Persecution 3

Thereasa sat watching a video on a big mobile phone.  It was laid flat with its back on the coffee table so the voice of the preacher became sharp and crisp.  The preacher looked like a black African and had a strong English working class accent.
"The Bible says, 'no man knows the hour.'  But that doesn't mean that no one can know the time at all.  Read your Bible properly."
"Thereasa, I don't know why you're so obsessed with all that end time rubbish," said Mikey.
"It's good rubbish," said Thereasa.  "Listen to him."
"Jesus is coming soon.  Jesus is coming very soon indeed.  Look at all the signs.  The gospel is being preached to the ends of the earth.  In 2035 the Bible was translated, using computers, into the world's last few remaining languages.  Persecution of Christians is happening right across the world.  Now there are Christians going to prison in England.  The anti-christ could be having breakfast at this very moment."

 

At that moment two slices of toast popped up out of the toaster in the kitchen at Newcastle Cathedral.  The person who spread polyunsaturated margarine on them was Bishop Brenda Broadway.  She put the toast on a little plate and carried it past the huge boards that were covered in notices announcing 'The Ten Commandments in All the World's Religions' to a small office upstairs where the Council of Faiths were having breakfast together.  The Bishop joined the others who were sat around a little table.
"Coffee, Brenda?" asked Reverend Michael Lines.
"Decaffinated please, with skimmed milk," she said, sitting down to eat her toast while Michael made her a cup of coffee.
"I'm so busy," said John.  "I have to go to so many meetings.  I've got no time to myself.  I've got to go to the mosque on Friday afternoon, the synagogue on Saturday morning, evangelism with the Jehovah's Witnesses on Saturday afternoon, church on Sunday morning and Sunday lunch at the Good Without God Humanist church."
"Does all of this convince you that all religions are basically the same?" asked Michael.
"It just convinces me that they're all completely different," said John.  "They just have certain things in common, like the ten commandments.  Morality.  More than one religion believes in the same God, but not all of them."
"What is the real God like?" asked Michael.
"You don't know," said Julie.  "Is God out there or is he only in here?"  She pointed at her chest.
"How do you reconcile the apparent contradictions between the Bible and the Koran?" asked Michael.
"Those are all differences that people have added to religion," said Julie.  "I'm sure if you sat the Buddha, the prophet Mohammed and Jesus together in a pub, they'd find plenty of common ground."
"What would they say to each other?" asked Michael.
"Perhaps they'd say that this marvellous thing we call religion is just a transcendtal renewal and rediscovery of our own humanity."
"What does that mean?"
"I don't know," said Julie.  "Someone said it at university.  It sounds good, though, doesn't it?  What do you think, Brenda?  Do you understand a transcendtal rediscovery and renewal of our own humanity?"
"When your mind constructs an image of a God who is bigger than yourself, your mind is renewed.  That's the transcendental part. By attaching our minds to the external image of God, charity, compassion and humanity are renewed."
"That's true regardless of whether or not God physically exists," says John.  "You don't have to believe in God to be a Christian, and you don't have to be a Christian to believe in God.  As long as I've got God inside my head, my moral compass has something to point at, and I become a moral person."
"I think all religions are basically the same," said Asif, who was a muslim Imam.  "At least, basically the same as mine.  God the unknowable, God the incomprehensible. God who keeps his promises when he feels like it.  I'm just like anybody else, I don't know where I'm going when I die."
"We are all muslims," said Jevon, the Mormon Priest.  "A prophet is responsible for bringing the word of God to each generation."
"Who was the prophet of my generation?" asked Micheal.
"You're an old man now, Michael," said Julie.  "The prophet of the late 20th century could have been Cliff Richard."

