We Want to Believe: Faith and Gospel in The X-files

By Amy M. Donaldson

From the first episode to the latest feature film, two main symbols provide the driving force for the iconic television series The X-Files: Fox Mulder's "I Want to Believe" poster and Dana Scully's cross necklace. Mulder's poster may feature a flying saucer, but the phrase "I want to believe" refers to more than simply the quest for the truth about aliens. The search for extraterrestrial life, the truth that is out there, is a metaphor for the search for God. The desire to believe in something greater than ourselves is part of human nature: we want to believe. Scully's cross represents this desire to believe, as well as the internal struggle between faith and what we can see and prove. The X-Files depicts this struggle by posing questions and exploring possible answers, both natural and supernatural. Why would God let the innocent suffer? Can God forgive even the most heinous criminal? What if God is giving us signs to point the way to the truth, but we're not paying attention? These are some of the questions raised by The X-Files. In the spirit of the show, this book uses the symbols and images presented throughout the series to pose such questions and explore some of the answers, particularly in the Christian tradition. With a focus on key themes of the series--faith, hope, love, and truth--along the way, this book journeys from the desire to believe to the message of the cross.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Cascade Books
• Release date: Apr 14, 2011
• ISBN: 9781621892090

Amy M. Donaldson

Amy M. Donaldson received her PhD in New Testament and Early Christianity from the University of Notre Dame. She works as a freelance editor and resides in the Pacific Northwest. Contact the author at http://www.believex.com or http://www.facebook.com/WeWantToBelieve

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We Want to Believe

Faith and Gospel in The X-Files

Amy M. Donaldson

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WE WANT TO BELIEVE

Faith and Gospel in The X-Files

Copyright © 2011 Amy M. Donaldson. All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations in critical publications or reviews, no part of this book may be reproduced in any manner without prior written permission from the publisher. Write: Permissions, Wipf and Stock Publishers, 199 W. 8th Ave., Suite 3, Eugene, OR 97401.

Cascade Books

An Imprint of Wipf and Stock Publishers

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ISBN 13: 978-1-60608-361-1

EISBN 13: 978-1-62189-209-0

Cataloging-in-Publication data:

Donaldson, Amy M.

We want to believe : faith and gospel in The X-Files / Amy M. Donaldson.

x + 246 p. ; 23 cm.—includes bibliographical references and index(es).

ISBN 13: 978-1-60608-361-1

1. X-Files (Television program)—Miscellanea. 2. Popular Culture—Religious Aspects—Christianity. 3. Virtues—Religious Aspects—Christianity. 4. Virtues—Biblical Teaching. I. Title.

PN1992.77.X22 .D50 2011

Manufactured in the USA.

Unless otherwise indicated, Scripture quotations are from the New Revised Standard Version Bible, copyright 1989, Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Scripture quotations marked (NIV) are taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.™ Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved worldwide. www.zondervan.com.

Scripture quotations marked (NIrV) are taken from the Holy Bible, New International Reader’s Version®. NIrV®. Copyright © 1995, 1996, 1998 by Biblica, Inc.™ Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved worldwide. www.zondervan.com.

Scripture quotations marked (NCV) are taken from the New Century Version. Copyright © 1987, 1988, 1991 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Table of Contents

Title Page

Preface

Introduction

Chapter 1: I Want to Believe

Chapter 2: Faith

Chapter 3: Hope

Chapter 4: Love

Chapter 5: The Truth Is Out There

Chapter 6: The Way of the Cross

Epilogue

Appendix

Preface

Every now and then, you turn on the television and your jaw drops. Networks constantly push the limits of the medium and sometimes broadcast content that makes you think, I did not just see that on national television. That was my experience one Sunday evening in 2002. My reaction, however, was not to explicit language or gratuitous nudity. It was to a three-word phrase, Dio Ti Ama , appearing in place of the regular tagline of The X-Files ’ opening credits. I don’t know Italian, but I had a good guess what the phrase said—only, I couldn’t believe that was possible. Did I really see God loves you flash before my eyes on network television? Yes, in fact, I did.

