The Kingdom of Cain: Finding God in the Literature of Darkness

By Andrew Klavan
(Zondervan, 272 Pages, $29.99) 
As last week stumbled to a close, I read the news story of Congressman Jared Huffman (D–Calif.), who was on his merry way to the National Prayer Breakfast, not to participate as a supporter but as a protester. Huffman has taken a proactive approach to stripping churches of their tax-exempt status. He was irked that the event was being held in Statuary Hall in the Capitol Building. He describes himself as a humanist. Huffman believes God has no place in government. As a humanist, Huffman may believe that God has no place at all.
Nietzsche’s old man declared that God was dead and that new lamps should be lit. The West has spent over a century struggling to find God’s replacement. In recent decades, many have opted for humanism over God. While there is a case to be made for the abuse by religions, be it economic, political, sexual, or otherwise, the stark fact is that the abuses have been from the machinations of men, not God. Likewise, the horrors of abortion, slavery, perversion and its chief method of distribution, pornography, war, and other demons that were once the occupants of Pandora’s Box are also the acts of humans, not the Deity. We owe our legacy of misery to men like Stalin, Hitler, Mao, their compatriots, and to a degree, ourselves, not to the creator of the universe. Humanism, despite the claims of humanists, is not quite what it is cracked up to be. Left to our own devices, we can be generous, kind, and empathetic. But as the headlines have shown us, we would be fools to continue to believe that man is the measure of all things. Humanity, by its very nature, is selfish, hedonistic, and narcissistic. Time and again, we have proved ourselves to be the very antithesis of the Godhead that we reject in our ongoing age of enlightenment.
In his introduction to the 1962 edition of 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, Ray Bradbury draws our attention to the c...