Good Omens (Amazon Prime and BBC Series)

As regular readers know, I am more of a book than TV show sort, and only rarely blog about movies or television. 

I am making an exception in this case to talk about Good Omens. Four years ago, we listened to the audiobook of the Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman original, and enjoyed it. (It also got us interested in Gaiman, who has now become my second daughter’s favorite author.) 

I tend to approach screen adaptations of books with trepidation, as very few have made the transition well. Usually, the stories get changed (for the worse) by the need to cater to Hollywood conventions, characters are reduced to stereotypes, and the limits on length mean that important stuff gets omitted altogether. There are exceptions. The BBC/A&E version of Pride and Prejudice is perhaps the pinnacle of the genre. I reviewed The Barchester Chronicles here. While not completely faithful, the classic Canadian version of Anne of Green Gables was a favorite of mine growing up. I haven’t seen the Harry Potter movies - I have only read the first two books, so I am sticking with my “books first” principles. 

[Note: there is a theme here. The good adaptations tend to be British or Canadian, NOT American. Seriously, USA, up your game!] 

Despite my worries, I was determined to watch Good Omens. Not least because the casting of David Tennant and Michael Sheen looked so incredibly perfect in the previews. I mean, just look. Here is the original illustration from the book:

And here are Tennant and Sheen:

And the mannerisms seem perfect too. Unsurprisingly, now that I have seen the whole series, it turns out that it was indeed perfect casting, and that the relationship of Crowley and Aziraphale is the best part of the whole thing. 

The best way to approach the series - as with any screen adaptation - is to view the movie and the book as two separate works of art. They are related, but they cannot be exactly the same, simply because written words and motion pictures are different media. A sculpture and a painting are different, even if they portray the exact same scene. 

In the case of Good Omens, I think the adaptation was excellent, and the artistic decisions quite defensible. The ending is slightly different. The scenes where Crowley and Aziraphale are put on trial for treason by their respective bosses is not in the book - although it is kind of funny. 

My biggest disappointment with the series was entirely predictable. While I am pretty sure all the important parts of the plot made it into the show, there were a number of hilarious scenes which either were cut altogether, or ended up as super fast allusions. For example, the scene with the Four Horsemen meeting the biker gang ("You're Hells Angels, then? What chapter are you from?" “REVELATIONS, CHAPTER SIX.”) is missing. Ditto for the spoof of televangelists. 

Likewise, the scene after Adam inadvertently converts a nuclear reactor into a lemon drop, when the terminally stupid reporter asks the nuclear energy chief if terrorists were involved is reduced to a little clip playing on the radio in the background. And while R. P. Tyler is still in a few scenes, the line about him is missing. (“R. P. Tyler was not, however, satisfied simply with being vouchsafed the difference between right and wrong. He felt it his bounden duty to tell the world.”)

But, this is what happens when you try to fit a book that takes ten hours on audiobook into a six episode series. A few things get cut. This is a minor quibble, given how good the rest was. 

Other things I liked: the opening credits, done in the Monty Python style, and the sly use of cultural references throughout. (The book did this too, although the series updates some of them for 2019.) The sets and details were delightful too. I really want to live in Aziraphale’s bookshop, honestly. 

The rest of the cast was excellent as well, even if Tennant and Sheen were clearly the stars of the show. Jon Hamm as the archangel Gabriel is delightfully smug. Honestly, I just wanted to punch him, which is also true to the book. Anna Maxwell Martin as Beelzebub and Ned Dennehy as Hastur were memorable as the two most featured demons. Sam Taylor Buck was unexpectedly convincing as Adam (the antichrist). With his combination of childlike innocence and charisma, he nailed it. He bears watching in the future. Screen veterans Miranda Richardson, Jack Whitehall, and Michael McKean were predictably excellent in bit roles as Madam Tracy, Newton Pulsifer, and Witchfinder Shadwell respectively. I know I am a sucker for brainy brunettes, but I think I have a crush on Anathema Device, played by Puerto Rican actress Adria Arjona. Again, excellent job on casting and acting - I can’t think of a character that didn’t work. 

The moment near the end where Satan himself appears, with the intent of destroying Adam if he refuses to cooperate in destroying the world, was excellent. Adam, with his vulnerability in plain view, faces down Satan and informs him that he is not and will never be Satan’s son. “You can’t just show up 11 years later and expect to be a father!” Adam realizes that his true father is the man who did the work. His human father, who is a good-hearted, occasionally bumbling, and loveable mensch. And that is what matters. 

I must say, I do recommend reading the book. But the series was quite enjoyable, and I can recommend it without reservation. (And yes, the kids really loved it too.)

***

This review would not be complete without a look at the obvious connection between Good Omens and the worst of religious fundamentalism which gave rise to the book in the first place. 

Predictably, certain Fundies got their panties in an absolute wad over the series, and tried to get it cancelled. Except, in what has to be one of the funniest fails of recent time, they sent their protest to Netflix. (The series was created by the BBC and AMAZON, not Netflix…) 

Some of the criticism is entirely predictable, of course. A few others, though, are silly even from a Fundie point of view. I figured it might be worth mentioning some of them. And poking fun.

First, this is further proof that, unlike the truly admirable religious sorts of past and present, Fundies have no sense of humor whatsoever. People who are secure in their own faith, charitable toward others, and focused on loving their neighbor do not get all hot and bothered over a little satire. I mean, what kind of faith do you have if you can’t poke fun at it yourself from time to time? 

The wisest pastor I ever had, the late Jack Stiles, summed up true Christianity in a way that I still think is the best I have heard: “Love God. Love your neighbor. Don’t take yourself too seriously.” 

And that is what is going on with Good Omens. It is satire of a phenomenon that is so very ripe for mockery. 

That leads me to this:

The whole End Times™ thing is a modern invention.

