The Gospel of Fury
The World of Make Believe
The Gospel of Fury presents itself as an angelic dispatch for a troubled world.
Ignatius Benjamin Fury’s religious treatise The Gospel of Fury purports to be the work of an angel sent from heaven with a message for Earth.
Made up of both an explanation of Fury’s belief that he is an angel (with evidence including various birthdays within his family to support the belief, and a middle section devoted to describing Fury’s relatives) and the message that he says he was sent to deliver (people are exhorted to “stop religious wars,” “be kind to each other,” and to know that “heaven is for everyone”), this book uses Christian language to make its sometimes intriguing but often controversial points. It includes insights such as that “individuality is crafted by each of us and takes a lifetime to create” that generate interest.
Though it evinces clear Christian roots, the book’s perspective often deviates from the Bible, as where it claims, “Our mass forgiveness requires the suffering of humanity … through the destruction provided by a world of warfare” and says “Kill one another if you desire; no longer kill in the name faith in God.” But contradictions arise, sometimes in short spaces, as where the text states that the “son-of-God” takes part in Judgment Day as a favorite pastime but soon after claims “the son-of-God will not be standing in your court of judgment.” Repetition leads to textual lags, as in the third section, which is made up of “parables” that merely repeat previous points, and with the recurring injunction to “love God, praise God, fear God.”
Piquing but undersupported and unpersuasive suggestions arise, as where the book advocates for marriage between first cousins on the grounds that “proximity of beings is central to God’s plan for angels on earth,” or where it makes the outlandish claim that Fury found the Holy Grail. Its prose is often inscrutable, as with its assertion that “spiritual cake is baked in heaven” and its puzzling claim that “Humpty Dumpty never had it so good as you will when you die.” Some images, as with “the wheelbarrow of knowledge,” are awkward, and unexplained terms like “Christ-blade” and “Common Language” hold the audience at a distance. Factual inaccuracies also undermine it, as where it claims that calendar time started at the point when Jesus was born. And malapropisms and misspellings dot the text, calling into questions its claims of divine authority.
The Gospel of Fury is a religious manifesto that contains a message that’s attributed to heaven.
Reviewed by
Sarah Frideswide
Disclosure: This article is not an endorsement, but a review. The publisher of this book provided free copies of the book and paid a small fee to have their book reviewed by a professional reviewer. Foreword Reviews and Clarion Reviews make no guarantee that the publisher will receive a positive review. Foreword Magazine, Inc. is disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255.
