Acts of God

by James Beauseigneur

  But Decker was mad. "That makes at least half a dozen times that you've talked about how I was 'brought' here! Why don't you just admit that you had me kidnapped! I wasn't just 'brought' here, damn it! I was kidnapped!! Can't you even be honest enough to admit that?!"

  "Whether you were 'brought' here or kidnapped, it is too early to say," Rosen answered. "If when we are through, you still believe as you do now, then my crime will indeed be kidnapping. If however, I am able to convince you that you have been wrong about the KDT and the Christians — whom you call fundamentalists — and that you are wrong about Christopher, then I will not be guilty of kidnapping, but rather, of rescuing you."

  "That's pure drivel," Decker responded disgustedly.

  "As I was saying . . ." Rosen continued, "after I backed down from talking to you in Tel Aviv..." Decker's mind raced. For a second time, Rosen had admitted 'backing down.' Did he not care that this exposed a weakness? Did he think that since Decker had caught the point the first time he said it that there was no harm in saying it again? The man's not only crazy, he's stupid, Decker thought. Or did Rosen think that by bringing it up again it might make it appear that he either no longer held or cared about that particular fear? ... Or did Rosen really have only a limited ability to read Decker's mind, so that he didn't realize the importance that Decker assigned to the statement about backing down? Decker decided to test the theory. I'm going to slug this bastard, he thought. I'm going to slug him, he thought again, almost trying to send his thought to his captor. I'm going to slug this bastard. . . now! And then lunging across the small table between them and knocking over the pitcher of water, Decker planted his right fist on the left side of Rosen's face.

  Scott Rosen spun around and fell from his chair with the force of Decker's punch.

  Decker watched with great satisfaction as the big man tumbled to the floor. Now the question was: Had Rosen been unable to read Decker's thoughts or had he taken the blow just to make Decker believe that? Decker had watched Rosen's eyes as he hit him and there was no sign of an early flinch that would have indicated he knew the blow was coming. In the end, Decker realized the test was not really conclusive. Either way, it had felt good to hit him.

  Rosen winced in pain on the floor, his clothing wet as he lay in the puddle of water from the pitcher, his head spinning. Then looking at Decker, he got up slowly and relocated himself in his chair. "I suppose you expect me to turn the other cheek now?" he asked.

  "If you'd like," Decker said with triumph in his voice that disguised the throbbing pain he felt in his hand from delivering the blow.

  Rosen continued rubbing his cheek, but he refused to be distracted, and amazingly went back to his story as though nothing had happened. His persistence was getting a little unnerving. "I continued to struggle with the feeling that I needed to talk with you," he said. "Then Saul Cohen, on the day before he was killed in Jerusalem, came to me and, without explanation, told me that when the time was right I would know, and I was to do as God told me. I knew immediately he was talking about you."

  "So far you've blamed my abduction on God, your parents, and now Saul Cohen — none of whom, I notice, are here to defend themselves."

  "And finally," Rosen continued, choosing to ignore Decker's comment, "there is one other reason that I brought you here, and it is that I feel that in some part I am responsible for the fact that you did not accept Yeshua as your savior long ago."

  Decker rolled his eyes. "Oh, brother," he sighed.

  "You see," Rosen said, "I once interrupted a conversation between you and your wife, that if I hadn't, might have dramatically changed your life."

  Decker's eyes flared red, though he tried to hide it. He wanted to shout, "You leave my wife out of this, you son of a bitch!" but he knew if he did, Scott Rosen would realize he had hit a nerve. As long as there was any chance that Rosen did not always know what Decker was thinking, it was better not to react. "I don't know what you're talking about," Decker muttered through clenched teeth.

  "It was in the hospital in Tel Aviv," Rosen said. "You and Tom Donafm had just returned to Israel after your escape from Lebanon. When I heard that you had actually been abducted on Israeli soil, I was outraged that the Hizballah had dared to take hostages from inside Israel. I insisted that you and Tom report the details to the authorities immediately, but everyone else said it could wait until later, so I stormed off to call the police myself. When I got back with the police, you and your family and my parents were talking." Decker remembered the event, though without so much detail.

  "You are aware, I believe, that while you were a hostage, your family spent a lot of time with my parents."

  Decker did remember that. Elizabeth and the girls had talked about Joshua and liana a lot before the Disaster. Apparently they had gotten pretty close.

  "Well, that night after the event with the police in the hospital lobby, I overheard my parents talking. Apparently, I had walked in and interrupted your wife just as she was about to tell you that she and your daughters had accepted Yeshua as lord and savior and become Christians while you were in Lebanon. If I hadn't interrupted, they were planning to tell you that and to explain the gospel to you."

  "You needn't have troubled yourself, Rosen," Decker said mockingly. "If my wife," Decker chose not to defile Elizabeth's name by saying it in Scott Rosen's presence, "had wanted to 'explain the gospef to me, she had ample opportunity after that night."

  "True," Rosen replied, "no doubt, she did. And for that I bear no responsibility. However, your wife was certainly not the first Christian to make the mistake of thinking she had plenty of time to get around to sharing her faith with those she cared about. But then the Rapture came and there was no more time."

