It's "Revelations" time in the 204-rewatch schedule. The review is below and on the Top Ten Religious Episodes page.
Revelations (3x11)
Original airdate: 12/15/95
Written by: Kim Newton
Directed by: David Nutter
“Revelations” is the first episode that reverses the roles of Mulder and
Scully surrounding issues of religion, signs, and miracles: Mulder
becomes the skeptic, and Scully becomes the believer. Many similar
issues appear especially in the fifth-season episode “All Souls,” which
like this episode features Scully’s conversation with a priest in a
confession booth. Viewed together, the two episodes show a progression
in Scully’s faith journey and present an interesting backdrop or
counterpoint for her spiritual struggles in the second movie, I Want to Believe.
The opening monologue by Reverend Findley sets up some of the main
themes for the episode: testing faith, miracles, science and skepticism
vs. faith, believing without question. These themes are echoed
especially in the dialogues between Mulder and Scully and also in some
of the conversations between Scully and other characters.
The reverend says that God tests our faith so that we won’t take it for
granted. As he begins to bleed, he says that his blood flows as a test
of their faith. (Mulder later says that what he has seen in this case
has tested only his patience, not his faith.) The reverend says that the
test is whether they will open themselves to divine possibilities
(recalling Mulder’s frequent appeal to extreme possibilities), and only
then will they truly understand. While Scully does not refer to her
faith being tested, the way she is affected by the case and her closing
conversation with the priest suggest that this case is indeed a test of
her faith, which until now has waned but is possibly being rekindled.
Scully is open to the possibility of divine causes for the signs and
events she has encountered; Mulder is not. As her conversation with the
priest may suggest, it is because she is open to divine possibilities
that she truly understands, although from Mulder’s point of view, it may
be her openness that makes her more gullible.
The reverend’s story of the girl and her brother is a great example of
the type of conversation that often happens over divine miracles:
whether God acted supernaturally (against nature) to make a miracle
happen, or whether the event occurred naturally and then humans
described the event by attributing it to God. The brother provides a
reasonable explanation--what we would typically expect from Scully,
emphasized by the reverend’s description of this view as “science and
cynicism.” The girl’s belief, then, would represent Mulder’s point of
view. But we soon see that in this case, the roles are reversed: Scully
believes in the possibility of miracles, while Mulder provides
naturalistic or reasonable explanations.
The reverend says we must accept God’s miracles “without question.”
Later, Owen Jarvis presents an example of this; he says that he doesn’t
question God’s word but simply obeys. In the closing confessional scene,
Scully describes Mulder as usually believing without question. The
irony with the reverend is that he is the very person whose “miracles”
need to be questioned.
After the sermon, when Simon Gates compliments the reverend, Findley
says, “It always does my heart good to know that I’ve touched at least
one person.” His reference to touch, and the supposed bleeding from his
hands, initiates the theme of hands that recurs throughout the episode.
Most of the story revolves around the evil that Gates accomplishes with
his hands (they generate and tolerate extreme heat, and he uses them to
strangle and kill) compared to the miracle of the bleeding from Kevin’s
hands (the stigmata, imitating the wounds from Jesus’s hands in the
crucifixion). During the autopsy scene, Scully tells Mulder that she
believes God’s hand can be witnessed. In the end, Scully rescues Kevin
by grabbing his hands to pull him up, and as they part, they shake
hands. Scully and Kevin therefore represent different aspects of the
hand of God, while Gates is the hand of the devil. (The set design also
plays on the theme of stigmata by using images of two red spots: for
example, the two glowing bars in the motel window, and the two red
lights shining on the ceiling of the recycling plant.)
The title, “Revelations,” evokes both the signs that are revealed to
Scully throughout the episode (see Mulder’s comment when he enters the
autopsy bay: “Any revelations?”) and to the book of Revelation (often
incorrectly called Revelations). In the opening scene with Mulder and
Scully, Scully picks up a Bible splattered with Reverend Findley’s fake
blood: the Bible is open to Revelation 13-15. The language of Revelation
emerges when Mulder and Scully first interview Kevin’s father, and he
refers to the war between good and evil, which Scully associates with
Armageddon (see Rev. 16:16; the language Mr. Kryder uses is later
repeated by Father Gregory in the episode “All Souls”: he describes
forces of darkness that want to claim “all souls” in a battle between
good and evil). In the final scene between Gates and Kevin, Gates says
that Kevin must die for everyone to bring the new age, and he quotes,
“The sun will be turned into darkness, and the moon will turn to blood,”
which occurs in Joel 2:31 and is echoed in Revelation 6:12.
In the initial scene with Kevin Kryder, his teacher is utterly
unprofessional in the way she mocks him in front of the class. However,
this may be intentional to introduce Kevin as a persecuted figure,
similar to Jesus. If so, this is not played up much in the episode.
