A Thought for Bad Times

 

The Bwa Kayiman

Friend Xerxes wonders why Haiti has had such a grim time of it—inspired to this thought by its latest earthquake. Why always Haiti?

Televangelist Pat Robertson had a theory. God has been punishing Haiti because the nation was actually founded on a pact with the devil. The Haitian revolution began with a voodoo ceremony, the Bwa Kayiman (Bois Caiman, Alligator Woods).

On the face of it, Robertson has a point. The Bwa Kayiman was, in Christian terms, a pact with the devil: all pagan gods are demons.

But I say that the things which the Gentiles sacrifice, they sacrifice to demons, and not to God, and I don't desire that you would have fellowship with demons. – 1 Corinthians 10:20

And such pacts with devils, like Moloch, are why, in the Old Testament, Yahweh destroys the Canaanites. In effect, a pact with the Devil—gross inherent immorality--is why Nazi Germany had to be taken out.

However, Robertson’s theory ultimately does not work, because the point of such destruction would be to punish individuals, but to eliminate a system that seduces people into sin. The calamities that have struck Haiti since independence have not done that, over two centuries. If this, then, were their intent, they are gratuitously cruel. 

There is another possibility: those whom God loves, he chastens. He tests them, like gold is tested in fire. Look at the prophets. Look at the Jews.

Too many of us have been corrupted by the errors of the “prosperity gospel.” If one has had a happy, contented, comfortable life, one ought to be worried. 

See the parable of Dives and Lazarus.

“But Abraham said, 'Child, remember that during your lifetime you received your good things, and Lazarus in like manner evil things; but now he is comforted here, and you are in agony.’”

Literally Worse than Hitler

 

The Devil incarnate? Or a lesser demon?

Modern history has left us Hitler as our image of ultimate evil.

He may not be up to the task. 

Awful as he was, he is not the worst possible human. He was just theatrical about it.

None of the Seven Deadly Sins requires a victim. You could regularly indulge all of them, wrath, envy, pride, lust, gluttony, acedia (spiritual, not physical sloth), and avarice, without coming to the attention of many others. Our society even tends to celebrate some of them. 

The same could be said for seven or eight of the Ten Commandments: you could get away with coveting your neighbour’s goods, or his wife, without anyone even knowing. You could fail to keep holy the Sabbath day; you could take the name of God in vain. Many do. You could commit adultery without much social blowback. Some would cheer you on. 

Hitler was guilty of mass murder—thou shalt not kill—but murder is actually not the worst sin. It is the worst crime. There is scant evidence he indulged in lust. He lived a celibate life; he had few and discreet liaisons, so far as is visible. Or gluttony: he was a teetotaler and a vegetarian. Or avarice: he lived on the royalties from Mein Kampf, which he had the state buy in quantity, but did not loot as he might have; like his lieutenant Goering. Hitler was preoccupied with power. This is pride, the worst of the Seven Deadly Sins. And he clearly indulged his wrath. But at least he did not submit to all of them.

Hitler also had one signal virtue: courage. A worse man would lack it. 

A thoroughly bad man, precisely because he lacked courage, would not so publicly sin. He would remain an upstanding member of your community. People might feel, personally, there was more than a little “off” about him, but they would not find anything they could openly condemn.

The Devil, they say, is a gentleman. You are more likely to encounter him at your next social gathering, than in the history books.

Ever Dance with the Devil in the Pale Moonlight?

Here’s a flash of insight I had today.

Probably self-evident, and obvious to everyone. I might have even thought it myself, before. But it felt like a flash of insight today.

The real value of the present uncanny complex of crises, perhaps the divine point, is that it reveals emphatically who the bad guys are. It seems as though, quite consistently, the bad guys are reacting to the crisis by becoming more blatantly evil. It is as though the zombie hordes have suddenly become illuminated by a flash of lightning, and we see them plainly.

There’s a virus spreading, killing the old and infirm? Great. Now’s our opportunity to pour into the streets. Let’s spread the virus, break things, loot, tear down statues, and demand the elimination of the police. That’s clear enough, isn’t it?

There’s a virus spreading? It’s time for the whole world to come together against this common enemy? Great. Now’s our opportunity to really subjugate Hong Kong. Why not invade India? Let’s threaten Australia, and make claims on Vladivostok.

We have a health emergency? People are dying? Great. Now’s our chance to make big profits by suppressing information on any inexpensive measures and drugs that would combat the virus. Instead, we’ll promote new drugs that are under patent. The more people get sick, the more money we make.

Evil has turned and looked us straight in the face, leering. It no longer allows you the luxury of deniability. If you do not stand against it, you have signed the Devil’s own bargain, and by now you must know you have. As does everyone else.