 

"We have come here today to begin work on a new translation of the Bible which is fair to all the world's religions," said Carol.
"I don't think we'll call it a Bible," said Brenda.
"What will you call it?" asked Michael.
"Looking for God in the Scriptures."
"Why looking for God?"
"Because you haven't found him yet," said John.  "God is still a field of search for many people.  We are always changing our minds about God but trust that God will be there at the end of our pilgrimage."
"I thought they already had an interfaith Bible," said Julie.
"It was rewritten by Zondervan when they got taken to court for printing a Bible that said that homosexuality was wrong," said Brenda.  "They just cut various bits out and renumbered the chapters and pages.  It's never been done by a proper translation committee, by theological people who actually understand religion.  And our book isn't just the Jewish and Christian Bible with all the offensive bits removed.  It's a scientific study and will contain scriptures from all the world's religious traditions, including the Koran, the Hindu Vedas and the Book of Mormon."
"Where do we start?" asked Carol.  "The Bible is such a big book, and all the more so if we have to include scripture from all the world's religions."
"Why don't we just do a few pages every week?" asked Asif.  "Then within five years we'll have finished the whole project."
"On the first page of the Bible, there's the creation of the world," said Carol.  "We could have six pages of the big bang theory and evolution."
"I don't think you'll find many Christians who don't believe in it," said Brenda.
"Can we also have some Hindu prayers, praising the creator of the universe?" asked Julie.
"Excellent idea," said Asif.  "There's a story about Adam and Eve in the Koran.  We could have that instead of the next few pages of Genesis."
"Abraham's the father of everybody," said Carol.  "The stories of Abraham should be in it."
"And the prophet Moses," said Asif.
"You can forget about Sodom and Gomorrah," said John.
"Where are they?" asked Julie.
"If you had a Bible printed in the 20th century you would know," said Michael.  "And which of his sons did Abraham put on the altar ready to sacrifice?"
"I've never been sure," said Jevon.  "It's too controversial.  Miss it out."

 

Several years later Mikey had ordered a new Bible from Amazoogle.  He was walking around, waving it angrily and excitedly.
"Look at this," he said to Thereasa.  "The new study Bible.  'Looking for God in the Scriptures.'  I don't know how they can call this a Bible at all."  He thumbed through the pages.  "The Genesis account of creation has been replaced by the Big Bang Theory and Evolution.  The Garden of Eden has been replaced with a story about Adam and Eve from the Koran.  The stories of Abraham are still there, although not Sodom and Gomorrah, and there are 125 Psalms, instead of the original 150, and some Hindu prayers amongst them.  This is terrifying.  One day all Bibles will be like this."
"What are we going to do?" asked Thereasa.
"We'll have to make absolutely sure that we preserve the old Bibles.  They're going to be in short supply.  Cut the pages out with a pocket knife and put them in little envelopes.  Then we can share them between hundreds of people."  Mikey found an old Bible with a damaged cover.  Good, thought Mikey, an old Bible that nobody wanted.  He picked up his pocket knife.  Now to chop some pages out of it and put them in envelopes, like they did seventy years ago in the Soviet Union.  Mikey would be leading the Tuesday night Bible study meeting and would demonstrate his technique to ensure that the real Bible was never forgotten.

 