  Decker stared blankly at Rosen, his expression unintentionally revealing that he had no idea what Rosen was talking about. Rosen supplied the answer.

  "Your wife and children didn't die," Rosen said. "Nor did my parents or the millions of others who the world believes died in what they call the 'Disaster.'" Decker's expression made it obvious that he was incredulous at such a preposterous claim. Was Rosen insane? "There was no Disaster," Rosen continued, unabated. "Your family, my parents, and all the others, except of course, some who died in resulting accidents — didn't 'die.' They were 'raptured,' caught away by Yeshua so that they would be spared the horrors of the times in which we now live. What the world knows as the Disaster, Mr. Hawthorne, was really the Rapture, just as was described prophetically by the Apostle Paul when he wrote:

  ... the dead in Christ will rise first. After that, we who are still alive and are left will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And so we will be with the Lord forever.

  Decker shook his head repeatedly in disbelief and laughed. "You fanatics have an amazing ability to ignore the most obvious flaws in your theology," he said. "What about the bodies?! My wife and children didn't 'go up in the clouds to be with Jesus'; they died, just like your parents did! And their bodies are the proof"

  "The bodies of the people who were raptured were corruptible — the decaying remains of the family of our fallen ancestor, Adam," Rosen concluded. "Those bodies never would have been permitted in heaven and so were simply sloughed off, or shed like old clothes. When they were raptured they were given new bodies, perfect, incorruptible, and without flaw. Again, I refer you to the words of the Apostle Paul:

  . . . flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable. Listen, I tell you a mystery: We will not all sleep, but we will all be changed — in a flash, in the twinkling of an eye... the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed. For the perishable must clothe itself with the imperishable, and the mortal with immortality.

  Decker shook his head again, amazed that Rosen could believe what he was proposing. "And how do you explain all the Christians that were not 'raptured'? I don't recall hearing that all the churches were emptied by the Disaster," Decker note
d sarcastically. "And what about the churches today? What about the fundamentalists?"

  "Not everyone who claims to be a Christian is one, Mr. Hawthorne. Going to church doesn't make you a Christian any more than going to a football game makes you an athlete. As for those you call the fundamentalists, these are non-Jewish people who accepted Jesus after the Rapture."

  "So you're saying that you and your fundamentalist allies are the only real Christians?" Decker challenged.

  "For the most part, yes, that is true," Rosen answered without excuse.

  "Do you guys just sit around making up this crap, or what?"

  Rosen didn't answer but Decker was not through with him. "Explain this to me," he demanded. "If God wanted to have people accept Jesus as 'lord and savior,' it seems rather odd that he would decide to 'rapture' all the Christians out of the world and replace them with lunatic fanatics whose tactics drive away everyone except for other lunatic fanatics."

  "As I already said, in part the Rapture was to spare those who were already Christians from the suffering, just as God spared Noah and his family before the flood, and just as he spared Lot and his family before the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah. But by far the most important reason for the Rapture was to remove from the world what was good so that the world would sink to its lowest levels. God wanted to show just how corrupt the world would become without the influence of the people who served him.

  "Christopher and the New Age teach that 'Humankind' is on the verge of a great evolutionary advancement. But where is the evidence? Have people stopped hating each other? Have jealousy and envy stopped? I won't even ask if crime has been reduced because there is so little that is considered a crime anymore. All but the worst offenses have been legalized or are now considered matters of'personal choice.' The parks of your great city, Babylon, are filled with nudity and nameless, faceless sex. There are no limits: even bestiality is considered normal and healthy.

  "Those who do not participate have turned a blind eye, ignoring what is all around them, until they have become numb to the depravity. What used to be limited to X-rated movies is now standard fare on daytime television. Abortion is looked upon as nothing more than birth control. Drugs, now legal and easily available, are used on a regular basis by more than 30 percent of the population. People have become gluttons, indulging their every appetite.

  "Tell me, Mr. Hawthorne, have pride and greed and selfishness been eliminated as Humankind stands ready to enter the New Age? Have the number of murders dropped so dramatically or the cases of violence been so reduced? Is that why such things are so seldom reported by the news media? Or is it that they have become so commonplace that they are no longer considered newsworthy? And the psychic powers which Christopher has told us are the signs of the coming New Age — are they used to help others, or are they used almost exclusively for the benefit of the individuals who possess such powers?"

  Rosen shook his head. "Left to its own devices, without God's influence, it is absolutely stupefying just how truly depraved the world has become. Are these things the evidence that should convince us that mankind is ready for godhood, or are they proof that all of us are hopelessly lost without a forgiving and loving God?" Rosen didn't wait for an answer. "God knew," he continued, "that only when things are at their worst will some people realize their need and turn to him. Many of these are the ones you call the fundamentalists.

  "But I suspect there may have been one other reason for the Rapture," Rosen added. "I admit that I did not know many Christians before the Rapture, but from all the division that existed among them, I suspect that if God had left them here, many of them would be too busy arguing over trivial doctrines to have time for world evangelism. As for our tactics which you believe makes us 'lunatic fanatics,' I would submit that confronting people with the sin in their lives and calling them to repent is no different that what Jesus did in the story of the woman at the well."

