(Originally posted on Healing Hagar.)
The dominant theology of a good deal of the stories of the Old Testament/Hebrew Bible is simple enough: please god and you’ll be blessed, displease god and you’ll suffer. You can see it as early as Genesis. Adam and Eve displease god and get kicked out of Eden. Humanity displeases god and Babel falls or the world floods. Abraham pleases god and gets millions of descendants (albeit after much, much testing.)
The intent of this line of reasoning is pretty clear: be good today so tomorrow won’t suck. But before too long folks were looking at it in past tense. “If you were already blessed today, you must have pleased god yesterday. If you are suffering today, you must have ticked god off yesterday.” God becomes the arbiter of all blessings and suffering, all the time, not just for the rare miracle now and then.
Bible scholars nicknamed this theology “deuteronomistic” after the book of Deuteronomy, where it first takes center stage. It continues mostly uninterrupted through the historical books, where “dueteronomists” go to great pains to show that god is a deuteronomist too. Most of Proverbs’ advice follows a deuteronomistic line. By Jesus’ time folks were even saying that babies born with disabilities were either being punished for their parents’ sins or being punished for sins they’d commit when they grew up.
But scholars have also discovered that some of the ignored and dismissed kings of Israel and Judah were actually quite successful, despite their idolatry. I call that a little fact bending. And then there’s the raw fact that some people who prosper are jackasses, and some people who suffer a lot are actually pretty good folks.
A good deal of other biblical authors were hip to this fact. Ecclesiastes states it outright (just one example here) several times, almost as if a mantra. The Psalmist often complains that the wicked prosper while the good suffer. Isaiah tells us that god himself says that Judah, via the Babylonian exile, has paid double for all its sins—not exactly a divine endorsement of an eye for an eye. The entire books of Job and Jonah appear to have been written as direct rebuttals to the deuteronomists’ Pat Robertson theology. (There’s even a whole branch of theology (called “theodicy”) created just to ask the question: why does a just, compassionate god let good people suffer and let bad people get off scot free?)
This is the hidden argument running through most of the Bible. Even in the New Testament. For every instance of Paul taking a deuteronomist line (such as in Romans), there is a story of Jesus healing someone who doesn’t deserve it, sometimes just to prove that the Pharisees’ deuteronomistic theology is wrong. Or just Luke 13:1-9" href="http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Luke%2013:1-9;&version=31;">an outright confrontation.
In the end it comes down to a choice. Which biblical story do you decide to believe? The story that says god actively rewards and punishes everything we do, and that when it doesn’t seem to measure up it’s just because we can’t see things from god’s perspective? Or the story that god is not a cosmic schoolmarm whacking us on the knuckles, that god grieves when we grieve and rejoices when we rejoice, whether we deserve it or not?
I’ve got a pretty good idea which story Jesus believed.
[tags]pat robertson, unbiblical, theology, blessed, cursed, dueteronomist, theodicy, katrina, dover, ariel sharon[/tags]
That’s “scot free,” as in Scotland.
Reward and punishment is one thing, but how do you respond to those who see the hand of providence in things? (And it’s not always Christians). When someone dies, they’ll say it was God’s plan. Not reward or punishment, just the plan. It’s a common belief. Pat Robertson takes heat here, and deservedly so and not just from Liberals –political or religous– but he is in a twisted way expressing a kind of belief held by many, including many UUs I bet, that there is some plan.
Gotcha, Scot(t). Didn’t know that phrase was a diss of my people. ;-)
Bill,
I see a clear conflict between the doctrine of Providence (which has deuteronomistic roots) and the doctrine of Grace. I come from a Wesleyan theological background, and my own Universalism and panentheism comes from a (rather graceful) exagerration of Wesley’s doctrine of Prevenient Grace. For me, if prevenient grace is really grace, why would anyone need any other kind of grace? Either god is that in which we live and move and have our beyond, or god isn’t that. And if god is, then why would we need anything more?
Along that line, few things piss me off more (theology-wise) than a Methodist who believes in Providence. Yeck. ;-)
Aye, well, then you might find this interesting:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Not_proven
One thing missing from Pat’s declarations of God’s punishment. In all the biblical examples, God told His prophets ahead of time. This was not the look back and see God’s hand in disaster that some scholars would like it to be.
Pat would be alright if he were predicting these things based on God’s revelation to him. I doubt that will ever happen.
As it is, he speaks as if he is the voice of One greater than he. I sure hope Pat doesn’t make Him angry for making His Name empty and meaningless.
Pat Roberson is just a douche. I can’t believe people even listen to what he says anymore.
That’s what I was driving at. One reason they listen is because they do believe in a kind of providence. That everything happens for a reason. Robertson was just telling them the reason.
He’s a saavy guy in that respect.
I think it’s a pretty clear theme throughout the whole Bible that everyone gets what’s coming to them. Whether it be yesterday, today, tomorrow, or after the grave. Grace is a gift for those who accept it. And the Bible makes it pretty clear that God does have a plan and that no man knows the mind of God.
First, I agree with your comments about Mr Robertson and the Biblical applications you outlined so well.
Secondly, I believe Mr Robertson and his program have been used by God to do many great things for the Kingdom.
And, the opinions of a 75-year-old preacher, concerning Old testament teachings and current events, is reported as news only because it suits the secular media’s agenda to report it as news.
How do we handle Pat Robertson? We disagree with him publicly and defend him personally as we would our own brother. . . because he is.
But surveying the Christian blogs… I fear I may be a minority of one. There is a great deal of frustration out there with Pat.
I like your site and will return.
A comment from a Christian friend of mine,
This may come as a surprise to journalists who always define Robertson as “Christian spokesman” or “Christian broadcaster”. He does not speak for or hold a view of Scripture that in any way places him alongside most Christians theologically. He is a dispensationalist. And an embarrassment. More like a sensationalist when the cameras turn on. Dispensationalism briefly defined is: A method of interpreting the Bible that divides history into distinct eras or “dispensations” in which God deals with man in a distinctive way and, in some cases, in which God’s ethical standards change. In other words, God changes to fit each situation.
Christian theologians would say dispensationalists like Robertson have a wrong view of scripture. So why do Christians sit quietly by each time Robertson and his ilk get up before the news cameras and spout doctrine in the name of Christ. I know how embarrassing it is to be painted with his broad brush. Enough already! I’m begging you, all you news people, please. Get someone else as your Christian spokesman. There are so many thoughtful, knowledgeable, scriptural churchmen out there. Find someone else.
I link her here: http://baarswestside.blogspot.com/2006/01/christian-dispensationalism.html