Culture of death? What culture of death?

 what is the latest atrocity from the cultural chic?

'From GetReligionBlog: cannibalism is chic

NYTimes tweets: Cannibalism has a time and a place. Some recent books, films and shows suggest that the time is now. Can you stomach it?

then GR comments: 

.this is one of those oh-so New York Times trend pieces about the sophisticated cultural tastes of sophisticated people living in sophisticated zip codes.

The article then quotes recent books insisting that this happens all the time so hey let's pretend it is okie dokie.

You’ll find some headlines that might have been relevant to this topic. Think: “ ‘The Bread of Life’: Exploring Ritualistic Cannibalism.” Or this one, perhaps: “Eating People Is Wrong — But It’s Also Widespread and Sacred.”

Widespread? Where?

Sacred? Where?

GR then comments: 

In conclusion, let me suggest that the headline for this Times story needed to include the word “taboo.” That would be a framework that raise ethical and moral questions, as well as — uh — questions about hip entertainment trends. Maybe it is getting harder to shock pixel-saturated Americans.

yes, but not new: silence of the Lambs anyone?

And let's not be judgemental and call evil evil. 

all of this brings to mind how the theme was handled by Japanese writer, Shshuku Endo, in several of his works, mainly in his novel Deep River. where one of the characters is haunted by the fact that, when some Japanese soldiers were stranded at the end of World War II,they resorted to eating human flesh, and how that guilt destroyed them because they could not see how they could be forgiven for such a sin.

like much of Endo, the theme is God's mercy:

 

Kiguchi, who came to propitiate the gods by chanting the Amida Surra by the river for other souls as well as the soul of a fellow-soldier, who, in the Japanese army's retreat from India to Burma in World War 11, had saved his life by feeding him with human flesh. Having drunk heavily upon his return home to forget his sense of guilt, he died of stomach cancer, seeming to have grasped the genuine meaning of tensei or 'rebirth'. 

the river is the Ganges, but with hints that it is also the River Jordon that gives forgiveness of one's sins in baptism.

Sigh. 

 

“But the scrawny, powerless man with his arms outstretched on the cross had at some point reclaimed Otsu. Still, that doesn't change the fact that I won. With startling rapacity God had merely picked up a man I discarded.” ― Shusaku Endo, Deep River