Heaven is For Christians

Heaven's receptionist, Denise, though super funny, is so so wrong.

Photo by Josh Hild on Unsplash

This is fun—The Washington Post’s favorite Tik Tokker right now is Miss New York who very cleverly wraps herself up in her bathrobe and plays Heaven’s receptionist, Denise. She has a pink razor stuck next to her ear like a headset. Her makeup is flawless. And she is letting people into heaven, keeping them out, and sometimes upgrading them to the Angel Plus Program. There are six videos on Youtube if you have nothing important to do with your day. I don’t have TikTok, but a Google search told me she’s made about 19 of them.

My main question is, why is Ms. Smith suddenly being platformed by WaPo for her heaven schtick? Is it because it is very important to wrest the concept of heaven, which comes from Christianity, away from the Christians? Could it be not just that everyone is confused and think they will go there, but that Christians themselves, who profess the name of Christ and try to obey his very unpopular commands need to be warned off and bow to the gods of this age? And that maybe they’re not doing that fast enough to make the major news publications of this country happy? Or maybe I’m just being paranoid.

So anyway, what kind of person does “Denise” let into that glorious realm? From WaPo:

According to Smith’s ethical worldview, extramarital procreation is not immoral, but unkindness is. Denise denies an Angel Premium Plus upgrade for a woman who rejected her gay son.

“Kindness,” in case you hadn’t noticed, is the idol of the age. You can know it’s an idol because it isn’t true kindness that we’re talking about, and because you have to make various sacrifices to Zer/Them to keep on Theys good side. The god Kindness is a clever god who gives necessary feelings of personal goodness, removes bad feelings of being wrong, and at the same time spares the worshipper from having to look at the truth of the human condition, neither personally, nor corporately.

Best of all, the god Kindness basically gets along with “everyone” and is “uncomplicated:”

Smith’s moral code is refreshingly positive, ecumenical and uncomplicated. When I spoke to her recently, she told me that every religion she studied as a student at St. John’s University is “kind of saying something very similar, which is treat people well in your life. Do as much as you can, do as much good as you can with whatever you have.” But I don’t think this is the reason Smith’s videos get millions of views. Heaven may be a way to express morality, but even more than that, it’s a way to comfort people in the face of death. As brief and funny as they are, Smith’s videos do that, too.

Well, you know, all religions are “kind of saying something very similar.” That “something” is BE Nice Or Else. This is a milder form of that awful video I posted last week of the English school administrator who ‘splained that “Christianity” is about “tolerance” which is why the real Christian child would be spending two days in the “inclusion room” for saying aloud what the Bible says about human sexuality.

What I love so much—by which I mean that I don’t really love it—is that post-modernism (or whatever this is) has so effectively unhooked the question of death from the question of morality. Death is a random, though grievous, happenstance. It doesn’t come from anywhere. It doesn’t result from anything. It happens to you for reasons you can’t control. Existentially, you need to do the best you can. You need to make good and healthy choices. “Do as much as you can” as if that were a measurable and achievable task. Sure, you’ll die, but Denise will upgrade you if you don’t make the Starbucks Barista cry. Going to church does not make you a “good person.” I mean—that’s true, but almost no one, except some very confused Christians between 1950 and 2001 who have gone away to form a new fake Christianity that also worships the god of Kind even thought that.

If you worship this god you get the crucial payout of being “a good person.” Adopt the correct ideological opinions about things and you, like RBG, get to go straight to be with the Lord, even though the Lord does not bless any of the things that RBG loved so much (coughabortioncough).

Be warned, though. This is a false god who will lead you into strange and grotesque places. Like, Ms. Smith is funny and all, but this installment is super disturbing:

If you’re a Christian, you know that this isn’t how the whole thing shakes out. There won’t be any corruption or evil in heaven, which is why the question of death should be so much more concerning for everyone than it is.

Anyway, the article ends this way:

Smith now reads thousands of requests a day and says she is sometimes overwhelmed by the feeling that she’s sharing in her followers’ grief. She wishes she could make videos for everyone. In a way, though, she does. She has created such a vivid character that I don’t need her to make me a custom video; I can simply imagine how Denise would have greeted my beloved English teacher when she died last month and what heavenly perks might delight Mrs. Stewart. I smile to think of it, even as my eyes well up. And even though I don’t believe in heaven. After all, most people who do believe in heaven — and that includes nearly 75 percent of American adults — still know that any “heaven” they envision now is made up. They won’t find out what it’s really like until, well, later. But made-up things can comfort us, too. And making up things together (Smith called the videos a collaboration with her viewers) is a certain path to human connection and, therefore, to consolation. Even in the face of death. I don’t believe in an afterlife, but I believe in the power of art and the collective imagination. I believe in the power of strangers to console one another. I believe in Denise.

I mean, that’s sweet, but Denise can’t save your immortal soul.

So anyway, just to correct the worldview of the vast majority of Americans:

The Lord is kind in all his works. He will never let you feel awesome if you are doing things that he hates. He will never bless you when you are running away from him. He will never ignore the wicked lies that you tell. On the contrary, because he loves you, he calls you to himself, applies his own blood to cleanse you from all your sins, incorporates you into his family, and welcomes you into his kingdom. When you die, if you have cried out to him in desperation, flinging yourself on his mercy and forsaking all your other gods and desires, he will bring you to himself where you will be consoled and comforted with all the saints until it is time for him to come back and judge everyone else for being so dumb and wicked.

Have a nice day!