This moment encapsulates for me one of the reasons why The X-Files has held my attention for so many years. It’s a show about intelligent characters having intelligent conversations, even if the subject matter is often out of this world. But what is more out of this world than the mystical and spiritual truths of the divine? And The X-Files has never been afraid to refer to the divine, or the miraculous, as possibilities very much of this world. The present book therefore weds two great loves in my life: The X-Files and Christian faith. To me, it is a natural union. I find it intriguing, however, that The X-Files appeals equally to atheists and agnostics as well as to Christians and people of other faiths. Perhaps this is because the fundamental nature of the show is to present questions rather than answers, and to balance out every argument with alternative points of view. The dynamic of believer versus skeptic is the heart of the show.

The side of the debate that this book takes is primarily that of the believer. In the spirit of The X-Files, the purpose of the book is to pose questions and to explore those questions, which may lead to some possible answers. On the other hand, there are several things this book is not: It is not "the real religion behind The X-Files" in the same sense as books written on the real science behind the show that correct inconsistencies and explain how the artistically adapted elements of the show would function in the real world. Likewise, the book is not an exegesis of The X-Files, or an attempt to argue that the writers and producers intended to develop a particular theology or preach a certain gospel. This book is rather an exploration of the possibilities—the extreme possibilities of faith, hope, and love, as exemplified in the Christian tradition—making use of the questions raised by the show and the particular imagery it employs as an occasion for investigating broader truths. It is by no means a comprehensive treatment of every religious metaphor on the series, but an attempt to at least hit on the major themes.

I assume that the reader picking up this book has a general interest in and knowledge of The X-Files; I have tried to include enough details about plots, characters, and seasons along the way to aid the reader who may not have an encyclopedic knowledge of the show, without including so many details that it is tedious for the readers who do. For fuller descriptions of individual episodes, there are many useful resources available on the Internet. Here are but a couple: for a synopsis of each episode, see http://xfiles.wearehere.net; for episode transcripts, see http://www.insidethex.co.uk. These and other resources related to The X-Files may be found through this book’s website, http://www.believex.com. Included there are also episode reviews and discussion questions for several key episodes cited throughout this book. All X-Files episodes and movies referenced within this work are available on DVD from Twentieth Century Fox Home Entertainment: The X-Files: Seasons 1–9 (2000–2004), The X-Files: Fight the Future (1998), The X-Files: I Want to Believe (2008). The appendix lists the writer(s), director, and original airdate for each episode cited in the text.

There are a number of people I would like to thank for encouraging and assisting me in this endeavor. First of all, thanks to K. C. Hanson and Cascade Books for giving me the opportunity to write this book, and to Jeremy Funk for his valued editing skills. Thanks also go to my test audience—Marybeth Cieplinski, Angie Cottrell, Mindy Hall, and Jason McBride—who offered much helpful advice to improve the manuscript; to Manisha Dostert, for bringing to my attention the theological value of the episode The Gift, which I might have otherwise overlooked; and to Kelley VanBuskirk, for her scientific expertise. I owe thanks as well to the many devoted X-Philes over the years who created invaluable resources on the Internet, especially those who spent hours transcribing the episodes and movies. And finally, thank you to Chris Carter for his incredible vision in creating this television series (along with all of the cast and crew, writers, directors, and producers who helped to make that vision a reality), for demanding a high level of quality and integrity in communicating that vision to the audience, and for the many positive ways it has had a lasting impact on my life.

Dio ti ama.

Amy M. Donaldson

February 2010

Introduction

March 1992 . Dana Scully, a young FBI agent, approaches the door to a basement office. Trained as a doctor and a scientist, she has been assigned to offer a critical appraisal of the paranormal cases designated the X-Files. The cross pendant fastened around her neck catches the light from the hallway before she passes into the shadows of the dimly lit office. She scans the walls, which are peppered with clippings of alien encounters and photos of Bigfoot. The centerpiece is a poster of a UFO, proclaiming in bold letters: I Want to Believe. Right at home in the midst of this clutter sits her new partner, Fox Mulder.

Fast-forward to January 2008. Dana Scully, MD, returns home from a long day of work at Our Lady of Sorrows Hospital. Her cross pendant gleams in the daylight before she steps into the darkened interior of her house and enters the home office of her former FBI partner, Fox Mulder. The walls that cocoon him are papered with news clippings, headlines highlighting the paranormal among us. At the center of the chaos resides a well-worn poster that states: I Want to Believe.