On Tuesday night, Mikey sat leading the meeting with the battered old Bible on one arm of his chair and Looking for God in the Scriptures on the other.
"I do not like my new Bible," he told the group, taking Looking for God in the Scriptures and thumbing through its pages.  "The creation story in Genesis has been replaced by six pages of evolution and the big bang theory.  This isn't a Bible at all.  It contains stories from the Koran.  It might contain the Bible, but it's difficult how much of it is from the Bible and how much of it isn't."
"The Antichrist has come," said Thereasa.  "Our salvation is nearer now than when we first believed."
"Well Thereasa, you could be right," said Mikey.  "We must try hard to preserve the original Scriptures.  I want to demonstrate how they did this 70 years ago in the Soviet Union.  I cut some pages from this old Bible and put them in these envelopes."  There were 3 envelopes stuffed full of pages.  He passed them around the group.
"What have you done to my Bible?" asked Stanley.
"I thought it was an old one nobody wanted," said Mikey.
"No it wasn't."
"The cover's torn."
"Of course it is.  I've had it for 30 years.  It was a present from my mother."
"Stanley," said Pastor David, "Mikey is doing his best to try and save western Christianity from being absorbed into Secular Humanism.  Isn't that more important than you having your personal Bible, which was a present from your mother?"
"It was my fortieth birthday present," said Stanley.
"I would be perfectly happy to let Mikey have all my old Bibles," said Mark, "even the ones of sentimental value, and he may subject them to the same treatment.  The pages are divided into two columns.  You could cut them down the middle and divide each Bible into 1500 half pages.  Then you could borrow each half page for a week, write it all down in your notebook, and pass it on to somebody else.  Each of us could memorise a thousand Bible verses over the course of a lifetime.  That way, thousands of people could be reached with one Bible."
"Wouldn't you like your Bible to be shared with thousands of other Christians who will probably never see a real Bible?" asked Sarah.
"No I would not," said Stanley.
"You have to admit it's a great idea," said Pastor David.
"I'm still not very happy about it," said Stanley.  "Being a Christian has cost me dearly.  I was in prison for my faith, and all I could do was write out verses I could remember from that Bible in my little notebook."
"Then you should understand the importance of what Mikey is saying," said Sarah.
"Why does it have to be my Bible?" asked Stanley.  "Mikey the scissors demon, going round the whole house, cutting up any Bible that he finds, doesn't matter who it belongs to."
"Feel free, Mikey," said Pastor David.  "If that's what you're going to do, cut up as many Bibles as you want to."

 

At the Super Apostolic weekend Billy Graham David Watson stood on the stage.
"If you have a Bible that was printed on paper before 2030, can you put them in the black bins provided at the end or your row.  We only want Bibles printed before 2030 because they're not politically correct like the modern kind.  The Bible is being tampered with.  There is a new Bible produced by the Council of Faiths in Newcastle which is called 'Looking for God in the Scriptures.'  It isn't really a Bible at all.  It contains an account of the world being created by evolution, stories from the Koran, the Hindu scriptures and the book of Mormon.  This will be the pattern of many Bibles to come."  Bill had a black leather bound Bible in his hand.  "I want to encourage scripture memorisation.  I myself can recite the entire Bible, having spent several hours every day reading the Authorised Version since I was a child.  You may have my Authorised Version."  He opened the Bible and took a Stanley knife out of his pocket.  "I will show you what we are going to do with your Bibles."  He began to cut one of the pages with the knife.  "The pages of modern Bibles are split into two columns, with a gap down the middle.  Cut them all down the middle as well.  I remember reading about communist countries where people had one Bible between a thousand people.  Well, even if they did have one Bible between a thousand people, they could still have half a page each.  Copy it down in your notebook and pass it on to somebody else.  Then memorise it.  Read your Bible notebook for hours every day.  If you copy down half a page every week, within 30 years you'll have memorised the whole Bible."

 

At the Tuesday night Bible study group Pastor David had a big padded envelope full of half pages from old Bibles that had been sent to him through the post.
"There are a hundred half pages from the Bible in each of these envelopes," he said.  "Each church community house has received one.  I will pass this around.  I want each of you to take eight half pages each."
"It's a good idea to have something to put them in," said Stanley.  He had a battered old pencil tin. "I've got an old tin box.  It's exactly the right shape.  It can hold hundreds of half pages cut from the Bible.  I bought it from a church jumble sale 30 years ago.  Just as long as nobody steals my tin box."
"But you don't want to keep hundreds of them to yourself, share them with the others," said Mark.  Mark held a thin, transparent, zip up pencil case.  "This thing will hold only nine or ten half pages of the Bible.  It will encourage me to give them to other people."
"Have you got a notebook?" asked Mikey.  "I got this spiral bound writing pad from the market for £1."
"I've got a Galaxy tablet," said Stanley.  "That should store hundreds of verses."
"Nobody uses tablets anymore," said Pastor David.  "They went the way of the dodo."
"What do you do if you want to write something down?" asked Stanley.
"Use your mobile phone," said Sarah.
"To make a video recording of what you wanted to say," said Mikey.  "No one types things out on their tablet anymore."