Blasphemy

“In the beginning,” he throbbed, “God created the heavens and the earth. And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep.”

He paused, inhaling dramatically. “And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.”

His voice suddenly boomed through the Silver Cathedral like the notes of an organ. “And God said,Let there be light! ”

A dramatic beat, and he continued, in the barest whisper. “And there was light.”

He strode to the edge of the stage and beamed a folksy smile on the wor-shippers. “We all know those opening words of Genesis. Some of the most powerful words ever written. No ambiguity there. Those are the very words of God, my friends. God is telling us in His own words how He created the universe.”

He strolled casually along the edge of the stage. “My friends, will it surprise you if I tell you the government is spending your hard-earned taxpayer dollars in an effort to prove God wrong?”

He turned, eyeing the silent audience.

“You don’t believe me?”

A murmur rose from the sea of faces.

He pulled a piece of paper from his suit-coat pocket and snapped it in the air, his voice suddenly full of thunder. “It’s right here. I downloaded it off the Internet less than an hour ago.”

Another murmur.

“And what did I learn? That our government has spent forty billion dollars to prove Genesis wrong—forty billion dollars of your money to attack the holiest Scripture in the Old Testament. Yes, my friends, it’s all part of the government-sponsored, secular humanist war on Christianity, and it’s ugly.”

He paced the stage. He shook the paper in his fist, crackling it.

“Right here it says they’ve built a machine in the Arizona desert called Isabella. Many of you have heard of it.”

A big murmur of agreement.

“I had, too. I just thought it was another government boondoggle. Only recently was I made aware of its pur-pose.”

A sudden halt in his pacing, and a slow turn to face the audience.

“Its pur-pose, my friends, is to investigate the so-called Big Bang theory. That’s right, you heard it, there’s that word ‘theory’ again!”

His voice was laced with scorn.

“The Big Bang theory goes like this:thirteen billion years ago a teeny-weeny point in space blew up and created the entire universe—without the helping hand of God. You heard me: Creation without God. Ay-thee-istic Creation.”

He waited while a disbelieving silence grew. He shook the paper again. “That’s what it says, folks! A whole Web site, hundreds of pages devoted to explaining the Creation of the Universe, and not one mention of God!”

Another glare around the hall.

“This Big Bang theory is no different from the theory that says our great- granddaddies were monkeys. Or the theory that says life’s complexity was created by an accidental rearrangement of molecules in a puddle of mud. This Big Bang theory is just another secular humanistic, anti-Christian, antifaith theory no different from evolution, except that this one’s worse. Much, much worse! ”

Spin, turn, pace.

“Because this theory attacks the very notion that God created the universe. Make no mistake about it: Isabella is a direct attack on Christian faith. The Big Bang theory says this beautiful, this exquisite, this God- given universe of ours happened all by itself, by sheer accident, thirteen billion years ago. And as if that Christian-hating theory wasn’t enough, now they want to spend forty billion dollars of our money to prove it!”

He raked the audience with a fierce eye.

“How about if we asked the savants in Washington for equal time? What if we asked them for forty billion dollars to prove the Truth of Genesis? What about that! The professional Jesus-hating liberals in Washington would gnash their teeth and foam at the mouth! They’d trot out that old saw about separation of church and state! These are the folks who’ve banned Jesus from the classrooms, yanked the Ten Commandments from our courtrooms, outlawed Christmas trees and creches, mocked and spat on our beliefs—and then these same secular humanists think nothing of spending our money to prove the Bible wrong, to make a lie out of our Christian faith!”

The hubbub swelled. A few people stood up, then more, then the entire congregation. They surged upward like a tsunami, their voices merging into a single roar of disapproval.

The prompters remained dark, unneeded now.

“This is a war on Christianity, my friends! It’s a war to the finish, and they’re taxing you and me to wage it! Are we going to let them spit on Christ and charge us for the privilege?”

The Reverend DonT. Spates stopped dead at stage center, breathing heavily, gazing out over the seething audience in the Virginia Beach cathedral, flabbergasted at the effect of his words. He could hear it, he could see it, he could feel it—the frenzied swell, the upwelling of righteous anger, the very air crackling with the electricity of outrage. He could hardly believe it. He’d been throwing rocks all his life, and suddenly he’d lobbed a grenade. This was the issue he’d been praying for, hoping for, searching for.

“God and Jesus be praised!” he cried out, throwing his arms toward heaven and raising his eyes to the glittering ceiling. He sank to his knees in loud, quavering prayer. “Lord Jesus, with Your help, we will stop this insult to Your Father. We will destroy that infernal machine out there in the howling desert. We will put an end to this blasphemy against You called Isabella!”

7

AT QUARTER TO EIGHT, WYMAN FORD stepped out of the two-bedroom casita and stood at the end of the driveway, inhaling the fragrant night air. The windows of the dining hall were rectangles of yellow floating in darkness. Above the swish of the sprinklers on the playing field, he could hear the faint sounds of a boogie-woogie piano tune and the murmur of voices. He couldn’t imagine Kate as any different from the irreverent, pot-smoking, argumentative graduate student he had known. But she must have changed—a lot—to become assistant director of the most important scientific experiment in the history of physics.

His mind seemed to slide naturally into memories of her and their time together, thoughts that had the unfortunate tendency to become X-rated. He hastily shoved them back into the id corner of his mind from which they had sprung. This was not, he thought, a responsible way to begin the investigation.

He skirted the sprinklers, reached the front door of the old log trading post, and entered. Light and music spilled from a recreation room to his right. He walked in. People were playing cards or chess, reading, working on laptop computers. Away from the Bridge, they appeared almost relaxed.

Hazelius himself sat at the piano. His tiny fingers jumped around the keys for several more bars and then he rose. “Wyman, welcome! Dinner is just ready.” He met Ford halfway across the room, took his arm, and led him toward the dining hall. The rest began to rise and follow.

A heavy pine table set with candles, silver, and fresh wildflowers dominated the dining room. A fire blazed in a stone fireplace. Navajo rugs hung on the walls; Nakai Rock style, Ford guessed from the geometric designs. Several bottles of wine stood open, and the smell of grilled steak wafted in from the kitchen.

Hazelius acted the genial host, seating people, laughing, joking. He ushered Ford to a seat in the middle, next to a willowy blonde.

“Melissa? This is Wyman Ford, our new anthropologist. Melissa Corcoran, our cosmologist.”

They shook hands. A mass of heavy blond hair tumbled down around her shoulders, and her pale green eyes, the color of sea glass, turned on him with curiosity. A smattering of freckles dusted an upturned nose; a beaded Indian vest, both stylish and simple, set off her pants and shirt. But Corcoran’s eyes, too, were faintly bloodshot and rimmed in red.