religion
Sin as Debt: Thoughts after reading David Graeber's Debt: The First 5000 Years
I’ve been reading the anthropologist David Graeber’s book Debt: The First 5000 Years this week. It’s a remarkable and thought-provoking work. He frames up the topic by relating a conversation he once had with an attorney who worked on behalf of anti-poverty groups. When he described his own work toward relieving Third World debt, she was confounded. “But, they’d borrowed the money! Surely one has to pay one’s debts.” Graeber notes that, even in standard economic theory, this statement isn’t always true - a lender is expected to assume some level of risk, “because otherwise what reason would lenders have not to make a stupid loan?” “Surely one has to pay one’s debts,” Graeber observes, isn’t actually an economic statement.
Rather, it’s a moral statement. After all, isn’t paying one’s debts what morality is supposed to be all about? Giving people what is due them. Accepting one’s responsibilities. Fulfilling one’s obligations to others, just as one would expect them to fulfill their obligations to you. What could be a more obvious example of shirking one’s responsibilities than reneging on a promise, or refusing to pay a debt?
Graeber latches on to this connection between morality and debt, continuing:
If history shows anything, it is that there’s no better way to justify relations founded on violence, to make such relations seem moral, than by reframing them in the language of debt — above all, because it immediately makes it seem that it’s the victim who’s doing something wrong. Mafiosi understand this. So do the commanders of conquering armies. For thousands of years, violent men have been able to tell their victims that those victims owe them something. If nothing else, they “owe them their lives” (a telling phrase) because they haven’t been killed.
I’d recommend Graeber’s book even just as an economic treatise. He challenges the basic capitalist assumptions that we Westerns have been raised with and points toward other, better ideas. (First up, he suggests: a Biblical-style Year of Jubilee where debts are forgiven. But I digress.) But when Graeber starts talking about debt obligation as a moral question, my mind immediately went to theology.
He paid a debt He did not owe, I owed a debt I could not pay…
Within the Western church and especially among American Evangelicalism, the language of debt is inescapable. The essential message of salvation is framed up in just those terms: the sinner owing an infinite debt to God for offending God’s perfection; Jesus living perfectly and then dying to pay that debt on our behalf. So when Graeber devotes a chapter to “The Moral Ground of Economic Relations”, my ears perk up.
How do societies actually work?
First, he says, at the most basic level society functions on what he calls “baseline communism”:
the understanding that unless people consider themselves enemies, if the need is considered great enough, or the cost considered reasonable enough, the principle of “from each according to their abilities, to each according to their needs” will be assumed to apply.
This can be seen in the societal expectation for things as mundane as bumming a cigarette or asking for someone to pass the salt, and as great as the expectation that an able-bodied man will risk his life to save a child in peril. Society is based on this expectation of mutual contribution, he says, providing anthropological examples from cultures across the world to justify the claim. Relationships color our commercial exchanges, too - for example, merchants reducing prices for the needy.
This is one of the same reasons why shopkeepers in poor neighborhoods are almost never of the same ethnic group as their customers; it would be almost impossible for a merchant who grew up in the neighborhood to make money, as they would be under constant pressure to give financial breaks… to their impoverished relatives and school chums.
“Exchange… implies formal equality [between parties]… This is precisely why kings have such trouble with it.” It was about this point that my ears really perked up. “When objects of material wealth pass back and forth between superiors and inferiors as gifts or payments, the key principle seems to be that the sorts of things given on each side should be considered fundamentally different in quality, their relative value impossible to quantify — the result being that there is no way to even conceive of a squaring of accounts.” This rings true to how we talk about the debt of sin to God. But if squaring accounts with God is inconceivable, then how is it moral to even suggest that it is the sinner’s responsibility to do so, on pain of eternal damnation? Isn’t this argument, as Graeber described early on, the violent powerful party using the language of morality to convince the victim that they are the ones in the wrong?
What, then, is debt?
Graeber is answering this with economics in mind, but read this argument with soteriology in mind, too.
Debt is a very specific thing, and it arises from very specific situations. It first requires a relationship between two people who do not consider each other fundamentally different sorts of being, who are at least potential equals, who are equals in those ways that are really important, and who are not currently in a state of equality—but for whom there is some way to set matters straight.
