The mentally handicapped and the demonic

A guest-post by Scott Stephens

Anyone wanting to poke fun at the naïveté of the first-century worldview – and by implication the biblical texts shaped by it – will sooner or later bring up the “primitive” belief that those suffering from a mental affliction are actually beset by demons. As unremarkable as this jibe is, the comparisons that inevitably follow between their worldview and our own are even less interesting.

For instance: while the first-century world is full of magic, myths and demons, the modern world is determined by rationality, hard science and medicine. And so, whereas the ancients used exorcism to deal with mental illness, we use medication, precise treatment programs and various forms of supported accommodation. The implicit judgment that drives these comparisons is the superiority and benevolence of modern science and the health-care system, versus the cruel, more ancient practice of ostracising the sick from civic life.

But is the difference quite so clear-cut? As soon as it’s pressed, this double reduction (modern benevolence versus primitive cruelty) collapses.

To begin with, earliest Christianity – in which designation I include Jesus himself – did not simply accept the superstitions and religious palliatives supplied by its cultural surroundings. Instead, it consistently exhibited a remarkable capacity for theological imagination and an ethical intensity that released it from the clutches of nationalist idolatry and merciless ritual practices. The ethical freedom of early Christianity is nowhere better demonstrated than in the radical way that it presents and uses the notion of “the demonic”. Far from simply accepting the existence of malevolent, individuated personalities as an easy explanation for a variety of ailments, the Christian texts identify demonic influences as an effective mechanism of cultural and political critique.

For instance, in Mark’s Gospel, the commencement of Jesus’ public activity – in the form of the announcement of the redefined kingdom of God – is punctuated by the presence of “a man with an unclean spirit” in the synagogue. It is as if the Jewish religious system itself, governed by the demands of holiness and ritual exclusions, is possessed by something antagonistic to the presence of the kingdom of God. Similarly, it is hard not to pick up the political overtones in Mark’s episode concerning the Gerasene demoniac. As Dominic Crossan observes: “The demon is both one and many; is named Legion, that fact and sign of Roman power.” Toward the end of Luke’s Gospel, the nocturnal arrest of Jesus is depicted as the proper activity of “the power of darkness.”

And in Paul’s writings, not only are the Roman rulers reduced to impotent “powers” that cravenly plotted to execute Jesus, but the Jewish Torah itself is described as belonging to the stoicheia, the dark, elemental forces that exert their chaotic influence on this world.

What is crucial to notice here is the way that the demonic influence is mediated through political and religious structures as the means by which individuals are subjugated, humiliated, excluded, dehumanised. The message of the gospel is that these powers have been emasculated (as Karl Barth put it, demons “are null and void, but they are not nothing”), and that their effects must be opposed in the same manner by which they were defeated: in faith and by love. The powers are thus to be taken seriously, but disregarded as an act of faith. Here again, Barth captures the spirit of the Christian critique perfectly:

“Demons are only the more magnified if they are placed in a framework of the conflict between a modern and an ancient system.… The demythologisation which will really hurt them as required cannot consist in questioning their existence. Theological exorcism must be an act of the unbelief which is grounded in faith.”

The Christian attitude toward demonic powers, then, was not simple acceptance of their existence and influence on the world, much less a kind of primitive heuristic device for explaining what now is the domain of medicine. Instead, it represented a vital critique of those political, religious and even bureaucratic systems that subjugate the masses, and thus manifest a terrifying yet anonymous form of Evil.

But this sword cuts both ways. Just as the New Testament texts are neither naïve nor homogeneous in the way they speak of demons, our own world is hardly free from “demonic” influences.

What is needed is the theological clarity and moral courage to be able to identify these influences as such. And one need look no further than the diabolical effects that political neglect and bureaucratic indifference continue to have on the quality of mental health care. The dehumanising forces endemic within the mental health care system stretch from the woeful levels of funding – designed to maintain an already exceedingly tenuous status quo – to the high rate of staff turnover due to burnout and work-related stress. But Stanley Hauerwas has gone further, suggesting that the care of the mentally handicapped exposes the deep contradiction at the heart of liberal humanism:

“No group exposes the pretensions of the humanism that shapes the practices of modernity more thoroughly than the mentally handicapped. Our humanism entails we care for them once they are among us, once we are stuck with them; but the same humanism cannot help but think that, all things considered, it would be better if they did not exist.”