From the first episode to the latest movie, the cross and the poster’s slogan form two major pillars of this 1990s cult classic TV show—a fact made even more explicit by the title of the 2008 movie, I Want to Believe, and two main threads of the movie’s plot featuring Catholic priests. As creator Chris Carter has often reiterated, The show is basically a religious show. It’s about the search for God. You know, ‘The truth is out there.’¹ What The X-Files is primarily known for is not the search for God but the search for aliens. But that search for extraterrestrial life, set against the scientific demand for hard evidence and the traditions of established religion, serves as a metaphor for the human desire to connect with something beyond ourselves. As the standard tagline in the opening credits states, The Truth Is Out There. The search for the ultimate Truth, fueled by hope and seeking evidence to justify faith, is the prevailing theme of this series. The truth Mulder seeks is first and foremost the truth about what happened to his sister (whether she was abducted by aliens as his recovered memories have led him to believe), but this quest for extraterrestrial life is merely a paradigm for a much larger theme. At its heart, The X-Files is not about alien abductions and government conspiracies; it’s about the fundamental truth that all people are looking for something, or someone, to believe in.

Science Fiction and Religious Fact

It is not unusual for science-fiction (sci-fi) narratives to explore religious themes in the guise of encounters with alien races. In fact, a number of books have been written on the subject, such as Gabriel McKee’s The Gospel according to Science Fiction.² McKee sees sci-fi as a vehicle for speculating on how spirituality and faith can adapt to a changing world, through optimism about future possibilities and criticism of past and present failures. But often in this genre, particularly as expressed through movies and television, science fiction represents merely religious fiction: fictional constructions of religion in a fictional universe. Far too rare is the universe—such as the one depicted in The X-Files—in which fictional aliens and the real God coexist.

A fictitious world absent the real-world God is acceptable for Star Wars, which happened long ago in a galaxy far, far away, where we have no expectation that these people have ever seen a Bible or heard of Jesus Christ, or Buddha or Mohammed for that matter. But (to take two examples of long-running shows nearly contemporary with The X-Files) for Star Trek: The Next Generation, built on the future of our present reality, or for Stargate SG-1, an extension of our present reality, to ignore modern or future human religious experience and faith is a glaring omission, if not an explicit rejection. On the decks of the starship Enterprise there is little room for human religion or belief in divinity. (On a ship of that size, where is the chaplain?) Evolved humans have no need of gods; religious themes are therefore left to be explored through more barbaric cultures, such as the Klingons. What is only hinted at in Star Trek becomes a major theme in Stargate SG-1: what one culture refers to as a god is only a more advanced species that seeks to subjugate, use, or at the very least hide the truth from those who would worship them as divine. In neither of these sci-fi universes does the Judeo-Christian God play a prominent role (if indeed he is even acknowledged to exist), nor is there allowance for such a being as a creator God who is more powerful than all alien races and may potentially intervene to protect humanity from hostile aliens.³

This is where The X-Files distinguishes itself among sci-fi television shows; in fact, Chris Carter has resisted labeling The X-Files as sci-fi because he always wanted the show to have a solid foundation in the reality of our present world. As he has often remarked, the show is only as scary as it is real.⁴ Part of that reality is the acknowledgment that real people—real humans—have religious convictions and religious struggles. Unexplainable things happen in the real world, and many people attribute these events to the supernatural or divine. But The X-Files crosses genres, as not only sci-fi but also drama, mystery, and even police procedural. In presenting the real struggles and ambiguities of faith, The X-Files also distinguishes itself from many other shows that explicitly address religion, particularly Christianity, but often do so too simplistically or with a caricatured version of religion.⁵ The X-Files always counters belief with skepticism, and skepticism with inexplicable experiences, using this dialectic to depict the genuine human struggle with faith and with God.

Faith in The X-Files

As Hebrews 11:1 defines it, Faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen. The X-Files is a master of the unseen. The truth lurks in the shadows, obscured to the naked eye, leaving the intellect and imagination to fill in the details. One of the show’s trademarks is to leave questions unanswered: Was Scully’s cancer cured by a miracle or by alien technology in Redux II (5x03)? Were Father Joe’s visions really from God in I Want to Believe? While frustrating fans, such ambiguity also leaves open the possibilities for viewers of all persuasions. Questions are posed, issues are raised, but answers are never delivered on a silver platter. As in life, there are clues along the way, open to interpretation depending on your preconceptions and prejudices. In the end, when the credits roll and issues remained unresolved, the question ultimately turns back to the audience itself: what do you believe?

