The Power of Myth

A recent article circulating around the Internet claims that Christian missionaries rescued a wounded Jihadist whom they took for dead. He miraculously awoke several hours later and claimed God had sent him to hell where all his sins including the beheadings he carried out were shown to him. He repented and was sent back to earth where he converted to Christianity a few days later.

The story ticks all the boxes: selfless Christian missionaries, an epiphany at the gates of hell, and salvation through conversion to Christianity. Unfortunately, I've found it difficult to verify any details associated with the story. The wounded Jihadist was allegedly picked up by missionaries from the Saint Dominican Catholic Presbytery of Ayyash. A search for the Saint Dominican Catholic Presbytery of Ayyash only produces multiple copies of this story. In other words, no Internet site independently lists this organization. I even searched the vatican site and found no mention of this supposedly Catholic mission.

To get down in the weeds on this, the term presbytery describes an architectural portion of a church (the area around the altar) or the house where a parish priest lives. A search for Ayyash does not reveal a place as the title would indicate, but rather is a popular Arabic name meaning bread seller. Further the grammar is wrong. The Dominican order takes its name from Saint Dominic, therefore the name should be Saint Dominic Catholic, etc., not Saint Dominican. Don't believe me, just ask Pope Franciscan.

If a story is too good to be true, it probably is. The story is almost verbatim one I heard in the 70s where an ex-US special forces was struck by lightning and forced to relive all the killings he committed in Vietnam. He repented and changed his life. Same story, different details.

One of the themes the Revelation trilogy is how susceptible we can be to deeply engrained myths. When events seem to reinforce those myths, it provides a sort of comfort. Of course, that means that those who manipulate events to conform to those myths may have for less than pure motives.