Mr. Kryder tells Mulder and Scully that God will find someone to protect
Kevin who is strong enough to “make the sacrifice.” Later, Owen Jarvis
tells the two agents (or Scully specifically) that just because they
don’t understand “sacrifice” doesn’t mean they can dictate the rules for
him. With Jarvis’s death, it appears that the sacrifice of his life for
God’s will and for Kevin’s protection is what this refers to. (This is
parallel also to the death of Mrs. Kryder; after her death, Kevin says,
“She died because of me,” and Scully replies, “Your mother was only
trying to protect you.”) However, Scully comes to believe that she is
the one Kevin’s father meant, someone who was destined to protect Kevin.
This hints that her life may also be in danger and ultimately begs the
question what the sacrifice is in her case. While her life is not
sacrificed, she may sacrifice a certain amount of credibility in the
eyes of her partner because of her willingness to believe things that he
finds absurd. The theme of sacrifice also emerges with Kevin: in their
final confrontation, Gates tells Kevin that he must die for everyone,
another allusion to Christ. In the context of the recycling plant, this
brings up the interesting idea that throughout time in an endless cycle
the devil is continually attempting to kill Christ, often through the
martyrdom of Christ’s followers. But in the end, as in the book of
Revelation, it is the “devil,” Gates, who falls into the abyss and meets
his doom.
At several points, people speak directly to Scully or assume she will
understand what they are saying, all of which provide signs for her or
reinforce her belief that she is the one who was meant to protect Kevin.
In the first interview with Mr. Kryder, he looks at Scully very
pointedly as he says that God will find someone to stop the evil that is
coming after Kevin. When he then tells Scully she must come full circle
to find the truth, he says it quietly so that only Scully hears the
comment (which is clear to us since Mulder asks him what he said yet
Scully repeats the comment to ask Mr. Kryder what he meant). When Kevin
goes missing from the shelter and Mrs. Kryder tells the FBI agents, “You
were supposed to protect him,” she speaks the words directly to Scully.
When Mulder shows hostility toward Jarvis’s religious rhetoric, Jarvis
turns to Scully and addresses her as a sympathetic and understanding ear
because of the cross that she wears (something similar occurs in “All
Souls” and “Orison”).
At the shelter, when Kevin tells the boys a scary story, he describes
someone who looks like the devil, whose hair burned off in hell and who
has fingers like pitchforks. But as becomes apparent in this and other
episodes (such as “Die Hand Die Verletzt,” “Terms of Endearment,” and
“Signs and Wonders”), the devil often comes in much more friendly and
deceptive forms. Here, the devil, or at least his minion, is a powerful
and respectable man, whereas the man who fits the description in Kevin’s
story is “St. Owen.”
Jarvis shows Kevin the replica of Noah’s ark that he has carved. Until
this point, we are not yet sure whether Jarvis is evil (as he looks) or
is good, but his association with the ark, which is a place of refuge in
the midst of destruction and an island of Eden in the midst of chaos,
suggests he is connected to Kevin’s protection and safety and gives us
the first hint of Jarvis’s religious leanings.
Jarvis’s conversation with Mulder and Scully again raises issues of
belief and when or whether one should question what seem to be God’s
words or deeds. When Scully tells Jarvis that her own religious
convictions are not at issue, he retorts that they are, because she
can’t help Kevin unless she believes. “Even the killer, he believes.”
(See James 2:19: Even the demons believe that God exists.) In a way,
then, the opposition in the episode is not between good and evil but
between believers and unbelievers; in this sense, Gates is in the same
category as Jarvis and Mr. Kryder rather than their opposite, while
Mulder is the one who stands in opposition, as the key
unbeliever/skeptic.
The interview with Jarvis is also where Mulder’s own beliefs, or lack of
belief, first comes across. Mulder is openly hostile toward Jarvis and
has no patience for religious rhetoric (glimpsed previously in “Miracle
Man,” but seen especially in later episodes, such as “All Souls,” “Signs
& Wonders,” and “Orison”). During the autopsy scene, Mulder tells
Scully that “these people are simply fanatics behaving fanatically using
religion as a justification.” To some extent, he is right. The most
religious people in the episode (Mr. Kryder, Owen Jarvis) come across as
nutjobs, but in the end they are the ones who fully understand what is
going on and who provide signs for Scully along the way. (A similar
theme occurs in “All Souls” and “Signs & Wonders,” and possibly also
“Orison.”) However, Mulder lumps together the reverend, who is a fraud,
with the eccentric characters, who are perceived as crazy or unusual
because of their beliefs. But the episode seems to imply a distinction
between the fraud and the “saint”: the reverend doesn’t recognize the
true face of evil, but Kryder and Jarvis perceive what others cannot,
including the evil that is pursuing Kevin.
Mulder and Scully’s conversation during the autopsy offers some
parallels to Reverend Findley’s opening sermon. In the reverend’s story,
the girl asks whether there is such a thing as miracles. He assures her
that there are, and then he refers to “science” and “cynicism.”
Normally, these two words would be associated with Scully, but in the
autopsy scene, she admits to Mulder that she believes in miracles. He
asks, “Even if science can’t explain them?” She replies, “Maybe that’s
just what faith is.” Here, it is Mulder who comes to represent cynicism,
but Scully, like the little girl of the story, stands for faith.
