The Lame Shall Enter First: Antichrist Arises

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Yes, of course I’m doing a bonus blog! I mean, a blog about the Honors Project readings? All the hard work of analyzing O’Connor is behind me, this is a gimme in its purest form.

Anyhow, I’m just here to spew a couple short paragraphs about Sheppard’s unique role in the story. We see him feeding the hungry and housing the homeless with his attitudes towards Rufus. He also teaches both boys to reject what he considers to be false doctrines and cling only to the truth he teaches. Then he encourages them to become astronauts—in other words, to live their lives to the end of piloting a rocket ship and ascending beyond the atmosphere, into the heavens. And, of course, his name is a play on the word “shepherd.” Does any of this sound familiar?

…Yeah, he’s Jesus. The atheist version of Jesus, at least. Everything he does is a twisted version of Jesus’ actions. Instead of acting out of pure selflessness, he treats Rufus and his son in the way to best boost his ego. Jesus died for His followers, and then His followers were arrested and killed out of their love for Him. Sheppard doesn’t make anywhere near that kind of sacrifice to show his boys he loves them; by the time he wants to, they have been arrested and killed out of rebellion against him. Jesus offered hope. Sheppard tried and failed on that front.

We talked a lot during the debate about whether a moral atheist was better than a delinquent Christian, but after chewing on this for a while longer I’m left with a second question: can an atheist ever truly display the same kind of love that Christ did? Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying that an atheist can’t love or that Christians are inherently more perfect at it. But Christians have an immutable, divine standard of love by which to ensure that their love remains true. Atheists just… don’t.

P.S. I still don't think we actually need to comment on bonus blogs, but for OCD's sake I commented on Zelda and Ty's.

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