KC: The End

“What’s Rayford been up to?” is what none of you have been asking, but we’re going to find out.

Okay, let’s summarize this chapter.

Rayford goes for a walk and gets kidnapped by the Other Light in Egypt who have a grand plan to show that Satan is a stronger god than YHWH by keeping Rayford in prison so he can’t go visit Siwa and preach there.

Yeah, it’s a pretty fucking stupid plan.

But the Other Light posts the one guard on Rayford who is ready to convert back to Jesus.

Everyone in Rayford’s party are like, “Where’s Rayford?”

“About.”

“Okay then.”

Rayford would not have been surprised to find it was noon, as long as he had been talking, as uncomfortable as he felt, and as tired as the young Rehema looked. She was fairer-complexioned than most in the compound, despite her dark brown eyes and hair so black it could have been dyed but clearly wasn’t.

Light-skinned equals good in this universe.

That’s racist.

So Rayford tries to convert the “white and delightsome” guard Rehema.

Meanwhile, Mudawar and Abdullah talk and it’s so fucking stupid and pointless.

Back at the equally pointless and stupid bullshit plot, Kat finally decides that she might actually want to talk to and check with Kenny before she decides to burn their relationship to the ground, which she already sort of did.

As Abdullah slowly made his way toward the street coffee vendor, nothing was making sense to him. He had somehow painted himself into this corner, and the Lord seemed silent. Did that mean He was disappointed in Abdullah? He hadn’t felt that way for years.

There’s God being a passive-aggressive dick again. Praise Him.

He jumped when Sarsour touched his shoulder and whispered, “Can we talk, around the corner?”

“Certainly, son. What is it?”

…

Sarsour suddenly sat forward and rested his elbows on the table, burying his face in his hands. “I visited my parents last night.”

“Yes?”

He nodded miserably. “Just as I was about to knock, I noticed through the curtain that they were praying.”

“Really?”

“They knelt beside each other at the couch. I can’t tell you the effect it had on me. It wasn’t as if I hadn’t seen this frequently all my life. They both love the Scriptures, and I often saw them reading. But standing there at the front door and seeing them like that, I was overcome with the knowledge that they were praying for me.”

“How did you know?”

“I don’t know. I just did. I felt low. Ashamed. Mr. Ababneh, I felt worthless and guilty.”

That’s healthy.

“About what?”

Sarsour lowered his hands and snorted. “You know my profession and you ask that?”

Abdullah put a hand on Sarsour’s shoulder and smiled. “Well, we both know that I know you’re worthless and guilty. I’m just wondering what brought this truth to you.”

The central message of Christianity is that you are so horrible because you were born human that God had to murder his son just so he can tolerate you.

Very healthy.

We’re building here to the money shot. It’s what all Evangelicals long for: converting someone. Then they can finally check that box and not feel so guilty when their pastors rail at them that they need to evangelize.

Sarsour converts and tells Abdullah that Qasim is the mole, not Kenny. Then they go back and tell Mudawar who fires Sarsour.

“It’s only been half a day and I miss you,” she said.

“I know. Me too.”

“I’m so sorry, Kenny. If you’ll have me back, I’m here.”

Well, that was fast. Dramatic pointless conflict is dramatic and pointless and resolved in one chapter.

Still, it might have redeemed Kenny a small amount if he had shown a bit of a backbone and broken up with Kat. Someone willing to believe the worst about you that quickly is not in a healthy place.

They also finally realize that Qasim is evil.

Rayford convinces Rehema to call his family and she does. She converts too and gets imprisoned. But Anis the Angel frees all of the prisoners and leads them out of the Other Light compound. Rehema rescues her son and joins Rayford’s crusade in Siwa.

And now we get the wrap up:

Qasim is fired and dies at 100. Sarsour is his replacement. Ignace, Lothair, and Mudawar all die at 100.

Kenny and Kat get married and have 14 kids like the good little Duggars they are.

By the end, the ministry was maintained by the glorifieds, as the naturals finally saw the ravages of time catch up with their bodies. When the naturals reached ages higher than about seven hundred, they began to slow and notice the diminution of their senses, particularly hearing and sight.

Jesus, that sounds like hell. Can you imagine living for two or three hundred more years with a body that was shutting down? Going blind. Going deaf. Losing your memories and you’re just not able to die?

But that’s what they do. Rayford becomes old and enfeebled. Chloe and Cameron add a building to the Orphanage for People whose Parents Jesus killed for the old folks.

So we reach the end. Finally.

Daily for the past three years, the news had abounded with stories of millions of adherents to the Other Light, growing bolder by the minute. Their printing presses and electronically transmitted messages blanketed the globe, recruiting new members, amassing a weapons stockpile and training a fighting force a thousand times bigger than had been aggregated for the Battle of Armageddon a millennium before.

And no one in all of that time has even tried to kill a Christian or a zombie Christian? Because that would seem to be pretty important. If you’re leading an armed coup, you want to be sure you can actually kill the enemy. If you can’t, there’s not much of a point to your rebellion.

Rayford was amazed that God allowed such a brazen, wanton act of defiance on the parts of so many as they symbolically thumbed their noses at Jesus and the earthly rulers He had chosen from the ages. Even in Israel, tanks rumbled through the streets, uniformed soldiers marched, and missiles and rockets were paraded before the faithful.

You know, this could probably have been solved by Jesus leaving the temple and saying “Hi” to everyone… or Jesus doing an AMA on Reddit… Or Jesus doing something…

I’m saying God sort of wants this to happen and that makes him a dick.

So Jerusalem is surrounded by military machines and soldiers.

Rayford remembered when the airwaves had been full of praises to the Lord Christ, who ruled the earth from His throne. Now it was as if people on both sides of the conflict had forgotten that He was still there…

Probably because he disappeared into the Temple 1,000 years ago and hasn’t actually been seen since. I mean, if you came up to me and said, “God lives in that building there. He moved there in the year 1,019 AD and hasn’t left since,” I’d probably say, “Bullshit.”

The millions-strong enemy created a cacophony of rumbling and jangling, sending dust billowing as far as the eye could see. And suddenly rising from within those masses and marching to the fore came Satan himself, as a shining light, a gleaming sword raised high.

“And now,” he shouted, somehow able to be heard for miles, “I come to claim what has been rightfully mine since the dawn of time: the very throne of God!”

Because the Devil is stupid and hasn’t read the bible or Hal Lindsay’s books at all the entire time he’s been on Earth. If he actually wanted the throne of God, all he would have to do is prove God wrong. Which would mean NOT showing up to lead your army. It would mean walking to Jerusalem and knocking on the Temple door and saying, “Hey, Jesus… sorry about the whole killing you thing. What do you say we make peace and I’ll be your servant again.”

And then Jesus would say, “Crap. You’ve found my one weakness!” and disappear from existence.

Also, what happened to the rest of the fallen angels?

The Alpha and Omega, the King of kings, the Lord of lords, the Lion of Judah, the Mighty God, the Everlasting Father, the Prince of Peace, the Rock, the Savior, the Christ stood in the courtyard of His temple.

