It happens over and over again.
Fairly often I cross paths with some shell-shocked Christian spouse (almost always a wife) who is running for her life without leaving her house. She’s continually torn to shreds emotionally, sleeps with her eyes open if at all, can’t bear the sound of the car in the driveway, and now the beatings have begun. She is bruised strategically in places that won’t show. She is wracked with shame, pain, fear and confusion…and she can’t leave because Jesus, the Bible and her pastor tell her God will be angry with her and hold it against her if she abandons her marriage.
Mark 10 is almost always quoted…Matthew and Luke as well. And misguided fools convolute Paul’s concept of being a prisoner for the Gospel into the Gospel is a prison.
It is at times like these that I thank God for my academic training. Dr. Hermann Gunkel and Sitz im Leben save lives. Dr. Gunkel, the son of a Lutheran pastor, really got the ball rolling with some of his colleagues when he insisted on digging for history in and around Biblical texts, and developed the concept of form criticism as well. He was instrumental in our looking at where a text “sits in life.” What were the day-to-day realities of the writer and speaker? What social, political and theological realities of the day are shaping and spurring the incidents and actions described and how they are described? How do they compare to our social, political and theological realities?
It is all marvelously academic, but the practical application of his work is such that I can confidently, faithfully tell abused and abuser alike that Jesus railed against divorce to all these heartless men questioning him because in those days women had no rights at all, and their husbands were their only protection from poverty, depravity and an ugly death. Jesus, in so firm an answer, was doing his best to intervene to save women from abuse! That being the case, why would Jesus suddenly support injustice and fight against peace 2000 years later? Whatever happened to “the same yesterday, today and forever?!?”
Ah, the same yesterday, today and forever, to some means attempting to lock us into primitive societal standards of thousands of years ago, as if those standards are somehow Godly because they happened to be prevalent in the time of Christ. Some of those standards killed Christ and caused much of the great suffering he had worked to alleviate. It is perverse to suggest preserving those standards somehow serves him.
Trust me. I don’t go all academic on people in crisis. I go all academic in my own studies that I might be prepared to do Jesus’ bidding in the face of the same sort of stupid, persistent crap that passed for authoritative teaching in his day. Jesus is about human evolution, not man-made institutions. All the evidence of this fact is laid out for us right there in the big book, for those who have eyes to see and minds to think.
And for those who insist on a supposed “literal” interpretation of scripture that flies in the face of compassion and justice in a world so far advanced from that of Jesus’ day: In striving to be fools for Christ, there is always the danger of falling a bit short and succeeding only in being fools.
Just like in Law: Spirit vs. Letter.
ReplyDeleteWWJD? That's the spirit!
I find the whole idea of "That's what our book says. Sure sucks for you." intolerably abhorrent.
Is your faith, your religion, alive, living? Or is it bound to stagnation, chained to adherence to rules written fast in ink and unchanging for centuries?
Is your God alive and living? Or is your God stagnant, chained to adherence to rules supposed to have been laid down by God and incapable of changing?
Is it the fear of change, the uncertainty of a living God's intentions, that makes so many insist in the unwavering truth of the Good Book?
What does one worship- the Book or the Lord?
I recently took part in an online discussion with an individual whose wife left him, at the urging of there fellow church members, because his spiritual path had diverged from the church's rigid beliefs. She moved in with "friends", taking their children, and cut off all contact. He is still religious. He just differs from their beliefs in part. There was no abuse. Only differences of opinion.
Many in the discussion blamed religion, which I told them was in the same realm as having a war on terror. It wasn't religion in the general sense that was the problem, but the people's fallibility in their spiritual path that created the problem.
I feel for anyone negatively impacted by the perversion of a faith. Those that misguided her may mean well, may believe they are doing what is right in their beliefs. Personally, I see that as being a kind of dangerous sheep. I know it's unkind, but while I may be able to muster sympathy for one so misguided, I have a hard time respecting someone who will not think, who abandons their judgment, even for something so important as their religious life.
It's a sad sad situation.
Well put Corey. When it comes to the Scriptures, a little knowledge is a dangerous thing. A similar case is those who cite the Genesis account of humans being given "dominion" over the earth, as license for exploiting and destroying the environment. I've actually had people tell me we have no obligation to work to end poverty, because Jesus said we will always have the poor with us...or that it is wrong to pray for world peace, because the Bible says there will be wars and rumors of wars up until the "end times."
ReplyDeleteSigh.
Whatever happened to, "Love one another?" I will challenge anyone who believes that Jesus would prefer a woman or a man to stay in a relationship that is abusive and one that creates an intolerable room to grow.
ReplyDeleteWhen the heart waivers and listens to the falsehood of man instead of listening to the inner workings of the Lord, that is when a person is unable to grow as a Christian during such times of tribulation. No one marries another thinking they will get divorced or they will get abused by hands that swear to love them and protect them. People change. Motives change people. But in the end the truest of natural tendencies is to be safe. If that means out of an abusive relationship or in a house of sanctuary then let it be. It is also important that we remember that Jesus lived as a man here. He felt pain, suffering, anguish, love, joy, sorrow. Who better to understand on this world and in Heaven all of which His children go through. Support one another and above all love one another. But turning from someone who chose divorce as a way of casting the stone is not what Jesus would do. He loves His children, big and small.