In his terrifying masterpiece of theological journalism, Hostage to the Devil, Malachi Martin insisted that it is the exorcist himself that must play the role of “the devil’s hostage”, by placing himself between the victim and the demon, by being an advocate for the one who has no capacity to resist. This is precisely the kind of faithful advocacy demanded from Christians today: to oppose Evil even in its most innocuous, anonymous and bureaucratic forms, and thus to enact the prayer, “Deliver us from the Evil One!”

On remaining Protestant

In an excellent post, Halden observes: “protestantism is always the question, the objection, the provisional mode of protest that takes place within the wider presupposition of the givenness of the Catholic church. It is always protestants who must justify their identity as non-Catholics rather than the other way round.”

And this means that “we cannot assume the perpetual existence of protestantism. We must be open to the possibility of the end of protestantism if we are to be true to the aims of the Reformers themselves.”

St Paul's journeys into philosophy

When Paul looked back on all his prior privileges and achievements, he could only exclaim: “I’ve lost all that now, like worthless shit, in order to gain Christ!” (Phil. 3:8).

Occasionally, one has moments like that in thought – when everything you had ever learned or known suddenly appears like mere “shit” (σκύβαλα) in the light of some new discovery, some unexpected gift or insight. That’s how I felt when, years ago, I first read Calvin; and I felt that way again when, a few years later, I picked up a dusty old book by someone named Karl Barth (it was his explosive early collection, The Word of God and the Word of Man). Suddenly and unexpectedly, everything I’d ever known was placed under judgment. As Bob Dylan puts it, “I got new eyes, everything looks far away.”

And I must admit, I felt a similar sense of shock and disruption and alienation – in a word, a profoundly disturbing awareness of theological σκύβαλα – when I recently read Alain Badiou’s astonishing little book on Saint Paul. My brain is completely submerged in Badiou’s works at the moment, and I’ll no doubt be posting more on him in future.

But for the time being, I was delighted to hear that Doug Harink – author of the brilliant study, Paul among the Postliberals – is organising a conference to explore the theological significance of the new readings of Paul by contemporary philosophers (e.g. Agamben, Badiou, Žižek) – and of Paul’s “readings” of them! The conference will be entitled “St Paul’s Journeys into Philosophy: Contemporary Engagements,” and it will be held in Vancouver, 4-6 June 2008.

A hymn for infant baptism: "O what a happy day!"

A hymn by Kim Fabricius

(Tune: Franconia / Carlisle)

       O what a happy day!
       We celebrate a death –
a dying into Jesus Christ –
       a girl’s/boy’s re-birth by Breath!

       All sin is washed away,
       now all is undefiled.
The Lord says, “I will be your God,
       and you will be my child.”

       Incorporate in Christ,
       and by the Spirit sealed,
this girl/boy will have a special place
       reserved for holy meals.

       Her/His bondage now is past,
       an exodus begins,
a pilgrimage in company
       of Christian kith and kin.

       This family of God,
       by water and the Word,
may all be found at journey’s end
       as faithful as our Lord.

More from Gerd Lüdemann

Recently we were discussing Gerd Lüdemann’s book on Benedict XVI. Now, Lüdemann has also pointed me to his new review in Free Inquiry, where he sums up some of his main objections to Benedict’s book. You can download the review here.

Colin Gunton: The Barth Lectures

Colin Gunton, The Barth Lectures (London: T&T Clark, 2007), xxiv + 285 pp.

Reviewed by Kim Fabricius

I had the great good fortune and privilege of serving with Colin Gunton on the Doctrine and Worship Committee of the United Reformed Church during the second half of the 1980s. Work was stimulating, but the table-talk (not to mention the pub-patter!) was downright mouth-watering. Not long out of Mansfield College, Colin’s own alma mater, I still treasure his word of thanks for an article I wrote for our magazine Reform to celebrate the Karl Barth centenary in 1986. Colin could see how Barth touched my theological G-spot, and he too found the Barth experience breathtaking, but, well on his way to becoming a theologian of distinction in his own right, he was beginning to put some critical distance between himself and the man on whom he had written his doctoral thesis under the supervision of Robert Jenson.

