Slaughterhouse Five by Kurt Vonnegut

When evaluating religions and sects, it is helpful to analyze what each says about Jesus, for that is often the differentiating factor that sets them apart. Likewise with Slaughterhouse Five. When the first page presented a line from "Away in a Manger," I knew I was going to encounter some religious discussion.

Vonnegut makes reference to Jesus throughout his book. Much of the action takes place during World War II, and so he makes the main character a chaplain's assistant and says Jesus's name was odious to many soldiers. Later on, he calls Jesus the most powerful Being in the universe, though whether he was being facetious I could not tell. He also says that the lesson of the Crucifixion was one should not hurt people with connections, commenting that God should have crucified a bum and then made him His son, with the proclamation that no one should harm those in low places. The main character, who is not limited by the fourth dimension, travels back in time and validates Jesus' existence.

The book was anti-war. The main character is abducted by aliens who show him that everything that happens is supposed to happen, and is always simultaneously happening. People do not really die because they are still in existence in millions of other moments. The main character finds this is true as he travels between different moments of his life, over and over and over. Vonnegut uses this premise to superimpose war-related events, showing the horror of it and such.

The convoluted structure makes it hard to draw out the point of it all. I was mostly concerned with Vonnegut's religious commentary. He saw the Crucifixion as an unfortunate accident. What he did not take into account is ironic in light of his premise. From Genesis onward, God has been making known the fact that the Crucifixion was going to occur. He knew it was going to happen when He created the world. Within this is the conundrum expressed by Vonnegut's aliens. Everything that happens, God already knew was going to happen. He is sovereign over all events, and He is not limited by time. I think He sees the world as the aliens do- altogether, from beginning to end. As Jesus is God, Vonnegut's weak, shortsighted Jesus is quite the misunderstanding.

But Vonnegut was on the right track in his book. All are not limited by the constraints of time. There is One who isn't. He's just not an alien.