Blot out the Son by writing the word "darkness"

James Frey's literary career has resembled Thomas Hobbes' famous dictum about human life outside society's protection: nasty, brutish, and short. Frey's book A Million Pieces was panned by critics as being a fabrication. Oprah Winfrey dispatched him on national TV. If you god is the publishing industry and the chattering classes that comprise it, this is equivalent to being cast into the fires of Hell.

So Frey is doing what many "artists" have done in America and Europe to try to revive their sagging careers - attack Christianity.

Frey is releasing a new book called The Final Testament of the Holy Bible, which portrays Jesus' Second coming in the form of Ben Jones, a pot-smoking whore-chasing loser. The only thing missing in Frey's new book (as far as I know) is any reference to Jesus/Ben Jones becoming a Muslim. Although Frey knows if he attacks Islam the same way he attacks Christianity, then it will be a race to see who obliterates him first: the Islamic terrorists or the multicultural Left.

From the article linked above Frey all but tips his strategy to return to the Promised Land of the good graces of the New York Times Book Review:

Frey told us the book is "a theoretical third volume of the Bible -- there was the Old, there was the New, and this is the Final." He said, "I'm sure the religious right will go crazy because the story of Ben . . . is hardly the Messiah they have in mind. But I don't really care. I just did what I always do -- tried to write the best book I could."

Frey is counting on - frantically needs, in fact - some prominent Christian or Christian organization to criticize his book (my tiny blog probably does not count, but if he gets desperate enough...). This will create a palpable reaction in the secular media as newspapers and magazine editors and writers rush to Frey's defense against the dastardly Bible-thumpers. Even Oprah may offer absolution to the penitent Frey. When it comes to getting a reflex action, Pavlov's dog was not as well conditioned as the secular media is. Or so Frey hopes.

Unfortunately for Frey, there is no guarantee that this will work. The secular media is hip-deep in Christophobes. Mere Christian-bashing is insufficient for fame and fortune. Competition is too keen.

I find the timing of the release of Frey's book - Good Friday - oddly appropriate. Frey believes that he can obliterate Jesus by writing an "edgy" book. Yet as C.S. Lewis once noted, it is almost like trying to snuff out the sun by writing the word "darkness". The religious leaders of Jesus' time found out that killing Him did not work out as planned.

In short, the problem for Frey (and the secular world in general) is the Sunday that follows Good Friday.