I was raised in this craziness. In the circles I was in, the Rapture, the Antichrist, the Four Horsemen, the whole thing - was all the rage. Eventually, we ended up with the Left Behind series. A laughably bad, horribly written, mean spirited, and eminently mockable pile of shit that so many of my former faith tradition treat as gospel truth. (I highly recommend the takedown that Fred Clark of Slacktivist did of the series.) 

But the thing is, the whole edifice dates merely to the 1900s and one John Nelson Darby. I’m not kidding. In line with the trend of treating scripture like a scientific text that was all the rage back then (and still poisons the Evangelical understanding of the Bible), he tried to take three disparate texts - Matthew 24, I Thessalonians 4-5, and the Revelation (formerly the Apocalypse of St. John) - and make them into a literal and detailed prophesy of what would occur in the future. In essence, Darby took passages about different things, and tried to tease out a literal script for the future. 

That no serious and responsible biblical scholar would have justified such an approach, or that Evangelicals themselves would never have accepted such hermeneutics about literally ANY OTHER TOPIC is indisputable. But the appeal of a script whereby most of humanity (except for those with perfectly correct theology) would be slaughtered while the faithful look on with glee had too much appeal to Evangelicals, alas. The revenge fantasy won out over the historical teachings of the church, responsible interpretation of the apocalyptic genre, or even hermeneutical consistency. 

So, Gaiman and Pratchett had a lot of material to work with. They put it to good use, and came up with what I consider the best book on the topic of eschatology I have ever read. 

I am going to quote Pastor Stiles again here. When asked what he believed about the end times, he said, “I’m a pan-tribulationalist and pan-millennialist. I believe that with God in charge, it will all pan out in the end.” Which is a so much more productive approach to the topic than wasting thousands of hours building up a detailed fantasy. 

So, with that in mind, let me poke fun at some specific objections. 

#1: Good Omens is “another step to make satanism appear normal, light and acceptable.”

These are the same people who thought that AC/DC actually worshipped Satan. See my point above about no sense of humor. They can’t see satire when they trip over it.

Also, anyone who thinks there are more than a handful of people who actually believe Satan exists and worship him is delusional. The Church of Satan is quite explicit about that. For the most part, “satanists” are just countercultural sorts who are atheistic or agnostic in belief, and humanist (in a rather good way, actually) in philosophy. They have far more in common with, say, Erasmus, Thomas More, and Soren Kierkegaard than with anything truly occult.  

And I would add that anyone who thinks that watching Good Omens leads to satanism hasn’t actually watched it. Satan is an asshole in the movie. And so are most of the demons. So...that’s a stretch.

#2: “This type of video makes light of Truth, Error, Good and Evil.”

No, actually it doesn’t. It makes light of YOUR SPECIFIC DOCTRINES about truth, error, good, and evil. Big, big difference. 

Anyone who thinks that Good Omens is immoral or agnostic about truth needs to pay closer attention. I have read quite a bit of Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman since discovering them a few years back. Both are highly moral and ethical writers and thinkers. Which is exactly why they reject many aspects of Fundamentalism. For the same reason I did: Fundamentalism is morally bankrupt and incapable of ethical thought or behavior. (That’s one reason that Christ’s ire was reserved for the fundamentalists of his day.) 

What Good Omens does do is question just which side is the good side. And which is the evil. And who is actually telling the truth. 

The central event in the book is, after all, the End of the World. Which is, in the Fundie revenge fantasy, exactly what Good Omens portrays it as: a cosmically epic dick measuring contest between the forces of “good” and the forces of “evil.” They get to finally show who is greater - and so what if most of humanity becomes the collateral damage. 

This is, to put it mildly, thoroughly unethical. And Crowley and Aziraphale come to that realization - because they actually like and love human beings, unlike the Fundie versions of God and Satan, each of whom burn with hate and rage against humanity. 

So yeah, if that is “making light” of morality, bring it on. It is high time the nastiness of Fundie doctrine is exposed for the evil it is. They make God out to be as nasty, vicious, cruel, and hateful as themselves. 

Now for the more amusing complaints:

#3: “The Antichrist is portrayed as an ordinary kid.”

Um, yeah. What else would he be? Okay, it is more likely that he would be a spoiled trust fund baby raised to be a narcissist. But Donald Trump is so beloved by Fundies and Evangelicals…

(Actually, it is amusing in a very dark way that Trump fits most of the Evangelical beliefs about The Antichrist™ and everybody can see that...except Evangelicals.)

But think of this: Jesus Christ himself was mostly an unremarkable human child. He shows up at age 12 with an unusual interest in and knowledge of the Hebrew scriptures - so he was a nerd, I guess. But then disappears for another 18 years. Thoroughly ordinary - to the point where people from his hometown laugh at the idea he is a prophet. That’s actually kind of the point: Christ was joe-average-human - the God who became fully human to suffer and die alongside us. 

So why would the antichrist be any different? It’s not like he would just drop from the skies. 

Also to the point is the scripture itself doesn’t tell of an antichrist. Saint John actually mentions multiple antichrists - and more importantly, the SPIRIT of antichrist. The key theological point here is that antichrist is a spirit of opposition to the spirit of God. It is opposition to the teachings and example of Jesus Christ. That there have been (and will be) MANY “antichrists” is predicted by the Bible. The grand idea of a single Antichrist™ is part of the whole misinterpretation of the other writings of Saint John - the apocalyptic literature, which was a known fantastical genre in the ancient world, intended to give comfort to the suffering, and NOT to be considered a literal prediction of the future. 

I might also add in here that I see nothing odd about the idea that a human might have the choice to be or not be an antichrist. The most obvious antichrist figure of the last century, Hitler, could have made different choices, and the world would have been different. (Also, some good parallels: ordinary kid, appeal to hatred against outsiders, wildly popular with the Christians of Germany, policies to dehumanize and persecute minorities...sound familiar? The spirit of antichrist lives - and it has possessed white Evangelicals in our time.) 