If we accept Graeber’s definition here, it would be impossible for a human to be “in debt” to an omnipotent God for his sins, if only because God and the human are in no sense potential equals. He continues:
This means that there is no such thing as a genuinely unpayable debt. If there was no conceivable way to salvage the situation, we wouldn’t be calling it a “debt.”… This is what makes situations of effectively unpayable debt so difficult and so painful. Since creditor and debtor are ultimately equals, if the debtor cannot do what it takes to restore herself to equality, there is obviously something wrong with her; it must be her fault.
But aren’t all human interactions forms of exchange? Graeber says no, because many forms of human interaction are within in the framework of reciprocal relationship that glues our society together. Exchange is different:
…exchange implies equality, but it also implies separation. It’s precisely when the money changes hands, when the debt is canceled, that equality is restored and both parties can walk away and have nothing further to do with each other.
Debt is what happens in between: when the two parties cannot yet walk away from each other, because they are not yet equal. But it is carried out in the shadow of eventual equality. Because achieving that equality, however, destroys the very reason for having a relationship, just about everything interesting happens in between.
So once debts are resolved and the parties can walk away, what basis do we have for societal relationships? Graeber asks. As a preliminary answer, he quotes from 16th century monk François Rabelais’s book Gargantua and Pantagruel, where Pantagruel quotes the Apostle Paul: “owe no man anything, save mutual love and affection”— and the response to this freedom is genuine love and thanksgiving in return.
OK, Chris, where is all this going?
So, back to sin and salvation, humans and God. If Graeber is right here about debt and relationships, it doesn’t make sense for Christians to talk about sin as a debt owed to God. After all, we are not equals with God who just need to get our accounts balanced. The same evangelicals who would press hardest on our unpayable debt to God would also stress the infinite distinction between the omnipotent God and the miserable mortal creature. And if the payment of the debt then gives those equal parties the opportunity to “walk away”, with no further obligation to have a relationship, why would this paid-off state be desirable? In Graeber’s anthropological framework, God lording this debt of sin over pitiful humans is more akin to the vile Mafioso than a loving creator and savior.
At this point I would anticipate Evangelical readers to object that the “anthro” in Graeber’s expertise means “man”, and God isn’t man, and therefore this whole line of my reasoning is bunk. But I think we can do better than that. The Bible talks about God in human terms, using human analogies. So if this book that Christians profess as God-breathed uses human illustrations, we should evaluate them that way rather than just write them off when they don’t support our other theological assumptions.
A Better Metaphor
This post is already far too long, so let me just briefly suggest that a better metaphor for the problem of sin is the one our Orthodox brethren have proclaimed for centuries: sin as a disease that humans are unable to get rid of, and salvation the healing and cure. This metaphor better represents the actual dynamics of the God/human relationship. It establishes humans not as beings who must be failed and immoral because we just can’t manage to repay that debt, but as beloved children, stained and sick, who have a relationship permanently maintained by a loving parent who holds the cure.
…in the Orthodox model, sin is missing the mark; it is a distortion or a disease that needs therapy. Sin has no temporal and eternal debt per se, nor must it be “worked” off. One does not do “penance” in the Orthodox Church, but rather one seeks to be healed of their passions, their imperfections. Thus we use the language that compares the Church to a hospital and views sin in medical terms: sickness and cure. — Orthodox Catechism Project
This is really good news: that God loves us, calls us his children, and seeks to heal us of our compulsion to behave in ways that are not compatible with human flourishing.
Also Bring Cold Water
Responses from right-wingers and evangelical Christians to the so-called “Ground Zero mosque” have been spread broadly throughout the cable news media and online news and opinion sites over the past few weeks. Initial responses were typical God-and-country red meat, proclaiming Ground Zero to be “hallowed ground”, and declaring that allowing Muslims to build a mosque on that site would be, (to borrow a tired phrase,) to let the terrorists win.
This response, despite the patriotic fervor with which it was proclaimed, has now finally widely been debunked (including a great bit by Frank Rich today in the New York Times). First off, the proposed building isn’t a mosque, but a cultural center. And it isn’t planned for the “Ground Zero” World Trade Center site; it’s actually two blocks away. And similar “hallowed ground” within a two-block radius of Ground Zero houses an off-track betting establishment, a strip club, multiple fast-food restaurants, and several souvenir shops (just to name a few), so it’s not like the whole area has been somehow ‘set apart’. And finally, what does it say about our belief in religious freedom if, after due process has been followed, we then want then government to prohibit the building of a religious center based strictly on the particular religion in question?
