It seems that among the least religious are people in European countries that have a religious affiliation. If you’re Swedish, you’re Lutheran… in word, anyway. Last night, I watched the film version of Girl with a Dragon Tattoo. Intense. I’ve heard quite a bit about it, read more, but I don’t remember anyone mentioning that a key clue to unravelling the mystery was the biblical book of Leviticus, the”third book of Moses,” as it’s identified in the story. I’m not sure if Stieg Larsson had real antipathy for the Bible or if it just seemed to work for his narrative purposes, but the references to passages in Leviticus are far from positive. They show instead how the cruel and twisted brains of sadist murderers could find in those texts justification or at least a map for their horrorifying acts. There’s a lot in Leviticus that I simply can’t get on board with (see the upcoming Oct. 3 issue of The Christian Century for my justification for rejecting certain biblical texts), but did you know that it’s in Leviticus that you can find the command to “love your neighbor as yourself”? Yup, Leviticus 19:18. Now that is NOT a sentiment the abusers in GWDT adopted. skipped right on over that pesky text.