#4: “God is voiced by a woman”

This one makes me laugh every time. In orthodox and historical Christian doctrine, God is not male or female. God is spirit. Both men and women are equally created in the image of God. Thus, to the extent that God has any gender characteristics, God has the characteristics of both male and female. This is not theologically controversial. 

Or wasn’t, until the rise of Christian Patriarchy. Now, in order to justify the subordination of women, all kinds of genuine heresies have been embraced. And Fundies are so very, very pissed when it is suggested that God isn’t 100% completely male, and NOT in any way female. 

But if God isn’t either, why would their voice sound only like a man? Couldn’t their voice also sound like a woman? I mean, nothing against Morgan Freeman, but why not Frances McDormand too? 

#5: “The Four Riders of the Apocalypse shouldn’t be riding motorcycles.”

Whaaat? This one is so laughable. Because Saint John wrote before the invention of the internal combustion engine, we have to stick with literal horses? That is beyond silly. 

Leaving aside the fact that Death, Famine, Pestilence, and War are METAPHORS, if they were real in our day and time, they would totally ride motorcycles. PuhLEEZE. 

Besides:

"You're Hells Angels, then? What chapter are you from?" 

“REVELATIONS, CHAPTER SIX.”

 The Four Horsemen of the Tiki Apocalypse, by my artist friend Craig Fraser

 

Other things I’m surprised they didn’t complain about:

And I’m sure the reason they didn’t is that they only watched the previews, not the actual show. And haven’t read the book either, because these are all in the book.

[Spoiler] Anathema and Newton HAVE SEX. And it is really good sex too. And, like the couple in The House of Seven Gables, in doing so, they bring unity and closure to a centuries-long feud. 

Sexual jokes! “They'd come here to spoon and, on one memorable occasion, fork.”

There is music by gay people! Namely, by Freddy Mercury of Queen. Readers of the book will understand why:

“Crowley was currently doing 110 mph somewhere east of Slough. Nothing about him looked particularly demonic, at least by classical standards. No horns, no wings. Admittedly he was listening to a Best of Queen tape, but no conclusions should be drawn from this because all tapes left in a car for more than a fortnight metamorphose into Best of Queen albums.”

And, throughout the book, every time Crowley or Aziraphale try to play something else, it comes out as Queen. If you want to read more about all that, here you go. 

Feminism! Pepper, speaking to War: “My mum says war is just masculine imperialism executed on a global stage.” 

Also: Pepper is...not white. Horrors. (Amma Ris is great in the role, though. I wouldn’t mess with her.) 

Language: Fuck, shit, bitch, and more. Get used to it. (And for god’s sake, don’t ever read Chaucer…) 

Domestic Abuse and Divorce - Evangelicals are Ignoring the Elephant in the Room

 

Ah yes, the issue of domestic violence and abuse is back in the news, and, as before, Evangelicals are having a terrible time making a morally and rationally coherent statement.

To those not following it, Paige Patterson, president of Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, and notable Southern Baptist, got caught (again) advising women to stay in abusive marriages. Hey, I mentioned him five years ago. This is nothing new, and is a feature of the Complementarian movement. As I have pointed out, the issue is control. If men have a right to expect obedience, then it follows that they have the right to use some means - either force or other abuse - to compel it.

In the wake of this, notable patriarchist Russell Moore (who, to his credit, as been one of the few voices in the SBC standing against Trump and White Supremacy), published a response in which he claimed that abuse was the same as “abandonment,” and thus a “biblical” reason for divorce.

I mention Moore here, because I’m afraid that what he is saying is pretty much bullshit. I will explain in a minute.

A much better response has come from Beth Moore (no relation to Russell), who was willing to say what should be obvious, which is that Patterson’s teaching is based on misogyny. And this point is connected to why Russell Moore is missing the real issue.

The best response I have read so far is from Morgan Guyton, in his post entitled No, The Bible Does Not Condemn Domestic Violence.

Guyton is absolutely correct. However, he doesn’t go quite far enough in my opinion. Any discussion of what the bible says about divorce is completely and utterly futile until we actually acknowledge the elephant in the room:

The bible was written during a time in history where it was assumed that men owned women and their bodies; and that this was the natural, proper state of society because women were congenitally vastly inferior to men.

This is where we must know our history in order to understand things. So, let’s get that part right first.

***

During most of human history, in most places, including in the West, women were the property - the chattel - of men. They could be bought, sold, given in marriage, pimped out, raped, and even murdered by their husbands (or fathers before that) with impunity.

This includes all of the times in which the books of the bible were written.

I have already written about the legal status of women in the Old Testament. But the 1st Century CE wasn’t much better. Aristotle’s view of women as malformed, defective men was the assumption of Roman society, and women were - as in the OT - the chattel of men.

I won’t expand on this too much more - go ahead and read my post above - or grab a history book.

One of the things that this meant in practice was this:

Women had NO right to a divorce.

Seriously. Find me one place in the bible where it talks about women giving a man a divorce. Of course they don’t, because they had no such right in the law. Divorce was what a man did to a woman when he no longer wished to support her financially. So, when you see “divorce,” you have to understand that. A divorce was a MAN sending a WOMAN away, without any financial obligation to her. If he did that to her, it meant she either starved or became a prostitute.

That is the real meaning of “divorce” in the bible.

As you can see, it bears little resemblance to our modern society.

But wait! It gets better!

Women lacked divorce rights well into the Victorian Era!

This is where it helps to have gone to law school. You learn some really, um, interesting things. First, how about William Blackstone? (1765)

By marriage, the husband and wife are one person in law: that is, the very being or legal existence of the woman is suspended during the marriage, or at least is incorporated and consolidated into that of the husband; under whose wing, protection, and cover, she performs every thing; and is therefore called in our law-French a feme-covert, foemina viro co-operta; is said to be covert-baron, or under the protection and influence of her husband, her baron, or lord; and her condition during her marriage is called her coverture. Upon this principle, of a union of person in husband and wife, depend almost all the legal rights, duties, and disabilities, that either of them acquire by the marriage. I speak not at present of the rights of property, but of such as are merely personal. For this reason, a man cannot grant anything to his wife, or enter into covenant with her: for the grant would be to suppose her separate existence; and to covenant with her, would be only to covenant with himself: and therefore it is also generally true, that all compacts made between husband and wife, when single, are voided by the intermarriage…

The husband also, by the old law, might give his wife moderate correction. For, as he is to answer for her misbehaviour, the law thought it reasonable to intrust him with this power of restraining her, by domestic chastisement, in the same moderation that a man is allowed to correct his apprentices or children; for whom the master or parent is also liable in some cases to answer.

