the baptist crime

Here is the Preface I originally wrote for "The World's First Ever Baptist Crime Novel." I focused instead on how the novel came into being.

Preface

In writing a Baptist Crime Novel, the question eventually arises: what is the Baptist crime? Upon reflection, one sees that the Baptist crime is the carrying out of the crime embedded in a much larger system – the Judeo-Christian-Islam system. Though those three subsystems may not like being put into bed together (as evidenced by their continuous warring with each other), they are nevertheless based upon the same premise: a great gulf exists between God and man. This premise of alienation and separation of man from God automatically requires that the gulf be breached. It is insufferable otherwise. And each of the three has its formula for and path of reconciliation.

So keep in mind that as we look at the Baptist crime, it is embedded in a much larger crime system – a system of alienation. You might object and say, no, it is a system of redemption. But there is no need for redemption if there is no alienation. And that is precisely the Baptist crime – basing an entire world view on a dualistic premise. God is over there. Humans are over here. This is schizophrenic (split-mind) thinking. One starts with a splitness, a fracture that must be healed, a gulf that must be spanned. A religion is born. Many religions. Each claiming to be the healing of the splitness that was manufactured in the first place.

Now if you are a firm believer in any one of these subsystems (Jewish, Christian, Islam) you are not going to want to hear this. Your entire life has been based on alienation and redemption. You are probably also under the illusion that you are, or have (which is even more peculiar, for who is doing the having?), a separate free autonomous soul. This separate self concept is a requirement of any alienation-redemption theological or metaphysical system. Something has to be alienated and redeemed and that would be you, right?

In this Baptist crime novel, the crime is not Bagston’s lifestyle, nor his selling out the church, nor his possibly being murdered. The crime is in the alienation - redemption mindset.