A couple of (sort of ) related things got my attention this past week. One of them was a reading for Mass on Thursday, the 21st. It was the troubling Old Testament reading, Judges 11:29-39, the story of Jephthah and his daughter:
"The spirit of the LORD came upon Jephthah.o He passed through Gilead and Manasseh, and through Mizpah of Gilead as well, and from Mizpah of Gilead he crossed over against the Ammonites. Jephthah made a vow to the LORD.p “If you deliver the Ammonites into my power,” he said, “whoever comes out of the doors of my house to meet me when I return from the Ammonites in peace shall belong to the LORD. I shall offer him up as a burnt offering.”
"Jephthah then crossed over against the Ammonites to fight against them, and the LORD delivered them into his power....When Jephthah returned to his house in Mizpah, it was his daughter who came out to meet him, with tambourine-playing and dancing. She was his only child: he had neither son nor daughter besides her. When he saw her, he tore his garments and said, “Ah, my daughter! You have struck me down and brought calamity upon me. For I have made a vow* to the LORD and I cannot take it back.”
Long story short, because of his vow, he ended up sacrificing the life of his only child. I wondered why this particular reading was included in the Mass readings of the day, there certainly seemed to be no spiritual enlightenment from this tragic story.
The best take on it came from a reflection by America Magazine's Colleen Dulle. Showing up when God’s invitation comes - America Magazine
"It seems clear to me—though I’m no Scripture scholar—that the story of Jephthah is a cautionary tale. The responsorial psalm underlines that: It’s saying, beware of doing things you think are God’s will that actually aren’t. Surely we can all think of examples when people have used religion to justify actions that seem completely out of line with what God wants. Discern, the first reading tells us, or risk tragedy."
The second thing related to discernment on my mind this past week was the death of James Dobson. He was an American evangelical psychologist and author, and the founder of Focus on the Family. He was noted for his harsh take on parenting, basically, "spare the rod and spoil the child".
There has been a lot of commentary on his parenting advice, with people saying that they had been traumatized by their parents applying it to them, and that families and individuals had been damaged by it.
Which brings me to the need for discernment. If someone offers visible-from-space bad parenting advice, why would you swallow it whole? It was no secret that he was a fundamentalist, I would call him a neo-puritan. Of course many of the people who bought his many books were of that persuasion themselves, and it probably fit in with what they already were tuned in to.
Just as Jephthah should not have made, or kept, a rash promise to God, to do something offensive to God, people needed to consider what advice they were absorbing for their parenting decisions.
I have a cousin who liked the Dobson books. She wasn't one to knock her kids around, but liked his advice about "leadership". That made me think of moldy bread. If I see mold on a slice of bread, I don't cut off the bad part and eat it. I pitch the whole loaf, because the mold is in it, even if I couldn't see it all. Apparently there were people who didn't even cut off the bad advice, but ate the whole loaf, and families suffered.
God told Abraham to kill his son. Then sent an angel to stop him. But did not stop Jephthah. Why not? What kind of God is being taught about in these stories? Not a God I would like to know. only know two evangelicals personally (couples - including my brother in law and late sister in law). But it seems that evangelicals are focused primarily on the Hebrew scriptures, the stories of a vengeful, violent God, a God that kills innocents on behalf of Israel. The other focus is on Revelation.
ReplyDeleteI wonder what a psychologist would make of the fixation in some evangelical circles on these particular scriptures. I wonder why many are still being taught. I wonder how Jewish rabbis handle some of these passages.
Dobson and Focus on the Family were/are not positive influences in this country. My husband's brother and family lived in Colorado Springs for a few years. It's a hotbed of evangelical christianity. They took us to some kind of evangelical center. The bookstore was eye opening. Unsurprisingly, I was not familiar with most of the authors, but I did know about Dobson - they had many of his books. Skimming through the books I was truly amazed - I felt that these authors' audience live in an alternative reality - not really christian the way I think of it. They use a different vocabulary even. Enlightening. I've never been to a service at an evangelical church. Maybe out of curiosity I should. I've been to mainstream Protestant, Orthodox, Jewish, Buddhist, and even Muslim services, and the ordination of a friend of mine in a Baptist church (the Baptists that do ordain women). But never an evangelical christian church service.
About God not stopping Jephthah, the whole thing was his (Jephthah's) idea. He just never took into account that he might kill someone he loved. He would have been quite willing to sacrifice a servant or someone else.
ReplyDeleteWhat I believe about the OT is that it was a process. People were still part pagan for much of it. They had made some progress by Jesus' time.
About evangelical services, I've been to more than a few of them. My maternal grandparents were Baptists, the branch that broke with the southern ones over slavery. My husband was evangelical, he converted after we'd been married ten years. So I had been to church with him and my in-laws often. Was never tempted to join the evangelicals though.
Their services are mostly long sermons, with a few prayers and singing. If you're used to a liturgical service like the Catholics, Lutherans, or Episcopalians, it seems odd. They had Communion once in a blue moon.
It seemed to me that my in-laws' denomination almost placed more emphasis on their Bible study classes than they did on their church service. Though they interpreted Scripture differently than we do, they really did devote a lot of time and effort to study of the Bible.
DeleteEvery evangelical I’ve encountered can drop scripture quotes on demand, but often seem shallow in their understanding.
DeleteRe the OT was a process. Richard Rohr often uses Rene Girards description of the Bible as a “ text in travail.”
“ The Bible itself is a “text in travail,” according to René Girard’s fine insight. [1] It mirrors and charts our own human travail. It offers both mature and immature responses to almost everything. In time, you will almost naturally recognize the difference between the text moving forward toward the mercy, humility, and inclusivity of Jesus and when the text is regressing into arrogance, exclusion, and legalism.”
https://cac.org/daily-meditations/what-do-we-do-with-the-bible-2019-01-06/