Satan, silenced for a thousand years, shrieked, “Charge!”

Jesus responded quietly, “I AM WHO I AM.”

And with that, the clouds rolled back and the heavens opened, and orange and yellow and red mountains of white-hot, roiling flames burst forth. Satan’s entire throng—men, women, weapons, everything—was vaporized in an instant, leaving around the holy mountain a ring of ash that soon wafted away in the breeze.

And that is that. Jesus quotes some scripture at Satan. David quotes some scripture at everyone.

David retreated, and Jesus merely lifted a hand and opened His palm. A seam in the cosmos opened before Satan. Flames and black smoke poured from where the Beast and the False Prophet writhed on their knees screaming, “Jesus is Lord!”

Satan cried out, “Jesus is Lord! Jesus is Lord!”

Jesus closed His fingers and Satan was thrown into the abyss, the seam sealing to muffle the screams of the three who would be tormented day and night forever and ever in the lake of fire and brimstone.

Yes. That is a literal hell where conscious entities are tortured by God forever. You don’t have a problem with that, do you?

Also, Rayford finally gets the Stepford treatment.

He found himself lifted from the veranda, muscle and flesh and hair restored to the way he had looked and felt at about age thirty. His clothes had been exchanged for a gleaming white robe, and as he and all his friends and loved ones ascended through the ceiling and the roof and flew toward the holy mountain, Rayford knew from his depths that his mind, too, had finally been glorified.

The only thing that mattered now was to praise and glorify Jesus, the lover and Savior of his soul.

Forever and ever and ever and ever and ever… this also sounds like hell.

The Lord somehow dealt with each person individually, calling out his or her sins and transgressions and assigning punishment—all would suffer in the lake of fire, but some worse than others, such as those scoffers who had led others astray, especially children. Yet in what seemed a matter of moments, it was over. The unbelieving dead had been judged according to their works, by the things which were written in the books. Then Jesus cast Death and Hades into the lake of fire, and all not found written in the Lamb’s Book of Life were cast into the lake of fire.

“Jim Ford. Let’s see here… lying… you stole a candy bar as a child… wow, you masturbated a lot, didn’t you? Okay, your sentence is… LAKE OF FIRE!”

“Jim B. Ford… you and your wife had sex before marriage… also, I noticed you wearing a lot of mixed fibers. Fuck you, Jim. LAKE OF FIRE!”

Rayford had the feeling that the many verdicts he had just heard would have horrified him in the old days.

Wow, you think? Maybe setting someone on fire forever just because they were born human isn’t loving or just?

And yet now, hearing the offenses of those who had rejected and rejected and rejected the One who was “not willing that any should perish” and seeing Jesus’ own tears as He pronounced the sentences, Rayford understood as never before that Jesus sent no one to hell. They chose their own paths.

Yeah, that’s bullshit. Jesus sent them to hell. He cast them into the lake of fire. He judged them. If he really didn’t want anyone to perish, he could have given them a chance to repent at the judgment throne or left the gates of hell unlocked and sent missionaries to hell. He could just say, “You know, guys, my blood is good enough to cover you all. Come on in.”

But he didn’t. He tossed them alive into a lake of fire where they will be tortured by God forever and Rayford is fine with that. As are all of the Evangelicals you know.

God makes a giant city full of precious stones and metals and all of the good true Christians go there forever to have a giant eternal church service where they tell a self-sufficient and all powerful God how great he is for not setting them on fire forever.

Amen.

Also fuck this book.

KC: The “Holy crap when will this book just end” edition…

CAMERON WILLIAMS sat steely eyed and somber in Kenny’s living room as Chloe wept. He didn’t know what to think. His son was denying everything, which he would do whether innocent or guilty.

You believe your son until you have evidence to the contrary.

Admittedly, the document that Qasim Marid claimed he had retrieved off Ignace Jospin’s desk in Paris had so many glaring incriminations in it that it could easily have been a setup. But who would do such a thing, and who would know enough details to pull it off?

Really? Really? You’ve had two prior forgeries badmouthing Kat and your son…

I hate Idiot Plots.

“You want to, Dad? My word is not good enough for you? You always taught me to live in such a way that if someone brought a charge against me, no one would believe it. What have I done, how have I lived, that makes no one but my mother believe me?”

“Yes, Cam,” Chloe said. “That’s a good question.”

Cameron sighed. “Maybe I know something you don’t, Chloe.”

“Oh, great!” Kenny said. “There’s more?”

“I got an anguished call from Abdullah this afternoon. He saw you at TOL headquarters in Amman today, Kenny.”

I imagine that writing this plot involved a thousand monkeys on a thousand typewriters who were fed a constant media diet of Three’s Company and TBN.

Cameron was as conflicted as he’d been since the Glorious Appearing. How he wanted to believe Kenny! But the evidence against him just kept mounting.

Evidence. You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.

“Where is Ekaterina, by the way?” Chloe said.

“Where do you think? Anywhere but here. She won’t answer her phone, won’t see me. I guess I can’t blame her, but I thought we knew each other better than this.”

“Well,” Chloe said, “those things you said about her parents . . .”

“I didn’t say them! I love her parents. Listen, something else is going to surface, and I need your help.” Kenny told them about Nicolette and the picture. “I just know they’ll deliver it to Kat. Since I can’t get anywhere near her, could you warn her?”

“I don’t know,” Cameron said.

Cameron Williams, dead zombie Christian dick, everyone.

“Of course I will,” Chloe said. “And she’s going to want to know what to do about work. I’ll assure her that she can come and not worry about running into you.”

“And why is that? You’re finding me guilty too? firing me?”

“Call it a suspension,” Cameron said. “Just till we can figure this out.”

“What can I do, Dad, take a lie detector test? You know what this means if it’s true? I’m an infidel, an unbeliever. That means I die at one hundred and go to hell. Do you really believe that about me?”

“No,” Cameron said. “I don’t. But I don’t know what to do about your reputation now or countering all this evidence.”

Anonymous allegations are not evidence. Now, write that one thousand times or I’ll cut your balls off.

But that night Kenny couldn’t sleep. He sat at his computer and composed a message to the Millennium Force and copied it to Ekaterina.

Dear friends,

Fuck you. No, seriously, fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuck you, you judgmental uncharitable assholes. Sincerely, Kenny.

you can’t know what I’m going through, but perhaps you can imagine. Think how it would be if you were in my place and wholly innocent.

Foolish Kenny, appeals to empathy do not work on Evangelical Christians that have none.

Kenny didn’t feel much better even after transmitting his defense, so he wrote separately to Ekaterina:

My dearest love,

Seriously, fuuuuuuuuuuck you.

You are convinced I am guilty, and I don’t know how to prove otherwise. Perhaps there is some deep pocket of love for me in your heart that misses what we had together and longs to believe all things, as the Bible says.

Ladies, who among you could resist a man who quotes scripture at you to point out when you’re wrong?

Kat, I fell in love with you almost from the beginning.

RED ALERT! RED ALERT!

I can’t even remember, nor do I wish to, life before you.

EJECT! EJECT!

