Before reading each article of the series, please take the time to read the (2) disclaimers:
DISCLAIMER #1: The following blog post is NOT theological criticism or a heresy-head hunting game by any stretch of Wm. Paul Young’s The Shack. I am more sympathetic with open & process theisms, so there is no need for this author to scan The Shack for doctrinal errors.
DISCLAIMER #2: Be aware that what I share are from a 2010 joint-presentation I and my friend Adam DJ Brett, a PhD entering his first year of work at Syracuse this fall. Post 5 of this 6 part series will be mostly his research, and his intellectual property. If you wish to use this information, please cite him as the source. Also, given that this setting is a blog, I do not assume that everyone is familiar with the concepts I shall place forth, so, unlike the paper and hopefully forthcoming journal article, I will be making available definitions and sources if need be.
Gentiles in the Hands of a not-so Jewish Savior
In my last post, I discussed Wm. Paul Young’s description of the first person of the Trinity as Papa, the latest re-imagining of the Mammy black female house slave from 17-19th century U.S. American history. In this post, we shall take a look at Young’s picture of the second person of the Holy Trinity, Jesus.
One must be quite aware of the systemic anti-Judaism and anti-semitism passed down throughout history in Christianity. This anti-Jewish polemic, whether it be Justin the Martyr or Martin Luther, has real world consequences for how we treat persons who practice Judaism. When I say this, I know that people will automatically go to the Holocaust in Third Reich Germany, but what about the mob violence against Jews that Cyril of Alexandria was silent on in the fourth century? How about the conservative political label of “Judeo-Christian” as a post-World War II construct, to hide the exclusive nature of white protestant hegemony here in the United States? I would say that these phenomena are the best evidences that we have of Christianity’s anti-Judaic vein.
Does anti-Judaism appear in Young’s The Shack? The answer is an emphatic yes, and in the worst of ways, and by that, I do not mean blatant, but something more of a white liberal mushy-cover up of Jesus’ ethnic and religious identity. Jesus is Jewish to the extent that he has the anatomical characteristics of a Jew (phenotype). “I am Jewish, you know. My grandfather on my mother’s side had a big nose. In fact, most of the men on my mom’s side had big noses” (The Shack, 113). Since when did being a Jew have anything to do with having a big nose? Does not that mean that race is biological and natural, and therefore not a construct passed down from generation to generation, as it is always constantly changing? In this instance, Jesus joins the Jews in always being “the Jews” because race here is seen as something inherent and stagnant. Rather than being a set of religious practices, Jesus’ Judaism is a race of people according to Wm. Paul Young.
Jesus in The Shack calls himself a “Hebrew from the house of Judah” and that he is only a “stepbrother” of Middle Eastern families (The Shack, 88). To be a stepbrother is to be an addition to a family that is formed out of the union of one biological parent and another stepparent. Jesus and his Judean ancestors, are, by extension, culturally something unaffiliated with their ancient Near Eastern context. In other words, the historical Israelites and Judeans that we learn about in scripture are culturally disconnected and outside of the surrounding nations by way of their biology, rather than their theology.
This move by Young gives him the room to shape Christ in the image of Whiteness. Amy Jill Levine, in her The Misunderstood Jew, argues that once Jesus’ Jewishness is dismissed, liberal Protestants can turn him into one of them (AJL, page 9). It is with little wonder that Sarayu, the Holy Spirit in The Shack, informs Mack that he should not look for rules in Scripture, but rather communion with God, as if following laws were exclusive to having a relationship with God. The relational deity of The Shack’s white liberal Protestantism supersedes YHWH the law-giving God in the First Testament and thus providing the means for Marcion’s resurrection.
Next, for part 3, we will look at Sarayu the Spirit
I didn’t read The Shack, and I doubt I ever will. But I am trying to figure out what you mean here:
“The relational deity of The Shack’s white liberal Protestantism supersedes YHWH the law-giving God in the First Testament and thus providing the means for Marcion’s resurrection.”
First of all, Marcion appears to me to merely have been critical of the genocides in the Old Testament, not really to have rejected Jehovah outright. I think the white liberal church fathers were racistly accusing the non-white Marcion of something he didn’t really teach.
Whether that is the case or not, Protestantism already rejects all concept of law, not just the ceremonial aspects of the Torah like Sabbath and circumcision and kashrut (or kosher) but even the moral laws. Why need is there for a resurrection of what is erroneously called Marcionism? Its been here since Luther!