Interesting, yes? A woman ceased to be a person upon her marriage, and he had the right to use violence on her.

Now, let’s talk about divorce, because this is important to our discussion.

A woman could not divorce her husband except for abandonment.

A lot of people don’t understand this. One reason is that they do not understand the meaning of “adultery.” Historically - and in the bible - adultery is as follows, and no more:

Adultery was sexual intercourse between a man and a woman who is married to another man.

Some things which were NOT considered adultery historically or in the bible:

a. Sex between a married man and an unmarried woman.

b. Sex between a married man and a prostitute.

c. A man taking a mistress and having a second family with her.

d. A man marrying a second wife (although this would eventually be the crime of Bigamy.)

You see the problem here? If a man cheated, it was only adultery if the other woman was married. That is, if she was another man’s property. Adultery was a crime against property - which is why in the 10th Commandment, it was forbidden to covet a man’s house, slave, beast, or….wife.

So, that is why, a woman whose husband was unfaithful had no legal recourse. She just had to take it.

But wait! There’s more!

Abuse and violence were NOT grounds for a woman to divorce her husband.

I think this is a missing piece in this discussion. Paige Patterson isn’t saying anything that would be shocking to the average Victorian. Back then, a woman by law had to stay and be beaten. Sure, she could try to get help from law enforcement, but then (as now in many churches), she would have been asked what she did to deserve a beating. If she had been anything other than perfectly compliant and submissive, well, she deserved it. And, she would, in any case, have been sent back to live with her husband after he was punished.

Oh, and it gets even better!

Divorce in the bible doesn’t mean what you think it means.

Let’s start with this: During the time the Old Testament was written, a man could choose to stop having sex with, cohabiting with, or showing affection to his wife anytime he wanted. Not just that, but he could marry another wife - or six if he could afford it, take a concubine, rape his slaves, frequent brothels, and in general, act as though he wasn’t married to her.

But he still had to financially support her. He couldn’t throw her out and let her starve.

THAT is what a divorce was. Divorcing a woman meant you were no longer financially responsible for her - she was on her own. What this meant in practice was that a woman who had been divorced had limited options. Her family might take her in if they believed the man was at fault. She could try to find a man who would marry her or take her as a concubine. She could become a prostitute. Or she could starve.

So whenever you see a discussion of “divorce” that refers to the Torah, that is what we are talking about. Whether a man could cut a woman off without support.

To be clear, this means not just stuff you see in the Old Testament (although this understanding puts a totally different spin on the passage in Malachi used to bludgeon women who wish to leave abusive marriages….) It also means that wherever you see Christ discussing divorce in the gospels, He is discussing the Torah - and that means divorce means the above.

What about the New Testament? Well, a few things change. The biggest one is that, by law, Roman citizens could have only one formal marriage. The reason was simple: one’s marriage was for producing legitimate offspring, who would be citizens like their parents, and inherit any property. Marriage was all about property and status. Not love. Not sex.

This did not mean that the Romans believed in monogamy for men. Far from it. Rather, they took from the Greeks a view of “a woman for each purpose.”

To quote Demosthenes:

“For this is what living with a woman as one's wife means—to have children by her and to introduce the sons to the members of the clan and of the deme, and to betroth the daughters to husbands as one's own. Mistresses we keep for the sake of pleasure, concubines for the daily care of our persons, but wives to bear us legitimate children and to be faithful guardians of our households.”

Concubines were common, prostitution was rampant, men could rape their slaves (both male and female), and men really could do pretty much anything they wanted sexually, as long as they didn’t mess with another citizen’s wife or unmarried daughter. Because of the distinctions of class, a man who wanted to be with a woman of lower class couldn’t marry her. She would be a concubine, and he would marry someone of appropriate status to bear his children and inherit his property.

Divorce was actually fairly liberal in Roman law, and it was apparently common among the upper classes. However, while MEN could divorce their wives with few restrictions, WOMEN did not gain the right to divorce until the 2nd Century.

So, again, with the exception of polygamy (which non-citizens still engaged in throughout the Empire), all of the Old Testament rights that men had carried over. In fact, if you read the New Testament, the one truly obvious change from Roman mores is that St. Paul frowned on prostitutes. I was kind of surprised to re-read the NT, and realize that concubines aren’t really mentioned at all. Even polygamy seems to merely disqualify one from church leadership. And “slaves submit to your masters” looks a bit different when you realize that that meant submitting to rape.

When you actually read it with the cultural context in mind, you realize that the one thing scripture doesn’t do well is give clear direction for how marriage should function in a culture where women aren’t seen as property, and the sexual double standard is mostly unspoken rather than written into our laws.

Let me be clear, then, regarding what “biblical” divorce really means:

1. Women could not divorce their husbands under ANY circumstances.

The very idea that a woman had this right would seem as foreign to anyone living in the times the bible was written as the idea of speed limits for motor vehicles. You cannot find any reference to grounds for a woman to divorce for the same reason you do not see a 55 mph speed limit - the very idea was not even on the table.

2. Men were permitted to seek sexual satisfaction outside the marriage - they just had to support their wives.

And yes, this includes the New Testament, which says a lot less about male sexual morality than we were taught.

3. Men were fully permitted to beat their wives.

Now, don’t get me wrong. I believe domestic violence is a serious sin, and a crime, and inconsistent with the Christian faith. But legally, during the times the books of the bible were written, it was legal, and culturally acceptable. Period. You can’t sugar coat it.

