Today is Easter Sunday. Last week, a 63-year-old woman wrote, “I’ve been struggling with the persistent memory of an older man’s inappropriate sexual behaviour to me at 18.”
The two stories are connected. Read on.
The details of the woman’s encounter are largely irrelevant. And far too common. She was young, naïve; he was 20 years older, in a position of authority. It happened at a university, but it could have happened in a business, a government agency, even a church…
Indeed, Senator Don Meredith, a Pentecostal preacher, is currently in hot water over precisely such a relationship.
The long-term effect is significant. Forty-five years later, the victim finally mustered the courage to describe her experience to Toronto Star advice columnist Ellie Tesher: “I still regret not saying something to someone. The shame has followed me throughout my life....”
I know that some people would say, “Get over it! It wasn’t your fault. You did nothing to be ashamed of.”
More than guilt
While I agree – sort of – with their advice, I think they may be confusing shame with guilt.
Guilt is a matter of fact. What did she actually do? The available evidence suggests that the 18-year-old student was not guilty of any indiscretion.
But shame is much harder to deal with.
Some evangelical churches used to practice “shunning”. (I don’t think it’s as common as it used to be.) If a member was judged to have violated the moral standards of the community, that member was shunned. Shut out, essentially. Cut off from contact with other members of the community, sometimes even from members of their own family.
The purpose of shunning was not to make the person feel guilty. Rightly or wrongly, that had already been determined. The purpose was to make victims feel ashamed.
Shaming was also, I submit, the purpose of crucifixion. Crucifixion was more than a means of executing someone. A spear in the gut, a club on the head, a knife to the neck, killed much more quickly, more efficiently.
Crucifixion was designed to cause shame.
Shame for the victim, of course. To be hung up there, naked, exposed, in excruciating pain, for several days, where every passer-by could mock your humiliation…
But also shame for the family and relatives. One of your own had crossed an invisible line. He’d been caught by the authorities, scorned by strangers. In a tribal society, crucifixion stained the whole community.
Turning the tables
The Roman executioners counted on that reaction. Ordinary people would keep quiet about errant cousins and uncles who had been crucified. They wouldn’t glorify them an example to be emulated. Dying nobly in rebellion was one thing; getting crucified was quite another thing.
But the followers of Jesus made his crucifixion something to celebrate.
They went through the Mediterranean lands preaching “Christ crucified.” Paul, the church’s first great missionary, called the crucifixion “a stumbling block to Jews, and foolishness to Greeks.”
I’ve argued in several books and articles that it was Jesus’ crucifixion – not his resurrection – that drew people to the Christian faith. The first Christians were not philosophers debating whether or not life can resume after death. They were ordinary working class people, slaves and servants and struggling entrepreneurs, who felt crucified every day by the powers that be.
Besides, as Paul’s own letters make clear, if they expected resurrection for themselves, many of them were already disappointed.
But the crucifixion assured them that they didn’t need to be ashamed. They weren’t being punished by God for some unspecified misdeeds.
Conquering shame
“Liberation Theology” in Latin America grew out of the same realization. Oppressed peasants recognized themselves in Jesus’ sufferings. They too were victims of wealth and power. They understood the pain of crucifixion in their own lives.
Biblical scholars today question the historical accuracy of the resurrection stories. Many claim that the stories are metaphorical, a means of making a massive shift in attitudes more graphic, less abstract.
Jesus may have conquered death, as Christian theology claims. But perhaps more important, he conquered shame.
Instead of hiding their heads, his followers became bolder. They took their message into the Temple itself, challenging priests who had conspired to execute Jesus. They went beyond Jesus – they rejected the authority of the emperor himself. “Jesus is Lord,” was their first creed.
The real resurrection was their triumph over shame. They took something despised and rejected, and made it something to celebrate, something that drew people together in caring for each other.
That kind of resurrection benefits everyone who feels like a victim.
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Copyright © 2017 by Jim Taylor. Non-profit use in congregations and study groups encouraged; links from other blogs welcomed; all other rights reserved.
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YOUR TURN
Once again, lots of letters. Listed, this time, in the order in which I received them.
Isabel Gibson mused, “The natural disasters you cite have their roots in (or are worsened by) human stupidity or greed, but not all do. Maybe we attribute natural disasters to God because it's more comfortable to believe that someone is in charge, even if we don't understand the rationale for tragic events. A random world in which bad things just happen may be tougher to take than that.
Mary Margaret Boone shared my dismay: “I am still amazed at the number of people who persist in viewing natural disasters as the act of a vengeful God, especially viewed through a narrow Christian perspective. It is why I find that prayer can be a slippery slope as well -- it is a comfort zone and not a wish list, not a 'who's been naughty or nice list'.
“I do agree with your statement, ‘I don’t want to deny any comfort that survivors can get from holding God responsible -- if that belief helps them cope with their shock, their loss, their grief.’ I would hope that being blessed with life, a new beginning, that their own actions would reflect how they can effect positive change in the lives of others.
“Having said all that, for a tongue in cheek look at 'acts of God' I strongly recommend the movie, ‘The Man Who Sued God.’”
Wayne Irwin recalled, “My car hit and killed an 8-point buck once on a lonely road in Saskatchewan. The insurance company got 'off the hook', because it was deemed to be 'an act of God.' That gave me the topic for my next sermon!”
Tom Watson thought of other events for which God gets blamed: “A horrific bomb attack has just left many dead and countless others injured. In the aftermath, a mother or father holds their dying child in arms and blood mixed with great tears flow down the face. I can't even imagine either that mother or father saying, ‘I'm sorry, my child. All of this is God's will. It's just God's way of trying to straighten out this world.’