Further echoes from the reverend’s sermon appear in another dialogue
between the two agents, this time in the motel room when they have taken
Kevin into protection custody. Mulder describes the contents of the
Bible as a “parable,” “a metaphor for the truth, not the truth itself.”
This recalls one of the questions posed to the reverend by the little
girl: “Are the stories in the Bible just make-believe, fairy tales?”
Clearly, Mulder would say yes. Scully then brings up the question of
miracles and compares belief in miracles with belief in flying saucers,
which is when Mulder retorts that what he has seen here has tested his
patience, not his faith, recalling the reverend’s opening statement,
that God tests our faith.
The episode culminates with Scully’s visit to the confessional, which
ties together many of the threads from the episode, woven into the
larger tapestry of Scully’s story line: the essence of miracles and
faith, the dissonance between Mulder and Scully over belief and
skepticism with relation to miracles and ultimately God, and Scully’s
role within the (divine?) plan to save Kevin. (This scene lays the
foundation for two scenes later in the series: Scully’s visit to the
confessional in “All Souls,” and her “confession” with the disgraced
Father Joe in I Want to Believe.)
The conversation ends with Scully’s wonderfully haunting statement that
“God is speaking, but that no one’s listening.” This shifts the emphasis
of the case from God’s hands (and Scully as God’s instrument) to God’s
voice. Scully recognizes, or ponders, that the signs and miracles she
has encountered were not merely abstract events meant to evoke faith but
were directly intended as divine communication. God has been speaking,
perhaps to call her back to the faith. Has he been speaking to her all
along, and this is the first time she has heard him? In her encounter
with Jarvis, he quotes, “He who has ears, let him hear” (see, e.g.,
Matt. 11:15; 13:9, 43). In the end, this comes full circle: Scully’s
ears have been opened, and she has heard God speak.
References:
Scully says that “according to certain religious lore, at any given time
there are twelve stigmatics in the world, representing the twelve
apostles.” It is unclear what “religious lore” she is referring to, but
this belief does not seem to be widespread. However, there are a number
of people over the centuries who have claimed some form of stigmata,
which are the wounds of Christ. One of the earliest and best known
examples is St. Francis of Assisi.
Scully later refers to St. Francis and St. Cecilia when describing
certain characteristics of the saints, such as not decomposing normally.
St. Cecilia was a second-century martyr believed to be incorrupt based
on the discovery of her body in 1599. St. Francis may be St. Francis
Xavier, a Jesuit missionary to Asia in the sixteenth century. The scent
of flowers that Scully thinks she smells on “St. Owen” is also known as
the odor of sanctity, related to the death and sometimes
incorruptibility of saints.
Scully refers to St. Ignatius appearing in two places at once in the
Bible, to which Mulder replies, “That was in the Bible.” Actually, it
wasn’t. There are two prominent historical Christians named Ignatius,
neither of which is in the Bible. One is the first-century apostolic
father from Antioch, and the other (the one to whom Scully is most
likely referring) is St. Ignatius of Loyola from sixteenth-century
Spain. (There is a brief reference to Ignatius bilocating in The Life of St. Ignatius of Loyola by Father Genelli [trans. M. C. Sainte Foi and T. Meyrick; London: Burns, Oates, and Co., 1871], 309–10.)
Mulder and Scully discuss “Jerusalem syndrome”
as what is afflicting Gates. This is a noted phenomenon, although its
legitimacy as an actual syndrome or new manifestation of psychological
problems is in dispute.
Discussion Questions:
1) At the beginning, the reverend tells a story about a young girl
whose brother told her that “Moses hadn’t really parted the Red Sea. He
said that high winds and strong ocean currents had been responsible.”
What answer would you give to the girl to the question she posed to the
reverend: “Is there really such a thing as a miracle?” What exactly is a
miracle? Are miracles and science contradictory? Can God only work
through miracles, or can he also work through science?
2) What does it mean to “believe without question”? Does Mulder believe
in the paranormal without question? Does Scully believe in divine
miracles without question? When should we question paranormal or
supernatural events, and when should we believe without challenging
their truth? What role does reason (questioning and thinking) have in
relation to belief?
3) The reverend says, “God tests our faith so that we may not take it
for granted.” Is this true? Does God intentionally test our faith, or is
our faith tested by circumstances that God does not prevent (or is it
tested by the devil; cf. Job 1)? (See especially James 1:2-4, 12-16).
4) Does faith rest on the validity of miracles? Does faith require
“proof” or “signs”? Or are signs and miracles a reward for faith?
5) Scully ends the episode with the haunting line, that she fears that
“God is speaking, but that no one’s listening.” Does this statement ring
true? In what ways does God speak to people? In what ways can people
listen to or better hear what God is saying?
6) A common thread in the episode is the statement, “Sometimes we must
come full circle to find the truth.” What does this statement mean to
you? Have you experienced this statement to be true? If so, in what way?