Do me a favor tonight, will you, and read the love chapter, 1 Corinthians 13.

Okay, now I’m on Kat’s side of the break up. Fuck you, Kenny.

I know this may sound empty to you too, but I want you to know that one day in the future, when the truth comes out, I will not hold it against you that you didn’t trust me.

Yeah, because having a girlfriend or wife that doesn’t trust you can only mean good things for your future relationship!

Also, even when he’s in the right, Kenny is still a sanctimonious asshole.

I’d like to think that I would not have believed such charges about you, no matter how convincing, but I don’t know. Regardless, I will forgive you

100% pure grade passive aggressive emotionally weaponized Christianity.

Kenny reads 1 Corinthians 13 and goes to bed. Then he wakes up feeling like Jesus.

It was as if the Lord had spoken to his heart even as he slept. It was the strangest feeling—something that those like him were unlikely to grasp without an ordeal such as the one he was enduring. He was getting a taste—albeit a very small and entirely less violent one—of what it must have been like for Jesus to be betrayed and abandoned by His friends. Of course, Jesus was mocked and spit upon and struck, had a crown of thorns thrust into His scalp, had His side riven by a sword, and was eventually put to death.

Yes, we know. Jesus had a pretty horrible Friday that one time.

And He was more than innocent. He was perfect, sinless. It went without saying that Kenny could not say the same about himself,

Christianity. Building Jesus up by tearing yourself down.

Meanwhile Mudawar greets Abdullah very warmly and praises the Christian for not being the passive aggressive asshole that Abdullah had promised to be.

KC: Christians are the worst edition

Okay, people, now we’re going to finally get to the central conflict of the book, and my God is it stupid, manufactured, and pointless.

“Well, we don’t know,” Mrs. Risto said. “Ekaterina sounded rather upset, said Mr. Steele had called an emergency meeting of some little group of yours and asked her to be there.”

Kenny almost blurted the name of the Millennium Force, but he was surprised enough that Raymie would have invited Ekaterina. What in the world was up, and why hadn’t he heard directly from Raymie? Raymie knew that Kat knew about the Force, because Kenny had told him himself.

Yes, there’s an emergency meeting of the Jr. God Squad and no one told Kenny. So Kenny runs off to find out what’s going on.

On his way home, Kenny tried calling everyone, starting with Ekaterina. Her phone immediately went to her message system, as did Raymie’s and Bahira’s and Zaki’s. Finally, as he was entering his own house, Kenny reached his mother.

Chloe tells her son that she got a disturbing report about him, which she’s gotten now three disturbing reports from anonymous sources, two of which have been proven wrong, but we’ve got to treat this one like it could be real because pointless fucking drama.

She also won’t tell Kenny about what’s in the report, because Jenkins needs to save the big bombshell for later. So she promises to talk about it when she and Cameron come to visit him that night.

Kenny arrived to find them in the back room with, of all people, Qasim Marid. In an instant, Kenny knew something was terribly wrong. Raymie was pale and appeared grim. Zaki looked shell-shocked, as did Bahira. Qasim appeared stunned to see Kenny, but of course Kenny was most curious about Ekaterina. Her face was red, her eyes puffy. As soon as she saw him, she gathered up a sheaf of papers that appeared to be the same as everyone else’s and bolted from the restaurant.

Keep in mind that Qasim was excluded from their God Squad team and is now there happily giving them a report that they all believe. And what is that report? Well, we need to stretch it out more…

Kenny followed, but she was sprinting. “Kat!” he hollered. “Wait just a minute!”

She stopped and whirled, pointing at him. “I don’t want to talk to you, Kenneth Williams. I don’t ever want to see you again.”

He stepped closer. “Kat, wait. I deserve to know—”

“Don’t you dare!” she said. And she turned and kept going.

So Kat apparently has turned on Kenny. Enough so that she’s going to break up with him and never see him again and she won’t even tell him why? I wonder what she found out?

Kenny staggered back into the bistro and into the back room. “I want to know what’s going on,” he said. “And I want to know now.”

Bahira was the only person who would look at him. And she looked like death. “You’ve been found out is all,” she said.

“Found out?”

Raymie looked up. “We know where your true loyalties lie,” he said. “You can end the charade.”

Kenny plopped into the seat Kat had vacated. “I’m listening,” he said. “What are the charges?”

Raymie said sadly, “You can have my copy. I don’t need to see any more.” He slid it across to Kenny and stood. The others rose also. “Why don’t you look this over, and if there’s anything more to be said, well, you know where to find us.”

So, we’re not going to talk to you about it or hear your side of whatever this is. Instead, we’re going to instantly believe something horrible about you and judge you for it even before we do the bare bones of an investigation into it.

That… actually sounds like a Christian group.

But I would have expected that a glorified Christian zombie would be a bit more demonstrative of kindness, love, compassion, and justice.

Then again, I forget we’re dealing with Evangelical heaven, so those traits probably aren’t in play.

Anyway, you might wonder what’s going on? What has Kenny done that is so horrible? What piece of evidence do they have that they’re willing to accept and turn on a friend, a family member, and a lover?

A memo!

DUH DUH DUUUUUUUUUUUH!!!!!

Yes, a memo!

First, Ignace, it was great to reunite with you and your brother despite the sad occasion of your cousin’s death. It had been too long, and communicating like this is never as good as in person, especially when we share such a bond.

I very much look forward to seeing you and Lothair in Paris and thank you in advance for making available to me the lovely Nicolette again. The nights can otherwise be lonely in a strange city, even one as beautiful as your capital.

You’ll be pleased to know that my parents remain wholly in the dark. It’s nice that they are so naïve. I don’t doubt their sincerity, but the blind devotion believing parents have in their offspring makes duping them so easy. My dull-witted mother remains convinced that I share her beliefs and points to the night she claims to have “led” me to Jesus. Well, Mom, you have to mean it if you pray that prayer.

I trust you got the personnel printout. My mother is making noises about putting locks on the doors; my access to her office won’t cross her mind this Millennium.

My uncle Raymie suspects nothing. I’m sure he was brought in on the Risto personnel matter, plus the later defaming note about yours truly. Imagine if they even dreamed I planted both those myself.

Rest assured your fears over the new girlfriend are unfounded. She’s no Nicolette, but she’s cute enough and more naïve than my mother. Her parents are homely, swarthy little people who worship the ground I walk on. Her father was apparently a spectacularly unremarkable tradesman, and her mother is basically a nondescript homebody. They will not be an issue. I may even go through with marrying this girl, which will only make my work for you at COT that much easier. She is in another department, which merely broadens my reach.

I’ll provide a virtual core dump of other vital information when I arrive. Keep Nicolette warm until I get there. I’ll see you soon.

Loyal to the Other Light forever,

KBW

Yes. They have a memo. Purported to be written by Kenny. And they automatically believe it. They are willing to believe that their friend, family member, and lover is a liar, a cheater, and a traitor without evidence, without proof, without a shred of backing documentation and they are willing to throw him away WITHOUT EVEN FUCKING TALKING TO HIM.

