever you want, but you reserve your emotional love for your one and only Significant Other; i.e., in software engineering terms, an open relationship decouples sex from love.

That's not what "an open relationship means"; that's one form of open relationship. Some people in open relationships allow each other to love freely; for others, it has to remain purely physical.

And, I haven't actually read Metamorphosis or anything else of his, but I've picked up enough that I think I can guess that that was a Kafka thing up above, right?

[Zorya]

Hattie Durham's name sounds Southern, somehow...at least to me. I don't think I've ever known a "Hattie."

I must ask...does she have a brother named "Raleigh"?

[Darcy Pennell]

Hattie's lame brother is named Raleigh. Her cool brother is named Chapel Hill.

[Mabus]

When I read the Bible, I get a feeling that it neither supports nor condemns slavery; it just treats it as a fact of life, a basic constant built into the Universe. Supporting or condemning slavery would be like supporting or condemning gravity, i.e. silly. Hence, all the rules for dealing with slaves, for dealing with one's masters, etc.: since slavery is a basic fact of life, there are God-approved ways of handling it, just as there are God-approved ways of dealing with rearing children, conceiving said children, trade, worship, finance, etc. -- Bugmaster

Slavery was universal in pre-industrial societies, a Natural Law of the Universe. So it had always been -- "A fish doesn't know it's wet."

I can't remember whether this is Lewis or Chesterton, but the line went (from memory) "He (Christ) didn't preach against slavery. He just founded a movement that could exist in a world with slavery, and could exist in a world without slavery. Nothing he taught was dependent on any external social institution, whether of His time or ours."--Ken

I could be mistaken, but I'm fairly certain there were small anti-slavery movements in the first and second centuries, or somewhere thereabouts, at least in the sense that Christians were urged to free their slaves. Of course, they got nowhere.

It seems to me that what Bugmaster is seeing is not so much the assumption of slavery-as-a-fact-of-life as slavery-as-a-fact-of-the-law. Roman law created harsh penalties for runaways, and the only person who could normally do the freeing was the "owner". (I would guess in theory you could be ordered to free your slave by the government, but I doubt if this ever happened.) As long as Philemon was a runaway, he and anyone who helped him were in serious danger of life and limb. The only way of abolishing slavery in that time period--if indeed it could have been done at all--would have been a violent revolution against Rome, at very low odds of success. (Not to mention starting revolutions is not exactly "loving your neighbor" either...)

[Bugmaster]

But the OT talks about slavery, as well (in a language that suggests that life without slavery is a contradiction in terms), and so does Enuma Elish. So, if slavery is a fact of the law, that law predates Rome.

[Ursula L]

"she chose to stay around and put up with it, which gives me a pretty poor image of her intelligence and self-respect, or, otherwise, an impression that her motives were just as "creepy" as his were."

The whole back-story for the Hattie/Rayford "relationship" strikes me as textbook workplace sexual harassment. He may not be having sex with her, but she's assigned to work with him, and he creates what must be a very uncomfortable, sexually charged atmosphere.

Bearing in mind that her "adoration" is seen through his eyes, not hers, it can probably be discounted as showing her actual motives. Even her questions about his family's well-being could be read as trying to keep the conversation on neutral subjects, and reminding him of why he should be leaving her alone. If the airline's human resource department is as heartless as Rayford, (or heartless enough to keep Rayford where he is without some type of control over his behavior) she doesn't have much choice but to put up with his nonsense, and try to navigate it as best she can. If she tells him to buzz off, he is in a position to take her job, or prevent her from getting raises/bonuses, etc.

Carpathia may be the one guy in the LB universe powerful enough to protect her from L&J's obsession with Rayford's obsession with her.

[Reverend Ref]

Izunya said: And the really, really irritating thing? I suspect that when women get raped or otherwise attacked, L&J are the sort of people who immediately ask, "Well, why was she dumb enough to go up to his apartment? Any moron could tell he was a Bad Guy."

I disagree. I think LaJenkins would immediately state, "Well, if she didn't dress so provocatively she wouldn't have gotten raped."

Because, you know, it's always the woman's fault for encouraging . . . shit, I can't even type the rest of that sentence and not feel sick.

How about something a little more lighthearted:

Zorya said: I must ask . . . does she have a brother named "Raleigh"?

No . . . LaJenkins would name him "Bull."

[Izunya]

Actually, Reverend, that was sort of my point. In the heads of guys like this, it is always the woman's fault one way or another. So if someone goes to dinner with a creepy guy and finds herself tied up in his basement, she's to blame for it somehow. But if she decides to play it safe and not go to dinner with the creepy guy, at least unless he can give her some plausible reason why it's so extra-especially vital she come over, then she's a cold b---h and will probably end up dating the Antichrist.

Izunya

[Randy Owens]

Ursula L:

Bearing in mind that her "adoration" is seen through his eyes, not hers, it can probably be discounted as showing her actual motives.

So much for LH&J's use of the third-person (limited, omniscient, or omnipotent (see last week)) point of view.

I think her brother would be named Bull, too.

[bulbul]

Nicky St. Helens
Doesn't count. Mountain RANGES, people!

[bulbul]

Dahne,

but that's just if you're Austrian and weird
I really hate to do that, but someone has to and hey, I appreciate irony as much as the next guy. So he're we go:
Czech. Not Austrian, Czech.

[bulbul]

It took 2000+ years of cultural development to recognize the fact that slavery is not a universal constant... -- Bugmaster
And it took over 1800 years AD before even Christians got a clue along those lines.
Huh? In European history, there are countless examples of Christians buying out slaves believing Jesus commanded them to, going back as far as 9th century AD.

Islam, where geography/physics/logic work only because God Wills It at the moment -- "INSHALLAH!" -- and God's Will can change at any moment on any whim.
Oh goodie, another expert on Islam! Or, to put it less politely, bullshit.
Quran 18:23 et al. is all about future which is uknown to us and only known to God. God's will does not change "on any whim", it has been displayed by Creation and by the Quran.

While I have heard that Islam not only accepts slavery as the natural order of things (as it was in ancient/medieval Arabia), but goes so far as to say slavery is commanded by God.
No it doesn't. According to the Quran, freeing of slaves is one the most noble deeds a believer can perform. While Quran does not forbid slavery, both its text and the sunna strongly discourage it. And then there is the whole question of how the slaves were treated.

given as how the classic Islamic interpretation is hyper-literalism
Again, huh? Classic islamic interpretation basically amounts to "just what the fuck does this word mean"? Try Tafsir al-Jalalayn, for example, which is basically a linguistic commentary on words a common reader would not understand.
You want hyperliteralism? Well then you've come to the right place!