4. It was assumed that men owned women, because women were inferior.

This is the key. Since women were the property of men, the idea that property had rights was as silly as saying that oxen had rights, or wine had rights. They didn’t. Thus, it would have been equally anachronistic for us to find rules in the bible based on the idea that women had these rights.  

So, if you were to take the theonomic approach to scripture, in a truly honest manner, I do not believe there is any conclusion other than to say that the bible does not in any way permit women to divorce their husbands. Rather, they should acknowledge their legal status as chattel and act accordingly.

Do I believe this is the meaning of the bible? Hell no! But that is the conclusion if you use a theonomic approach.

***

Back to Paige Patterson, Russell Moore, and Morgan Guyton. Patterson and Moore share what I have termed the “theonomic” approach to the bible. Let me elaborate.

Theonomy is an approach to the bible which treats the bible as “God’s Little Instruction Book™” for humans. It means searching scripture looking for rules to apply to our lives, to our churches, to our relationships.

In the case of marriage and divorce, that means searching the bible for RULES telling us how our marriages should work, and when - if ever - we are allowed to end them.  

I spent time in Bill Gothard’s cult. Key to the movement was an idea called “theonomy,” which was coined by Rousas Rushdoony. What it meant in the most extreme case was that our civil laws should be based on the rules of the bible - including the Old Testament.

People like Rushdoony, whatever their faults - and these were many - at least had one virtue: consistency. They honestly followed their assumptions to the bitter, cruel, evil conclusions which logically flowed from their approach to scripture.

The Patriarchists at least understood what Evangelicals refuse to see: many - indeed most - of the rules found in the bible only make sense if you re-create the culture in which they were found. Specifically:

You cannot truly enforce the rules related to gender and gender roles unless you re-create a culture in which women are chattel.

It does no good to try to figure out what the “biblical grounds for divorce” are, unless you understand the legal and cultural system in which they arose.

And that system did not permit women to divorce. For any reason. Because they were property.

Paige Patterson and Russell Moore, therefore, are both, in their own way, being dishonest. But Moore is being more dishonest than Patterson.

After all, Patterson is closer to how someone in the 1st Century CE would have understood marriage. Heck, Patterson is closer to how someone in the 19th Century would have understood marriage and divorce. To wit, a woman had to stay and be beaten.

Guyton has it right on that score, by the way.

I think Guyton might have gone further and admitted that the bible makes no provision for women to end marriages. Ever. But his point is otherwise correct.

***

This is where a theonomic approach is so poisonous. Searching a book written in a time when women were legally considered chattel for rules about when women have rights will inevitably result in conclusions consistent with the idea that women do not, in fact, have rights.

Russell Moore has to tie himself in theological knots because he knows deep in his conscience that it is cruel and wrong to make women stay and suffer abuse. Somewhere, in his moral self, he understands that the only morally decent answer is that women should be free to leave an abusive marriage. I think Moore is a fundamentally decent person and wants to do the right thing.  

But, on the other hand, his theology binds him to a theonomic approach to the bible - at least when it comes to marriage and sex. So, he has to muster all of his sophistry to make the bible say what it certainly does not.

There is a better way.

The first part is to let go of the belief that the bible is intended to be God’s Little Instruction Book™. That is, in fact, the most harmful way to read the bible. Rather, it is better to acknowledge that everything you read about marriage and divorce in the bible was written during a time in which women were chattel, and this arrangement was justified by a belief that women were vastly inferior to men.

That is the foundation on which ALL of the so-called “Biblical™” teachings on marriage, gender, and sexuality rest.

If you assume that foundation is correct, then the rules make perfect sense.

If you reject the foundation, then the rules seem, unsurprisingly, rather nonsensical.

For purposes of this post, I will limit the discussion to the rules surrounding divorce. (But make no mistake, the ENTIRE edifice of sexual rules rests on the foundation of misogyny. The ancients had no illusions about this like we do, and thus no need to lie to ourselves about it. That is a topic for another post…)

If you truly believe that women are inferior to men (in a similar way that small children are inferior to adults) and you believe that men own women, their bodies, and particularly their reproductive system, then the “biblical” rules for divorce make perfect sense.

Women do not have the capacity to make their own decisions, so a woman has NO right to end a marriage. (Although, if her husband refuses to support her, she kinda has the right to seek support from another man, perhaps.)

Women do not own their own bodies - those belong to the husband. Thus, she has no right to have sex with another man. (And can be killed for doing so - that’s in the law. A man who finds his wife in bed with another man could kill both of them - and it wouldn’t be a crime.) However, she doesn’t own him, so he could sleep around without any recourse on the part of his wife. Likewise, if he chose to beat or otherwise abuse her, so what? She was his property. No different than, say, kicking the couch.

Once you acknowledge that the rules were written with the assumption of a misogynist society and legal system, then you can actually think morally and reasonably about them. You can’t just apply those rules to our modern understanding of the equality of the sexes or the autonomy of women. If you try, you have to go back to the old misogyny. Once the foundation has crumbled, the rest falls - and neither Moore nor Patterson understands that.

The Patriarchists are actually closer to honest. They don’t quite say that they believe women are inferior, and that they are owned by men. But they come oh so close to saying it outright - and in practice, they mean the same thing.

***

Imagine instead of using the theonomic approach, we start with the assumption that men and women are equal, and that they each own their own bodies. Once you start with that, it is easy to think ethically and rationally about the implications. If men and women are equal, then neither has a privilege when it comes to entering or ending a marriage. What is good for the goose is good for the gander. Since each owns their own body, each is entitled to the dignity of being free from abuse of any kind. If one spouse fails to treat the other appropriately - and this includes more than just physical violence - it includes mental, emotional, verbal, and financial abuse - then the abused spouse has every right to protect him or herself and end the marriage. That is the result that Russell Moore knows in his heart and conscience is right. But because he is wedded to theonomy - and patriarchy - he must engage in pretty obvious mental convolutions to avoid cognitive dissonance. 

