February’s State of Formation topic is bullying of gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender persons. The recent and ongoing campaign is to impress upon the victims of bullying the message that “it gets better.” Which means, there can be a happy life after bullying, if you can just endure the present torment.
You can check out the project here: http://www.itgetsbetter.org . While I agree with the sentiment, it rings eerily close to a religious message long delivered to victims of many oppressions who are commanded to endure the status quo, firm in the knowledge that it gets better—but only once you’re dead, because suffering will be rewarded in heaven.
This perversion of the hope of heaven as a demented substitute for justice and happiness in this life is rooted in the early Christian experience of martyrdom. Origen, one of the first Christian theologians, writes, in his Exhortation to Martyrdom: “Therefore, I beseech you to remember in all your present contest the great reward laid up in heaven for those who are persecuted and reviled for righteousness’ sake, and to be glad and leap for joy on account of the Son of Man (cf. Mt. 5:10-12; Lk. 6:23).”
You can see by the Bible references that the delight in martyrdom is itself rooted in Scripture. We must recall that the Christian Testament was written by those early followers who were in existential danger of being snuffed out by an Empire; they contain all the ingredients of a siege mentality (if you’re a Scripture checker, here are a couple more places to look: Mt 16:24-25 & Rom 8:18 [but there are many more].) And the Christian religion itself is rooted in the martyr-death of Christ in the hope of his own Resurrection—a supreme example of life getting better, but, again, only after death, ahem.
What’s this all about? What’s going on here? Is this really the theological message: deal with it, die (by a variety of means) and only then, by God, it’ll get better?
When the religious message to victims is that they must endure the suffering in hope of heavenly reward, what kind of God is at work, what kind of theology is operative? What we find is a theology of a God in total control, a God of coercion, a God in whom human freedom is, finally, a sham. If you think that God is omnipotent, and by this you mean that God’s will cannot be thwarted by creatures, then it is not possible to escape the conclusion that no matter how heinous life is, no matter how horrific living conditions may be, no matter how brutal the treatment—a God of coercive control leads to a theology that finds divine affirmation, divine sanction on the status quo. No matter how repugnant that status quo may be. The God of coercive control whose will is always accomplished is, in short, an imperial and tyrannical God, a God who is the Ultimate Bully. Martin Luther called this terror the hidden God.
If we add to this theology a theological anthropology that is based on Genesis 1:26-27, which says humans are created in the image and likeness of God, (imago Dei) the outcome, in human terms is devastating. If God is a tyrannical bully, and human beings are created in the image of that tyrannical bully, then it must mean that the human beings who are most tyrant- and bully-like must be most reflective of the divine image. In fact, because of a principle I like to call the impulse to imitate the divine (imitatio Dei), it seems human bullies would be aspiring to ever deeper and ever more reckless tyrannical bullying– the very religious Wisconsin Governor Walker comes immediately to mind.
Perhaps the most devastating aspect of this analysis is what it says about victims of oppression, victims of bullying: they are the ones least reflective of the divinity; the victims are the ones least like that God.
With a Divine Bully in control, how can we be surprised when religious leaders are bullies, and are engaged in the work of creating victims?
With a Divine Bully and Religious Leader Bullies in control, how can we be shocked and confused when little follower bullies pop up in classrooms and communities everywhere?
Wrong ideas about God have deadly impacts on real lives.
We require a new theology that repudiates the God of domination, repudiates the God of control, repudiates the God who bullies creation.
Last time I checked, God is love (1 John 4:8). Love is not coercion. Love is not domination. Love is not force. Love is not control. Those are the weapons of the oppressor, not the love of God. And if God actually is love, then God cannot also be a bully, and your Bullying God must at last be dethroned.
Paul, your post has unearthed a powerful link between “eventual heavenly reward” and the “it gets better” campaign. Do I believe those who suffer can be sometimes soothed by a sense of something more to come? Yes. But do I believe we should base our theology on it? Nope! I’m sure I will read and reread this as I attempt to reconcile the value of future comfort with the hidden message of necessary suffering.
