Rancho Santa Fe, California — Thirty-nine members of the Heaven’s Gate religion commit suicide, in anticipation of their resurrections and of a rendez-vous with a UFO that is trailing the Hale-Bopp comet. Heaven’s Gate is denounced as a cult.

Most of the Western World — Millions commemorate the execution of Jesus of Nazareth, believing his death will cleanse the human race of sin, and his resurrection will open heaven for all. Christianity is one of the largest and most powerful religions in the world.

Huh? Am I missing something here?

At the end of last week and over the weekend, anyone who was remotely connected with the Heaven’s Gate group, including science fiction writers, Hollywood types, etc., were rounded up by newscasters, Sunday-morning pundits and even late-night talk show hosts. They were asked about the horrors of the cult, the poor sheep who fell under the spell of a megalomaniacal man named Marshall Applewhite. Numerous “cult-experts” and “deprogrammers” (including many Christian ministers) were smiling for the cameras, talking about warning signs and psychological makeups. Those who knew the members were asked question after question, all loaded against Heaven’s Gate.

The pundits didn’t get the responses they wanted.

Anyone who knew the group said nothing but good words about it. On the Tom Snyder show, a screenwriter who was helping three members with a screenplay described them as intelligent, rational, “normal” people who happened to have beliefs that fell outside of the main line of thought in the United States. “They didn’t like the word ‘cult,'” he said. Similar comments were made by a science fiction author on ABC’s “This Week.”

As always, Christians had the answer. “Jesus Christ is the gate, he’s the only way. There’s no UFO waiting behind a comet,” according to Bob Botson, a California pastor. Even the slick, usually plastic Snyder began sermonizing about “Judeo-Christian traditions.”

So who were these Heaven’s Gate members?

They were mostly devoted science fiction fans, as far as the evidence shows. Their literature supposedly made reference to a “prime directive,” and other science fiction jargon. Anyone who knew them said they seemed to be intelligent and stable, if shy, people. In short, the picture of Heaven’s Gate that shines through all of the hype is nothing like sensationalistic image that has parents worrying about that “Star Trek” poster on Junior’s wall.

What gives anyone the right to claim a monopoly on the truth? I’ve met plenty of brilliant science fiction fans, and some damn ignorant christians, and vice versa. I read science fiction avidly for years, and have been inspired and given insight by science fiction far more than the Bible, which I studied for six years in theology class. The point is, whether you believe in a bunch of books written by dead men from Israel or see truth in “Star Trek” and other science fiction, the choice is yours. What makes one better than the other?

Fundamentalist Christian groups worked themselves into a frenzy over The Last Temptation of Christ, which I happened to see last week. I left the movie realizing how narrow minded the Moral Majority, et. al., is and was, how skewed its conceptions of its own religion are. The “objectionable” segment of the movie was an extended dream/fantasy sequence, the “temptation.” While portraying Jesus fantasizing about sex and having children (like any other HUMAN beings, which Jesus was, if you read the Bible) was certainly sensational, it seems that there was more to thee “objections” of the Religious Right.

The Last Temptation portrayed Jesus and his followers in a very historically accurate light. The beggars look poor, the prostitutes look like prostitutes, the sick and diseased are sick and diseased and, well, the persecuted Jesus and his followers are portrayed as they really were. Misfits, outcasts, Jesus and his followers were, at the time, living on the fringe. The Last Temptation, if it were sanitized like the rest or Christianity, probably wouldn’t have caused as big a stir.

If the only difference between Jesus and a beggar were the lack of a halo (and a few shades of skin color), like the rest of Western Christian art, people probably wouldn’t have been as offended. When Jesus and his times are cast in vivid color and stark pictures, people begin to get queasy. And when they see the truth, that Jesus was a freak, a kook, a maniac on the fringe in the mind of most Romans, Jews, and even radical Jews, they stop listening. Just like everyone refused to listen to Heaven’s Gate. There’s a common image of science fiction fans as being eccentric and a bit unbalanced, in relation to the general populace. Christians, circa 33 AD, were light years beyond conventional society.

The Bible or Star Trek? Given the context, who wants to step forward and to pretend to own the truth?

Robert Ruminski is a sophomore in history from St. Louis, Mo.