Mennonites and Virginity

Sacrificing Virgins to the Sun God

Sacrificing virgins to the Sun God is not precisely part of the Anabaptist/Mennonite tradition, but it should be.  It’s lots of fun providing you don’t happen to be the virgin. Life is all about having the right role models and creative role playing.

Having recently lived in the Middle East I now have some understanding of the relationship between traditional Islamic theology and virginity and sacrifice. While on the economic side of the scale I can understand the function of demand, I am still a bit vague on the supply side of the equation.  Where do all of these virgins come from, certainly not Eastern European countries or the Middle East itself?  Or, is it just magical thinking?

I do however understand the motivational qualities of offering virgins for incentive.  Although given a choice between 72 virgins, which seems to be the standard rate for martyrdom for acts rendered against infidels, and say a dozen quality pole dancers; I would tend toward the pole dancers just in terms of experience over inexperience. This is really a moral issue of quality over quantity. However, when it comes to religion nothing is really logical.  Its all about faith.

My childhood experience with virgin sacrifice really has to do with innocent role playing and the co-operation of my sisters and some of her girl friends.  I have black and white photographs attached to black pages with photo corners in a very old album documenting some of our backyard butchery, and sacrificial rituals.  

Our role playing included a range of games including: “Cannibals and Missionaries,” ”Cowboys and Indians,” Cops and Robbers,” “Imperialists and Neo-Colonials,” and the ever popular  “Anabaptists and Catholics.” For those that don’t get it, anabaptists became Mennonites and broke away from Catholism.  I grew up Mennonite.  I just know this stuff. My friends just thought I was weird.

Each game really followed a template or theme in which forces of good were pitied against forces of evil.  Just like photography, the world in the 1950’s was a much simpler place and social issues could literally be viewed in terms off black and white.  It was not until the invention of colour photography that the world become a much more complicated place.

TV Westerns were all the rage when I was growing up.  I was weaned on multiple seasons of Gun Smoke, Bonanza, Rawhide and the Lone Ranger.  

I recall a particular joke about the Lone Ranger and his “Indian” side kick Tonto which taught me much about loyalty and friendship part of my core value system which I carry with me to this day.  Tanto and the Lone Ranger were surrounded by a vicious Indian attack.  They had no cover and were nearly at the end of their defences.  The Lone Ranger in a rare gesture of candor, removed his mask and said to his life long partner, “I guess we’re gonners now.”  Tonto turned to the Lone Ranger and replied, “What do you mean we pale face.”

Each of the lead characters in the Westerns, so pivital to the formulation of my youthful values, were strong individuals with a clear sense of justice frontier style.  If you really want to understand the American Psyche today one need only understand the frontier mentality of rugged individualism, personal weaponry, subduing native populations, expansionism, the Monroe Doctrine and Manifest Destiny, or just watch the steely nerves and determination Sheriff Mat Dilon, or the Marlboro Man, who sadly recently died from lung cancer. As an aside, do you think the tobacco companies are only selling us image with no nutritional value to their products.  Life is smoke and mirrors.

Besides getting an electric slot car tract with remote controls, the gift I wanted most for birthdays or Christmas was a holster with a twin set of six shooters. I Prayed hard and I got both three years apart.  I was blessed and I knew then and there that there was a God. Which does explain the power of the religious right in the Untied States.  Obviously, guns are next to Godliness, or is that cleanliness, whatever.  With 300 million hand guns, Americans are virtually on the right side of God, or so the analogy goes.

Cap guns as they were called were a wonderful invention. It brought an incredibly high level of realism to our role playing adventures.  Often when my friends came to play in my backyard no one wanted to play the down trodden native roles as we had already developed quite precise stereo types from the reality Western TV shows that we were bombarded with and eagerly absorbed. 

Is there a connection between the medium of TV and movies when it comes to violence in society. I would guess a tenuous connection at best.  Really, when you think about it how could, getting saturated by the medium with violent images in every direction 24/7 have any meaningful or long lasting impact on behavioural patterns especially on impressionable kids.  Its like saying advertising works.  

My neighbours did not appreciate our games because these games usually involved our occupying, at least temporarily, their yard as well as our own yard. As in the real world, games mimicking acts of violence require territory.  How does one “win” without taking away land or property from somebody.  The natural order of events and history all hinges on the haves and have nots, even Karl Marx knew that much. 

