megwrites | A moment of "oh, no they didn't!"

Urban fantasy author J.F. Lewis gets booted out of his church because of the novel he wrote.

Yes, this guy was kicked out of his church for writing a novel about vampires and "committing the sins contained within it".

I don't know where to start with the facepalm and the headdesk, but let me enumerate my bewilderment list style

1) A church is kicking someone out for sinning. That is, as I said in comments, pretty much doing it wrong. If the core of the Christian faith is the forgiveness of sins and redemption through faith in Jesus, then banning someone from church for sinning, thus distancing them from seeking forgiveness through the church community, is basically proving that you have no understanding of your own faith.

Not to mention that I want to know what the hierarchy of sins is for kicking people out. I wonder, is it okay if you're cheating on your spouse, if you look at kiddie porn, if you raped some woman at a party because she was drunk and you felt entitled? Is it okay if you're embezzling thousands from your company? Is it okay if you work for an HMO who denies people life-saving treatment so that your company's CEO can buy another house in the Hamptons?

Actually, I don't wonder. I happen to know, from my own experience, that churches tend to talk out of both sides of their mouths about this sort of thing. It's human nature. Churches are also communities, and communities have unwritten rules of membership. This church obviously couldn't handle someone who wrote about vampires among their community, because it violated the image they wanted of themselves.

I do not mean this to insult any of those who are church-going, because I also understand that every church is different, that where some are quite close minded, some are open hearted and genuinely committed to their faith. Some churches would probably embrace having an author in their midst, and would be just fine with what Mr. Lewis has written.

But those churches have an image of themselves which is truer to the spirit of Christianity, I believe.

2) The fact that these people can't tell fact from fiction, or separate what an author writes from what they do says a lot about them.

Ugh. People who automatically believe that an author endorses and participates in everything they write just automatically loses talking privileges, at least as far as I'm concerned. If you're such a person, go slap yourself repeatedly in the face and save me the trouble, please. In fact, keep slapping yourself until you can make the distinction.

If your thought patterns aren't sophisticated enough to make this distinction and you're not a young child (who can be forgiven not having the brain development), I have no use for you and I tend to be rather prickly to useless people.

If J.K. Rowling isn't shipping her kids off to wizarding school and flying around on a broomstick, then I think Mr. Lewis probably stays away from any kind of blood drinking. Not that I know the man's personal life, but I'm pretty sure he isn't a vampire.

3) They honestly believe that vampires exist? Because you'd have to in order to believe that the sins within the book were actually committed at all.

People who actually believe vampires exist also need to go stand on that side of the internet. Believing that the kind of vampires written about in books exists means ignoring the laws of science to a degree that even the Creationists would marvel at. You have to ignore the basic facts of biology and physics, and by ignore, act like everything we've discovered scientifically since the Enlightenment didn't happen.

4) There is no four. Just me, still shaking my head.

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Sounds like his church is full-on stupid and therefore not worth attending anyway.

I guess they're doing the "flee the very appearance of evil" thing.

But the whole "committing the sins within" thing? Did they mean vampirism? Is that really anti-Christian?

I mean, you know, Communion.

Sounds like his church is full-on stupid and therefore not worth attending anyway.

That was one of my initial thoughts, anyway, but still that's gotta suck. I've always wondered how you get booted out of church - I mean, do they take out a restraining order, do they ask you nicely not to come, what? Does the pastor make the decision, or is it a council?

I mean, you know, Communion.

Yeah. Early mistrust of Christianity from other religions had a lot of problem with the "eating the body/blood of Christ" thing, because a lot of pagans found it to be too close to actual cannibalism for their liking.

One of the things that irritates me about certain individual Christians and Christian sects is that they tend to look down and laugh at other people's rituals and beliefs, seeing them as either ridiculous or evil, but don't realize that their own views and beliefs are rather strange.

I find arguments about transubstantiation to be utterly ridiculous. I can't help but wonder about the kind of logic someone uses to explain why they think that God magically turns a piece of stale bread into flesh in someone's mouth.

