Hedged About?: Christian Parenting Meets the Book of Job

Convinced as I am that the evangelical social and discursive apparatus exists, not so much to facilitate the worship of God, but to preserve a certain way of life, my opinions on biblical interpretation often meet with sanction from those closest to me, who hail from evangelical roots. Surprisingly, though, my father has learned to accept me and the way I view the Bible, primarily because -- to use rhetorical terms for it -- I have established a strong ethos with him: I am sincere about my religious faith, and I have, more than he (or anyone else he knows) has, studied the Bible with great, almost compulsive intensity. Just a couple weekends ago, a conversation with him and my step-mother came to the issue of the so-called Virgin Birth prophecy of Isaiah, and I argued -- as cogently as I could -- that Matthew was at best a bungler with the texts of the Hebrew prophets, or he was cynically disingenuous at worst. Believing the best about poor Matthew, I lean toward the former opinion, though outright textual charlatanry is by no means absent from religious history, Christianity not excepted. My step-mother could not argue with my opinion, and she sidestepped the issue by counseling that I "step away" from the Bible to pray for faith. This form of "argument" has many permutations in Christian discourse, and it is actually the central form of persuasion in that quirky offshoot of American Protestantism, Mormonism. At bottom, Joseph Smith seemed to know that what he was writing/inventing was incredible, and so he advises at the end of the Book of Mormon: "And when ye shall receive these things, I would exhort you that ye would ask God, the Eternal Father, in the name of Christ, if these things are not true; and if ye shall ask with a sincere heart, with real intent, having faith in Christ, he will manifest the truth of it unto you, by the power of the Holy Ghost" (Moroni 10.4). The use of pathetic appeals -- that is, creating a strong, persuasive feeling -- and not of logical appeals, is the modus operandi of much institutional faith.

That said, while driving from Dublin to Eastland a couple weekends ago, I once again the radio to KCBI, one of the airwave colonies of the Criswellite (perhaps "Criswellian" is a better term?) empire. Staunchly Baptist in its commitment, it dedicates its efforts to shoring up the faithful against the onslaughts of the liberal media, popular culture, and other evils that threaten to draw away the most precious social capital of the evangelical Right -- namely, its children.

The radio call-in show featured a distraught middle-aged woman who was anxious over the "rebellion" of her high school-aged son. Apparently, her confessed "hovering" over him was having an effect opposite of the one intended, and the son was hanging out with friends his mother would rather not have around him -- and his church attendance was faltering. When confronted by expressed concerns from his parents, the child made protests of "wanting to be good" (i.e., to please his parents), a sign that his parents' religious socialization project had worked to some degree, and that his forays into prodigality were creating in him a kind of cognitive dissonance. Still, the woman felt she was losing the battle for his soul, and the counselor gave a most interesting (read, appalling) exegesis while speaking ex radio.

The on-air counselor (his credentials are unknown to me, but he seems on par with most so-called Christian counselors) advised that the mother pray for a "hedge of protection" around her son. He then went on to cite Job 1.10 as the "scriptural basis" for this prayer. While this son continues to rebel, said the counselor, pray that God would place his protection around your son so he does not damage himself irreparably.

I needed to hear nothing further. After a few swear words, I took the moment to think about what I had just witnessed in this pallid Scripture-citing masquerading as Christian counseling. Taking as I do a primarily literary approach to the Bible and only secondarily a religious one (if it were the other way around, I wouldn't be thinking this stuff, much less writing it), this citation was unacceptable. My former professor, Dr. Cleatus Rattan, is fond of saying (and saying rightly) that teachers of literature exist in part to show which interpretations of literary works are possible, and which impossible. What this man was doing was impossible.

In the words of Hamlet, "I will tell you why." The first chapters of the Book of Job comprise what we might call a frame story for the three lengthy rhetorical cycles that form the majority of the work. Halfway convinced that Job may in fact be an example of ancient Hebrew drama -- the "stage action" of the servants running in one after the other to tell Job of the serial calamities that have befallen him strikes me as almost Sophoclean, in that what horrendous things occur are merely described to us by minor characters entering on cue -- I'm prone to see this work as one of the greatest literary examples in the anthology we call the Bible, and I take rather seriously what every character says. Most of all, I take very seriously what the Accusing Angel has to say.