“Spend a bit of time, too, in cancer treatment centres and see if there's any temptation to say, ‘Well, I guess it's simply God's will that my loved one is here and others aren't.’
“If I had to believe in that kind of God in order to be a minister, I'd have quit long ago. If there could be any kind of comfort from that convoluted logic, surely it must be short-lived.
“Thinking of evangelist Pat Robertson and others of his ilk, it always struck me that God seemed opposed to everything to which they are opposed, and in support of everything which they favour. The irony is they consider they must be on the right track because the money to keep them on the air keeps flowing in.
“So I'm entirely with you with respect to God not being the cause of all things. I'm also in agreement that God is in our relationships with other humans and with the rest of the natural order, and that God lives in our joys and sorrows, our loves and our losses.”
James Russell wrote, “Can't help myself, Jim (Does that mean that God makes me do it?). You're right. You find God where you want, because you want God. Others find a different God because of their different wants. Everyone finds the God they want, the one that suits them. All dressed in Godly suits. Like wearing the emperor's new clothes.”
Chris Duxbury found herself nodding in agreement. She sent a sentence from a recent sermon: “Even in difficult times there is God. Instead of God controlling everything that happens, God transforms, brings hope and light to our world, no matter what comes our way.”
Norma Thibault: “It seems many people don't want to accept responsibility for the decisions that they make and need to blame someone, so they blame God.
`Yesterday I purchased a book called ‘Lies We Believe About God’ written by William Paul Young, the author of the book, ‘The Shack’. In chapter 3 of this book titled ‘God is in Control,’ the author basically says the same thing you said in your article.”
I rather expected Steve Roney to cite a definition: “Obviously, if God is, by definition, omnipotent, he could have intervened to stop the earthquake. If it happened, he did not, and so he is indeed responsible for those deaths.
“But your argument that this is incompatible with a loving and merciful God is based on one dubious premise: that death is intrinsically a bad thing. How do you know? Even if you had never read the Bible, you would have to say you do not know. It might lead to something better, it might not. But for Christians, of course, death is really a good thing.
Really, the existence of earthquakes or tsunamis is not significant. With or without them, we all die. If God is both omnipotent and good, this in itself is our guarantee that death is a good thing.”
Jay Sprout, from Vermont, wondered, “How many times have you felt compelled to make this same case? I have to bite my tongue every time I hear someone say, ‘There but for the grace of God go I.’ Such a terribly thoughtless way to express sympathy.”
Peter Scott asked, “Do you remember the little book by J.B. Phillips entitled ‘Your God Is Too Small’? I felt that way about every reference to God in your column. Reluctantly, toward the end of my life, I have come to believe (with Gretta Vosper) that any reference to God by humans is a form of self-delusion and we need to remove the word God from our lexicon, especially in church. The reason, for me at least, is that every time we hear the word ‘God’ our brains dredge up an image or understanding that we learned from some significant person at some point earlier in our lives and we feel either positive or negative about that experience. It doesn't matter what that image or understanding is, it is inadequate to describe the mystery behind the existence of the universe, the wonders of nature, the presence of good and evil in us all, etc.
“All the word ‘God’ does is allow us to avoid taking our personal share of responsibility for making the universe a slightly better or worse place, because if there is some ‘big guy in the sky’ who is controlling it all directly or indirectly then nothing we do matters anyway.”
George Brigham in England liked my column about natural disasters, but he took exception to John Hatchard’s letter last week, from Australia, about the British Empire: “I puzzle over his confusion between Britain and Albion, the latter referring to England alone. I guess Scots who were promised much, but received little, in the wake of their independence referendum's ‘No’ vote might concur with the description of Albion as perfidious.
“As a Briton and an Englishman, I am far from proud of much that has been done by my country. Great wrongs were done in the creation and maintaining of empire. In my lifetime, we have struggled vainly to hang on to bits of empire, and more recently, via BREXIT, we have begun the process of pulling up the drawbridge to protect us from all those nasty foreigners. However, I do not feel we have been the worst offenders of the world's empire builders. We may have built the biggest, but Belgian, Dutch, French, German, Spanish, Turkish and Japanese, to name a few, have been as bad, if not worse, in their suppression of the rights of indigenous people.”
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TECHNICAL STUFF
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PROMOTION STUFF…
Ralph Milton ’s latest project is called “Sing Hallelujah” -- the world’s first video hymnal. It consists of 100 popular hymns, both new and old, on five DVDs that can be played using a standard DVD player and TV screen, for use in congregations who lack skilled musicians to play piano or organ. More details at www.singhallelujah.ca
Ralph’s HymnSight webpage is still up, http://www.hymnsight.ca, with a vast gallery of photos you can use to enhance the appearance of the visual images you project for liturgical use (prayers, responses, hymn verses, etc.)
Wayne Irwin's “Churchweb Canada,” an inexpensive service for any congregation wanting to develop a web presence, with free consultation. <http://www.churchwebcanada.ca>
I recommend Isabel Gibson’s thoughtful and well-written blog, www.traditionaliconoclast.com
Alva Wood’s satiric stories about incompetent bureaucrats and prejudiced attitudes in a small town -- not particularly religious, but fun; alvawood@gmail.com to get onto her mailing list.
Tom Watson writes a weekly blog called “The View from Grandpa Tom’s Balcony” -- ruminations on various subjects, and feedback from Tom’s readers. Write him at tomwatso@gmail.com or twatson@sentex.net