Jesus Christ, this is dumb. Who would do this? Who would turn on a friend based solely on one document that could be forged? ESPECIALLY WHEN YOU HAVE A KNOWN DOCUMENT FORGER HANGING AROUND HIS WORKPLACE WHO HAS ALREADY FORGED DOCUMENTS AGAINST YOU?

Kat, of all people, should have been the rational, understanding one. Instead, she’s the emotional stupid woman running off in tears. Christian Feminism, guys!

At this point, Kenny should swear off the lot of them. I mean, would you want to be friends with people who would automatically assume the worst of you without even talking to you? Would you want to hang out with family like that? Would you want a wife like that? Jesus, no.

Kenny was nauseated. Where did one begin to try to defend himself against such a detailed, devastating document?

Detailed? What the fuck? There’s no proof or evidence in the document. It says, “Neener neener, I’m really a bad guy! Christians are dumb Muahahahahah!”

I mean, these Christians are dumb, but still, that doesn’t count as evidence against him.

“Lord, You’re all I have left,” Kenny prayed as he headed toward home. “Please tell me You’re still here.”

He nearly wept with relief when he felt the peace only Jesus could give, but still Kenny had no idea how to dig himself out of this.

Gee, thanks, Lord. Maybe instead of giving me peace, you could telepathically tell my girlfriend and her friends to stop being GIGANTIC DICKWEEDS!

Sigh… but Jesus, like everyone else in this fucking book is an idiot, so this idiot plot will continue with the Other Light guys showing up, so Nicolette can kiss Kenny on the cheek and Lothair can take their picture.

Seriously, Kenny should be dumping Kat, Bahira, Zaki, and Raymie out of his life right now with a hearty, “Fuck you guys, you judgmental sanctimonious assholes.”

 

KC: Good is dumb edition

ASIDE FROM having been born in the old United States of America and carted about by his globe-trotting parents during the Tribulation, Kenny Bruce Williams had spent nearly all his ninety-seven-plus years in Israel. Others he knew, especially his extended family, loved to travel. But he had never seen the appeal of being away from the very country in which the King of kings and Lord of lords physically resided and presided.

Except Jesus is apparently squirreled away in the Temple and never leaves or makes a public appearance.

Also, despite spending 97 years growing up in Israel, Kenny is totally an American Evangelical. “Travel? Phppt. Why would I want to travel? All the best things are already here!”

None of the historical landmarks remained, of course, but attempts had been made to reproduce some of the more familiar—like the Eiffel Tower, the Louvre, and even some of the great cathedrals.

Just as a reminder that God, in His infinite love and temper tantrums, destroyed all of the priceless works of art in human history. You were hoping to finally get around to seeing the Mona Lisa? Fuck you, it’s gone. Sistine Chapel? Also, fuck you, it’s gone too.

On the plane with Ignace, Lothair, and Nicolette, Kenny for the first time became aware of the stares and glares of people—mostly naturals, some glorifieds—who must have recognized the alternative clothing of the TOLers for what it was.

Even in the Millennial Kingdom and the afterlife, Christians are judgmental assholes. Aren’t you looking forward to an eternity of that?

His pretend compatriots were rebels, misfits, outcasts.

You know, the people Jesus hung out with and ate with and drank wine with. But fuck that shit. They’re different and have different beliefs. Glare at them! Glare harder!

Kenny nodded. This couldn’t be worse. All he had intended with his little speech two days before was to allay their suspicions. He had done it so well he had inspired them to a better approach for recruiting. He sure didn’t want to be responsible for their amassing a higher class of dissidents.

Then maybe Kenny should have come right out and said, “I’m a Christian, but I’d still like to be your friend” instead of pretending to be Kenneth Bond Superspy.

Cameron and Chloe sat in the office, poring over employment records. “Strange,” Cameron said. “You realize that this Qasim Marid has been gone all three times we had the Bible heroes here.”

Chloe leaned to look at the records. “That’s some coincidence, Cam.”

“It’s got to be more than that. What are the odds? It’s almost like he doesn’t want to be here when they are. But who wouldn’t want to hear those guys?”

Yeah, it’s almost like the guy who was sexually harassing an employee right around the same time as we started to get forged letters about her and her new boyfriend might not be a super Christian. Should we look into that?

No, let’s talk about missing paperwork instead.

Abdullah was amused by Mudawar and Sarsour. For the first time since he had met them, they looked clean and tidy. Oh, Mudawar was still oily; it was as if he couldn’t help that.

Evil Arab is greasy. That’s racist.

Kenny and the Other Lighters arrive. Abdullah freaks out when he sees Kenny on a CCTV monitor and slips out of the building. Instead of assuming that Kenny is like him or, I don’t know, asking his all-knowing deity what’s going on, Abdullah assumes that Kenny has gone evil and phones Qasim to confim it, which Qasim does, of course, because seriously, he’s evil. Qasim tells Abdullah that Kenny has defected to Satan and he believes it because good is dumb.

Meanwhile, Kenny tells the Jordan crew to appeal to smart people since it’s obvious that none of the smart people are currently on the side of the Christians.

KC:Sunday School with a Murderer

WHEN DAVID, the king of Jerusalem and Jesus’ prince’

And murderer and rapist…

 strode onto COT property, Cameron buzzed Chloe and they rolled into action. Word spread quickly throughout the staff that it was time to round up all the kids and get them in place.

Truly all of the children need to hear from this great model for human behavior.

“Greetings, greetings,” David called out. “Thanks for inviting me and for your attention. I have a most busy rest of the day at the temple

Doing what exactly? What do all these assholes actually do?

 It begins when I was the same age as many of you.

Then I became a child soldier, fell in love with a prince, and had a homicidal king try to murder me constantly. Then I became an outlaw extorting protection money from local farmers. Then I betrayed my country and joined the Philistines. Then I slaughtered just a lot of innocent Gentile villages down to every man, woman, and child like you, stole their shit, and gave a portion to the king I took an oath to and lied to him about it coming from the Israelis. Then, after a series of extremely convenient murders (wink wink), I became King of Israel, where I continued to loot and plunder the lands around me until I raped a friend’s wife and had him murdered. But I digress…

Once our neighboring enemies, the Philistines, gathered their armies together for battle at Sochoh, which belonged to Judah. Saul and the men of Israel, including my brothers, were encamped in the Valley of Elah and drew up in battle array against the Philistines. Now picture this: the Philistines stood on a mountain on one side, and Israel stood on a mountain on the other side, with a valley between them.

“A champion came out from the camp of the Philistines, named Goliath, from Gath, whose height was six cubits and a span. You know from hearing Noah’s story how long a cubit is. Well, a span is about half a cubit, so in today’s measures, we would say Goliath was about nine feet nine inches tall.”

The children seemed to gasp as one.

David laughed. “Oh, believe me, I know how big he was, for I saw him, and I was still but a lad!

