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sophiaserpentiaA friend who was raised by extremely abusive Christian parents told me once of the theory she developed while coming to awareness of the depth of the mistreatment she had received, of Christianity as a religion based on child abuse. It starts with Abraham and Isaac, she said, before she pointed out that there many rules given in the Bible allowing or even commanding physical punishment of children. Finally, she said, you have God the Father punishing his own son for misdeeds he did not commit. In fact, the more Jesus suffered, the better for us.
I wasn't really sure what to think of this. But it was one of many thoughts that prodded me to think about power dynamics in the Bible. The Bible was, after all, written by and for men of prominence and power; it is reasonable to inquire into whether it promotes a social scheme which preserves their power and prestige. Who, after all, does not consciously or unconsciously give preference to ideologies that leave one better off?
Even having been exposed to the idea before, i was still astonished to see an idea very much like this promoted by a Bishop of the Episcopal Church. This is more or less the reasoning John Shelby Spong gives in his chapters in The Sins of Scripture on Christianity and corporal punishment: God is a parent who demands obedience under threat of violence and who acted this violence out on his own son. The only remaining major proponents of corporal punishment in America cite Christian doctrine, and many conservative preachers (including virtually all of the televangelists) speak approvingly of physical punishment they received regularly as children.
Spong finds within Christianity a strand of thought promoting violence, and its subtler forms guilt and shame, as acceptable for maintaining structures of dominance. He touches on dystheism (the idea that God is wrathful and will punish us if we do not appease him) as a theology that Christians adopted not just in response to their persecution in the early centuries or disasters like the Bubonic Plague, but also in response to the widespread approval of the physical punishment of children, and adults considered to be childlike such as slaves or women.
He pulls on this thread and finds that the central themes and myths of Christianity itself unravel when we reject violence. He even refers to Christianity as fundamentally sadomasochistic. His solution is a radical re-invisioning of Christology and Christian belief, which he says must change or die.
It is hard to overstate the gravity of what he is saying here. His meaning is this: humans cannot possibly be born into a state of original sin. He states the implication of that explicitly: Jesus did not die for your sins.
Of course, any of us non-Christians could'a told ya that... but to see someone so deeply embedded in the edifice of the church admit that this is evident gives me hope that change is possible.
I wasn't really sure what to think of this. But it was one of many thoughts that prodded me to think about power dynamics in the Bible. The Bible was, after all, written by and for men of prominence and power; it is reasonable to inquire into whether it promotes a social scheme which preserves their power and prestige. Who, after all, does not consciously or unconsciously give preference to ideologies that leave one better off?
Even having been exposed to the idea before, i was still astonished to see an idea very much like this promoted by a Bishop of the Episcopal Church. This is more or less the reasoning John Shelby Spong gives in his chapters in The Sins of Scripture on Christianity and corporal punishment: God is a parent who demands obedience under threat of violence and who acted this violence out on his own son. The only remaining major proponents of corporal punishment in America cite Christian doctrine, and many conservative preachers (including virtually all of the televangelists) speak approvingly of physical punishment they received regularly as children.
Spong finds within Christianity a strand of thought promoting violence, and its subtler forms guilt and shame, as acceptable for maintaining structures of dominance. He touches on dystheism (the idea that God is wrathful and will punish us if we do not appease him) as a theology that Christians adopted not just in response to their persecution in the early centuries or disasters like the Bubonic Plague, but also in response to the widespread approval of the physical punishment of children, and adults considered to be childlike such as slaves or women.
He pulls on this thread and finds that the central themes and myths of Christianity itself unravel when we reject violence. He even refers to Christianity as fundamentally sadomasochistic. His solution is a radical re-invisioning of Christology and Christian belief, which he says must change or die.
The deconstruction begins with the dismissal of [the story of Adam and Eve]. It has already moved from being thought of as literal history to being viewed as interpretive myth. The next step is to dismiss it as not even an accurate interpreter of life. There never was a time, either literally or metaphorically, when there was a perfect and finished creation. That biblical idea is simply wrong. It is not even symbolically valid.
... Since there was no perfect beginning... there can also be no fall into sin and thus no act of disobedience that destroyed the perfection of God's world. These details cannot be true even as symbols.
... There is a vast contrast between the definition of being fallen creatures and that of being incomplete creatures. Our humanity is not flawed by some real or mythical act of disobedience... it is rather distorted by the unfinished nature of our humanity.
... [Our critical examination of this issue] is like an unstoppable waterfall. Baptism, understood as the sacramental act designed to wash from the newborn baby the stain of that original fall into sin, becomes inoperative. The Eucharist, developed as a liturgical attempt to reenact the sacrifice that Jesus made on the cross that paid the price for our sinfulness, becomes empty of meaning. Various disciplinary tactics, from not sparing the rod with our children to the use of shame, guilt and fear to control the behavior of 'childlike' adults, become violations of life based on an inadequate knowledge of the nature of our humanity. They are the application of the wrong therapy designed to overcome a faulty diagnosis. Even the afterlife symbols of heaven and hell, designed to motivate behavior by promising either eternal reward or eternal punishment, now lose their credibility. A system of rewards and punishments, either in this life or beyond it, does not produce wholeness, nor does it issue in loving acts of a self-giving person. It produces rather a self-centered attempt at survival. It leads to behavior designed not to do good for good's sake, but to do good in order to win favor or to avoid punishment.
The Sins of Scripture pp. 176-178
It is hard to overstate the gravity of what he is saying here. His meaning is this: humans cannot possibly be born into a state of original sin. He states the implication of that explicitly: Jesus did not die for your sins.
Of course, any of us non-Christians could'a told ya that... but to see someone so deeply embedded in the edifice of the church admit that this is evident gives me hope that change is possible.
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Date: 2006-05-09 06:48 pm (UTC)