It isn't just about hitting your partner...

it's a whole constellation of behaviors meant to control and assert ownership.

In case it isn’t obvious, I despise the theonomic approach in general. I think all it is in practice is an attempt to find a new Torah - a new law to follow. The idea of being led by the Spirit, engaging our reason and our empathy, and walking by faith - that’s really terrifying to fundamentalists (and the vast majority of Evangelicals are fundamentalists these days.) It’s easy to just parse the words of the bible looking for rules to follow - and impose on everyone else. It’s much harder to wrestle with what “love your neighbor” looks like in the actual world we find ourselves in.

I’ll confess, I find this really puzzling.

We should not be surprised that the bible reflects the misogyny and injustice of the cultures in which it was written.

The authors of the bible wrote to the cultures of their times. This is a surprise? That’s why you find tribalism and slavery and genocide and all that. It was in the water, so to speak. Times change, and humanity has - to a significant extent - grown less violent and more concerned with human rights over the last few thousand years. The writings of St. Paul (to cite one example) were pretty radical and progressive by Roman standards. But not so much today. Now, what was shockingly empowering has become a club to beat women back into submission. It breaks my heart that my faith tradition has lost its way like this. Christianity should be - like it once was - ahead of the curve rather than behind it on human rights.

None of this is meant to condemn the bible, which I still find to be a glorious and inspiring book. It is we who have misused it in a way it was never intended to be used – as an instruction book.

***

It should be no mystery why Evangelicals/Fundamentalists are having difficulty these days. Their theological edifice rests on the belief that the bible was literally dictated by God, is perfect and flawless in every way, and speaks directly to us in our time and culture. And, as a result of this, that it is intended to be a new Torah for us - an instruction book for life, marriage, sex, and everything. Except for the “love your neighbor, feed the hungry, welcome the immigrant stuff. That stuff isn’t literal or binding. But I digress.

To lose the certainty of an instruction book is terrifying to Evangelicals. Their morality is tied up in legalism of two kinds. First, that one must believe the right things or burn in hell for eternity. Second, that God has spelled out every facet of our lives that is connected with our genitals. What we do with them. And what having a particular set dictates about how we function in relationships, church, and society.

Thus, morality in marriage is about what your genitals dictate for your life. Have one set, and you are in charge, and God speaks to you directly. Have another set, and you are called to suffer and put up with abuse, always submitting to the superior person with the other set of genitals. The question of divorce isn’t about protecting the vulnerable. It’s about maintaining a certain hierarchy.

Legalism is easy. Truly ethical thinking is hard. Particularly I ethical thinking. It requires self sacrifice, rather than mostly the sacrifice of others. It is no accident that women are leading the resistance to the (mostly) men pushing the theology of abuse. Powerful men are unlikely to be victims of domestic violence and abuse. And they would have the full support of their congregations if they took action to end the abuse. But they have zero empathy - not really - for vulnerable women. It’s all about how things fit with their theological structure.

***

I have been an attorney for 18 years. During that time, I have worked with victims of domestic violence. I have also handled divorce cases. This experience has significantly changed my perspective on divorce.

I believe that divorce is not a problem in itself: it is a symptom of greater problems. In the case of abuse, divorce is a symptom of that abuse, every bit as much as the broken bones and bruises on the face. It is as much a symptom as the psychological damage to the victim - and the children.

Divorce is like the vomiting caused by food poisoning. Telling a person when they can divorce and not is like telling someone when they can puke.

This doesn’t just apply in obvious cases of violence. For most of us, we will never see what goes on in a marriage. There is always more to the story. (We attorneys hear a lot more than we would like to know, to tell you the truth. In particular, I have a really hard time looking at pastors the same way after some of the cases I have had. And in seeing “godly” women the same way too.) Even if we could observe a marriage over the course if years - as a fly on the wall - I doubt we could really understand the dynamics.

Thus, I firmly believe that we have no right to sit in judgment on whether people should divorce or not.

Here is just one story - I have heard a number like it. And others not like it, but unique in their own way. Tolstoy was at least half right: unhappy families are each unhappy in their own way.

Back in the day, before my former pastor went (in my view) off the rails, he had some good things to say about marriage. One of those was that we spend so much time telling people not to divorce - and way too little time teaching them how to love each other in marriage. I agree. And part of that is making it clear that abuse has consequences, and one of those consequences is that the abuser is evicted from the marriage. Without the ability to escape, preaching against abuse is toothless. I haven’t seen many abusers change. And the very few I have, it was because they lost everything: their marriage, their children, their job, their freedom. And in those cases, the marriage was still over. And it needed to be. Because some damage cannot be fixed.

Unless and until Evangelicalism stops trying to find ways of squaring the misogynistic view of marriage from the past with our present times and culture, it will become increasingly irrelevant. I have mentioned before that I believe American Christianity is on the verge of losing most of its youth. This will be a reason why. Why should my children want to embrace a tradition which is 100 years behind the culture on supporting the basic human rights of women? They aren’t stupid, and they don’t think women are inferior.

Why on earth would they wish to go back to the injustices of the past?

Something to think about...

***

If you want to read more about my perspective on how to interpret the bible in light of ancient culture, I recommend my series on Christianity and Culture, and the second installment on the Bible and Culture in particular. 

***

Please read my comment policy before commenting. In particular, for posts like this, I really am not interested in getting lectured on what YOU believe the bible means (which generally means some set of talking points I have already heard over and over during my 40 years as an Evangelical.) I've heard it. I've dealt with the aftermath of failed Evangelical marriages. You are not going to somehow explain it to me in a way that I have never heard before, or that you are special enough to convince me to return to my past beliefs.

I also want to be clear that I will delete ANY comment that has some form of "marriage was created to give us a picture of Christ and the church." I already blogged about that.  I believe men and women are equal PERIOD, and that taking St. Paul's metaphor about sacrificial love in ANY way that even implies that men are to rule women is exactly the problem I am talking about here.