Funny story, Children. Actually, I didn’t see him at all. There was actually this guy named Elhanan. He was a tough solider and he killed Goliath. Yeah, I know. Somehow the story got attributed to me, but Elhanan did it. Seriously, if you read the story you all know, you can see that a lot of the details clash and don’t make much sense. But ancient scribes tried their best to reconcile the details, but I ended up with the legend of killing Goliath. You can see the truth in 2 Samuel 21:19. Now I know some of your bibles try to say that Elhanan killed the brother of Goliath, but that bit was added by a scribe almost 600-700 years after the fact in the Chronicles books.

Anyway, let’s just pretend that I did kill Goliath…

“Goliath cried out to the armies of Israel, ‘Why have you come out to line up for battle? Am I not a Philistine, and you the servants of Saul? Choose a man and let him come down to me. If he is able to kill me, then we will be your servants. But if I kill him, then you shall be our servants and serve us. I defy the armies of Israel this day; give me a man, that we may fight together.’

So you know this story. David’s dad sends him off to the army camp with supplies and David hears Goliath’s challenge. David decides to go kill Goliath. And everyone from the king on down says, “Yeah… okay, let’s bet our future and our freedom on a thirteen year old kid fighting a professional soldier almost twice his height.”

David kills Goliath with a sling and a stone and cuts off Goliath’s head with his own sword.

“I took the head of the Philistine and brought it to Jerusalem and presented it to Saul.”

This was not the grossest thing I presented to Saul as tribute. It was foreskins. Bags of foreskins. I handled a LOT of penises, kids.

“I have many stories I could tell,” he said, “of how King Saul eventually turned on me and hated me and tried to kill me. Of his son Jonathan, who became my best friend.

Yes, I did mean to do air quotes around “Best friend”. We were gay. Totally gay. Well, I was bi. He was gay.

Of the time when I sinned greatly against the Lord and was abject in my sorrow and repentance until He forgave me.

And killed my baby instead of me. And then God arranged to have ten of my wives raped in public. But he didn’t kill me. So I had that going for me.

I was eventually crowned king of Israel, and late in my reign it came to pass that I was dwelling in my house, and the Lord had given me rest from all my enemies.

Because my armies had killed them all, kids. No magic there. Just I was a brutal warlord who subdued every nation and tribe around me.

David wants to build a Temple of YHWH, but YHWH says, “Dude… you’re a killer. I can’t have that.”

“Haven’t you killed like billions of people, Lord?”

“Huh… you’re right. You’d be the perfect guy to build me a temple. But, uh… I guess have your son do it.”

”The one you didn’t kill?”

“Yeah… uh, the one I didn’t kill.”

“Then the Lord told Nathan of me, ‘Your house and your kingdom shall be established forever before you. Your throne shall be established forever*.’

*Forever should not mean forever. It means spiritually forever because we read the bible literally and reading it literally sometimes means we have to read it figuratively because what it literally says contradicts other passages in the bible, history, or archeology.

Haha… I mean, if we read the bible literally here than the… bible… would be… wrong… ha ha…? Oh, God, I’ve wasted my entire life on this bullshit.

“Now, children, I want you to rise, and I want to teach you the proper way to worship the Lord God of Hosts, Jehovah, Messiah.”

Strip down to your underwear and dance suggestively like I did!

And then David quotes a bunch of Psalms and apparates back to the Temple like some Harry Potter level shit there.

KC: The Idiot Plot Thickens…

KENNY HAD cleared several days off so he could complete his clandestine mission to Paris, but almost as soon as he got there he heard from Ekaterina, asking whether he could return and postpone his trip.

So Kenny is headed to Paris for really no good reason. Nothing comes of his trip. Nothing. He learns nothing. The Jr. God Squad learn nothing. There is no point to this excursion.

But despite learning from Kat that David is going to speak at the God’s School for Orphans He Made, Kenny is determined to drag this pointless bullshit out until Jerry Jenkins makes his page count, damn it!

“But I prayed about this, sweetheart. I know this is where God wants me…”

I know in this universe, God is real, but can I just tell you how many people I’ve known who were certain that God was speaking to them and telling them to do something and they did it and it exploded in their faces?

A lot.

That voice in your head, folks? That’s you. That’s not God. That’s not the Holy Spirit. That’s your brain talking to you.

Some of you might think you’re God, but no, it’s just your meat brain thinking stuff because of biochemical processes.

“Well, I’ll bet ol’ Qasim makes this one for sure.”

“Actually, he’s off the rest of this week too.”

You know, at this point, you’d think our idiot “heroes” would know that Qasim is compromised, but no. They have to carry the idiot ball further because we need pointless conflict, damn it.

So we’re back to Abdullah. This time he chats with Mudawar who is going to be visited by some higher ups on the Other Light organization. Abdullah offers to help clean the offices, but insists that he will be there when they arrive and suggests Mudawar paint the whole thing as his idea to contain the crazy Christian.

So Kenny finally meets with Lothair and Ignacio and we get some pointless spycraft bullshit before they start sharing their plans with him, which involves luring 30-60 year old “Kids” into parties and booze and drugs.

“You got a better idea?”

“Sure! Beat the believers at their own game. Raise up impressive, bright, humble young people who are a credit to society but who disagree about the future. Wouldn’t that be way more attractive to your potential recruits than thinking that this is all about getting away with illegal stuff?”

Lothair squinted at Kenny. “But how do you do that? How do you reach them? How do we make our side appealing?”

You don’t. Not in this universe.

“God is dead!”

“No, he’s not. He’s in Jerusalem.”

“Well, he’s a tyrant!”

“Yeah, but what choice do we have?”

“Fight Him!”

“Have you tried that?”

“What?”

“Fighting God? Have you tried to kill any of the Christians or zombies?”

“No.”

“But you’re assuming that some time in the next 900 years, you’ll invent a God killing weapon?”

“No… but there will be an army of us.”

“An army against an immortal army and an all powerful deity. What do you plan to do in the meantime?”

“Die at 100!”

“Die and go to God’s torture pit?”

“Yes! But when Satan wins, he’ll resurrect us!”

“So if you manage to pull off a miracle and kill an immortal army and an all powerful deity, then Satan becomes New God and you end up serving him forever?”

“Yes…”

“Which is different from being a slave to a tyrant… how?”

“Reasons!”

“Get the fuck out.”

But our three idiots think Kenny makes sense.

The three sat as if thinking, and Ignace began to nod. “You may be on to something.

And they invite him to Jordan to meet the group there. I wonder if they’ll run into Abdullah! Awkward and unnecessary tension coming! Gasp!

KC: Manufactured Conflict, Damn It!

OVER THE next several days, Kenny vacillated between the thrill of his relationship with Ekaterina—they had both professed their love by now and had begun enjoying brief good-night kisses—and a dread over what he was going to do about communicating with Ignace and Lothair Jospin. There would soon be no more putting them off.

Ah, brief good-night kisses. Such passion. Such romance.

Also, let me solve your problem, Kenny.

“Dear Ignace and Lothair, you have dumb names. Seriously, they’re just so dumb. Also, I’m going to be expanding my Jesus Home for Orphans Jesus Made into France to oppose you. Lulz.”

But artificial conflict is conflict, damn it!

