Jesus The Storm God

Frank R. Zindler

If there is anything India does not need more of, it is religion. Since time immemorial, the subcontinent has been parasitized by fakirs of all sorts. The Hindu clergy have tapped into the life-blood of the nation so successfully that they now sit undisputed at the top of the food pyramid. Over the centuries, flow of blood into the maws of Hindu leeches became reduced somewhat as blood-sucking parasites of other types -- Roman Catholics and Muslims -- jumped onto the succulent body of India. These were joined in modern times by Protestant missionaries who brought yet further debility to the beleaguered people and increased the parasite load to impossible limits. Now, Campus Crusade for Christ International has found a vulnerable field of exposed skin into which it can sink its proboscis to inject the Tox-spel of Jesus - but it needs my help.

According to a letter Campus Crusade just sent me, it needs your help too -- in the form of Mammon-fodder. Because of a challenge grant, your gift of $50 will become $100, “helping to reach 1,000 people to [sic] Christ.” How will this work? By showing them the wonderful film “Jesus,” that’s how. You must understand that this “is the most accurate film ever produced on the life of Christ, based completely on the Word of God.” You might very well want to give $1,250 -- the cost of one 16-mm film print -- which, thanks to the heaven-sent challenge grant, will buy two film prints.

Just imagine how much the poor people of India can be helped by viewing a film on the life of Christ! (Of course, if they get popcorn and ghee along with the movie, it will help them even more.)

You see, this is a most propitious time to push Protestant missionary work in India. Jesus has just knocked the resistance out of Hindu militants who had been opposing the Campus Crusade’s cinematic endeavors. He did this by means of a massive cyclone and tidal wave that caused more destruction “than anything we’ve seen in recent history.” According to the money-begging letter, the storm -- which affected more than 15 million people who had been highly resistant to the evangelistic film -- came ashore close to the very spot where Hindu militants had burned a car, killing a missionary and his two young sons. It seems the missionary had been showing the very film we are being asked to make more copies of. The storm -- which I think should have been named Jesus -- surged inland for 44 miles, swamping millions of people, drowning 50,000 recalcitrant Hindus and destroying half a million homes. But it is an ill wind that blows nobody any good, and we are told there is a bright side to this disaster: “Yet,” the letter declares, “a wonderful tribute to our God is emerging.”

“For as yet, we have not heard of a single Christian who was killed. One island off the coast was totally destroyed, except for one village -- a village of Christians. The believers ran into the church for shelter and were spared. The Campus Crusade for Christ staff lost the roofs off some of their homes, but all of their lives were spared.”

It is curious that the missionary solicitors haven’t wondered why their god wasn’t able to spare the roofs too. After all, if Jesus sent the storm to punish the militant Hindus for their opposition to Campus Crusade, shouldn’t Crusader roofs also have been preserved as a visible emblem of the One True Faith?

The front of the Crusade envelope proclaims, “This storm was God’s judgement upon us, for shedding innocent blood.” Preposterous as this statement is by itself, inside the letter it is attributed to “two Hindu leaders.” One wonders which god they had in mind. Shiva? Kali? Of course a major purpose of the letter is to make us think the Indians are now guilt-ridden and begging to be exposed to the film we are being asked to pay for. People are much more likely to send money to support a project that is certain of success.

Meanwhile, the Indian Rationalist Association has done a lot to lift the burden of superstition from the billion inhabitants of their subcontinent. Their debunking of holy men of all sorts has helped to bring many to a life of reason and science. Unfortunately, they now have another superstition to detoxify. Campus Crusade for Christ is extremely well bank-rolled and it has all the energy and motivation of a malaria mosquito that has just smelled blood beneath the skin of its victim. Campus Crusade has done incalculable harm to institutions of higher learning in America, and it is frightening to think how much damage it can do in India. The Indian Rationalists need all the help they can get.

Copyright © 1996, 1997, 1998, 1999, 2000 by American Atheists.