A Creed for the Third Millennium

by Colleen McCullough

  He began to walk, which created a frenzy among cameramen, floor staff and the control room, unable to predict his peregrinations. He didn't even notice, let alone care.

  'We are not God's children except in a purely biological sense, because we belong to ourselves. It is our right as human beings to belong to ourselves. God gave us not His laws but the ability to make our own. And if God expects anything at all of us, then He simply expects us with patience and endurance and strength to overcome every obstacle not He but we ourselves and our environment keep putting in our way. This is not God's world. It is our world! He gave it to us! I cannot believe in a proprietorial God. We have made this world what it is, not God. We should blame Him as little as we should praise Him. I like to think that when we die the best part of us goes back to God, not necessarily as the entity we call self, but as the part of God already in us, that lonely spirit. But I don't know, and I can't tell you. I just believe that inside me is a little drop of God to fuel me, keep me going. What I do most certainly know is that here is where I am right now, here in this world made by me and my fellow men and all our ancestors. Here is the world I have participated in creating. The world which is therefore my responsibility, as it is all men's responsibility. '

  'The book!' cried Bob Smith from his chair, spellbound, yet sufficiently possessed of himself to dislike the way his show had been wrested from him.

  Dr Christian stopped pacing and turned to look down on Bob Smith from his great height, eyes blazing, nostrils dilated, the makeup on his face standing out like a mask in which those eyes dwelled like alien fifes.

  The remark had dragged him back to where he was, why he was there, what he was supposed to be doing.

  'The book,' he said, and it might as well have been, 'Which book?' He paused, searching. 'The book. Yes, the book! I called it God in Cursing because that is the crucial phrase from a line or two of a poem by Elizabeth Barrett Browning which appeals to me. It is biblical in that it refers to the severance of God and Man, that time when Man was driven from the Garden of Eden with God's curse ringing in his ears. God cursed Man with the choice between good and evil, with bringing forth — and up! — his children in pain and travail, with wresting a living from the earth by the work of his hands, with the cycle of life and death. The poem itself was written as a hymn to work. "Get leave to work.. . for God, in cursing, gives us better gifts than men in benediction."

  'It is my opinion,' he went on with no apology in his tone, 'that all myth and legend and archaic theology including Genesis is allegorical and was originally intended by its writers to be interpreted allegorically. To me, God in cursing us actually gave us the gift of ourselves. We were handed the entire responsibility for our collective and our individual destinies. Like any good parent, He kicked us out of His nest to make our own way in our own infinitesimal segment of the sky.

  'The dawn of the race of Man and Man's power to reason was a very long time ago, as long before recorded history as the waxing and waning of several ice ages. The millennia have passed in endless progression, though about the last five of them only do we know very much. And now we stand on the brink of a new millennium. Facing the same old problems. Facing some new ones too. Good and evil are. They cannot change. But work used to be the lot of every man, and now it is rapidly becoming an aristocratic privilege. Men nowadays are more often paid not to work. And the greatest pain our children can inflict upon us is their dwindling number, in our having to wrap up the whole of our urge to immortality within the frail person of one single child per family, give or take the winners of the SCB lottery, and they have their own pains, poor souls.'

  Some shifted in their seats to hear Dr Christian's evident sympathy for two-child parents; Bob Smith, who had two children and would gladly have kept his family to one child had he dreamed of the repercussions, was suddenly moved to like this strange and terrifying man. Even to forgive his usurpation of the show.

  'Millennial neurosis is loss of hope in the future and faith in the present. It is a perpetual feeling of futility and lack of purpose. It is a dull and utterly unproductive fury turned in upon itself. It is depression often to the point of suicide. It is apathy. It is believing in nothing, from God to our country to ourselves. It is also a Tantalus situation, where most of us living — the average age of all Americans is now up beyond forty — can look back to kinder days, days when we chafed and cavilled at restrictions on our liberty so minor by comparison that we could all happily give an arm or two for the chance to go back to them. Therefore millennial neurosis is not only loss of hope in the future and faith in the present, it is love of the past. Because — well, who could want in his heart to live in our present?'

  'Since we don't have any choice but to live in the present, Doc, how about giving us some answers?' called Manning Croft.

  Dr Christian looked at the black man sternly and gratefully, pleased to be reminded where he was, what his purpose was. He gave his answer quietly, with tender strength.

  'Turn to God, first of all, and understand that the more persistent in the face of adversity any human being is, the richer will be his pattern of life, the happier he will be contending with his life, the bigger his spirit or share of God will grow, and the easier he will face his death. And learn to be busy with hands and mind, for then grief is less unbearable. Acquire a taste for beauty in the world around you, in the books you read, in the pictures you see, in the house you inhabit, in the street where your house is, in the town where your street is. Grow all kinds of living things, not to replace the children you cannot grow, but to keep your brain and eyes and skin constantly exposed to the adventures of growth and life. And accept the world for what it is while doing everything in your power to make it a better place. Do not fear the cold! The race of Man is greater than the cold. The race of Man will be here when the sun warms again.'

  'Dr Christian, do you think what we are going through right now is really necessary?' asked Bob Smith.