Now, it is known that Marcion called his churches Synagogues, that he wrote not in Greek but in Aramaic, and that he interpreted the Old Testament the Jewish way, namely that the prophecies there are not about Jesus being the Messiah. Isaiah 7 is to Marcion about Mahershalalhashbaz, even as Isaiah himself says in chapter 8. Micah 5 “out of Bethlehem Ephrata will come a ruler” is to Marcion about Zerubabel. Jeremiah 31 is to Marcion about the Babylonian captivity not about Herod slaying babies. Marcion was a Jew.
His crime was trying to clear the misuses of the Old Testament out of Paul’s epistles. Where Paul attacks law (not just the Torah, but the very concept of law in general) and says (in Romans 4:5) “to him who works it is reckoned as debt; but to him who works not, but believes in him who justifies the ungodly, it is reckoned as grace” following it up with (Romans 4:6-7) “even as David describes the blessedness of the man to whom the Lord imputes righteousness without works” and quoting partially from Psalm 32:1-2…where Paul I say, does this, misusing and abusing Psalm 32, which does NOT teach justification “without works” nor justification of the “ungodly” but rather of the godly….where Paul does this, Marcion removed it all! Marcion was cleansing Paul’s misuse of the Old Testament out of his epistles, not removing the Old Testament from the Pauline epistles out of spite against it, but out of reverence for it.
Further, where ‘orthodox’ Christians, like Tertullian, would say to the Jews “The Old Testament is a Christian book, ours not yours, and you are too stupid to understand it,” Marcion would say to the Jew “you understand this book right; it does not prophecy of Jesus as Messiah; the Messiah is yet to come.”
How then did Marcion see Jesus? As a new God come to destroy Jehovah. This is the surmising of the liberal white church fathers, but is that the truth? Or did Marcion view Jesus as a Jewish reformer who came to teach a version of Judaism that put its emphasis on the moral commands over the ceremonial? It does seem, after all, from what the church fathers say that Marcion places basically no emphasis on ceremony, but had a rather strict morality.
Could you refer me to your sources on Marcion?
I would like to look into it.
Thanks.
In Tertullian’s five books Against Marcion, Tertullian (circa 208) actually reuses material from his own (Tertullian’s) work called Against the Jews, using the same rhetoric against Marcion as he (Tertullian) uses against the Jews, because Marcion’s interpretations of the Old Testament, particular with reference to prophecy, are the same as those of the Jews.
Hey Rey,
From what I know about Marcion, he does reject YHWH, claiming that Jesus is a totally different G*d from YHWH of the Hebrew Bible altogether. I am down with being critical of genocides, but one in the same Gods they must be.
And there are folks today trying to clear up Paul’s “misuses” of the Old Testament, but I remain cynical about such efforts, in the first place, and in the second the concept of “the law” does not have to be restricted to the Jewish law, but also Roman law and order as well.
And what I meant by the quote is, that I do believe that Marcion was in the wrong, doctrinally speaking, but more importantly, in evangelical churches, the Hebrew Bible/Old Testament is completely ignored almost, except for those few passages “prophesying” about the Messiah. The Shack, I argue, is a continuation of downplaying the God of the Old Testament, YHWH, the parent of Christ.
With or without Marcion, not just the Tanach (OT) but also all concept of law and acceptable moral behavior is ignored by Protestantism due to accepting Paul’s misuses of the OT in Romans 4, 5, and 9.
As far as sources about Marcion,there is Joseph B. Tyson’s Marcion and Luke-Acts: A defining struggle, Hoffman’s Marcion and the restitution of Christianity and van Harnack’s Marcion: the gospel of the alien God. But more important that any of these modern scholarly books is Tertullian’s Five books Against Marcion. Many people, scholars included (or should I say especially ‘scholars’) read Tertullian’s propaganda uncritically, accepting that whatever Tertullian says about Marcion is true, even when Tertullian contradicts himself.
For example, Tertullian claims that Marcion teaches God will not judge anyone. Yet he admits that Marcion retained the passages in Romans 2 that say “the wrath of heaven is revealed against all ungodliness of men” and so on. Tertullian also says that Marcion believed Jesus was a phantom and had no body, only to admit later on that Marcion actually believed Jesus had a body, just that he wasn’t born of a virgin, and that Marcion’s gospel does indeed show Jesus having a body, since he retains the story of the men trying to throw Jesus off the cliff and even retains the statement after the resurrection “a spirit does not have flesh and blood, as you see me have.”
