From Dr Michael Gtimshaw Sir: D.J. Taylor is correct to
recognise that, while it is un-PC to offend other religions, it is basically PC to allow anti-Christian polemic. Yet this can have some unexpected results. Several of my students in religious studies are fans not only of Cradle of Filth, but also of the far more 'heavy' Deicide, who included a picture of an eviscerated Christ on their 1995 CD Once Upon the Cross. They also are fans of Marilyn Manson, who includes crucified images of himself on his amusing but offensive website. Yet after discussing the cosmology behind such conscious blasphemy they realised that they were actually taking the Christian narrative far more seriously than the vast majority of their classmates. For, in positing the existence of Satan and demonic powers, they are paradoxically affirming the Christian narrative as one of dominant power and influence.
They were challenged to recognise that their anti-Christian polemic only has meaning within a cosmology where the Christian narrative is predominant. For, just as you require a theistic notion of God to be an atheist, to be a follower of an Antichrist requires the existence of a Christ. The former cannot exist without the latter. Faced with their paradoxical affirmation of the existence of the Christian God and of Christ, they were forced to rethink their whole religious outlook. Consequently, their musical tastes are rumoured to have matured.
Michael Grimshaw
Department of Philosophy and Religious Studies, University of Canterbury. Christchurch, New Zealand
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