Frankly, if you believe in that sort of thing, more power to you, but you've got no business laughing at anyone else's beliefs.

Early mistrust of Christianity from other religions had a lot of problem with the "eating the body/blood of Christ" thing, because a lot of pagans found it to be too close to actual cannibalism for their liking.

I don't mean to be rude in your LJ, but that is so completely untrue. Non-Christian faiths at the time of the genesis of Christianity actually complained vociferously their disgust that the Christians had stolen Pagan religious forms lock, stock, and barrel, with no credit given. There were no pagans at that time complaining about cannibalism.

I don't mean to be rude in your LJ, but that is so completely untrue.

Forgive me, then, if I sound even ruder in saying, yes it is. And if you'll give me a few days to dig up all the old materials from the years of history I took in college, I'll quote you from the Roman writers who were contemporary sources and accused the fledgling Christian faith of such things.

Non-Christian faiths at the time of the genesis of Christianity actually complained vociferously their disgust that the Christians had stolen Pagan religious forms lock, stock, and barrel, with no credit given.

First, which non-Christian faiths, and which pagans? "Pagan" is such a general term as to be utterly useless when discussing history, especially if you intend on correcting a person on theirs. Are you referring to the Romans? Greeks? To any of the many mystery cults (from various parts, including Egypt) from which Christianity did borrow many things?

Or, are you referring to the later acquisition of rituals from European/Teutonic peoples during the conversion of those areas?

Please, be specific.

Well, I personally only used "Pagans" because you did yourself, but in fact that would be incorrect. Those faiths were pre-Christian, but would not have self identified as "Pagan" in any way. Greeks and Romans of the era did not consider themselves "Pagan", and that's who I was thinking of.

Anyway... well Euripides refers to bread and wine as the two powers supreme in human affairs (in The Bacchae), communion with the god through consuming the god's flesh/blood is found in the Egyptian Book of the Dead. The Mithras cult had 6 sacraments which correspond exactly to those of the Catholic church. Celsus complained the Christians were corrupting the truth by stealing ideas from those whom we would call classical philosophers (translation from Hoffman). Sorry this is not more complete, I am going off the top of my head here.

But yes, I would very much like to have your list of Roman writers and where they said these things. That would be great. Perhaps I am thinking of an earlier time period than you were referring to. I just went and looked at your user page and I see you had a minor in Classics.

I don't really know anything about the European or Teutonic conversion; that is not my area of study.

Amen and DUH.

If they kicked him out for writing about child abuse and cannibalism, wouldn't THAT be all full of irony.

Good grief!

Let's see. Following this flawed logic, I've written poems about the Unseelie Court and the Sluagh, so I must secretly worship the evil fay. I've also written poems about space vampires, so maybe I'm really a space vampire in disguise, sent to drain the lifeblood of all humanity. I've also composed a poem about a man with gremlins in his brain, so I must have little demons running around in my head. More than one of my narrators has committed suicide, so I must be the Dr. Kevorkian of poets, encouraging my readers to do themselves in.

Rubbish! The church in question must be run by loonies.

I was following links to find this out but...what church exactly was it that did the booting? Your link leads to someone else's post about it, but no more details.

I read your source link and it told me what book he wrote -- i was surprised to find I was familiar with it. I tried to read it, probably a year or so ago. It was not for me so I gave up on it. But I'd like to know more details of this situation. Because really, it is sounding like the church is the big bad here.

I have no information on what church that did the booting, nor did

mizkit post any information about it, though I believe she links to the author's own site. You'll have to inquire there or at the blog of the author in question if you want to know that.

In comments at the post I linked to, there is a remark (http://mizkit.livejournal.com/410104.html?thread=3600376#t3600376) by

mizkit that the author did not mention it on his professional website, but that there is information in the comments on the Asimov's site.

Again, questions would be better asked there.

Thank you for the comment link. I did read that post but not all 40 or so comments.

A moment of "oh, no they didn't!"

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