Another Vision of Judgment

 Or: "Tony Soprano in Heaven"

A poem; or—more properly—a rant with line breaks

***

The worst column Ross Douthat ever penned

Remains the one wherein he said

That Hell must exist because Tony Soprano must be there

Here are a number of reasons why that's not fair

First of all, Tony wouldn't actually be there

According to Douthat's own theology

He is—as far as any viewer can tell—a member in good standing

A baptized Catholic whose soul was never

Excommunicated from the Church.

At worst he is roiling in purgatory

Where he burns off a few of those murders like so many calories

Rather than ending up another rung down.

Secondly, according to the Protestants too

Soprano would be in heaven (or if he weren't, he'd be left out

For reasons having nothing to do with his sins—viz. the aforementioned

Catholicism; Douthat would be banished too)

Because the Protestants tell us it is faith alone

(or the lack thereof)—

Not works—

That saves (or damns) us. 

And so according to any branch

Of recognized Christianity

No matter how you slice it

Tony Soprano would be in heaven

Or on his way there shortly

(Or else in hell for reasons extraneous

To anything he might have done

But rather due exclusively to 

God's own sectarian intolerance). 

And the vision of Tony in heaven is 

As it should be, actually

For the only valid insight Christianity ever had

Is that we've all done bad things; or if not—have at least thought them

And so we're all some version of the same kind of problem

And so, as MacDiarmid said, or Housman

The man strapped to the electric chair or noose

Is a man hardly worse, when all is said

Than you or I—just a fellow with bad luck

Same goes for Soprano 

Where the Churches then get it wrong is that

Instead of concluding from this

That everyone must be saved

(Since no one is better than another)

They decide

That everyone must be damned, or rather only those

Who have committed some ideological crime

Against the heavenly dictator 

For which they have been banished;

And so, according to the Douthats of the world

Soprano wouldn't be in hell

But I would be just for believing

He shouldn't be there

Nor anyone else 

Because to disbelieve in hell is a lack of faith

In a single catechismical line 

The ultimate crime—a kind 

Of sin against the holy ghost.

And so the fate of the universalist always is

To be damned, as Byron once put it,

Just for wishing that no one else may be so!

But why, you ask, shouldn't people go to hell even if

Their last name is Soprano? 

Because an eternity to the size of any crime

Is, for one thing, disproportionate

Infinity being placed in any numerator

Invariably tending to infinity. 

But somehow for—some sects of the faith—that's just fine

Apparently there are people out there

So infinitely vindictive 

That they think if Tony burned a hundred billion years

That still wouldn't be enough to satisfy 'em.

No wonder that people all vote for the chair

The gallows, the firing squad

And would bring back the stocks and the rack and the wheel too

If you put it to a referendum tomorrow.

No wonder they don't have any objection

To torture and capital punishment in this life,

Since they think it would be just dandy

If there were an infinity of it in the next!

No wonder the Christian churches all 

Had no compunction burning heretics

They were just mimicking what they figured God would do

As soon as he got the chance!

Not me

I don't want

Anyone to go to the stake here

Let alone for an eternity

Count me out 

And so I'll join Byron and Mill in my disbelief

And end up down below

Just for thinking, in justice's name

That no one—not even Tony Soprano

Should ever be treated so