The Word: God's Diaries

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Two years ago, Satirist Anthony Towne tried to resolve the theological debate over whether God is dead by publishing an obituary of the Deity. The deadpan story was turned down by a number of journals, but finally appeared in the Christian student magazine motive under the New York Times-like headline:

GOD IS DEAD IN GEORGIA

Eminent Deity Succumbs During Surgery—Succession in Doubt

Now, Towne has produced a logical sequel to the obituary: Excerpts from the Diaries of the Late God, published this week by Harper & Row.

God's diaries, explains Towne 40 an occasional contributor to The New Yorker, were divinely disclosed to him as objects of my imagination," so that he had to do was edit them. Although badly in need of cutting they were easy to edit: God had thoughtfully turned out copies of them in every known language and had recorded them by every conceivable means, including invisible ink and skywriting. "I have relied almost entirely upon the typewritten version," Towne reports, "because I find Gods penmanship indecipherable."

Stag Dinners. As revealed in the diaries, God was a somewhat mischievous sometimes petulant, down-to-firmament fellow, who bore a surprising resemblance to his editor. He loved good wine and reveled in witty company—and indulged himself in both by throwing Saturday-night stag dinners for a few selected friends. A towering figure who stood well over 6 ft. tall and weighed more than 200 Ibs., he prided himself on the fact that "I am in excellent health for a god of my age "

God was virtually bald, "as befits my intellectual proclivities," but sported a "rakish goatee, a vanity I allow myself because I've been told the carrot color enhances my olive complexion. Addicted to loud sports shirts he despised formalities and shunned pretensions. "Just call me God," he told his subjects in heaven. At the same time, he was rather touchy about Christmas. "Nobody, I notice, ever makes a fuss over my birthday," he once complained in his diary.

Like many chief executives, God was henpecked by his secretary, a busybody of a woman named Myrtle who insisted on removing the centerfold picture of Playboy before allowing him to read the magazine. He was bored stiff bv the routine of his job, especially Sunday-morning "tune-in duty," when he monitored church services on earth He sometimes complained of the lonely burden he bore as ruler of the universe. "The buck, as Mr. Truman said, stops here, ' God wrote. "And I mean it really stops here. I would give my omniscience to be able to pass just one decision on to higher authority."