He had an idea, a fun one he thought Ekaterina would love, but also one that might help him find valuable counsel. He wanted to update Bruce Barnes, his parents’ old friend, on him and Kat and see if he was willing to officiate at their wedding someday.

Evangelical relationships. From “God told me to date you” to “Let’s get married and have sex!” in three… maybe four weeks tops.

Or as we used to call it: “Bible college.”

Chloe was troubled.

That she married an idiot? That she was devoid of free will and a puppet to an all-powerful being that tortured people? That God tortured people?

But that day her in-box had brought another upsetting note. Unsigned, of course.

If only there was an all-knowing deity that you had a psychic connection with. But I’m going to go with God as the author insert. God knows exactly who wrote the notes, but is forcing Chloe to act out her part in the play to entertain himself.

This note read: Kenneth B. Williams is your culprit in the Risto personnel matter.

Great. Throw it away. Or better yet, have the God Cops come in and dust for fingerprints.

God cop.  All God. All cop.

Let’s check in with Abdullah in a plot that at least has something to do with trying to save people from Turbo Vengeance Jesus.

It felt weird to Abdullah to be strolling to “work” every day with a portfolio full of papers and his Bible, setting up shop, as he liked to call it, in the enemy’s lair. It violated every boundary of logic he had ever been aware of, and yet God knew. His ways are not our ways, Abdullah reminded himself.

For example, my ways would not have included Pediatric Cancer and Hell. In that way, I’m better than God.

Mudawar himself had actually been consulting Abdullah almost daily. Despite Mudawar’s appearing to take out his impatience and frustration on Sarsour, he seemed to treat Abdullah with more and more deference. Gone was the sarcastic tone and the ridicule. Often he would ask earnestly, “If I wrote something like this about God, would believers say I was wrong or unfair, or would they just be bothered because they don’t understand Him either?”

Abdullah would study the paragraph and at times even feel led to advise Mudawar how to better frame his argument against God.

 

Now, you might be tempted to think that as Abdullah is exposed to different ideas and thinks them through, that he might come to see Mudawar’s point a bit and even have an internal dialog with God about the good arguments the Other Light folks are making.

But you’d be wrong.

We’re not going to engage the argument, we’re going to avoid it.

But Abdullah felt God compel him to love the man as Jesus would. No argument of man could besmirch the name of the Lord.

And I think the book is poorer for it. These are some of the more difficult questions that Christians should wrestle with. They should look at their discomfort of “Hell” and question it. They should look at their discomfort with the idea of having to choose between being a slave to God or a slave to Satan.

But they don’t. And so we move on in the narrative.

Abdullah is being nice to the Satanists. He’s buying them their favorite coffee. He’s buying them their favorite hummus, which Jenkins helpfully explains to his readership that thinks Chipotle qualifies as “ethnic food.”

Abdullah continues to woo Sarsour with his tales from the Rapture.

Meanwhile, Chloe decides to show the new letter to Kenny.

Kenny, meanwhile, gets a call from Bruce while he’s with Kat. He gives her a half-truth that he just wanted to talk to Bruce about infiltrating the Jospins, which seems like a big no-no here in Jesusland.

That night Raymie called a meeting of the Millennium Force, and it was clear Zaki was not happy. “You still pining over your buddy?” Raymie said. “I don’t get it. All of us except Kenny here have glorified minds, and you’re still obsessing over what I had to say to Qasim.”

Yeah, I don’t get it either. You’re glorified. Which means you should be sinless and incapable of sin. You should be as foreign to us humans as an alien species would be. But you’re just as screwed up as Kenny and the non-zombies.

I’m starting to think that Jenkins and LaHaye haven’t really thought their afterlife through.

They want perfect humans, but perfect humans cannot have conflicts, so they treat their perfected humans like actual humans and manufacture conflict.

It’s shit writing is what I’m saying.

But after months of meeting in committee talking about maybe they should do something, maybe they shouldn’t, they realize that we’re more than halfway through this fucking book and tell Kenny to go play superspy even though they already know about the Other Light and what they’re trying to do.

I mean, it would be one thing to send Kenny in and get a list of names of people that they could reach out to from the Other Light, but they’re not going to do that.

Back over to Abdullah so we can learn that Mudawar doesn’t want him around when other Other Light people drop by to visit.

“Kenny,” Chloe said, “I decided to call both of you in because I know you’ll tell Ekaterina anyway.”

He and Kat looked at each other. “Tell her what?”

Chloe spun the note on her desk so both could read it.

Ekaterina said, “Oh, for the love . . .”

“Good grief, Mom. Really, why do you even waste your time on stuff like this? You know how ridiculous this is. I’m in love with this woman and plan to marry her. I would no more do her harm than I would harm myself!”

Okay, so we’ve got the second note with a false accusation and everyone agrees it’s totally ridiculous and they shouldn’t pay any attention to it.

You should keep this in mind because the… I don’t know… central conflict of the book is coming soon and is just as much bullshit, but everyone goes with it, because manufactured conflict, damn it!

KC: Killing in the name of Love edition

Joshua and Caleb arrive and Cameron has the kids say a bible verse.

Cameron cued the kids, and from thousands of young voices came: “ ‘The Lord’s anger was aroused on that day, and He swore an oath, saying, “Surely none of the men who came up from Egypt, from twenty years old and above, shall see the land of which I swore to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, because they have not wholly followed Me, except Caleb the son of Jephunneh, the Kenizzite, and Joshua the son of Nun, for they have wholly followed the Lord.”’ ”

Ah, the warm fuzzy love of God. Buckle up, because a lot more of that love is coming our way.

“Joshua and I were born in Egypt, while our parents and all the children of Israel were slaves.

Because God forced them to go there to be slaves.

Joshua and I experienced everything the rest of our tribes went through in the wilderness after escaping. Joshua proved to be a mighty man of valor, serving as a commander in the great war against the Amalekites.

That would be the war where God played a fun little game with the Israelites where they would lose the battle and be killed if Moses couldn’t hold up his hands to God.

Television hadn’t been invented back then and God really wanted some good quality entertainment.

“One day the Lord spoke to Moses, saying, ‘Send men to spy out the land of Canaan, which I am giving to the children of Israel; from each tribe of their fathers you shall send a man, every one a leader among them.’

Excuse me. Why did God, the all-knowing and omnipresent, need to send in spies? Couldn’t God just tell Moses where to go and attack?

I’m starting to think God set you up to take a fall.

“We finally returned from spying out the land after forty days, bringing back word to Moses and his brother, Aaron, and all the congregation of the children of Israel, and we showed them the fruit of the land. We told Moses in front of all the others, ‘The land where you sent us truly flows with milk and honey, and this is its fruit. Nevertheless the people who dwell in the land are strong; the cities are fortified and very large.’

Uh… guys… maybe let’s not share the Intelligence briefing with the entire nation?

But all the congregation lifted up their voices and cried, and the people wept that night. And all the children of Israel complained against Moses and Aaron, and the whole congregation said to them, ‘If only we had died in the land of Egypt! Or if only we had died in this wilderness! Why has the Lord brought us to this land to fall by the sword, that our wives and children should become victims? Would it not be better for us to return to Egypt?’