Thanks, Jennifer! It is an aspect of Christian theology that I think needs tending. Of course, I think there is some unavoidable suffering that is a part of life. When faced with two good options, and only being able to choose one can be a kind of suffering. It is the enforced suffering created by some people and imposed on others that is the real culprit against which I am writing. The suffering from injustice and oppression is not divinely sent, and our answer cannot be to tell the suffering ones that they must endure torment as if it is some kind of encoded message from God. Cheers, Paul
Paul, it would seem to me that the aspect of justice embodied in the “it gets better” campaign isn’t so much about the present suffering, but about the justice of living above and beyond the suffering in the present moment, by pledging one’s self to seeing beyond the present (without belittling the horror of it). The implicit link between “hang on, it’s going to get better” and “endure the present moment’s suffering to secure your seat in heaven” is both evident and tragic. But I see a different process at play in the two approaches. On the “bullying God” side, there is the process we have come to call “redemptive suffering” which operates on the premise that suffering is good for us as Christians, mostly because Jesus suffered, and because he suffered, endured, and rose, we should expect the same. On the “it gets better” approach, we as LGBT/affirming people are calling upon the bullied youth of the world to stand over and against the injustices of bullying, and to defy those who would bully them through a process of nonviolent resistance. The form of nonviolent resistance to which we are calling them is to simply to continue living, as difficult as they may perceive that to be possible; if they were to succumb to participating in violent resistance, they would either be accosting those who bully them, or violently ending their own lives – neither of which is an embodiment of justice.
Having said all that, I applaud the work you have done in this essay of making the link between the two ideologies, as Jennifer has described in her post here. I think that a next step toward justice may be for us as LGBT/affirming people to call upon the “it gets better” folk (and those who are doing similar work) to spell out the importance of nonviolent resistance in breaking the chain of oppression – making it clear that it would only further the chain of oppression to commit any act of violence toward others or toward one’s self. I think, too, that this step toward that embodiment of justice can be “preached” in a theological context as well, with communities of faith (and their leaders/clergy) making it clear that the arc of violence in a “bullying God” paradigm is an abuse of both Scripture and people, and that the cosmos itself is “arced toward justice” (as someone once proclaimed), and we should be, too.
It’s important to make it clear that the very notion that Jesus called upon his disciples to “turn the other cheek” and “walk the second mile” (cf. Matthew 5:38-48) was not a call to passivity or submission (as has been preached and interpreted for at least the last 200 years), but it was a radical call to nonviolent resistance in which we are called upon to defy our oppressors by asserting our place in the cosmos as creatures of equal worth and stature. To call upon LGBT youth who are bullied to hold to a moral and ethical standard of justice which asserts that “it gets better” simply because they continue to live in defiance of their abusers is what we need to prevent us all from starting down the slippery slope which you have so eloquently articulated in your essay.
Perhaps it would be good for all of us to remember another one of those radical statements of defiance that Jesus offered to his detractors, as a first step to dethroning any notion of a “bullying God” and as an assertion that God’s sense of justice is not to be reserved for what happens after life, but is to be fulfilled within it: “He is God not of the dead, but of the living” (Matthew 22:32b).
David- Thanks for teasing out the nonviolent resistance aspect of this issue. If victims are also mesmerized by a subterranean theology of God as tyrant along with an imago Dei anthropology, then victims will feel compelled to imitate the tyrannical bullying as well. I think that hardly anyone would say out loud that they think God is a bully– but the deeply embedded theology which underscores so much human action belies that this is in fact how people theologize about God in their subconscious leanings. And thank you for your including of Matthew 22:32b. Magnifique!
Bob Marley said it rather well. . . “I’m sick and tired of your ism skism game, die and go to heaven in Jesus’ name.” The Bullies of Capitalism try to make demons of Socialism and Communism. . . meanwhile, 3 BILLION of our brothers and sisters are living/dying on $2 per day.
Thanks for challenging us once again Paul. “Get up, Stand up! Stand up for your rights!”
The Prophets remind us over 2,100 times in Scripture that God is always on the side of the Anawim (the poor and outcasts). If we are truly doing the Lord’s will, we will be on the side of the poor.
Paul- I hope someone will write a song: “Get up Stand Up: Stand up for her rights! get up Stand Up: Stand up for his rights.” If we are converted to a new way where we begin to see that my action on behalf of the other is the very meaning of love, we will no longer be required to defend our own rights, because our brothers and sisters as fellow citizens of this cosmos will be busy ensuring that my rights are strengthened and never diminished. While the rich and powerful seem to think that they can only do better if others do worse, I am upheld by the words of the late Senator from Minnesota, Paul Wellstone who often said, “We all do better when we all do better.”
Paul: Thanks again for your insights. We need more citizens AND politicians who do not divorce their faith life from their daily life. Paul Wellstone was a man of integrity, courage, wisdom and compassion. He is truly missed.
Really great insights. I think that in the African American community, our ancestors lived with a double sense of it gets better or how do we deal with the present suffering and future hope. The slaves often dreamed, prophesied of a better day, one in which they get to heaven and are removed from the suffering of this life and one that they could see on earth, perhaps not for themselves, but thier descendents that it will be better on earth. That all of them would not die before they would enjoy freedom from slavery and oppression in this life. It was a profound sense that slavery was not God’s plan for humanity, but a distortion of the dignity of human beings. It was an evil not to be accepted.