Our occupation of the neighbours yard involved running through their hedges, gardens and hiding in their window wells and garage, climbing their fences and wearing a path around their house, all reasonable collateral damage and well within our rights.  Its like the UN charter for kids.  How else could we bomb say a place like Libya today without some sort of universal charter.

Does no one watch the world news any more? How do the Americans win wars with out the death of innocent civilians...collateral damage.  Its like ice cream and apple pie. For some reason, our neighbours, the Wilson’s, frequently complained to my parents.  I never understood why that was.  My dad being a pacifist did not want to get involved and in a world where might makes right we continued to play our innocent little killing games like any normal Mennonite kid would.  I think it was written in the Bible somewhere about an “eye for an eye” next to the chapter on virgins and sacrifice.  I know its in there somewhere.

My Dad, who was a real handyman, built us a playhouse in our backyard, perhaps to lure us away from the neighbours yard. It became a focal point for neighbourhood play and probably bought me a few extra friends along the way.  It was an amazing playhouse unlike these modern day plastic versions, ours was spacious, with real glass windows that actually opened, shelves on the interior and furniture.  I grew up happy, content in my knowledge that real estate usually appreciates over time and I would have it made in the shade when it came time to sell.

My sisters used the playhouse in their silly girl simulation games involving themes of goodness, purity, and domesticity and often received the “Good House Keeping Seal of Approval” from our mother for their efforts.  Girls were handicapped and their imaginations were stifled because their TV role models hadn’t been developed yet. There were, as yet, no “Desperate Housewives” or “Sex in the City”; so naturally girls in the 50’s simply didn’t know any better. Boys, on the other hand, had a head start when it came to creative play.

Silly girl games did not pit forces of good versus evil as in the real world, instead they seemed to play with an abundance of plain goodness.  What fun is that?  Girls can be so weird.  No wonder boys and girls don’t want to play with each other at that age.  Its as if men were say from a different planet like Neptune and girls were from some other planet like Saturn or Mercury or something.  I’m still working on that comparison.

The playhouse had to be shared on a rotational basis.  Once the girls were finished playing and moved on to some other silly game like dress up, or Sears catalogue fantasy shopping games the boys could take over with a real game.  My favourite game with the playhouse was called “Under Siege” and we had to defend our fort against invaders, who could alternatively be pirates, Nazis, War Lords, Indians, Communists, or Catholics.   

I remember vividly, and with some degree of horror, as myself and three defenders were under a particularly harsh and unprovoked surprise attack of our fort by a wild horde of Native Americans (political correctness added later).  We were almost out of ammo, our food and water supplies were low, and morale was clearly starting to lag.  We were out numbered in a ratio of at least two to one. The sun was setting, mom nearly had dinner ready, yet we could sense a heightened level of hostilities, the proverbial calm before the storm.

We each defended a window as the invaders circled on their horses around and around the fort at dizzying speeds and with great agility, their war cries pierced the night air and we were getting scared.  In one crescendo of action and while delusional with adreneline my buddy, David, standing to my right took his toy cap gun by the barrel and using the handle like a hammer smashed out the glass window on our playhouse presumably to get a better shot. 

I was in shock and I guess a little over wrought myself from all the preceding action.  I screamed at him,  “Holy shit David this is only a role playing activity what the hell did you break the window for?” I was so upset I ended the sentence with a preposition. “My dad is going to kill me and he’s a pacifist.” 

David was speechless.  Gently I took his gun from his clenched fist. I calmly said, “David, step away from the window and nobody has to get hurt.”

Sadly the whole game came to a sudden halt and David forlornly walked into the setting sun stunned and overwhelmed at what he had done.  He had bridged the huge gap between fantasy and reality.

Upon reflection I concluded that some kids just can’t separate fact from fiction.  Needless to say David never again was allowed to defend the fort.  He eventually took on lesser enemy roles, double agents, cameo appearances and other riff raff.  He gradually drifted out of my life and his family eventually moved from the neighbourhood. The last I heard he had hit rock bottom selling hedge funds and was probably one of those guys providing the instabiltiy for the recent recession.  I no longer cared.

Fortunately, today, unlike my own childhood, kids have reality TV shows of every kind to discover their current and more relevant role models and form a basis for their own role playing activty. I rest in my senior years secure in the knowledge that through video games, demonstrating any number of life skills from car jacking to street walking and terrorism and through TV and the movies, that the kids of today are really our future, and what a future it will be in pana vision, and sorround Dolby sound at a theatre near you.


As for me, I was just content sacrificing virgins to the Sun God like any other Mennonite kid.