“So they said to one another, ‘Let us select a leader and return to Egypt.’

Egypt’s not there, man. God killed it like 50 times over according to the Exodus story.

But Josh and Caleb try to calm them and the mob turns on them.

“Then the Lord said to Moses: ‘How long will these people reject Me? And how long will they not believe Me, with all the signs which I have performed among them? I will strike them with the pestilence and disinherit them, and I will make of you a nation greater and mightier than they.’

I’m going to kill them all, says the Lord.

Yes, because they were fearful, God wants to murder them all. And this is seen as a good and just thing for God to do.

But Moses talks God out of going full Hitler by appealing to God’s vanity. Yes, he appeals to God’s vanity.

“ ‘Now if You kill these people, then the nations which have heard of Your fame will speak, saying, “Because the Lord was not able to bring this people to the land which He swore to give them, therefore He killed them in the wilderness.” ’

Now, God, if you go full Hitler, then all of the other nations are going to talk shit about you and think you’re too weak to kill all the Canaanites and give their land to the Jews.

So God thinks about that, “Yes, it would suck to have all the nations on Earth talk shit about me. Okay, go wander around in the wilderness for forty years until they’re all dead and I’ll give the land to their kids.”

So we fast forward forty years and Josh is in command now and God has to give him a pep talk. And all of Israel says, “Yep, you’re our new leader and we’ll kill anyone who says otherwise.”

“Joshua sent out two men to spy secretly on Jericho. So they went and came to the house of a harlot named Rahab

Also, they came at the house of a harlot named Rahab. Several times.

Rahab helps the spies escape her king’s soldiers in exchange for the promise that the Jews won’t kill her and her family.

This is one of those situational ethics scenarios for Christians. You see, Rahab has just committed treason. She has condemned her entire city to death in exchange for mercy for her and her family.  She, in effect, has sold her neighbors and countrymen out to the enemy. But this is seen as a good thing because that enemy was supposedly commanded by God to kill them all.

If you really want to see some intellectual gymnastics ask about Benedict Arnold who tries to sell the Revolutionaries out to the British and point out that the British were technically the legitimate government of the American colonies and the Revolutionaries were rebelling against the government that God had ordained for them.

Bible ethics are fun.

God stops the river Jordan and lets the Jews cross over to Jericho.

“I called the priests together and told them what the Lord had told me. And I instructed the people, ‘Proceed, and march around the city, and let him who is armed advance before the ark of the Lord. You shall not shout, nor shall a word proceed out of your mouth, until the day I say to you, “Shout!” Then you shall shout.’

“So I had the ark of the Lord circle the city, going around it once. Then we came into the camp and lodged. And I rose early in the morning, and the second day did the same thing. We did this every day for six days as the Lord had commanded.

“Well, you know what happened next, so perhaps my friend and I should leave now?”

The children leaped to their feet, crying, “No! No! Stay and tell the rest!”

Tell us the best part where you killed everyone! Woo!

Joshua smiled broadly and signaled them to sit and be quiet. “All right, you persuaded me. On the seventh day we rose about dawn and marched around the city, only this day we circled it seven times. On the seventh time around, when the priests blew their trumpets, I said to the people, ‘Shout, for the Lord has given you the city! The city shall be doomed by the Lord to destruction, it and all who are in it. Only Rahab the harlot shall live, she and all who are with her in the house, because she hid the messengers that we sent. All the silver and gold and vessels of bronze and iron are consecrated to the Lord and shall come into His treasury.’

“So when the people heard the sound of the trumpet, they shouted with a great shout, and the wall fell down flat.”

The children were cheering again.

“Then we marched straight in and took the city as the Lord had commanded. We utterly destroyed it and everything in it with the edge of the sword and with fire, protecting only the harlot, who had been faithful to the Lord, and her family.”

And not just the men… but the women… and children too. Some younger than you. Didn’t matter. Swords pierce the flesh of the young and innocent just as well as they do the flesh of the older and guiltier.

“Ah, I remember the screams of the mothers as we dashed the heads of the little ones on the rocks. Ha ha… so much blood.”

“Brains too,” Caleb said. “Don’t forget the brains.”

“I couldn’t. Some of them were stuck in my sandals for a week.”

“Hey, you remember how many puppies you stabbed?”

“Thirty-seven.”

And then the speech is over and the two Bible characters leave.

He was most impressed, however, with children who had deduced that the Commander of the Lord’s army was Jesus Himself. One little boy said, “Mr. Williams, I want to be in Jesus’ army.”

Mr. Williams, I want to kill for Jesus too! Can I please kill for Jesus?

“Oh, don’t you realize,” Kenny said, “He accepts only those who trust Him for forgiveness of their sins and for salvation?”

“No, Billy, you can’t kill for Jesus unless you acknowledge that you deserve to be tortured forever because you were born.”

“I will.”

“You will? How will you do that?”

“I’ll tell Him.”

“Right now?”

“Can I?”

“Yes, and you don’t even have to travel to the temple. Just pray to Him and tell Him that you know you are a sinner and that you want His forgiveness. Then ask Him to be your Savior and thank Him for dying on the cross for your sins…”

Then Billy organized a militia and went forth to slay the heathens and the Other Light cultists in Jesus’ name.

We flip back to Abdullah who is hanging out in the offices of the Other Light cell with one of them named Sarsour.

Finally Sarsour sat. Abdullah slid his Bible and his papers to the side and looked at him expectantly.

“You really believe this stuff, huh?” Sarsour said.

Well, I wasn’t going to, but then you know, God raptured all of the White Evangelical Christians and then showed up on Earth with a horde of zombie Christians and it was impossible not to believe, you know?

“’Course I don’t. I’m a TOLer.”

“Your parents have to be believers.”

“Yeah. But it’s not for me. They tried to raise me in it, but as soon as I started reading other stuff and talking to other people, I realized the Bible isn’t the only idea.”

It’s literally the only idea now. God is physically on the Earth, Dude.

Sarsour shrugged. “It’s like He’s head of the occupying army. We’re the resistance, that’s all. The rebels.”

“And you don’t feel destined to lose in the end?”

“We’re outnumbered. We’re the outcasts, the rejects, the dregs. But we won’t give up hope until it’s all over. And then we’ll see who wins.”

“Your compatriots, the ones who reach one hundred, are dying every day.”

“I know.”

“Do you know of any exceptions?”

“No.”

“And that doesn’t tell you anything?”

“It just proves God isn’t who He says He is.”

“How do you figure?”

“He’s mean and unloving and unforgiving, violent and judgmental. Disagree and you get killed.”

Good point. A very good point. You’d think a God who was concerned about people being lost and going to hell would be doing more to convince them otherwise instead of just casually killing them off once they reach adulthood.

And if you expect this very good point to get an answer, then fuck you.

 

KC: Nothing much continues to happen…

Abdullah goes to visit the offices of the Other Light in Jordan and knocks on their front door.

Meanwhile, Chloe it super excited to hear the tales of genocide from Joshua and Caleb.

