Folau’s honest about beliefs

What’s the difference between the vicepresident of the United States and Israel Folau, the footballer? In case you missed it, Folau announced on Twitter that various sinners were going to hell. The sinner everyone has seized on is the homosexual, which is unfair on the drunks, fornicators, atheists and liars whom he also mentioned. They too deserve some fame before the torments start.

On a personal note, in Folau’s poker hand of damnation I’ve got at least two pairs, and, if the definition of fornication swings my way, a full house. I could hardly be more proud. At the same time I could hardly be less upset.

And that’s rather the point. Folau’s warning about the wrath of god is Stone Age nonsense and few of the sinners he names are going to do anything but giggle. As is common today, the people getting upset are doing so on behalf of those who actually aren’t.

Indeed the victim here is not us homosexuals, fornicators and drunks who will continue to have a fine old time to the extent that we are able. The victim is Folau. The poor fellow never stood a chance. He was raised a Mormon.

Now, as I have been pointing out in this column for years, all religions are fairy tales. But Mormonism is just about the fairiest of them all. If you feel in need of amusement look up the story of the angel Moroni delivering golden tablets to Joseph Smith, tablets which no-one else saw but on which the gigantic business empire that is Mormonism is founded. Smith, like all cult leaders, appropriated the name of prophet but actually, like all cult leaders, was a conman. Yet poor Folau from the day of his birth was taught Smith’s words as gospel.

As an adult Folau has moved from the Mormon church to an Assemblies of God church, which is to leap from the frying pan of pseudoChristian nonsense into the fire of veryChristian fundamentalism. Assemblies of God churches believe that the Bible is divinely inspired and that every word of it is true. Yeah, verily, even the bits about Adam and Eve and arks full of animals and Noah living to be a thousand.

So every Sunday for as long as he’s lived Folau has been told fairy tales by adults in apparent authority. But when he repeats one of those fairy tales he finds himself threatened with the sack. It does not seem fair.

Indeed it seems doubly unfair, because Folau means well. He believes we sinners are going to hell and not to warn us would be like watching a man step into the path of a bus and not shouting out.

And it seems triply unfair because what Folau tweeted is bedrock Christianity, the moral orthodoxy of Western culture for a couple of thousand years. It is only in the last half-century, as secular tolerance grew in the West, that some Christian denominations have stopped speaking of hell for fear of losing customers.

In sum then, Folau has been honest, open, well-intentioned and in the mainstream of Western culture.

The vice-president of the United States, meanwhile, is also an eager Christian, although that somehow does not stop him prostrating himself at the feet of Trump and declaring that he causes the sun to rise and the birds to sing.

Mr Pence was recently asked whether homosexuality was a sin.

Pence replied, ‘‘My wife and I are Biblebelieving Christians’’.

In other words yes, absolutely, but I dare not say so. The difference between Pence and Folau is honesty.