The Devil and Bishop Barron

I think Bishop Barron goes off the rails a bit in this consideration of the Devil. Unsurprisingly—as he explains, the Devil was not even considered real in his seminary formation. The modern church has lost touch with its own teachings here. As a result, he is more or less forced to wing it, and draw his own conclusions. The gap can too easily be filled by pop culture beliefs floating in through the Overton window.

The Bishop notes that the old Hebrew term “satanas,” Satan, means “the accuser.” He concludes that we are doing the Devil’s work when we accuse anyone of sin.

The Holy Spirit, he explains, is always affirming. Negative feelings about ourselves or others must come from the Devil.

 If so, Jesus himself regularly did the Devil’s work, as he regularly accused the scribes, Pharisees and others of sin. John the Baptist was an agent of the Devil, when he accused Herod Antipas of adultery and incest. And, of course, the Catholic Church is an agent of the Devil for making an unholy fuss over abortion.

It is obviously wrong as an interpretation; but it conforms to our “non-judgmental” postmodern ethos.

My own formal religious education understood this title, “the accuser,” or “the adversary,” as a survival of an older Jewish conception of Satan as a kind of prosecuting attorney, declaring our sins before the throne of God. His conduct in the Book of Job is supposedly an example.

Satan in the Book of Job: Blake.

But this too is not quite right. God would have no need of such a functionary being; He is omniscient. This usual mythological explanation thus requires us to believe that the original conception of the Hebrew God was either polytheistic, gnostic, or badly thought out—“primitive.”

And it does not actually fit the Book of Job. In Job, Satan is not pointing out Job’s sins; Job has not sinned. Satan claims Job reveres God only because he has been rewarded, and, if he faces suffering, will turn away from Him. This is an accusation, but it is a false accusation—for it is accusing Job of a sin he has not committed.

This is an important distinction. That is a different matter from merely judging others. That is, in a word, “prejudice”—pre-judging others. Significantly, judging others is not condemned in the Ten Commandments; “bearing false witness against your neighbour” is.

This is what Satan apparently does.

Bishop Barron misses it, remarkably, even though he immediately then notes that the Devil is called “the Father of Lies.” And this is just how lying is defined in the Ten Commandments.

Another part of Bishop Barron’s treatment also does not quite ring true.

John’s Gospel calls the Devil “a murderer since the beginning.” The Bishop takes this as meaning only that the Devil is behind a broad “culture of death.” He cites as confirming evidence the mass murders of the Twentieth Century, suggesting they can only be explained by the existence of an independent spirit that seeks murder.

But this doesn’t really work. In principle, the difference between one murder and a million is only one of scale, not of kind. So the difference in itself does not seem to require us to postulate the action of an independent spiritual being. And this reading does not explain why murder is singled out as coming from the Devil, and not the other sins--other than lying, which is also repeatedly singled out.

And there remains that phrase “since the beginning.” Why is it there?

The mass killings of the Twentieth Century are in no sense primordial, at the beginning of something. There seems to be something else here, that Bishop Barron is not addressing.

Let’s look at the phrase in context:

Jesus therefore said to those Jews who had believed him, "If you remain in my word, then you are truly my disciples. You will know the truth, and the truth will make you free." They answered him, "We are Abraham's seed, and have never been in bondage to anyone. How do you say, 'You will be made free?'" 

Jesus answered them, "Most certainly I tell you, everyone who commits sin is the bondservant of sin. A bondservant doesn't live in the house forever. A son remains forever. If therefore the Son makes you free, you will be free indeed. I know that you are Abraham's seed, yet you seek to kill me, because my word finds no place in you. I say the things which I have seen with my Father; and you also do the things which you have seen with your father." 

They answered him, "Our father is Abraham." Jesus said to them, "If you were Abraham's children, you would do the works of Abraham. But now you seek to kill me, a man who has told you the truth, which I heard from God. Abraham didn't do this. You do the works of your father." They said to him, "We were not born of sexual immorality. We have one Father, God.” 

"Therefore Jesus said to them, "If God were your father, you would love me, for I came out and have come from God. For I haven't come of myself, but he sent me. Why don't you understand my speech? Because you can't hear my word. You are of your father, the devil, and you want to do the desires of your father. He was a murderer from the beginning, and doesn't stand in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaks a lie, he speaks on his own; for he is a liar, and its father. But because I tell the truth, you don't believe me. Which of you convicts me of sin? If I tell the truth, why do you not believe me? He who is of God hears the words of God. For this cause you don't hear, because you are not of God."

Jesus is making a distinction here between one’s physical parent and one’s spiritual parent. His listeners are Abraham’s “seed,” but Abraham is not their true father. Everyone is the child of only two fathers: God or the Devil.

And he is making a distinction between those who sin—who are thereby bondservants to the Devil—and those who consciously throw in their spiritual lot with the Devil, becoming his children.

The Devil shown in a 15th century manuscript.

