The Leviticans of Ameristan: A Selection from Neal Stephenson’s Fall (2019)

“So-called Christianity, as it existed up until recently, is based on a big lie . . . . The most successful conspiracy of all time. And it was all summed up in the symbolism of the cross. Every cross you see on a mainstream church, or worn as jewelry, or on a rosary or what have you, is another repetition of that lie. . . . That Jesus was crucified. . . . That the Son of God, the most powerful incarnate being in the history of the universe, allowed Himself to be scourged and humiliated and taken out in the most disgraceful way you can imagine. . . .

The church that was built on the lie of the Crucifixion . . . had two basic tenets. One was the lovey-dovey Jesus who went around being nice to people—basically, just the kind of behavior you would expect from the kind of beta who would allow himself to be spat on, to be nailed to a piece of wood. The second was this notion that the Old Testament no longer counted for anything, that the laws laid down in Leviticus were part of an old covenant that could simply be ignored after, and because, he was nailed up on that cross. We have exposed all that as garbage. Nonsense. A conspiracy by the elites to keep people meek and passive. The only crosses you’ll see in our church are on fire, and the symbolism of that has nothing to do with the KKK. It means we reject the false church that was built upon the myth of the Crucifixion.”

“So, to be clear, all Christianity for the last two thousand years—Catholic, Protestant, Orthodox, evangelical—is just flat-out wrong,” Phil said. “That is correct.” “The four gospels—” Ted shook his head. “That’s the first thing the church did, was enshrine those gospels. Telling the story they wanted to tell. About the meek liberal Jesus who gave food away to poor people and healed the sick and so on. . . . The conspiracy of the church was powerful. They staged a fake Reformation to get people to believe that reform was possible. All a show. Orchestrated from the Vatican.”—Neal Stephenson, Fall: or, Dodge in Hell (2019)