Harkness – MacGillivray Stories

At Sunday school, we immediately see how Christianity and Literature are intertwined. Christianity is often taught in a way that’s easy for children to understand. One might say that the authors of the Bible were in fact skilled literary writers. In fact, they were able to transfer oral folk tales into writing. The popularity of Jesus is undoubtedly partly due to the literary skills of the writers; thus, Jesus, as the main character, is able to tell stories that appeal to several levels of intellect – both children and adults. It is left up to the elders of the Church to interpret the meanings of the Bible.

The Parable of the Five Loaves and Two Fishes

For one, his parables have multiple meanings. The parable of “the Five Loaves and Two Fishes” appeals to children, but also has a deeper meaning for adults. Pope Francis even had his own interpretation for this parable. In the Pope’s homily, he reflected on the Gospel passage from St. John, of Jesus feeding multitudes through the miracle of the five loaves and two fishes. Francis pointed to the last part of the passage: Jesus directed his disciples to collect the leftover pieces of bread so that ‘nothing may be lost.’ ‘This reveals the heart of God,’ he said. ‘Not only does he give us more than we need; he is also concerned that nothing be lost, not even a fragment.’¹³³

Misinterpretations and Mass Kilings

Without conducting more research, it seems that modern literary criticism owes much to Biblical criticism. In other words, throughout the centuries, thousands have made a living from ‘interpreting’ the Bible. This has often resulted in mass killings such as the Armenian genocide (although strictly speaking this was a case of Muslims killing Christians). The most obvious example here is the mass murders committed by Protestants and Catholics due to different ‘interpretations’ of Biblical texts. Another example is the genocide committed by the German Nationalist Socialist Party against the Jews based on interpretations of religious texts¹³⁴. Furthermore, interpreting texts in the political world can result in mass deaths, like the various ‘denominations’ of Communism.

Christianity and Literature

This tradition of ‘different interpretations’ of texts has also been extended to the literary world. But as we know, there have been no mass murders committed by new criticism adherents, structuralists, deconstructionalists, post-modernists, and so on. In other words, the simple story of the ‘loaves and fishes’ is not just a story. It is a text, like other religious texts, which can provide some kind of justification for the mass murder of fellow human beings. In this context, one might make the following proposition:

I am a Christian, Muslim, Jew, Hindu, Democrat, Maoist, Stalinist. If you disagree with my words I will kill you, and all your children, and the millions of your creed or nation. I will do this because I AM RIGHT AND YOU ARE WRONG.

¹³³ https://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/248491/pope-francis-on-grandparents-day-elderly-are-not-leftovers-from-life Read 21 April 2022.

¹³⁴  Of course, the Nazis didn’t invent ‘anti-Semitism’: “Anti-Semitism has existed to some degree wherever Jews have settled outside Palestine. In the ancient Greco-Roman world, religious differences were the primary basis for anti-Semitism. In the Hellenistic Age, for instance, Jews’ social segregation and their refusal to acknowledge the gods worshiped by other peoples aroused resentment among some pagans, particularly in the 1st century BCE–1st century CE.” https://www.britannica.com/topic/anti-Semitism Read: 21 April 2022.