In this way, The X-Files maintains its appeal to believers and skeptics alike. It always presents both viewpoints, typically through the trusted characters of Mulder and Scully, allowing the audience to draw its own conclusions. When aliens or the paranormal are in view, Mulder plays the believer and Scully the skeptic. But when Christian faith is at issue, the roles are reversed. Mulder has his doubts about organized religion, while it remains a steadfast part of Scully’s life, even when she doesn’t fully understand it herself. The show thus uses this dialectic between skeptic and believer as the primary way of examining faith and various beliefs. The dialectic or tension is also at times internal, when the believer wrestles with doubt, although this too is often illustrated through external dialogue, usually between the two main characters. In fact, the role of dialectic is so essential to The X-Files that it is present even when it feels forced, such as when Scully persistently refuses to believe in aliens even after she’s seen them for herself, when Mulder becomes more accepting of Christian ideas to offset Scully’s doubts, or when Mulder is missing and Scully must take on the role of the believer to counter a new skeptic.

One of the first episodes to present Mulder’s religious skepticism as a backdrop and conversation partner for Scully’s struggle with her Catholic faith is Revelations (3x11). As Chris Carter describes this episode, It dealt with faith, not religion with a capital ‘R’ or Catholicism with a capital ‘C.’ To me, the idea of faith is really the backbone of the entire series—faith in your own beliefs, ideas about the truth, and so it has religious overtones always.⁶ Those religious overtones are expressed in a variety of ways, through legends and superstitions, cults and the occult, fanaticism and complacency, new twists on old religions, and yes, even through Catholicism with a capital C. All manner of beliefs, and lack of beliefs, are depicted by The X-Files to explore the underlying truths about the nature of faith.

Religion and the Supernatural

Religion has masqueraded as the paranormal since the dawn of time.⁷ This comment, made by Mulder to Scully, highlights the close connection between the two themes throughout The X-Files. For some people (as perhaps for Mulder), religion is purely human and psychological, the opiate of the masses. But The X-Files poses the question, What if it’s more than that? What if religion truly is an encounter with the supernatural, with a world or consciousness beyond our own? Are unexplained phenomena already explained in terms of religious beliefs? If so, can one simply toy with such superhuman forces and expect them to remain in human control?

A wide range of religions and belief systems makes an appearance in X-Files cases. Some of these are closely intertwined with a particular culture, often representing traditional tenets at odds with a more modernist or scientific worldview. In The Calusari (2x21), the religion of a Romanian mother is pitted against the abandonment of that faith by her Americanized daughter; the tension between old beliefs and new culminates in the exorcism of the daughter’s son by a group of Romanian elders, the Calusari. In Fresh Bones (2x15), the clash is directly between the American military (enforcing the government’s policy on immigration) and Haitian refugees, who use Voodoo to exact revenge for past and present wrongs. The beliefs and practices of the Navajo recur throughout the series, at one point saving Mulder’s life through a healing ritual (The Blessing Way, 3x01) and at another helping Scully set aside empirical data to look for a more spiritual solution (once again to save Mulder; The Sixth Extinction II: Amor Fati, 7x04). The negative side of a similar religion is encountered in Teso Dos Bichos (3x18) when disturbing the final resting place of a female shaman of the Secona Indians unleashes a curse upon those who would displace her bones from her native soil.

More widespread religions or belief systems also make an appearance, although often in terms of fringe adherents or less-than-mainstream factions and practices. For example, Kaddish (4x12) deals with Hasidic Judaism and the hatred and violence that can arise through both anti-Semitism and retaliation against it, but the episode’s supernatural element comes from a story unearthed out of medieval Jewish mysticism. Another form of mysticism occurs in Badlaa (8x12): a Siddhi mystic smuggles himself from India to the U.S. in order to use his ascetic training (contrary to its intended practice) to seek revenge. A number of the Christian beliefs encountered in the series are also fringe or fanatical, such as the alternative Church of St. Peter the Sinner set up by Father Gregory in All Souls (5x17) or the snake-handling ecstatics in rural Blessing, Tennessee (Signs & Wonders, 7x09; these episodes will be discussed below).

