The Meanest Theology of All

The Sunday School Director at the church where I’m serving as intentional interim pastor asked me to teach a combined adult class on August 30th, and in a weak moment I agreed. So in preparation for teaching the class, I read the lesson in the Sunday School quarterly used by our adult classes, and, not surprisingly, found little help there.

The lesson was titled “God Calls for Decision” and was ostensibly based on Deuteronomy 30, presumably focusing on the challenge Moses gives the people in verse 19: “I call heaven and earth to witness against you this day, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and curse; therefore choose life….” What bothered me about the lesson was that nowhere was any background or context (historical, literary, or theological) offered the reader. Specifically, there was not a word in the lesson about “Deuteronomic theology.”

Since the days of Martin Noth (d. 1968) it has been widely recognized by biblical scholars that a single theological thread weaves together the biblical history that runs through the so-called Former Prophets – Joshua, Judges, Samuel, Kings (“former” because they come before the “real” prophets like Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and the Scroll of the Twelve). That theological thread is sometimes referred to as the “Deuteronomic theology” because it begins in the Book of Deuteronomy and extends right through the Former Prophets. It has affinities with the prophets, causing some scholars to suggest that it may have originated with them. It has been variously defined and described, but its chief characteristic is that it establishes a cause/effect relationship between behavior and blessing. I usually refer to it in shorthand as “Reward and Retribution;” that is, God blesses the good and punishes the wicked. To be sure, there are other values characteristic of this theology – concern for the marginalized, personal responsibility and accountability, obedience to the covenant, and the centrality of Jerusalem as the central place of worship – but the central theological premise is that good things happen to the good and bad things to the bad. As a result, Israel reads its history through the lens of “reward and retribution” understanding difficult days as the curse of God upon the people and their leaders for their wickedness, and good days as the blessings of God upon the people and their leaders for their covenant faithfulness.

And as far as that goes, that’s good enough. But it doesn’t go quite far enough. You don’t even have to go very far in the Bible (not to mention your life and mine) to realize that this theology can’t account for everything. The Book of Job rises from the canon to object that this two-dimensional theology is too simplistic to account for everything. What happens when the neat categories of the Deuteronomic theology get shuffled by life and circumstance? What happens when God and good don’t balance the scales of disobedient and bad on the other side? What do we do when the good suffer and the wicked prosper? As the late Paul Newman said in Absence of Malice, “Who do I see about that?”

Anyone who gives it even a moment’s thought or reflection knows that our circumstances are due not to one but two different factors: voluntary and involuntary. Some things happen to us because "we asked for it;" that is, they are the effect of some cause, the consequence of some action, the result of some decision. I spent more money than I made; I chose to lie rather than to tell the truth; I ate more than I needed; I refuse to exercise even though I know I should and that there are consequences of not doing so. Voluntary factors – I make choices; I receive the consequences of my choices – reward or retribution, good or bad, blessing or curse. But to live in this world also makes us subject to involuntary factors – things over which we have no control; decisions in which we have no say; consequences in which we did not participate in the actions. Sometimes bills come due we did not run up. Sometimes bad things happen to good people and good things happen to bad people.

People of thought and faith have long recognized that there are two kinds of consequences – consequences that are the result of voluntary factors and consequences that are the result of involuntary factors. The Deuteronomic theology places responsibility and culpability on the former, but not the latter. To blame someone for consequences that are the result of involuntary factors is just plain mean.

But that hasn’t stopped some from doing it. In the Gospel of John, chapter 9, Jesus and his disciples pass a blind man begging outside the temple, and the disciples, assuming that all blessing and curse are the result of voluntary factors, look at the blind man and ask Jesus: “Who sinned that this man should be born blind, he or his parents?” Do you hear the theology? All curse is the consequence of voluntary factors and, as such, is the judgment of God. That’s the meanest theology I know. And Jesus rejected it. “Neither he nor his parents, but that the works of God might be manifest in him.”

Some of the finest people I’ve ever known – people of faith and piety, people of integrity and industry, people of value and virtue – have never known a day without pain. Nothing missing in their lives as far as anybody can tell, no consequence of conduct unbecoming as far as anybody knows, and yet they suffer every day of their lives. Sometimes the wicked prosper and the righteous suffer.

And yet, every week on television I hear it: “If you just had enough faith or prayer or devotion, all these problems would disappear." Call it “Prosperity Gospel;” call it “Health and Wealth Gospel;” call it “Name it, Claim it” theology; call it what you will, I call it the “meanest theology of all.”

Why do the righteous suffer? Why doesn’t the Deuteronomic theology always work, both with voluntary factors and involuntary factors? I don’t know, and I don’t know who knows. C. S. Lewis’ Problem of Pain is about the most compelling rational explanation I’ve ever heard, but reason doesn’t seem to help much when you’re going through it. Maybe Mother Teresa was closer to the truth when she was asked once what would be the first thing she would say to Jesus when she met him, and she answered: “You’ve got a lot of explaining to do.” I guess when you live your entire adult life taking care of the sick and diseased and dying in the slums of Calcutta, you can say that.

In any case, that’s what I’m going to talk about with the adult Sunday School classes on Sunday, August 30th. I just wish the writer of the Sunday School lesson had.