Good, Evil and the Gender of God
How the Story-telling Villain Crisis Provokes Questions about What Keeps us from Kingdom-Come
Today's video is a continuation of my exploration of the drunken tirades of @TheCriticalDri2 against the corruption of popular story writing. This time we're getting into gender.
I've been comparing and contrasting "the hero's journey" with the unique way the Bible views the matter. The only "hero" of the Bible is the God of Israel. Jesus of course in the Christian movement of that story takes on that roll.
The recent @jordanbpeterson @BretWeinstein @HeatherEHeying video had a nice treatment of the relationship between "the hero's journey" and the unique ability of human beings to transition between niches.
Humanity's unique superpower in the created order is to adapt to new surroundings and to surmount these obstacles. While this is true I think this treatment was a bit too individualistic. Human beings transform niches and heroes transform their communities. The role of the hero isn't just the gold or the girl, but to lead their tribe into a new reality usually transforming their context from the old to the new. Moses leads Israel out of bondage. Joshua leads Israel out of the wilderness. Israel's judges culminated by David lead Israel out of a loose tribal network into kingdom and empire. The difference in the Biblical narrative, however, is that all of these heroes are tools of Israel's saving God.
The Lord, above and behind the scenes leads Israel out of Egypt, kills and resurrects her in the wilderness, installs her in the promised land. Delivers her from the in-house slavery brought by her more powerful neighbors. David becomes God's son and rules over God's people as God's shepherd of his flock. When David or the subsequent kings behave like owners of the flock, the prophets descend upon them with warnings of God's judgment.
When Israel fails to God's mission to demonstrate what her election is FOR God summons the evil Assyrians and the Babylonians to do his bidding. God raises up and he takes down. He chooses.
Jesus of course will be the ultimate niche transformational hero as he, the author of Creation 1.0 in his drama within Israel inaugurates in his own bodily resurrection Creation 2.0.
This great drama undergirds Western and often specifically American story telling. See Northrup Frye's treatment of the structures of these stories in these lectures from the 1980s.
Because of the structure of these U-shaped stories villains or impediments to the narrative progress are of particular interest. Frye notes that often the villains are MORE interesting than the heroes.
The nature and source of evil have been one of the perennial debates in human history. Are we trapped in a good/evil dualism? Caught between gigantic forces? Do we participate in these battles? What stands in the way of the realization of our ambitions?
Remember, for @TheCriticalDri2 satisfying storytelling is a tell for the deeper truth beneath the world. He's not pitching it this way, but at one level I think we all do. This is in parallel to @jordanbpeterson 's take in meaning.
The cancel-resistant @TheCriticalDri2 locates part of this crisis of villainy on THE MESSAGE. Because women can no longer be seen to LOSE to men and because the cause of representation demands they be the hero, story tellers have written themselves into a box.
Part of that unsatisfying box is also that as @PageauJonathan has noticed THE MESSAGE has provoked a crisis of feminine power. "Strong women" are portrayed as wielding MASCULINE power. The culture has lost any clue as to what FEMININE power is!
The Gender of God has been a topic of obsession in Christianity for the last 70 years. The Christian God is Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Two of the three are overtly linguistically gendered. Mother Nature and even the Virgin Mary aren't included.
Some Progressive Christians have tried to address this perceived crisis with language and pronouns but ancient texts as sources of authority and tradition are stubborn opponents.
Even in more conservative circles the battles have spilled over in the representational sphere with the question of women clergy, priests and participation in formal church leadership.
The battle over female replacement of male heroes in popular film is not disconnected with the battle of female replacement of male leaders in religious institutions.
While I didn't complete the task in today's video I am fully aware that some hot water awaits me from friends and foes alike. We're going to have to wade into the question of the Gender of the Christian God.
I have not listened to the interview with Brett and Heather and Jordan but knowing them well enough I can imagine what was said...
I get that you're coming from a specific tradition but to say that the only hero in the Bible is God is truncation in the extreme... And I would argue the wrong way to look at it and the wrong way to look at humanity.
Heroes don't have to change the world Paul.. if the homeless person sleeping on your steps transforms his life that is heroic, if he then goes home and changes his family that is heroic as well and we should not diminish his accomplishment by simply saying that it was God... Likewise God can impose nothing in this world except tyrannical imposition without all of those Old testament heroes you mentioned. Certainly God can bring another flood and destroy us all but without his children he is left without a body...
I would argue that it's better to replace the word God in this section of your essay with the word "reality". When we fight against reality we suffer and die.. when we are in alignment with reality we prosper and flourish... even Brett, Heather and Jordon could get on board maybe... I would argue that it is generally a better way of communicating the interplay of "heaven and earth".
The gender question is a modern abstraction and distraction. God is not gendered. The original Hebrew from Genesis talks about God ripping Adam in half... Not taking a rib from his side. If that's the case then God is a combination of masculine and feminine which one would expect simply due to reason and logic if we're made in His image... God is infinite and unknowable and it does not help to treat the concept of God as if it sits on an examination table and we are looking at it. God has given us Christ as an example if we wish to try to dissect the human equivalent.
It is ironic that in today's world the feminine is so marginalized as to be almost imperceptible. That the only thing that is valued in cinema and storytelling is the attributes of the masculine. The only effective agency that is ever demonstrated is that of the masculine. Anyone with a brain knows that that is a misconception and yet the biggest egg heads with the best pros only write stories these days where women are portrayed as men otherwise they are seen as impotent in affecting the world. These over educated poets need to go to a library and do some reading... Perhaps they can start with Antigone since most of them will be allergic to the Bible.