Reclaiming Halloween

Somewhere in my parents’ photo archives there is a picture from when I was about 7 years old and my brother was 5. We are dressed up in costumes. I had a large box over my shoulders, with hand drawn buttons and stuff. I’m pretty sure I was a robot, but maybe a computer. It is hard to tell - my artistic ability wasn’t top notch at that age. My brother has a mask made from a paper bag and a printed frog face. I believe it was a promotional thing at the grocery store in our neighborhood. To go with it, he had aluminum foil on his arms, legs, and body, and a cardboard sword my mom made. I remember that he was a “Famous, Fierce, Fighting Frog.” (My mom was and is skilled at wordplay, including alliteration.)

We were dressed up for Halloween, for trick-or-treating. I remember this specifically because it was a year I really worked on my costume. (We never did commercial costumes - that wasn’t in the budget. I still love the idea of using creativity rather than lucre.) I also remember it because soon afterward, my family stopped trick-or-treating all together. For a couple of years, we did “harvest festivals” at a church. Then we stopped that, and my mom just bought candy for us to enjoy. Eventually, as we got older, that went away too, and we just spent Halloween with the lights off and the curtains closed, ignoring any kids that came to our door.

There were a couple of reasons why we did this. The first was the 1980s panic about tainted candy. (Good lord, the 1980s were full of panics, moral and otherwise…I think I have spent a lot of my adult years deprogramming from all the crap I was taught that stemmed from these panics.) Unsurprisingly, the panic was based nearly entirely on a myth. (And the one documented poison was the murder of a child by his father looking to collect life insurance - not a stranger.) Yep, “alternative facts” are nothing new.

But the other reason was based on a panic of a different sort. A moral panic. Despite the previous generation’s enjoyment of the whole trick-or-treating experience, the 1980s brought with them the beginning of the Culture Wars™, and that meant a new focus on cultural separation from the unwashed masses, and the discovery of a demon lurking behind every door. And that meant that Halloween (which actually has a Christian origin) now became “the devil’s holiday,” and thus verboten. Crucial to the acceptance of this myth in my own family were the tracts by Jack Chick (who among other things, was virulently anti-Catholic). His tracts condemned all kinds of things, from rock music, to belief in an old earth, to Dungeons and Dragons. (The last I realized was false the first time a fellow law student explained the game to me, when it became clear it was mostly nerdy in the extreme.)

My memory fails me, but the latest we would have actually gone trick-or-treating in our neighborhood would have been when I was 9, and it may have ended a year earlier. After that, no more. (My wife grew up even more Fundie than I did, and is younger by a few years, so she too missed out on a lot.)

Now, nothing against “harvest festivals.” They can be fun. I remember a few with cool games and bounce houses and stuff, and going with friends or cousins was a blast. However, I think something is missing compared with the trick-or-treat tradition.

That something is engagement with the community. Even in comparison with my childhood, neighbors do not know each other as well. Some of this is due to the ever-expanding extra-curricular activities that prevent kids from playing in the street like we did. Some is the very way our homes are constructed these days, with everyone’s car in a huge garage and nobody out in the front yard. With those changes, it is already harder to meet the neighbors and their kids. The shift from going door to door to a “safe” environment with a more exclusive group is significant, in my view. This isn’t the only cause, but it is a factor in the shift from finding a social group from those one lives next to, to finding it in those with similar theological and political beliefs, from one’s own socioeconomic strata, and often mostly with one’s own race.

The other thing that I think has been lost in the transition is the embrace of the spooky and macabre. One near-universal rule of “harvest festivals,” at least in my experience, is no “scary” costumes. Or, perhaps, no traditional death or terror related costumes. While I do not necessarily chose macabre costumes for myself, and my kids have been all over the map on this, I do think that part of the point of a holiday like halloween is to enjoy some good clean fun at the expense of our fears. I mean, death sucks enough as it is: might as well learn to laugh at it once in a while. Likewise, we defuse our monsters when we make them part of a silly ritual. Humans have done this since the dawn of civilization. If we could not laugh at terror and death, we would be paralyzed by our mortality. On the flip side, it is good to look death in the face seriously too. I am reminded of the many old portraits where the subject has his hand on a skull - a reminder that we all die. So both of these are represented in human culture, in our rituals and observances. We soberly remember our mortality, and make light of it in turn. 

For what it is worth, my kids seem naturally a bit macabre, as evidenced by their love for Neil Gaiman. 

During our kids’ youngest years, we didn’t observe Halloween. Mostly, when we had infants, we were too tired to want to add yet another thing to the list. We also lived on a busy street, so we didn’t have kids come to our door much at all. Also, I often had a rehearsal that night, so it just didn’t happen. Once life got less crazy, though, we decided to go back to trick-or-treating. Often, with friends. The kids, naturally, loved getting dressed up - and planning their costumes well in advance. My wife is a fantastic seamstress and fabricator, and can make pretty much anything.

Because of what we didn’t get to do, my wife and I have also dressed up for fun. The candy is just for the kids, but there is a lot of fun to be had in going out in costume. I have noticed a lot of parents are doing it these days, which is a positive development. Fun doesn’t end with adulthood, and kids should see their parents let their hair down once in a while.

Along with our decision to have fun trick-or-treating, we also have decided to let the kids have significant discretion in choosing - and creating - costumes. So, one daughter and one son have gone with vampires over the years. My eldest the last couple of years has gone as a Dia de los Muertos skeleton. My wife made me a Victorian outfit - originally used for a party in which we went as Elizabeth Bennet and Fitzwilliam Darcy from Pride and Prejudice. Fun for my wife to create stuff, fun for all of us to wear them.

Basically, we decided to reclaim Halloween. Reclaim it from the falsehoods propagated by Fundamentalism and the Evangelical-Industrial Complex. Reclaim the fun. Reclaim the thrill of safe fear and horror. Reclaim the reminder of our mortality. Reclaim the truth that fiction helps us understand that the real dragons and monsters in our world can be defeated.