No one wants to answer the door, but Abdullah talks them into it.

“This is getting old and boring,” Mudawar said. “We have been dragged before the judges before, even threatened to be deported to Israel for an audience with one of the apostles. We pled for the freedom to exercise our own free will and pledged to lie low. Have we not been lying low enough, or have your superiors not kept you up to date on our file?”

“My superior is the Lord Christ Himself.”

If only Jesus could appear himself and have a talk with… sigh…

They go back and forth, but Abdullah talks them into giving him an office and letting him be their resident chaplain.

 “So the big boss has assigned you to torment us, eh?”

“No, actually to love you.”

“To love us. This from the same God who vaporized two earnest, sincere opponents in Egypt, just because they didn’t get in line with all the other sheep who trekked to Jerusalem for the—”

“Osaze, you mean.”

“You call it what you will. It will always be Egypt to me…This is the same God who slew millions, if the stories of the Old Testament can be believed.”

Hey, look at that! A good point. One that won’t be answered.

When I was a young man, younger than you, my problem was that I thought all the dire warnings of God’s judgment were wrong, because all I had heard about Jesus was that He was kind and loving and a pacifist, turning the other cheek, preaching the Golden Rule. Then came the end of His patience and mercy, His people were swept off to heaven, and He spent the next seven years trying to get man’s attention and persuade him that God was not willing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance. And now, here you are, a hundred years later, unable to accept His love.”

God loves you so much, he will beat the shit out of you if you don’t love him back to convince you to love him. It’s for your own good.

Yes, the whole “God is getting your attention” ‘reason’ is nothing more than a justification for abuse.

“Oh, but there is,” Abdullah said. “He is loving and full of grace, but he is also perfect and just.”

How hell is “just” is not explained in this book. It just assumes it is.

And that’s the end of the chapter. For some reason, the Other Light gang have him set up in one of their rooms.

KC: Seriously, f*** this book edition

So Chloe can’t get anyone to cop to writing the falsified report about Kat, so she decides to drop it.

She called in Mattie Cleveland and suggested they just chalk up the crisis, such as it was, to an ill-conceived prank and let it die.

If only there were some omniscient and omnipresent deity who you could telepathically communicate with… then you could solve this problem.

Seriously, I’m beginning to think that God doesn’t exist in this universe.

“Whatever you say, Chloe. I agree we need to get on with what we’re here for. I will say this: Qasim has been particularly solicitous ever since this started getting around.”

“The one who’s been so annoying to Ekaterina?”

“He’s really cleaned up his act. He leaves her alone, and he has been much more helpful to me lately. Qasim has even commiserated with me over this mess.”

“But I didn’t even interview him. What does he know about it?”

She didn’t even interview the guy who was sexually harassing an employee who was the subject of a falsified slanderous report?

What. The. Fuck?

I realize that Chloe’s education was cut short by Jesus destroying the world and human civilization and she’s not Sherlock Holmes, but Jesus, dude… you expect me to believe that she wasn’t even curious about interviewing the guy who was harassing the employee who was the subject of that slanderous report?

And now he’s acting all helpful and innocent and they’re still like, “Seems legit to me!”

Sigh. Evil deserves to win, because good is dumb.

Meanwhile, Abdullah is off to see the local chapter of the Other Light and Kenny and Raymie (god, I hate that name) meet to chat about the important business of the Junior God Squad.

“Just a few items,” Kenny said. “I want to know where things stand with Qasim. I want to know what you think I should do about the persistence of the Jospins. And we need to talk about Ekaterina.”

Raymie says he told Qasim to beat it and Qasim got butthurt. Now Zaki is unhappy, and Jesus Christ, this is high school drama bullshit. Fuck this book.

Kenny smiled. “Kat and I have speculated on what might have become of you two—as a couple, I mean—if you were naturals.”

Raymie shook his head and looked away. “I have wondered the same. As has she. We can talk about it openly because it is so far from the realm of possibility. It’s strange that we admire and respect and truly love each other so deeply, and yet the idea of romance never enters the picture. We’re simply not wired that way anymore. That allows us to spend a lot of time together, really as brother and sister, worshiping, praying, studying, planning. I can’t tell you how rewarding it is.”

“And I can’t tell you how much fun it is to have someone like that in my life,” Kenny said, “plus adding the romance to it.”

“I’m happy for you. I really am.”

Once again, we’re forced to consider the contradictory messages that marriage and romance are both somehow wonderful and sacred and yet also unimportant and a distraction. And we’re forced to do this because the bible says both. And our authors cannot admit that the bible contradicts itself and thus are trying to reconcile how a and not-a can both be true.

Marriage is a wonderful, sacred partnership between two souls and once you’re died and zombified, God fundamentally alters you to make you less human and unable to love another human being in that way.

Sigh…

Kenny tells his uncle that he’s been talking with Kat about his Jr. God Squad stuff and Raymie says, “Gotta be careful. What if it doesn’t work out?”

Then it doesn’t work out. Do you think Kat would suddenly run over to the Other Light assholes and say, “Kenny is a spy!” How petty do you think she is?

Still, this pressure from Ignace and now Lothair to, in essence, put up or shut up weighs too heavily on me not to talk about it to the woman I love. She would be able to tell something was on my mind anyway, and it’s not fair to her to keep it from her.”

“And I gather that you haven’t—kept it from her, I mean.”

“No, I haven’t.”

“And what is she saying?”

“Kat thinks I should pursue it, do it right, and—unlike Qasim—act under the authority of the Force. In other words, make sure everybody knows what I’m doing so they can pray for me, keep track of me, and give advice.”

Again, why? Why does anyone need to be a spy when you already have the information you have.

Why does anyone need to be a spy when Jesus Christ is supposed to be here on Earth and knows everything already anyway and should be able to Charles Xavier you commands about what you should be doing ?

Why are there any fucking questions or confusion about any of this?

Where the hell is Jesus in this Kingdom of Jesus?

What’re you thinking, that you would visit them in France?”

“That or start feeding them bogus information. Just enough to keep them on the string.”

“I don’t know,” Raymie said, sighing. “If our goal is not to win them over, what is it?”

We are more than halfway through this book and you assholes don’t even know what goals your “secret” club should have?

WHAT THE FUCK HAVE YOU BEEN DOING ALL THIS TIME?

They rose to start heading back to work. Kenny said, “All I know is that if I don’t start playing their game soon, they’re going to know I’m not on their side. Maybe that’s not all bad. I can stick to what I know and what I believe I’m supposed to be doing—reaching the children right here.”

Yeah, that seems important. Also, I love it when a character points out that their entire “plot” is bullshit.

Or maybe you should go to France and open up a new chapter of Jesus’ home for orphans whose parents he murdered and other children.

Sigh…

Abdullah spends two more sections preparing to go see the local chapter of the Other Light.

The priest Yorik shows up and says, “Joshua and Caleb are going to visit the kids tomorrow.”

And Qasim talks to Kenny and says, “No, I am TOTALLY NOT a spy. NOT a spy at all.”

Have I mentioned how much I hate this book?