  In the White House two men sat up straight in a hurry, and in the green room Dr Carriol crossed her fingers and shut her eyes and wished she had someone to pray to. But how could one pray to the God of Joshua Christian?

  'Oh, yes, it is necessary,' answered Dr Christian. 'For which is worse, to elect to possess one whole and perfect child, or to run the risk of littering broods of genetically warped quasi-children because the only way left to give ourselves that kind of freedom is nuclear war? Which is worse, to run out of gas in a blizzard in upstate New York within the splendid isolation of personal wheels, or travel to Buffalo packed shoulder to shoulder in a warm safe train? Which is worse, to keep on reproducing at the rate we were reproducing, and find our cities squeezing our available arable land to the point of inadequacy, or to limit our reproduction and thereby our industry and our urban sprawls to a size which will allow all of us to live comfortably in the icy times to come?'

  He looked around him slowly, suddenly — visibly —weary. And the audience was weary with him, yet not tired of him any more than he was tired of them.

  'Remember that we are the ones who must suffer most, for we are the ones who remember different times. What is alien to us will be normal to our children. What you have never known you cannot miss, except as an exercise in abstract thinking. And the very worst disservice we can do our poor solitary children is to fill them with longing for a world they will not know and cannot know. Millennial neurosis is exactly that. A phenomenon of our generation, the millennial generation. It will not endure, if we have the strength to let it die with us. For when we go, it must go.'

  'Dr Christian, are you saying that the only certain cure for millennial neurosis is the passing of our generation?'

  This came out of the audience somewhere in the dimness; the floor manager nixed a suggestion from upstairs that he swing a camera in the direction of the inquirer, for Dr Christian had embarked upon his reply without hesitation.

  'No. I am not even saying that with the passing of our generation, millennial neu
rosis will cease. All I am saying is that we owe it to our children to let it die with us! As for more positive ways of combating it, I outlined those to Mr Croft, so I won't repeat them now. But all of it is in my book, better said, because more logically said.' The rare sweet smile was aimed into that section of the audience where the almost invisible woman sat. 'I get carried away, you know, and that means I forget how to be logical. I am only a man, and not even a very perfect specimen, I'm afraid. I have struggled to give you an imperfect man's imperfect ideas about what ails us, about God, about ourselves. And I only offer these ideas because I have found that they have helped the people who have turned to me for help.'

  'Hey, Doc, you say we ought to keep busy,' said a male voice from the audience. 'But these days it takes money to keep busy.'

  'I don't agree,' said Dr Christian. 'There are many ways to keep busy that cost a minimum of hard cash. Growing things need not be expensive, except in time and care. There are hobbies which can yield a small income if done well enough, community projects, grants from local government bodies as well as from state and federal bodies. There is, I venture to say, not a town in this whole country not well endowed with books — borrowable books, I mean. I'm preaching, I know, but keeping busy is a habit! And like all habits, it needs a lot of practise before it becomes ingrained. In my family we can always tell when my mother is really worried or upset, because she scrubs the floors on hands and knees. That's a form of keeping busy. Let me tell you, for acutely worrisome situations, it's a therapy that's hard to beat Sporting activities are wonderful for those who enjoy sports, and nowhere these days is without public sporting facilities. You must keep busy! And you must teach your children to keep busy! The most soul-destroying thing a man or woman can do is lie around and think, unless the thinking is productively designed and directed. Otherwise all that happens is self-analysis, self-preoccupation and self-destruction.' He stopped for a moment, then asked, 'What do you like to keep busy at that takes a lot of money?'

  'I like to count it, Doc! I used to be a bank teller before banks got self-service money dispensers, and phased us tellers out.'

  Dr Christian's face creased into laughter. 'Then I suggest you learn to play Monopoly,' he said. He sobered abruptly, opened his mouth to speak about the problem of redundancy, and found himself confronted by a determined Bob Smith.

  'How about we go back to the desk and sit down, Dr Christian?' he asked, putting his arm as high around the sloping shoulders in their shabby tweed coat as he could reach, and steering his guest into a turn towards the empty podium. 'I guess there are still a lot of people including me who want to ask you questions, so let's have a proper question-and-answer time, huh?'

  So they sat down in their .original places, with Manning Croft on the near end of the long sofa. Dr Christian was near exhaustion, sweating and trembling from the enormous effort he had put into that long impassioned speech.

  'Are you trying to form a new religion?' asked Bob Smith seriously.

  Dr Christian shook his head vigorously. 'No! Oh no! I'm simply trying to offer disillusioned people a more mature and acceptable idea of God. As I emphasized, it's just my own view of God, so I can't say how good or bad it might be. I'm not a theologian, by training or by inclination. It isn't God Who matters to me in fine detail. People matter. So what is important to me is that people start thinking about God again, and start believing in Him. Because Man without God is a purposeless speck of protoplasm coming from nowhere and going nowhere, not responsible for himself or his world. He's an accident, a wart on the skin of the universe, a nothing. Therefore I believe that if a man cannot believe in any of the assorted concepts of God offered to him by the various religions of the world, he should find God for himself, and owe his God to no one but himself.'