The Accusing Angel is grossly misunderstood by modern evangelical "readers" of the Bible. Because the appellation for this character in the Hebrew is ha' satan -- the Adversary -- evangelicals believe that this character is the Christian Devil. This, too, is impossible. The kind of dualism that we witness in the pages of the Christian New Testament is totally alien to the Hebrew Bible, where Yahweh -- not "Satan" -- takes full responsibility for both calamity and comfort. Also convinced that most theological rationales are first social, I see, following Elaine Pagels, that the "Devil" or "Satan" of the New Testament is more a symbolic stand-in for the enemies of the inchoate Christian faith, especially in the case of the quondam friends of the first, Jewish Christians, "the Jews" (John, ad passim). Things being what they are, "Satan" is a literally accurate, but misleading, translation of this character's name. Because ha 'satan denotes "the adversary," ad because the function of this adversary is to take a cynical and therefore accusatory stance towards Yahweh's humans -- especially those who worship Yahweh -- I opt for the Accusing Angel.

This isn't far fetched. It's very clear that this angel is one of the "sons of El" who are quite welcome members of Yahweh's heavenly retinue. If Yahweh were Zeus, we might make a Hermes of the Accusing Angel, especially because this angel is about the business of running reconnaissance errands for Yahweh. It's the job (the bad pun not entirely unintended) of this Angel to get a feel for the real motives of human beings, to find what makes them "tick," if you will. Because the Accusing Angel clearly has more direct involvement with human beings than Yahweh does -- and certainly this is so in Job's case -- his attitude is nothing if not distrustful of humans. He comes off as a cynic because he is; Yahweh, being a deity of both limited intelligence (that is, information) and of some remove from human affairs, knows only by report that Job is among the more outstanding of his worshipers. When Yahweh and the Accusing Angel hold a conversation about Job, Yahweh regurgitates what second-hand information has come before him in the comfort of his court: "Did you pay any attention to my servant Job? There is no one like him on the earth: a sound and honest man who fears God and shuns evil" (1.8, NJB).

The Accusing Angel, knowing far more about human beings than Yahweh does, responds with incredulity: "Yes, but does Job fear God for nothing? Haven't you placed a hedge about him, his house, and his whole domain? You've blessed all he undertakes, and his flocks throng the countryside. But stretch out your hand and lay a finger on his possessions: then, I warrant you, he will curse you to your face" (1.9-11, NJB). Yahweh is intrigued, perhaps amused, by the Accusing Angel's cynicism. (And he is, perhaps, even a bit shaken that even the best of his "servants" could be, at bottom, so self-serving.) He accepts the Accusing Angel's challenge as a friendly wager, and so Job's legendary suffering begins.

The "hedge of protection" of Job 1 is certainly not something one is to pray for, certainly not if Yahweh (that's "God" to the evangelical know-nothings out there) may be so easily persuaded to remove it from one on a whim. More than that, how this phrase may be removed from its literary and dramatic context to legitimate the God-sanctioned life of protection (or comfort) is beyond me, unless it truly be that the evangelical enterprise is a self-serving one, as I am inclined to think it is. I said at the beginning that evangelicals exist not to worship God so much as to preserve their way of life. The evidence for that abounds in their biblical interpretations, this spot from a radio show being a case in point.

I find my own cynicism to be much akin to the Accusing Angel's. But, comforted as I am that Yahweh is on such familiar and intimate terms with this now-vilified (because much-misunderstood) member of his retinue, I continue to look at human beings, and most certainly at evangelicals in positions of speaking-subjects, through the eye of "Satan." It is a thankless job, but, then again, the Accusing Angel did win the bet. Job did indeed crumble, and accusations at God flowed from his mouth. I am only waiting for the next evangelical, with familial and social hedge removed, who will maintain a selfless dedication to God at first ("blessed be the name of the Lord") and then falter. Then I will say to such a one, "Welcome to being human."