Michel Faber Quotes
But miracles are not for the asking; they come only when the stern eyes of God droop shut for a moment, and Our Lady takes advantage of His inattention to grant an illicit mercy. God...is an Anglican, whereas Our Lady is of the True Faith; the two of Them have an uneasy relationship, unable to agree on anything, except that if They divorce, the Devil will leap gleefully into the breach.
Faber, Michel. The Crimson Petal and the White. Harcourt, 2002.
There is a striking similarity of speech between Menelik and the monarchs of Europe with respect to his Divine right of rule and dependence on God. Ethiopia, in contrast to the rest of Africa, was a Christian kingdom and had been so for centuries. Menelik mobilized his people and produced a humiliating defeat for the Italians at Adowa in 1896 who never forgot and returned to conquer Ethiopia in the early part of World War II.
This Koranic passage represents the Muslim belief regarding the Crucifixion. The deny that Christ was crucified or even killed in any manner. But they do believe that God raised him to Heaven as God sent his agents to save him from the pain and suffering. Those who thought that he was crucified were just repeating the error of some people who were confused as to who was crucified and who was not. In the dark and middle ages, many Christians were infuriated with the denial of the Crucifixion of Jesus and saw that as not only blasphemous but deserving of death to such a false believer. In more modern times, some Christians find the viewpoint insulting but there is more tolerance of views which Christian theologians simply regard as “error.” In the early history of Christianity there were some Christians who felt that God had enabled Jesus to escape crucifixion. It took some time for the Crucifixion to become settled Christian doctrine. Some Christians feel that those who denied the crucifixion could not have been Christians but there were a few people who believed in the rest of Christian doctrine except that Christ was crucified, believing as the later Muslims did that God raised him directly to heaven.
The letter was publicly posted on the religious school’s website.
Michel Faber is a Dutch-born writer of English-language fiction, including his 2002 novel The Crimson Petal and the White. His latest book is a novel for young adults, D: A Tale of Two Worlds, published in 2020.
