"Beshrew your eyes . . ."
---William Shakespeare, Merchant Of Venice, III:2
Damn your eyes, Edwards, and your blasphemy
that has passed, so long, for theology
that speaks only about God's wrath and rage.
I wish someone had burned your every page
of writing: or you, you son of a glitch,
deserved to be burned more than any witch.
Damage you did to Christianity
(in this vast land; and somewhat less, abroad)
must be repaired: and Faith's recovery
may be proved difficult, you filthy fraud.
Love is God, as Christ's great Apostle taught;
and perfect Love casts out each fear and terror.
This truth still stands against the rank onslought
of your false preaching, based on godless error.
Starward
[*/+/^]
Author's Notes/Comments:
The poem alludes to 1 John 4:8 and 18.
On an October Sunday, either the 2nd or the 9th, of 1977, I first read the Epistles of John. I was amazed by the theological beauty and joy contained in the First Epistle.
I prefer the Eastern Christian view of Salvation, which emphasizes God's salvific and invitatory Love, rather His anger and wrath. In the West, we Christians have been defrauded of our joy in Christ by the false preaching of fear of God, which defies the Apostle's teaching in 1 John 4:18. I was appalled to hear an admittedly ignorant preacher (of the sort which seems to be rife within the Baptist Church) declare that he became a Christian not to embrace the Love and Invitation of Christ, but to escape the fires of Hell.
I believe that the false preaching of Jonathan Edwards will eventually be revealed as the blasphemy that it is; only then can the West recover what David, in the Psalms, and the Prophet Habakkuk, described as the joy of Salvation.