***

This year, we also did something rather different. Our local Hispanic Chamber of Commerce puts on a Dia de los Muertos festival at the Kern County Museum. My eldest daughter has adored the Muertos aesthetic for years, and talked my wife into making her a dress for it last year. (See pictures below.) The date worked for us this year, so I took the kids.

Let me start with a caveat: my parents both grew up overseas (in Mexico and the Philippines), and, depending on where you are, both the Hallows Eve and Day of the Dead celebrations can be somewhere on the creepy/disturbing/superstitious continuum. (My dad and his siblings used to dress up in sheets and flashlights and scare the crap out of people coming back from mass. It runs in the family. His dad used to pull real pranks on Halloween, and he and his buddies would tip outhouses over. He really caught it, however, when he tipped his own over - with his mother in it. Considering my genes, it is a marvel that I am such a square…) How one experiences Day of the Dead does vary, depending on how devout (or superstitious - depending on your worldview…) the celebrants are.

Here in Bakersfield, at least, I don’t find much to object to. One of the ways the festival is financed is through family memorials (“altares”) displayed in a designated area. These were surprisingly (to me) touching memorials with poignant snapshots of what was important to the families honoring their departed. Family and community were central to many of the displays, and I felt a human connection through them, even though all of them were for perfect strangers.

The kids got to paint sugar skulls, and we listened to a local mariachi group, Mariachi San Marcos. (The Bakersfield Symphony did a concert with them last year. They are fine musicians - one of the members used to play in an orchestral group I played in 20+ years ago - and a microcosm of Mexican-American immigration and assimilation, from the elder generation who mostly speak Spanish to the grandchildren who are totally Californian.) My kids didn’t grow up with mariachi like I did. The neighborhoods in which I was raised were predominantly minority, with lots of Latino immigrants. On big occasions - weddings, quinceaneras, etc. - live mariachi bands would be hired. And the whole neighborhood could hear them. It was a beautiful thing. Even though I never did learn Spanish - I know some words, and that is about it - I know music, and mariachi is music.

Although it wasn’t the only reason, one reason I did want to experience Muertos this year was that, in our nation these days, immigrants, particularly Latino immigrants, have been in the crosshairs of a reinvigorated white nationalism. Bakersfield is a weird town. On the one hand, we have a large Latino population. (Agriculture is big here, so migrant farm labor, but also, we have many who have been here since California was part of Mexico…) On the other, we had an active KKK well into the 1980s, and we still have certain parts of town infested with white supremacist gangs. We also skew very Republican - the whites at least - compared to the rest of California. Unfortunately, this has meant that many shockingly racist things have been said before and since the election. A number of my Latino friends’ kids have been subjected to racial slurs and threatened with deportation (including kids at school), never mind that their families have been Californians longer than many of the creeps threatening them.

So I wanted to show a little solidarity with the local Hispanic community. My kids mentioned that we were the only white people there. That wasn’t really true, but we were in the, ahem, minority. I think it was good for my kids to experience that. (Hey, I grew up that way…) Experience of other cultures is good for everyone. Also, street tacos. Need I say more? Okay, tamarind sodas. Which my kids love almost as much as street tacos with all the goodies. Dang, they were good! I pity the poor folk elsewhere in our country who do not have access to street tacos.

Anyway, also Aztec dancers, traditional Mexican dances, plenty of people in imaginative costumes, and a fun afternoon.  

***

I know our parents, like most, were acting as they thought best. The sad thing is that in so many areas, from the horror of Halloween to the cults we suffered through in our teens, the decisions were not based on sound evidence or an embrace of Christ’s radical message of love. Instead, they were based on fear, which is the opposite of love. It has been sad - and sobering - to realize that pretty much everything negative from my childhood - and even long afterward in dealing with my family - that I look at seems to be rooted in this fearful cultural Fundamentalism. So many avoidable conflicts, lost opportunities, and so many hours spent in needless worry. It makes one wonder what might have been. Fear is a powerful motivator, particularly when it is a fear for one’s children combined with a call to “purity.” It so quickly becomes a fear of contamination by “undesirable” people. (See e.g., the last election…)

***

I won’t duplicate all of this, but an Orthodox Christian blog has a fantastic set of articles on all things Halloween related. When my wife and I started seriously reexamining our beliefs after the kids were born, this was a crucial resource in understanding just how much modern Fundamentalism/Evangelicalism has engaged in historical revisionism.

***

Pictures, of course:

 

Fritz, 2017. Costume by my amazing wife.

 The kids, 2016. Lillian as a penguin (costume off the clearance rack), Ella as a Muertos girl (costume by Amanda, makeup by her friend Marina), Cordelia as a vampire - she is my macabre child (costume by Amanda), Fritz as a mad scientist (costume cobbled together from stuff we had), Ted as Uglydoll "Wedgehead." (Costume by Amanda.)

 

The kids, 2015. Cordelia as a Dalak ("Exterminate!") (costume by Amanda), Ella as Princess Leia...plus cat ears for reasons I forget (costume by Amanda), Ted as Wedgehead (Costume by Amanda), Fritz as an explorer (a rare commercial costume - it was on clearance...), Lillian as Anna from Frozen (costume by Amanda - her Disney princess costumes are mostly designed freehand by her - did I mention she is amazing?)

 

Amanda and me, 2016. She made my costume originally for a Valentine's Day party in which we went as Fitzwilliam Darcy and Elizabeth Bennett (from Pride and Prejudice) - I even shaved the beard down to mutton chops for that occasion.) The hat is from The Village Hat Shop. Amanda is a Tardis (from Doctor Who.) Yes, she made that costume too. And the shawl, which is a fairly accurate representation of the star chart for the northern hemisphere.

 

Ella in her Muertos costume. I just had to include one of her alone, because the dress and the makeup are so perfect on her.