...entirely on how much work you did to load it in the first place. If, like Angharad, you type it on the fly, it would be a shame to throw that work away. An author can edit a story at any time, and taking it down means both that it can't be edited in place and the comments go away.

Since so many of the comments were negative for one reason or another, magically waving a wand to make them all go away *may* be satisfying, and reposting gives one a second chance at the apple without the messy corpse in the way. (That's a reference to the story of William Tell, if that particular legend isn't part of your cultural context.)

On the other hand, any such comments that were based in partisan religious outrage over your use of the Catholic church (in whatever guise) as the villain of the piece seem likely to reappear, despite your clear warnings up front.

I'd consider recasting the villains as members of an evangelical dispensationalist protestant church writ large, since there are so many of them, and so many of them hate each other. This has the advantage that a sustained level of bigotry is easier to come by within the ranks of some of them. The rabid Fred Phelps, for example, is the minister of Westboro Baptist Church (Independent), and has had a long career of hate-mongering. He also hates Swedes (Usch fy!), the Irish (Begorra!), and Canadians (Eh?), so there aren't too many people who would spring to his defence if your church somehow resembled his. Many such groups hate Jews as well, so this might fit in with your depiction of Israel as a refuge, although a "Prophet Elijah" seems problematic, since it may ambiguously refer either to Jewish expectations of the coming of Moshiach or to a Christian Preterist ideology which some Jews might object to. Almost everybody likes Elijah, but not necessarily the uses to which he's been put.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fred_Phelps

In general, as a writer, you should be careful about using identifiable individuals, institutions, and corporations, because one may thereby become liable to lawsuits alleging defamation (libel, slander, it depends on the laws of each individual country in which such a suit might be brought) or trademark violation, which is rarely a good idea, considering how poorly most writers are paid. It's often a good idea to do a web search when naming a villain of any sort, to make sure that there aren't too many potential claimants before committing the name to electrons. This is especially true with businesses, since they often have trademark attorneys who set up automated searches to identify trademark violations. Keep in mind that even if the use of a name isn't actually something that would expose one to legal or civil consequences, the expense of defending such a case is usually indistinguishable from punishment. Look for McLibel on the Internet for a case in point.

Best of luck to you,

Puddin'