Tag: stories

Second Coming: Escape or Energiser?

The Second Coming: Escape or Energiser?

"Lianne struggled with the idea of God," Don DeLillo’s narrator says of one of the characters in his novel, Falling Man. "She was taught to believe that religion makes people compliant. This is the purpose of religion, to return people to a childlike state… . We want to transcend, to pass beyond the limits of safe understanding— and what better way to do it than through make-believe?" It’s a contemporary restatement of an oft-repeated criticism of religion—and perhaps of Christianity in particular.