And when he comes to calling the Devil a murderer, again we see the issue of false accusation: “When he speaks a lie, he speaks on his own; for he is a liar, and its father. But because I tell the truth, you don't believe me. Which of you convicts me of sin?”

This is apparently how, according to John’s passage, the Devil murders: he murders with false accusations.

False accusations “from the beginning.”

Which most naturally implies, from the victim’s earliest childhood. Hence too perhaps the reference to parentage, fatherhood. This seems to conform with his role in Job: a young child, below the age of reason, is incapable of sin. So any such accusations in early childhood must be false.

This seems to mesh in turn with something else Jesus says in the Gospels, about the gravity of misleading children:

“but whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in me to stumble, it would be better for him that a huge millstone should be hung around his neck, and that he should be sunk in the depths of the sea.” (Matthew 18:6) 

“It would be better for him if a millstone were hung around his neck, and he were thrown into the sea, rather than that he should cause one of these little ones to stumble.” (Luke 17:2)

The word translated “stumble” here is open to interpretation; it suggests either sin or error, being misled.

Technically, however, once again, it cannot refer to sin, because a young child is incapable of stumbling in this sense.

It would seem to fit the case of a child wrongly told they had sinned when they had not; misled about their sinfulness.

And this might be said to murder their soul.

At least, to complete the Christian message, were it not for Jesus, who sets such bondservants of the Devil free, even raising them from the dead.

Mary Pokes the Devil in the Eye

You're welcome.

Poor Oppressed Hillary

Haplesss victim of circumstances beyond her control.

In a recent debate, Bernie Sanders said Hillary Clinton represented the establishment. Clinton immediately took strong exception to this. "Sen. Sanders is the only person who I think would characterize me, a woman running to be the first woman president, as exemplifying the establishment." Adding irony, her husband, the former president, Bill Clinton, later insisted at a campaign stop that his wife was not a part of the establishment.

She is a former First Lady of th US, leaving aside an education at Wellesley and Yal and a career as US Senator and Secretary of State. If she is not a member of the establishment, who is? A woman cannot by definition be in the establishment? Queen Elizabeth is not? Queen Victoria was not? Lady Crawley, the Dowager Countess of Grantham, cannot be and is just putting on airs?

Yet there is every chance she believes it. This is the same millionaire who exposed herself to public ridicule by once saying she and her husband were dead broke when they left the White House.

The modern left, at least tits leadership, is largely composed of wealthy and powerful people who believe someone else is in charge. By income, Republicans and Democrats are almost evenly matched; in bluesttes, generally the richer ones, the wealthy tend to be to the left, in red states they tend to be on the right--along with everybody else. By postgradte edoucation, Democrats predominate, In other words,the Democrats are the party of the professional elite. Generally fat capitalists are blamed for being in control of everything.There are actually few left, or many, if you count all retired people., A capitalists is prorerly someone who lives entirely by the fruit of fhis capital investoments This is a social class which has essentially disappeared since Marx created it over 150 years ago. Large coroprations are instead usually publicly held, which is to say, controlled by professional fund managers and professional managers, both of whom lean Democratic. Yet Bernie sanders sgainst the billionaire class who controls our politics. He does not note that there are in total less than a thousand of them, that most of them are politically to the left, or that, if they really controlled politics, he could not have won the New Hampshire primary.

It is a conspiracy theory, it deals in phantoms, but it is easy to believe this. It is, after all, uncanny how there does seem to be a malicious intelligence controlling the world's affairs. It i not just that the world is full of lies, but that the lies seem remarkably calculated and generally the very opposite of the truth, Hence the constant stream of conspiracy theories, involving not just rich capitalists, but the Koch brothers, the Jews, the Illuminati, the international Catholic Conspiracy, the gnomes of Bilderberg, the Trilateral Commission, the Masons, and so forth.

The key to the strength of the modern left is that. the more one is oneself a member of the establishment, more the case with Democrats than Republicans at the leadership level, the easier it is to believe in such conspiracy theories, especially the wilder ones. After all, one is acutely aware, despite one's own high position, of affairs distinctly following what seems to be a malicious pattern beyond your control. How else explain this? Someone must be doing this, and someone who is somehow keeping themselves hidden, for you are nominally in charge and should at least know who they are, should catch them doing it. Case in point: Paul Hellyer, former Canadian Minister of Defense, who is now convinced that the governments of the world are concealing dealings with aliens. And planning an intergalactic war,

The real answer is simple. The devil is real. He is a coherent intelligence. He really is, as the New Testament says, the prince of this world. He has real power. Fail to understand this, and the least of your worries is that you get the basic nature of the social world completely wrong. This misunderstsng has also led to some of the worst crimes of history: Hitler's scapegoating of the Jews, the scapegoating of the well-off in Communist countries, and so forth.

The prince of this world.