That is the message of hope, it gets better on a daily existence in the here and now and when we reunite with God, where the image and likeness are not confused, but in complete union God. While I do believe that suffering is redemptive, it is not intended to be the whole of human experience. I don’t want to die to have a better life, but right now, right here, we can have it.
David- Right on! Redemptive suffering is such a pivotal category in Christianity, but its implementation is fraught with a minefield of potential disasters. I tend to err on the side of recognizing suffering first and second as an evil to be avoided or remedied, and only third or fourth as an occasion of redemption. In other words, my skepticism favors the victim, and holds the one who would impose suffering on another to the higher standard. Thanks for your insights! Cheers, Paul
I feel as though I need to “come out” as a Christian priest (Episcopalian) who doesn’t believe that there is such a thing as “redemptive suffering.” The fact that it has been part of the trajectory of our history is certainly unarguable. But in the course of coming to terms with how contemporary theology has helped us to discern problems with other assumptions that our trajectory has preached has helped “liberate” me from participating in that piece of our trajectory any more. I will share here what I do believe, though (briefly, and perhaps ineptly)…
I do believe that there is suffering in the world. And I do believe that there is redemption in this world. But I do not believe in any paradigm in which one is dependent on the other. Do I believe that there is sometimes redemption in spite of suffering, or even redemption which takes place within the context of suffering? Yes! But I do not believe that there is anything redemptive at all about the suffering of anyone.
When I face an issue in which I witness suffering (of any kind), as a priest I need not proclaim that any aspect of that suffering is redemptive in and of itself. But I can proclaim that through the power of ministry, community, creative transformation, love, compassion, and a renewed sense of the presence of God in the midst of that suffering with us, that there can be redemption. But the redemption is a function of the gifts of grace we encounter in all those things, but not in the act of suffering. To affirm suffering as a path to redemption is (and has been) an abuse of the Church’s role in proclaiming truth.
Having said all that, I also recognize that there are those who find profound meaning in recalling moments of suffering in their sacred narratives as moments of sacred awareness and transformation. I don’t want to rob anyone of that sense of holy history. Rather, I want for us all to be clear that we need to be careful in never holding up suffering as a model for (or avenue to) redemption, but that suffering has been part of our collective and/or individual experiences which have led us to moments of redemptive awareness.
I realize that I voice a perspective of a minority, and am not wanting to inflict this on others, but I want to raise it as my experience, my journey, my awareness, and my hope. I’m grateful for this opportunity to share in this context, and am grateful for all that others are sharing here as well, and am especially grateful for our host and facilitator – my friend, Paul.
Peace & blessings,
David
David (Grant Smith): I appreciate your candor about the issue of redemptive sufering. In my own mention of it in my reply to Rev. Strong I originally said it was my ‘tenth or eleventh’ consideration– but I chickened out.
I appreciate your insights, I for one do not believe that we need to suffer to know the joy of redemption. I would say that our ability to not consider the redemptive nature of suffering, is influenced by where we are in life.I believe that oppressed and poor people see it as something that is a part of life when you find yourself at the margins. I don’t experience suffering on those levels at this point in my life, but growing up black, gay, christian and marginally an outsider in a southern culture. I’ve experience suffering at the moment of those encounters, I wondered how Christians could participate in those activities, it clearly felt as though this was not God’s plan for humans to treat one another this way. I certainly did not think that God wanted me to suffer, I did believe that God experienced as Jesus in the Eucharist, understood the depth of my suffering and offered solace to stand strong against that inflicted suffering, not when I die, but in the here and now.
In that sense I found redemption, which gave me the power to become an activist to stand against those sufferings and oppression. I realize that the closer you are to suffering, the more redemptive it might seem, as you don’t the option to look at life without that lens. How else do I get out of being a bitter,negative or hateful person, if I can’t find something redeeming about it. I don’t know that is so much about God, but humans trying to make sense of what is happening to them. I think that my ancestors,became strong, durable witnesses to God’s goodness.
I think we are all getting to the same place, just coming from different directions.
Hi Paul,
I’m getting to this at last! It’s a great post – especially the last line, which is extremely powerful. Space and time permitting, you could have gone down another road entirely, that of the Bullying God as a false idol (but that’s a post for another day).
The opposite number of the little and big bullies who act as if they are made in the image of the Bullying God, are those for whom love is the guiding principle – the true imago dei. These people – we – need to speak up, as you did, over and over and over again. And we need to act in love always, as hard as that is sometimes. Even towards the bullies.
I’m looking forward to reading more from you!
Jean