Love, Joy, Feminism
The Vision, pp. 222-226
Here we have a section where Magdalene tells Bobbie Jo about all the Bible words searches she’s done that have convinced her that Cheyenne is right, and that her aborted baby, Starlight, will have the chance to grow up during the Millennium, and then Bobbie Jo says:
“You’re really loving studying the Bible, aren’t you, Kid? I never saw anyone change so much as you have in the last few weeks. It’s like you’re older than any of us. I guess it’s all the Bible study you’ve been doing.”
Which. Yes. Magdalene, the only interesting character in this book, has had a complete personality transplant.
Just What Is the Millennium?
Let me pause real quick to give you background on the Millennium: the Bible isn’t clear about it, so every Christian denomination has created its own ideas about what the Millennium is, the end. But really, that’s pretty much … the story.
Some Christians think we’re already living in the Millennium. However, many evangelicals (as well as some others) think the Millennium hasn’t come yet. The layout, roughly, is like this: first the rapture (Christians all disappear to heaven), then seven years of tribulation, then Jesus returns with angel troops and binds Satan. Then all the raptured Christians reappear with new bodies, and for 1,000 years, Jesus reigns as sovereign dictator on earth. At the end of that period—during which children are born, and grow up, and have children—some humans will turn against Jesus, and, together with a newly unbound Satan, will mount a rebellion. Jesus will defeat them and destroy the heaven and earth, and there will be a final judgement.
No wait. Is there a judgement between the tribulation and the Millennium too? I might have things a little jumbled, but having read all that, I think you can see why. None of this is particularly straightforward, and even those who believe that basic outline often switch things around (for instance, there’s a whole group that believes the rapture happens after the tribulation).
For our purposes, what is relevant is this: the Millennium is a 1,000 year period when Jesus will reign on earth in person and things will be very, very good. However, people will still have free will, and new children will still be born. In other words, it’s not Heaven. It’s a sort of in between. But it’s also not purgatory. That’s a Catholic thing.
Magdalene’s Theory
Anyway, Magdalene says the whole bit about aborted babies and the Millennium can be found is in Isaiah 65. She explains as follows:
“That chapter also has a strange verse about different groups of people living different lengths of time. It indicates a group of children will be from some other time to grow up in the Millennium.”
I found a Pearl discussion of this elsewhere, and the verse Magdalene is referring to is verse 20, which reads as follows in the King James Version (which is the only translation the Pearls recognize as legitimate):
There shall be no more thence an infant of days, nor an old man that hath not filled his days: for the child shall die an hundred years old; but the sinner being an hundred years old shall be accursed.
Here’s how Michael Pearl explains this bit elsewhere:
That’s a riddle, that a class of people still called “child” at a hundred years of age, if found to be a sinner, will be cursed and damned.
Based on the Scripture, what I think is going to happen is that the children who come back in the Millennium, people who died as children, that died prematurely or aborted babies, will come back in the Millennium and grow up and have until the age of 100 to repent and be obedient to God. If they do not, at a hundred years that individual who came into the Millennium as a child will be executed.
Wait what now?
Here’s the thing: there’s absolutely no way Magdalene would have come up with this on her own. And yet she claims when she asked Malachi about what Cheyenne said, he told her to go read the Bible herself, and Hope told her to start with Isaiah 65, and that on her own, she came up with this interpretation. No way in heck. This came from Michael … I mean, Malachi.
But also, Michael’s interpretation doesn’t even make sense!
Here, let’s reread the verse:
There shall be no more thence an infant of days, nor an old man that hath not filled his days: for the child shall die an hundred years old; but the sinner being an hundred years old shall be accursed.
Is the passage confusing? Yes. Does it suggest that another class of children from some other time will grow up during the Millennium? No!
What Does This Verse Actually Say?
This passage is confusing for two reasons. First, it’s in the KJV. Second, this whole passage is written in couplets, and in many cases the couplets are repetitions (i.e., state one thing, then restate it the same way). That’s pretty standard for Hebrew poetry (as I understand, at least), but it’s not something we’re super used to. Nor were the writers of the New Testament, by the way—this is why Matthew has Jesus ride into Jerusalem straddling a donkey and its foal, because the Old Testament passage he’s replicating (so that Jesus fulfills prophesy) includes a couplet—an ass; the foal of a donkey—and he thought it was additive.
Here’s how the verse reads in the NIV:
“Never again will there be in it
an infant who lives but a few days,
or an old man who does not live out his years;
the one who dies at a hundred
will be thought a mere child;
the one who fails to reach a hundred
will be considered accursed.
Can you see the couplets I was talking about?
The only other evidence Magdalene offers for her belief that the Bible says those who die as children will grow up in the Millennium is that several passages say “the streets of the city shall be full of boys and girls playing,” and that there will be some who rise up against Jesus at the end of the Millennium. But this is super easy to answer: that Isaiah passage makes clear that babies will be born during the Millennium. You don’t need to transplant extra babies in for it to work.
This all goes to back up my assertion that much of fundamentalist Christianity is little different from nerds arguing over a fandom (and I say that affectionately!).
Oh, and I’m pretty sure this isn’t awesome:
“What else is there for the little ones who die? The Millennium will be an opportunity for all those children, and the mentally handicapped as well, to grow up naturally and make their own decision to love God or not.”
Cool. Cool cool cool.
Magdalene Gets Weird
So then Magdalene tells Bobbie Jo that she had a dream that she was running in a meadow with a little girl, and then she realized it was her little girl, Starlight. She tells Bobbie Jo that she believes this dream—which she spends several pages explaining, and included Magdalene giving Starlight a lecture about herbs and their healing properties—is God giving her a promise that she will get to raise Starlight in the Millennium.
And then we get this weird bit:
Magdalene cupped her tiny hand and held it out. With a gentle touch she seemed to place something invisible into Bobbie Jo’s palm. Then she carefully folded the larger hand and held it closed with both her small white hands. Both girls stared at Bobbie Jo’s closed hand.
Magdalene spoke quietly and reverently. “Bobbie Jo, I have given you a jewel of my future. Keep it safe and fresh until the time that others need to know.”
Crusty Bobbie Jo dissolved into unabashed tears, falling in great drops from her big brown eyes. Something eternal had just happened.
And then there’s a recipe for Amish spice cookies.
No, really.
But that whole bit there? There’s no context I’m leaving out. Magdalene goes all weird on Bobbie Jo and gives her an invisible “jewel” of her future to “keep safe and fresh” until others need to know. That’s weird, right?
I’ll give you a spoiler. The time will come when the others need to know. Because Magdalene will be dead. And it’ll be up to Bobbie Jo to tell everyone that Magdalene was perfectly ready to die, because she has gone to raise Starlight in the Millennium, so actually, her death is a beautiful, miraculous thing.
I only wish I was joking.
Magdalene will die trying to save Omar and Tess’ kids from the house fire set while they’re sleeping by local white supremacists who are in league with her father, who has come to retrieve her because Omar and Tess finally talked her into calling her father, and then when he said he was coming right away to get her all she could figure out to say was “okay,” and then everyone else on the TLP compound said “sounds about right, he’s her dad anyway,” and told her to pack her bags. Which is when her father went to the TLP website and saw Omar and flipped. But her father will convert on her deathbed, so of course it’s all for the good!
You know what, I’m going to end it here, because this is a chapter break and I’m tired. So there you go. I don’t know what to call Magdalene exactly, but she feels like some sort of fundamentalist version of the Manic Pixie Dream Girl. Or maybe that’s Cheyenne? Maybe Magdalene is the white, petite, blond child sacrifice who is somehow too good for this world.
Like I said, I’m tired!
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