  'You can't have God without a church!' cried a big bass voice from the audience.

  Dr Christian raised his whole forehead. 'Why? What is really important, God or a church? No human being should feel he has to go to or belong to a church in order to believe in God! Because the word "church" has two meanings. It can be the house of worship in which religious ceremonies are conducted. Or it can be a religious institution which has come to formulate a method of worshipping a defined God, in which case it has lands, invested wealth and human personnel to care for. Personally I don't like either kind of church much, but that's purely an individual choice I have made. The cardinal mistake would be if I shut out God from my mind and spirit because I cannot take up membership in a church. Don't you see how depressing it is that people automatically equate refusal to conform to some orthodox religion with nonbelief in God, or with intrinsic wickedness? But I ask, which is more important, God or a church?'

  'Are you saying we should leave our churches?' asked Manning Croft.

  'Oh, no! No! If any human being can find God in either kind of church, it is a wonderful thing. I'm not saying that to minimize the shock of my own avowed nonconformity, or to curry favour with devout practising churchgoers. I'm utterly sincere in saying I envy them their faith. But I cannot subscribe to what I do not believe in, and I cannot agree that my disbelief is evidence of personal wickedness or lack of grace. If I did subscribe to what I cannot believe in, I would be the most contemptible type of human being known to Man or God — a hypocrite. Nor am I here to proselytize anyone, even an atheist! I'm here simply saying that I want people to go back to God, because there is a God, and that God must continue to be a part of humanity for the rest of the time of humanity. It appals me that there are many people who believe God is a concept we should abandon, that we will never attain maturity as a race until we have abandoned Him. I could not abandon God! Nor will I let my patients abandon God! Nor will I let you who listen to me now abandon God! Because I have seen the patterns — in the world — in other people — and in myself.'

  In the green room Dr Judith Carriol sat back with a big voluptuous sigh of sheer pleasure. Her man had come through his ordeal with his colours flying, and it was going to be all systems go right down to blastoff. He would do it! He would give every man, woman and child in this country something to hang on to. Somewhere to go outside of themselves. Oh, the bliss! Oh, the relief of this moment! Not that she had ever seriously doubted him. Only that she was a sceptic about everything, including God. Sorry about that, Joshua! Yes. All systems were go right down to blastoff. Hmmmm… Blast-off. What an interesting word! Blast-off? Something for the future. Something absolutely gargantuanly astronomically cosmic, in concept and in execution. 'Tonight with Bob Smith' was not blast-off. It was no more than an engine check. Blastoff was still in the future somewhere. A bang to end all bangs. Millennial! The progress of Dr Joshua Christian could not be let fizzle out, it could not be let die away in an anticlimactic series of repeat performances of tonight's fireworks on 'The Dan Connors Show' and 'The Marlene Feldman Hour' and 'Northern City' and the rest. Oh, he would have to go that route, yes. But he would have to cap this first bombshell appearance in some other way than by mere repeat performances.

  'Well, you certainly picked the right man for the job, Mr President,' said Harold Magnus affably.

  'I picked him? Oh, Harold, give credit where credit's due, you can afford to!' cried the President. 'You brought her and her Operation Search to my attention in the first place, you gave her the money and the staff and the equipment to arrive at Operation Messiah, so a big slice of the credit must go to you. But it's Dr Carriol's baby, no one else's.'

  'Yep.' The Secretary for the Environment was in a mood to be magnanimous. 'I have to give her this, she's no fool, Judith Carriol. But God, does she frighten me!'

  The President turned his head. Does she?'

  'To death. The coldest-blooded woman in the world.'

  'Interesting. Now I find her not only an extremely attractive woman, but a most charming and caring human being.' The President used his remote-control panel to switch off the television set, and rose to his feet. 'I'm on my own for dinner. Can you join me?'

 
Under Tibor and Julia Reece's rule the White House food was little better than mediocre, so in actual fact the gourmet side of Harold Magnus would have preferred to dine at Chez Roger, the newest and best of Washington's many French restaurants. However, the ambitious side of Harold Magnus was quite willing to forgo langouste and canard, in order to eat littlenecks and rib roast with the boss.

  'Julia not going to join us?'

  The President for once didn't seize up like a robot in a rainstorm at mention of his wife; he merely shook his head and kept on strolling down the corridor. 'No. I believe she's going to Chez Roger tonight.'

  'Shit. Lucky lucky Julia! How's Julie-girl?'

  'She's marvellous,' said the President, sounding pleased. 'There's been a change of direction in her diagnosis, and she's away at a special school. I miss her, but every time I go to see her, I can also see improvement.'

  They dined in Tibor Reece's private study, at a small table for two, on the expected littlenecks and rib roast. The clams were tough and the beef too well done, but Harold Magnus pretended both were delicious. When the equally predictable dessert of strawberry shortcake was placed in front of him, he plucked up the courage both to eat this indigestible mess, and to ask Tibor Reece a question.

  'Mr President, aren't you concerned about the terrific emphasis Dr Christian is obviously going to place on God?'