Various practices associated with Satanism and the occult surface in a number of episodes, at times challenging opinions both for and against these belief systems. In Sanguinarium (4x06), for instance, a practicing witch is at first suspected of the murders, but it is discovered she has been attempting to protect the victims from the true murderer, who is using blood sacrifice to enact a more powerful black magic. Potential witchcraft is addressed again, in a slightly less dark but equally disturbing setting, in Chinga (5x10), which plays off the historical accusations against witches in New England. Another episode set in the same region, Die Hand Die Verletzt (2x14), uses these traditional prejudices in a particularly interesting way. The story opens with the local PTA pausing to pray at the end of their meeting because they’ve been letting it slide lately. In their later interactions with the FBI agents, these parents and teachers react against suspected Satanism in their area as though they are conservative Christians. The truth is that these upstanding citizens are themselves the Satanists, praying to the Lords of Darkness. They have become the complacent hypocrites that they believed Christians to be and are now suffering the consequences, as the dark powers they have invoked surface and take blood sacrifices to make up for all the sacrifices they’ve neglected. As Mulder asks one of the PTA members, Did you really think you could call up the devil and ask him to behave?

Every religion has its hypocrites and heretics, as well as its faithful adherents and fanatics. People want to believe in something, even when they’re not ready to commit themselves wholly to that belief and what it requires of them. One of the questions that The X-Files raises is whether religion is just mythology (story) or has real power (supernatural and paranormal manifestations). Episodes like Revelations and Miracle Man (1x17) present a mixture of charlatans and true practitioners, justifying the opinions of both skeptics (that religion is just a sham to deceive the simpleminded) and believers (that the divine or supernatural is real and is relevant to and involved in our lives today). This theme is well encapsulated in an episode that is not directly about religion but still addresses the major themes of belief and hope. In Quagmire (3x22), Mulder believes the disappearances he and Scully are investigating have been caused by the lake monster Big Blue. Locals like Ted Bertram swear that Big Blue is real, even though the creature has never been caught on film. Late one night, we see monstrous feet slopping through the mud—but it is only Ted, creating fake tracks to help sell more Big Blue T-shirts. Yet Ted isn’t alone out there. Something large attacks him in the dark, and Ted becomes the next victim. He is the charlatan, someone who concocts manifestations in order to dupe others into believing for the sake of his own prosperity; but when he is confronted by the reality, he is no match for the Truth.

Cults and Charismatics

While complacency and charlatanism populate one end of the spectrum, it is the other extreme that appears perhaps the most often in The X-Files, particularly in the form of cults, whether the object of devotion is God or aliens. Sometimes the cult’s beliefs are recognizable derivatives of mainstream (typically Christian) religion, and other times they are a bit more out there. In The Field Where I Died (4x05), the cults led by David Koresh and Jim Jones are referenced, foreshadowing the fate of a group called the Temple of the Seven Stars (cf. Revelation 2–3), established by a man who calls himself Ephesian (after the church of Ephesus in Revelation). Another doomsday cult, built more on Eastern religion than on Christian Scripture, is encountered in Via Negativa (8x07): psychotropic drugs that are used to open the third eye instead lead to mass slaughter by a hallucinated axe murderer. New Age beliefs undergird the Church of the Red Museum (Red Museum, 2x10), a group of vegetarians who wear white robes and red turbans and have planted themselves on a ranch in the middle of beef country to preach the gospel of walk-ins, enlightened spirits from the past who return to inhabit new bodies. Yet they might be considered downright normal compared to the inhabitants of a small town in remote Utah, who worship a parasitic slug as the second coming of Christ (Roadrunners, 8x05). There is also the interesting case of the Kindred, who are in a class of their own (Genderbender, 1x13). The members of this reclusive community live like the Amish and are known for their pure Christian ways, but they apparently can also change genders at will and live unnaturally long lives. The entire community disappears, leaving behind only a large crop circle—suggesting that they were actually aliens living among us.