  "This is all very amusing, Rosen," Decker said with a forced laugh. "But I know what happened to my family and it has nothing to do with your religious fantasies." Then, even though he was sure it was a waste of time, Decker tried to reason with Rosen. "Can't you see what you've done?" he said. "You feel guilty for what you did to your parents and you've bought into this whole crazy story to convince yourself that your parents didn't really die so you won't have to deal with your guilt."

  Scott Rosen apparently was not in the mood to be reasoned with. "We'll talk more later," he said, and got up to leave without explanation.

  "You're a sick man, Rosen!" Decker yelled as Rosen closed the door behind him.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Matters of Fact and Faith

  After Rosen left, the jailer returned carrying a mop. Surveying the spilled water, he shook his head. "If you felt you had to hit Scott, that was one thing, but did you have to make my job harder by dumping water all over the place?" he asked.

  "Sony," Decker said, and he was, a little. He wasn't sure whether it was the afterglow of having hit Rosen or the jailer's pleasant demeanor and sense of humor, but he found that he was actually getting to like the jailer. He thought back to their conversation that morning about manna and smiled. "Manna manicotti?" he laughed.

  The jailer stopped mopping. "So you liked that?" he asked.

  Decker smiled and nodded. "Do you really have a recipe for that?"

  The jailer shook his head. "No. Actually, I just made that up as I was telling you about it." Then, thinking about it for a moment as he leaned on his mop, he added, "I suppose there's no reason that I can't come up with a recipe for it, though. In fact, I'll get to work on it right after your lunch. I may even be able to have it for you for dinner." The jailer smiled to himself at the idea. "I bet it'll be a big hit around here," he said, thinking ahead to when he would share the recipe and its humorous name with others.

  After lunch, Decker pulled one of the chairs over to the window to watch the comings and goings around the cabin. There was little else to do, and though he could have called the jailer in to talk, he resisted, thinking it best not to grow too attached to anyone. If he had a chance to escape, there was no way of knowing who might get hurt. He could not allow caring about his jailer to interfere with his judgment.

  He wondered if there was any way to escape. Assuming that Rosen did not simply want to 'talk' to him, as he claimed, there appeared to be only two other possibilities: either Rosen hoped to 'convert' him — after which Decker would be killed so that he couldn't later change his mind — or else Rosen hoped to use him somehow to sabotage Christopher's plans. Truly, Decker was caught on the horns of a dilemma. Would pretending to be convinced — acting as though he believed what Rosen said — be his ticket out, or his death sentence? The whole matter was probably moot, however. While it might be possible to fool Rosen long enough to get himself killed, it was unlikely Rosen could be fooled long enough to let Decker go.

  As Decker watched from the window he slowly became aware of something: there seemed to be far more KDT now than there had been the day before. It was impossible to be sure: the observed area was much too small. It might just be that there were more KDT at this side of the camp than there had been the day before, or it might mean something more.

  It was 2:30 when Rosen returned. Decker smiled to himself with satisfaction as he saw that Rosen had a black eye and bruised cheek. Over his shoulder he carried a small leather satchel which he sat by the door.

  "Have you ever taken a class in comparative religions, Mr. Hawthorne?" Rosen asked.

  Decker didn't give an answer, but Rosen didn't really need one.

  "If you had, at the end of the class you'd probably have a basic knowledge of the teachings, ceremonies, and traditions of each religion and maybe some familiarity with the cultures that spawned them. But you'd have no way of knowing which, if any, of the religions were correct and which were incorrect. In fact, you would probably come away from the class with the 'enlightened' conclusion that while none of the religions are complete
ly true, all have some value in that they provide comfort and moral guidance to their adherents. And as long as those adherents didn't try to impose their belief system on you, everything would be fine.

  "If you did try to judge the correctness of one religion over another, your only measure would be whether the teachings of a particular religion seemed appropriate for your life."

  "What else would you expect?" Decker asked sardonically.

  "What else indeed?" Rosen answered. "Certainly, you would never expect to find proof that one of the religions was true and the others false.

  "Comparing religions," Rosen continued, "usually involves only looking at what the religions have in common and ignoring where they are truly different. It would be like comparing a bicycle, a car, a truck, a train, and an airplane. You might look at the number of wheels on each, the different navigational controls, the means of propulsion, the number of passengers each can carry, their maximum speed ... In fact, as you continued to consider the similarities you might never get around to the fact that there is something that makes one of the vehicles completely different from all the others: the airplane flies."

  Decker intentionally yawned to show disinterest, but Rosen was undistracted.

  "The same is true when comparing religions. We compare everything about them, but we never get around to looking at whether any of the religions can be proven. I can prove that what I believe is true!"

  "That's ridiculous," Decker responded. "You can't prove religious beliefs. They're strictly a matter of faith."

  "Oh, I'll admit that's true with other religions."

  "You know, that's your whole problem, Rosen. You have this chauvinistic idea that you're right and everybody else is wrong. You can't admit that someone else might have some piece of the truth. You think you've got it all to yourself, and that's the way you like it. If people don't agree with you, then as far as you're concerned, they're damned to hell."