I learnt one thing overnight. Use a quote from Game of Thrones, and watch the traffic increase. Or blog on the economy. Or something.

But at its core, this blog is about struggling with the lectionary and here is yet another bit of scripture that is challenging for us. I am never sure what “a demon” meant. I am fairly sure that a violent man, living in a cave, and fighting everyone off would be called psychotic in our age. And would get risperidone, olanzapine, and if the generic versions of that did not work something more expensive. Like Clozapine.

But the challenge Christ faced was not casting out demons. That was fairly common — in Acts the sons of Sceava are doing the same thing. It is that he was accused of being the prince of darkness, and getting his minions to obey him.

Luke 11:14-23

14. Now he was casting out a demon that was mute; when the demon had gone out, the one who had been mute spoke, and the crowds were amazed. 15. But some of them said, “He casts out demons by Beelzebul, the ruler of the demons.” 16. Others, to test him, kept demanding from him a sign from heaven. 17. But he knew what they were thinking and said to them, “Every kingdom divided against itself becomes a desert, and house falls on house. 18. If Satan also is divided against himself, how will his kingdom stand? — for you say that I cast out the demons by Beelzebul. 19. Now if I cast out the demons by Beelzebul, by whom do your exorcists cast them out? Therefore they will be your judges. 20. But if it is by the finger of God that I cast out the demons, then the kingdom of God has come to you. 21. When a strong man, fully armed, guards his castle, his property is safe. 22. But when one stronger than he attacks him and overpowers him, he takes away his armor in which he trusted and divides his plunder. 23.Whoever is not with me is against me, and whoever does not gather with me scatters.”

Now, we are far to sophisticated to say that Jesus is the prince of demons. (Or maybe not. Twilight is silly, and Harry Potter at least is written moderately well — and both were devoured by the reading public. The SF shelf is full of vampire porn, and I have to order by libertarian and military fiction fix from Baen).

But instead, Jesus is seen as an abuser.

I was being abused and I asked Jesus to help me. I was a little girl–the age of my own twin daughters–and I was away at Bible Camp. I asked Jesus to help me. I prayed over and over. I asked Him to make it stop. But Jesus didn’t make it stop.

This has been–and continues to be–a huge struggle for me. I do not trust God. And why should I? The God I knew was wrathful and harsh. The God I knew didn’t protect me from my abusers. The God I knew was stone silent in the face of my desperate supplications. Over time, I transferred my abusers’ traits to my concept of God. I lived in constant fear of punishment and yet, I also believed that punishment was love. They love me and this is why they hit me.

I began to believe that I was unlovable and inherently bad. I certainly didn’t deserve love and I always had to earn it. Love was given or withheld based on my level of obedience. My father told me God’s love was conditional. If I disobey I will be disowned by God and my parents.

As a female being raised in a highly-patriarchal culture, I never developed my own understanding of God because God’s will would be made known to me through my father and husband. My father was God for me and later, my husband was God for me. This is probably one of the most dangerous lies of patriarchy: a human being (aka, father, husband, pastor) is God for you. It is the most dangerous lie because if someone controls your concept of God, they control everything.

The result for me was that I cast away my childhood and tried to become a little adult, always trying harder to be good and perfect and without spot or blemish. I lived a scrupulously rigid life but I never measured up. They hit me because they love me.

Now, that is also a lie. It is conflating the personal experience — and let us, for this argument, accept that the author was truly abused, that there is no false accusations — with theology. Which should never be the case. Violent abuse is a perversion of aggression and anger — which are neutral to good. An analogy would be that being sexually provocative is a perversion of desire and also a besmirching of beauty — which are also neutral to good. Men’s anger and aggression should be turned out, to guard and protect. It is why men should be in the fire brigade and night watch between 20 and 50 — and after that they should be training others.

But this woman now has a filter which goes God == male == Violent to me == requiring perfection.

That filter is not true. Most men (there are a minority who do not act this way) care for their wives and children and do the best for them. As Christ said, we feed bread, not stones, though we know we are evil. Most women (again, there are some who disavow this) fiercely protect their children and nurture their children.

All of us have to make sure that discipline does not turn into abuse. We are commanded to love our children, and not to drive them away.

Because the feminist gospel. as a subset of the socialist heresy, is seductive. Align yourself with a group who protects, who cares, and your hatred, your lusts, your idiotic behaviour you can attribute elsewhere and you can pretend you are clean.

When the only clean one is God. All men are fallen. And to conflate God with any man or woman is heretical.