On Deuteronomic Bullshit

 

On Deuteronomic Bullshit

February 6, 2023

 

I suppose I’ve thought it, but I don’t think I’ve ever said it to anyone else before. In a clergy lectionary group I participate in we were looking this morning at the Revised Common Lectionary readings for February 12, 2023. The first of those readings is from Deuteronomy. Deuteronomy is styled as Moses talking to the Hebrew people as they are about to cross the Jordan River and enter Canaan after their time in the desert fleeing Egypt. The lectionary reading we looked at includes these lines:

 

If you obey the commandments of the Lord your God that I am commanding you today, by loving the Lord your God, walking in his ways, and observing his commandments, decrees, and ordinances, then you shall live and become numerous, and the Lord your God will bless you in the land that you are entering to possess.

But if your heart turns away, and you do not hear but are led astray to bow down to other gods and serve them, I declare to you that you shall perish; you shall not live long in the land that you are crossing the Jordan to enter and possess. Deuteronomy 30:16-18.

 

This is the distinctive theology of Deuteronomy. Obey every last one of Yahweh’s commandments, but most especially don’t worship anyone else, and you will love long and prosper. If you don’t obey all of Yahweh’s commandments, and most especially if you ever worship anyone else, it’s going to go very badly for you. Elsewhere Deuteronomy has long lists of earthly blessings the people will receive if they do what Moses tells them to do and long lists of the earthly curses that will befall them if they don’t.

This morning another of the members of my lectionary group was trying to make something good out these verses and another verse included in the reading, verse 19. It reads in part, “choose life.” OK. Yes, we should choose life over death, but Deuteronomy means by choose life obey all of Yahweh’s commandments. It says that if we do our lives will be beds of roses but will be hell on earth if we don’t. I said to the group, “That’s the foundational theology of Deuteronomy, and its bullshit.” I suppose that as an ordained Christian clergyperson I should be ashamed that I called part of the Bible bullshit, but let’s face it. The Bible is full of bullshit. It’s also full of divine wisdom, but that wisdom is all intermingled with a lot of bullshit. Deuteronomy is Exhibit A in the case against the Bible that it’s full of bullshit.

Deuteronomy’s theology that says do what God want you to do and you will live out the Vulcan blessing “live long and prosper,” but don’t do what God wants you to do and you’re gonna get it big time is bullshit because life just doesn’t work that way. No clear headed assessment of life can possibly conclude that it does. Do the saints of the world always live long and prosper? Hell no they don’t. Often they get assassinated, sometimes at a very young age. Because their lives are not all about making money, they often live materially modestly at best and often in true poverty. The world often scorns them as do-gooder weaklings. Do rank sinners fail materially in life? Do they always die young? I’ll say just two words in answer to that question: Donald Trump.

Deuteronomic theology has had dire consequences in the Christian tradition. It may well have cost more people their faith than any other theology. It has led people to believe that if they live right, have strong faith, and pray hard enough, life will go well for them and their loved ones. Bad things won’t happen to them. It has led far too many pastors (and one is too many) to tell people to pray for an ill loved one and the loved one won’t die. When the loved one does die, as we all will one day, far too many pastors have said to the survivor, “Well, your faith wasn’t strong enough. You didn’t pray hard enough.”

If that’s not bullshit, I don’t know what is. There at least two tragic failings in it. First, like I just said, life doesn’t work that way. Bad things happen to everyone. They’re part of life. We’re all mortal. No amount of believing and praying is going to keep anyone alive forever. Telling people they can live long and prosper if they believe fervently enough and pray hard enough is lying to them. It is so obvious that it isn’t true. Yes, the person to whom a pastor tells this lie may live long and prosper. But if they do it's not because of their faith and their fervent prayers. It’s a delusion if they think that it is.

Second, this demonic theology makes bad things that happen to a person or to a person’s loved ones the person’s own fault. It says to a grieving widow, your husband died because you aren’t a good enough Christian. Your faith wasn’t strong enough. You didn’t pray hard enough. Far too many pastors (and one is too many) have laid that guilt trip on grieving people so they can hold onto their horribly defective theology. If their doing that isn’t bullshit, once again I don’t know what is.

There is a book in the Bible that calls bullshit on Deuteronomy. It’s the book of Job. In that book God allows Satan, more a tempter or accuser here than actually the devil, to inflict horrific loss on Job, a man who truly had done well in life. The story says, and for the story to make its point we have to accept, that Job was perfectly righteous. He was the perfect Jew. He obeyed all of the Torah law. He couldn’t understand why he had lost all of his property and his children and become horribly ill himself. He’d been fed Deuteronomy all his life, or so we must assume. He thought suffering was a consequence of wrongdoing. He knew he had done no wrong, so his suffering made no sense to him. He thought God had made a mistake about him. He thought that if he could talk to God fact to face he could convince God of God’s error. Job has “friends” who tell him he must have sinned. His suffering was proof that he had. Confess, they tell him, and it will go better for you. Job says no, I have not sinned. I have nothing to confess. Both Job and his friends have bought Deuteronomy hook, line, and sinker. They all believe that if you suffer it’s your own damned fault unless God has made some mistake about you.

Near the end of the book God appears. God talks to Job out of a whirlwind. God says to Job, in effect, who the hell are you to question me? I’m God, you’re not. Deal with it. God does not deny responsibility for Job’s suffering, but God calls bullshit on Deuteronomy. God says to Job, in effect, you Deuteronomists are just wrong. Shit happens. It’s not always your fault. God doesn’t affirm either Job or his friends. He tells them, in effect, that they have understood the dynamics of suffering all wrong. Deuteronomy, God says in effect, gets the dynamics of suffering all wrong. Deal with it! Deuteronomy is bullshit!

When I took my first call as a parish pastor, my wife of nearly thirty years was dying of breast cancer. Not long before she died I preached a sermon on the subject of this blog post. I didn’t swear from the pulpit. Church people tend not to like that. Instead, I called the claim that you can avoid suffering and death by having a strong enough faith and praying hard enough a “demonic lie.” I said it’s a lie because it isn’t true, and it’s obvious to anyone who will just open their eyes that it isn’t true. It’s demonic because of all the harm it causes to innocent people. I was right then. I’m right now.

So let’s be done with Deuteronomy’s bullshit. Let’s understand that shit happens even to the most innocent of all people. After all, Jesus suffered horribly and died nailed to a cross. Let’s understand that the purpose of faith and prayer is to strengthen our connection with a God who goes through everything we go through with us as our rock and comforter. It’s not to get God to do something God wouldn’t otherwise do. I don’t know why Deuteronomy says what it says. Maybe it was to give priests power over the people as the ones to tell people whether they were doing enough to get on God’s good side or not. Whatever the reasons behind it were, the basic theology of Deuteronomy is bullshit, and that’s all there is to it.