Tertullian is obviously laboring to convince us that Marcion taught these things despite the evidence right in front of his face that Marcion did not teach such things. It is a snow job. Marcion is being framed. Based on a critical reading of Against Marcion the picture will emerge, not a Gnostic heretic who wants to convince everyone that there are two gods, that Jesus didn’t have a body, that God doesn’t judge, and so on, but rather of a Jewish Christian offended at misuses of the Old Testament, of twisting OT passages to be about Jesus when they aren’t, and of lax morality.
He even comes off a little ecumenical (certainly in comparison to the bigoted Tertullian), with his interpretation that the Jewish Messiah is yet to come and the Jews are not waiting in vain for him.
Now as for the two god theory. It ought to be well-known today that back in the first and 2nd century there were Jews who believed that all appearances of God in the OT were really not of God but on the highest angel, Metatron. Probably, Marcion’s two gods amount to nothing more than Jehovah and Metatron, with Marcion blaming all the OT attrocities on Metatron in order to clear Jehovah of them.
I seriously have my doubts about the metatron theory, given that the Marcionites affirmed concepts such as the Demiurge, etc. things foreign to the Hebrew bible.
Angels cannot create. Marcionites believed the creator g*d in the OT was the villain. I dont think we can get around this.
The logos in Philo’s theory is an angel used by God to create the world. I forgot to mention, btw, that Marcion was against slavery. This is one of the things that really bothered Tertullian about him. I wish I could remember exactly where the passage was, but it looks like Marcion removed the commands to slaves to obey their masters from Paul’s epistles, which sent Tertullian on a tirade about how great slavery is.
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Marcion was against slavery? If you find that passage, let me know. That would be helpful. But I think we have to measure orthopraxis more than just simply being an abolitionist.
Philo’s Logos is not angel, it’s seen more of a commander type figure. I have never seen the word “angel’ in the traditional Christian sense to describe it.
First, there are several translations of Against Marcion here: http://www.tertullian.org/works/adversus_marcionem.htm
I will grant you are right that Marcion indeed taught two gods. My thinking otherwise obviously came after a long time of not having read Against Marcion for a while. In looking for the passage on slavery, it appears clear that his polemics against slavery are tied up to the notion of Chrestos redeeming us from the slave master the Demiurge, for Tertullian’s defense of slavery comes as a direct attack against that dualistic doctrine.
Perhaps Tertullian never comes out and says “Marcion is against slavery.” But it is clear that the reason why Tertullian cannot agree with Marcion’s theology is because Tertullian is offended at the idea of one man letting another man’s slave go free, and by extension finds it reprehensible that Marcion’s God would dare free the slaves of the Demiurge. What right has he to free another man’s slave? How it that good? Is it not rather unrighteous? So Tertullian argues.
In Against Marcion Book 1, chapter 23, Tertullian begins his argument that another man’s slave, or another god’s slave, is not the “proper object” for benevolence. Then in chapter 24, we find this very telling statement by Tertullian “For what is more unrighteous, more unjust, more dishonest, than so to benefit an alien slave as to take him away from his master, claim him as the property of another, and suborn him against his master’s life; and all this, to make the matter more iniquitous still whilst he is yet living in his master’s house and on his master’s garner, and still trembling beneath his stripes? Such a deliverer, I had almost said kidnapper, would even meet with condemnation in the world. Now, no other than this is the character of Marcion’s god, swooping upon an alien world, snatching away man from his God, the son from his father, the pupil from his tutor, the servant from his master–to make him impious to his God, undutiful to his father, ungrateful to his tutor, worthless to his master.”
Tertullian is bumfuzzled, dumbfounded, at Marcion’s God. Why would anyone be so “good” as to set another man’s slave free? Why would anyone think that was good? Marcion obviously gets it, but Tertullian is incapable of understanding this goodness.
Also in book 5, chapter 4 Tertullian refers to this theme again (indeed I think it is a rather recurring theme in all of Against Marcion, but don’t have time to search out every reference) “And the very fact that he speaks of that liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free—does not this establish the fact that he who sets free is he who has been the possessor? Not even Galba ever set free another man’s slaves: he would find it easier to let free men out of prison.” Again, the argument by Tertullian is that Christ (or Chrestos) could not free the slaves of another god, for it is morally wrong in Tertullian’s view to free another man’s slave. Marcion, however, obviously sees it the other way around, and therefore the goodness of Marcion’s good God finds its ultimate expression in freeing slaves from their master.
I will have to read the Tertullian quotes in context before I make a judgement but you may be on to something.