Eyre Lines

Jesus is presented throughout the gospels as a healer, but some of his most controversial healings (such as those in Luke 5:20 and Luke 7:48) involve him stating that someone’s sins are forgiven.

Now, my scientific rationalist head tells me that this is a wonderful way of healing an illness which is psychosomatic. As can be seen in, for instance, John 9:3, the thinking of the day, at least among the religious conservatives, was that any ailment was a divine punishment for some transgression, either of the individual or his forbears. This can be seen at length in the book of Job, where Job’s friends go to great lengths to try to work out how Job absolutely must have deserved all the ills with which he was being showered; of course, in the last portion of the book God is seen very explicitly to tell his friends that they are mistaken. However, Job goes against the grain of much of the Hebrew scriptures (as do Ezekiel 18  and substantial portions of Ecclesiastes, for instance Ecc. 8:14 in which the wicked prosper and the good suffer). It is hardly surprising that some of the conservatives of the day ignored these few scriptures in favour of a philosophy whereby you got only what you deserved.

Thus, if an illness were to some extent psychosomatic, with the sufferer convinced that they were being punished for some sin, being told their sins were forgiven could produce an immediate cure. At least, it could if it were believed. Jesus must have spoken with colossal authority and charisma in order for this to work.

Of course, we have little difficulty in accepting that Jesus must have spoken in just this manner, and can remember that he was said not to have performed healings when he went home to Nazareth (Mark 6:4) – it is always more difficult speaking with authority to people who remember you as a child!

However, this was met with howls of protest from the religious conservatives (labelled Scribes and Pharisees in the gospels, although it would be a mistake to consider that this conservative attitude actually typified the Pharisees of the day, still less those of later times), ostensibly because only God had the power to forgive sins. To my mind, however, the protest stemmed from the privilege of the conservatives, who were well off and respected, and saw their position as justified by their exemplary character. What could be more threatening to them than to be told that their wealth and social position was not justified by relieving the suffering of those on whom they smugly looked down?

And yet, this was a thread running through Jesus’ entire ministry. The first were to be last and the last first, the preferred companions were publicans and sinners, even the occasional prostitute or adultress, who were more worthy of heaven than the overtly religious.

Christian theology has tried repeatedly to get a grip on this principle, and has regularly failed. Conventionally, we are justified through faith alone rather than works (although James reminds us that faith without works is dead), but for the most part this has come to mean that we much have the correct intellectual appreciation of how we are, in fact, smugly justified (i.e. we must adhere to a creed or another statement of faith). And, of course, our works show that for all to appreciate…

Which leads me to contemplating the case of Rob Bell. Rob is a hugely gifted communicator, who became a “star” by founding and growing to mecachurch status the Mars Hill congregation in Grandville, Michigan, being much sought after as a visiting preacher and teacher. His “Covered in the Dust of the Rabbi” talk illustrates this . He could preach a two hour sermon to me any day (as reference to the videos I link to here and below indicates he’s very able at), and I doubt I’d look at my watch once. I pointed a Jewish friend of mine at that talk a while ago, and he responded with “boy, is he charismatic!”. Granted, he is not really a theologian, and as I agreed with my friend, the image he paints in that talk is almost certainly not authentic to the period in which Jesus was teaching, as the system of pupils of Rabbis didn’t really develop in the form he talks of until significantly later, so far as documents can reveal. However, the message of the talk is not in the slightest impaired by the fact that it probably isn’t actually historically accurate.

Incidentally, it’s probably worth pointing out that Rob may well be naturally gifted and turbo-charged by the Holy Spirit, but he also puts a huge amount of work into his craft, as another set of videos shows.

Over the last two or three years, however, Rob has been regularly vilified by the evangelical establishment for whom he was once a shining star. The reason, originally, was his book “Love Wins”, in which he has the temerity to suggest that God might actually be powerful and loving enough to not condemn significant numbers of people to endless torment. (I don’t necessarily recommend the book for reading, as it isn’t theologically rigorous and reads like one of Rob’s talks – it would be better read aloud – but there is an audiobook).

Since then, he’s compounded the felony by suggesting that homosexuality is not, in fact, a sin over and above all other sins (which is a picture I tend to get from many evangelical commentators) but an expression of one person’s love for another which should be at the very least accepted. This too is beyond the pale, as we clearly need a new category of publicans and sinners on whom to look down.

This regular condemnation has recently had a resurgence, as Rob now has a prime-time programme on Oprah’s TV network in the
States. As the link I include indicates, whereas most evangelical preachers would cut off their left arm for such an opportunity in (relatively) mainstream TV, rather than the “preaching to the choir” outlets of the regular televangelists, the fact that it is Rob who is doing this is just unacceptable.

I think I see a parallel here (although Rob would probably be uncomfortable at favourable comparison with Jesus). “Love Wins” is actually saying that everyone’s sins will be forgiven (if, indeed, they aren’t already), and his stance on homosexuality is reminiscent of Jesus’ in relation to (for instance) tax collectors. The religious conservatives are again up in arms when a charismatic and authoritative preacher suggests that God’s grace, God’s forgiveness, extends to everyone, and not just the elect few. In this case the complaints are from the increasingly Calvinistic spokesmen for “evangelistic Christianity” rather than the gospel’s “Scribes and Pharisees”.

The Pharisees, it seems, will always be with us, much like the poor.