MDDM Subjunctive Spaces

[Terrance]

Terrance wrote:
> 
> Abe said where you want the killin done
> G-d said out on highway 61.

In the Jews, Eliade argues, we  encounter a people with a  personal God
of history. This is something quite new. This is evidenced in the famous
biblical story of the patriarch
Abraham, who prepares to kill his son as an offering to God. 

If Judaism were an archaic religion, says Eliade, this fearsome act
would be an instance of human sacrifice. Killing of the firstborn to
renew the sacred power of life
in the gods. However, within the New Judaism, the Event has  quite a
different character. Abraham's encounter is a very personal transaction
in history with a God who asks him for his son simply as a sign of his
faith. This God, not an Earth God,
but a sky God,  does not need sacrifices to renew his divine powers. In
fact,  he
does spare Isaac, the son. This Father G-d requires from his people is a
heart loyal enough to make that ultimate sacrifice if asked. (The
ultimate sacrifice for God and
Country, Mother land and Father land?) Christianity inherits this same
perspective.
 The sequence of events that make up the life and death of  Jesus forms
a singular and historic instance, a decisive moment which,   occurring
ONCE ONLY, serves as the basis for a personal relationship of
forgiveness (the bad priest does not want
Elana to have Paola, she can't be forgiven) and trust between Christian
believers and their God. In celebrating the life, crucifixion, and
resurrection of Christ, the
Christian faithful do not engage in a ritual of seasonal rebirth; they
do not act out an eternal return to  beginnings. 
(see *The Christian Calendar* Cowie Gummer and the Tres
  Riches  Heures I posted here). 

They remember a specific and final historical event, one
that requires from them an equally singular and final decision of
personal
faith.  Of course, this new historical religion did not win an
instant victory over the older, archaic attitudes, which are
deeply rooted in human psychology. The tremendous attraction
that fertility religions did not simply go away. 

Now, even if Wicks is in a French Protestant household, his Italian Halo
glowing, he could be  very attracted to the fertility religions or the
deep root of catholicism. 

Just an idea.