The isolated communities that congregate around their common, and often extreme, beliefs in aliens are socially similar to the religious cults such as the Red Museum or the Seven Stars. The group encountered in This Is Not Happening (8x14) follows a man with the biblical name Absalom, who quotes from Scripture and says that the Bible is prophecy misread; for him, the true interpretation relates to the alien invasion. Even more directly, Josepho, the leader of the alien cult in Provenance (9x10)/Providence (9x11), interprets Ezekiel 1:4–5 as a reference to alien Super Soldiers, and he speaks of prophecies about the role aliens will play in the future. This cult lead by Josepho especially intersects with a theme that previously arose in the Biogenesis (6x22)/Sixth Extinction (7x03–04) trilogy, when a spaceship was unearthed and found to be inscribed with excerpts from the Bible, the Koran, other religious texts, and even the tenets of science—all written in Navajo. With the implication here that the aliens were somehow connected to the genesis of humans and human culture, the series for the first time drew a direct connection between the themes that had previously been a metaphorical parallel: the search for aliens and the search for God. The UFO cults particularly highlight this parallel, using the same prophetic biblical texts as the doomsday cults to preach about the alien apocalypse.

While cults take mainstream beliefs to an extreme by isolating themselves in separate communities, other fringe groups, often seen as extreme by those who hold a more moderate or majority position, do not go so far as to break off into separate societies. As noted above, the portrayals of organized religions in The X-Files frequently deal with these more fringe or fanatical adherents. One example already mentioned is the Church of Signs and Wonders, a congregation that gathers in a remote, rustic building and practices snake handling as a test of faith (Signs & Wonders). This ecstatic group is juxtaposed against a more moderate and progressive congregation in town. The comparison comes to a head one evening when both churches are meeting, and both cite Revelation 3:15–16 (about the dangers of being lukewarm), but each uses this biblical passage very differently from the other. There is an implicit message here, as with Die Hand Die Verletzt and the backslidden Satanists, about complacency and dabbling in religion while ignoring its true power. Once again, Mulder voices the underlying truth (referring to their suspect in Signs & Wonders, the pastor of the progressive church): People think the devil has horns and a tail. They’re not used to looking for some kindly man who tells you what you want to hear (see chapter 5, below). While it is a natural reaction for most of us, like Mulder, to identify with the moderate point of view and reject the fanatics, their extreme level of commitment and alternate view of reality raise interesting questions about perception. Do those of us who consider ourselves progressive and therefore open minded not see the supernatural because it isn’t really there, or have our own prejudices blinded our eyes to the truth? If we looked at the world through the eyes of the extremists, what would we see?

Mainline Christianity

The one form of organized religion or mainstream Christian tradition occurring most frequently in The X-Files is Catholicism, due largely to Scully’s Catholic upbringing and return to her childhood faith. Yet even this established religion is often encountered through its extreme, or even excommunicated, element. In All Souls, Scully’s involvement with the case begins in her own congregation, but the focus soon shifts to the separatist church started by Father Gregory. In the end, it is Father Gregory who appears to see the truth that Scully’s priest, Father McCue, dismisses as an apocryphal story and as therefore untrue. In some ways, these two priests parallel the dynamic between the congregations in Signs & Wonders. The second X-Files movie, I Want to Believe, also juxtaposes two priests: a disgraced but penitent priest, Father Joe, and a stern hospital administrator, Father Ybarra. (Scully stands somewhere in the middle—or on the outside—and rails against both.) Both All Souls and Revelations deal with apocrypha and hagiography rather than central Christian stories, but both episodes also represent crucial moments in Scully’s rediscovery of her Catholic faith.

The Catholic Church is also featured in the somewhat satirical episode Hollywood A.D. (7x18). Cardinal O’Fallon is confronted with an ancient religious text (later revealed to be a forgery), which he sets out to destroy because he is afraid of what its contents might reveal about who Jesus really was. The unstated irony here is that in spite of this man’s apparent devotion, his faith actually quite weak—he immediately accepts the words of the text as true and damaging rather than trusting in established Church doctrine and what he already knows of Jesus personally. On the other hand, the forger, Micah Hoffman, so immerses himself in the role of Jesus (as though a Method actor) in order to compose the forgery that he is transformed by his encounter with the true Christ, like Saul to Paul on the road to Damascus. In a more surreal twist that is never fully explained, Hoffman also seems to be dead (and autopsied) and then resurrected, which shows how completely he has identified with Jesus. While Hoffman comes off as somewhat bizarre, O’Fallon is to be pitied, referring to himself as having been made a fool of by believing in the truth of the forgery. As shepherd of his flock, he was attempting to protect his people from the truth, only to find out that they needed no