Gunton, even then, anticipated one day writing a more seasoned and comprehensive book on Barth, who continued to be an elephant in his study. Alas, Gunton’s sudden death in 2003 meant that that particular tomorrow would never come. Fortunately, however, Paul Brazier, one of Gunton’s students at King’s College, tape-recorded the lectures that his teacher gave on Barth during the 1999-2001 academic years. This book is the result.

It is a book that you listen to rather than read, as you eavesdrop on Professor Gunton taking his class on a guided tour of Barth’s theology from its intellectual background and nineteenth century influences; through its development in the commentaries on Romans, the correspondence with Harnack, and the book on Anselm; and then on into the mature thought of the Church Dogmatics, where the focus is on theological epistemology, the doctrine of God, and the Christology-and-soteriology (the hyphens make a substantive point).

The lectures, of course, were well prepared, replete with handouts and diagrams, but what you hear is not only Gunton’s take on Barth but also his taking on Barth even as he speaks. That is, we not only get theology, we actually get theologising – Barth “is a great man to learn to think theologically with” – as Gunton probes on his feet, sometimes with touching tentativeness.

There are many memorable statements and expressions. Gunton, ever ready (I dare say too ready) with a poke in the eye of his bête noir, the bishop of Hippo, observes that the Augustinian tradition “replaces grace with gratuity” – a mistake that Barth does not make. That “God reveals himself as Lord” – this fundamental premise of CD, Gunton perceptively suggests, is Barth’s version of Anselm’s misnamed ontological argument. Gunton also pinpoints God’s aseitas as the key to unlocking Barth’s theology, and helpfully relates it to the divine transcendence and freedom. On the one hand, in explaining Barth’s aversion to natural theology, he emphasises that if God “makes himself known in Jesus, why bother to look elsewhere”; and on the other hand, in explaining Barth’s later “theology of lights”, he acknowledges that “Barth is open to God making himself known all over the place.”

Then there is the nice distinction Gunton draws between theology’s intellectual responsibility, which is non-negotiable, and theology’s intellectual respectability, which is of no concern whatsoever; and there is his useful differentiation between “the strategical precedence of sanctification and the tactical precedence of justification” in Barth’s soteriology. A final example – on one of the reasons why the British don’t “get” Barth: “Why won’t he argue, why does he just assert? Why doesn’t Mozart argue with us? – Beethoven does! That is Barth’s point.”

There are some idiosyncratic lacunae. A few are mentioned in the foreword by Christoph Schwöbel and the introduction by Stephen R. Holmes. Here are four of my own. First, Gunton’s account of Barth’s doctrine of creation is almost parenthetical. Second, while Gunton rightly and emphatically insists on the inextricable connection between doctrine and ethics in Barth’s theology, he gives hardly a for-example. Moreover, although he traces the impact of religious socialism on the “Red Pastor” of Safenwil, Gunton misleadingly declares that “Barth saw all forms of liberation theology as privileging one group” (my italics), quite ignoring (for all the caveats rightly to be lodged against taking him as a liberation theologian tout court) Barth’s scathing critique of capitalism, nationalism, and militarism, and his consistent insistence, from the First World War to the nuclear arms race, that a godly theology will be known by its political fruit of justice and peace. So no prizes for guessing that Gunton should be numbered among the right-wing Barthians!

Third, Gunton seems unaware of the huge importance of the final moves Barth makes in CD IV/4 for a judicious perspective on a project that he was always revising in via. And fourth, although I grudgingly accept its omission from an introductory course of lectures (even if the majority in attendance were graduate students), nevertheless I would like to have seen more than the rare reference to and conversation with some of the other big Barth players like Torrance, Jüngel, Hunsinger, McCormack, and Webster, if only better to locate Gunton’s own position in the team.

In late 2002 I wrote a largely rave review for a journal on Gunton’s collection of sermons, Theology through Preaching (2001). In March 2003 I received a letter from Colin, thanking me for the review – and reassuring me of our friendship despite my criticism of fence-sitting on some of the big issues of our times! Colin concluded: “It seems a long time since we met, & I hope that will be corrected some time.” And his final words to me: “I continue to enjoy the immense privilege of being paid to engage in the joyful science” – a quintessentially Barthian note. In less than two months Colin was dead. The Barth Lectures, with its enthusiasm and energy as well as its erudition, will, I trust, convince readers that the labourer was more than worthy of his hire.