In a recent book review in The New Yorker, James Wood wrote of
professional soccer players crossing themselves as they run onto the field, as if God really cared whether Arsenal beats Manchester United.(1)
This statement led me, as an Arsenal fan, to wonder whether God preferred Arsenal or Manchester United.
So I got on the telephone to ask him. The late chief rabbi of the United Kingdom, Jonathan Sacks, once wrote that “God has spoken to mankind in many languages”(2); so it makes sense that he can also be spoken to in different languages, and English works.
Here, as on-line magazines like to say, is a lightly-edited transcript of our conversation.
Us: Hello, God, how’re you doing?
God: Busy, busy. You know the universe keeps expanding, so I got a lot more heaven to cover. For example, they just discovered that there are about 300 million “habitable exoplanets.”(3) Now I have to figure out how to populate them. I need some new ideas, since the homo sapiens template obviously is a failure.
Us: I see. I imagine then that busy as you are you must have some sharp views about some things that James Wood cites in his review of T. M. Luhrmann’s How God Becomes Real:
Elaine prays for guidance about whether to take a roommate or move to a new apartment. . . . Stacy prays for a good haircut, and Hannah asks God about whom to date. . . . Rachel asks for help with how to dress: “Like, God, what should I wear?"
God: See what I mean about homo sapiens? They’re so self-centered that they think the creator of the universe has to drop everything he’s doing and tell them what their hemline should be.
Us: But, God, I imagine that’s not the worst of it. How about someone like Irvin Baxter?
God: Who’s he?
Us: He was minister at something called Endtime Ministries. He claimed that “premarital sex was the reason the coronavirus exists.”(4) He said the “coronavirus may be a privilege.”
God: A privilege?
Us: Yes, because supposedly you are using the pandemic as “awake-up call” to warn that “there is a much bigger judgment coming.”
God: Where’d he get that?
Us: He said the Bible.
God: Nuts!
Us: By the way, he died of the virus. Err, just to change the subject, I read that
[m]any tried and true prophetic Christians said they heard from God this year that Donald Trump would win a second term.(5)
God: You’re joking, right?
Us. Nope.
God: Well, now I’ve heard it all! OK. I’m outta here. Got to see about those alternate earths.
[Phone call ends.]
Us: Oh damn! I forgot to ask about Arsenal and Man United.
Hmm. It says here in the Times obituary of Rabbi Sacks that he was great friends with George Carey, the former archbishop of Canterbury:
Their shared interests went beyond religion: They had a mutual passion for the Arsenal soccer club and occasionally went to games together.
Of course! How could they ever root for a team whose nickname is “The Red Devils”?
***
(1) https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2020/11/09/does-knowing-god-just-take-practice
(2) https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/09/world/europe/jonathan-sacks-dead.html?searchResultPosition=1
(3) https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/05/science/astronomy-exoplanets-kepler.html?searchResultPosition=1
(4) https://news.yahoo.com/televangelist-referred-coronavirus-privilege-died-034254209.html
(5) https://www1.cbn.com/cbnnews/2020/november/the-prophets-did-not-get-it-wrong-its-not-over
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