Those points may not yet have gained full acceptance, especially among Republicans looking for an election-year issue, but in general I’ve seen them make inroads in he past few weeks.
But yesterday on the Christian group blog Evangel, a post by Tom Gilson (a strategist with Campus Crusade for Christ) brings up what I believe will be the next round of argument against the project: saying that if we look at this strictly as a religious liberty issue, we are making the mistake of believing that Islam is simply another religion.
[A friend] views Islam as a religion that deserves the same rights and privileges as any other. That’s questionable, to say the least….
If you think the Ground Zero mosque comes down to a simple matter of symbolism, or of religious freedom, then you don’t understand the issues deeply enough.
Instead, the author proclaims, Islam is a way of belief whose ultimate goal is domination, and that if we don’t watch out, America will simply be Islam’s next conquest.
On this topic I have heard and seen much from both sides. I have read Ayaan Hirsi Ali’s chilling account of growing up in Somalia and her passionate assertion that Islam, as a religion, denigrates women. I have also heard first-hand from a Zimbabwean Christian pastor who warned that the Islam he encountered in Africa was intent on conquest. But by the same token I have worked for many years alongside Muslims who are gentle, family men, who had no aspirations but to provide for their families and to live here peaceably as neighbors and friends. (And, let’s face it, I can no more fairly hold all Muslims responsible for 9/11 than they can fairly hold all Christians responsible for Timothy McVeigh, Aryan separatists, and, oh, the Crusades.)
The more I think on this subject, the more I am convinced that once again right-wing Christians like Mr. Gilson have mixed up their politics with their religion and gotten it wrong. Nowhere does the Bible instruct us to protect our turf, to repel the unbelieving alien, and to presciently foil those who might intend to persecute us. But it does instruct us, often, to love our neighbors. To turn the other cheek when wronged. It reminds us over and over that our battles are spiritual battles, not physical ones. That Jesus already is Lord, and that we need not fear what mortal men can do to us.
We should stop fighting new mosques at every opportunity, and stop making enemies of dear people for whom Christ died. Instead, we should follow Christ’s command and love them.
It’s time to apply Jesus' teaching about giving both coat and cloak. If someone comes and says ‘give us land to build a mosque’, don’t just give the land; also bring cold water (in the name of Jesus) to those who are laboring to build it.
Swearing on the Koran
My mother-in-law asked the other day what I thought about this recent news story. In brief: Newly elected to the House of Representatives, Minnesota Democrat Keith Ellison has declared that when he is sworn in on January 4th, he will take the oath of office with his hand on a Koran instead of a Bible. Ellison is the first Muslim ever elected to Congress.
There have been varying reactions to Ellison’s decision. The loudest has been Dennis Prager on townhall.com, who declares that Ellison “…should not be allowed to do so – not because of any American hostility to the Koran, but because the act undermines American civilization.” A little more:
Forgive me, but America should not give a hoot what Keith Ellison’s favorite book is. Insofar as a member of Congress taking an oath to serve America and uphold its values is concerned, America is interested in only one book, the Bible. If you are incapable of taking an oath on that book, don’t serve in Congress. In your personal life, we will fight for your right to prefer any other book. We will even fight for your right to publish cartoons mocking our Bible. But, Mr. Ellison, America, not you, decides on what book its public servants take their oath.
Yesterday I was forwarded an email from the American Family Association that quoted the Prager column and then asked all the readers to
1. Send an email asking your U.S. Representative and Senators to pass a law making the Bible the book used in the swearing-in ceremony of Representatives and Senators.
2. Forward this email to your friends and family today!
So what is my reaction to all this?
Let’s deal with the easy one first. The AFA’s suggestion is clearly ridiculous. Any law passed by Congress requiring the oath to be taken on a Bible would be summarily rejected by the Supreme Court as an unconstitutional establishment of religion, and rightly so. Let’s just reverse the situation for a moment. Suppose a congressional majority of Muslims arose. Would I think it were then OK for them to mandate that all oaths be taken with a hand on the Koran? Of course not. Hence our protection of religious freedoms in the Constitution.
So then to the next question: what opinion do I have about Mr. Ellison’s intention? Let’s back up and look at the history of oath-taking in the USA. I’m sure I could go back further, but it’s easy to note that George Washington took the presidential oath of office on a Bible. Each President since then has taken the oath in similar fashion. The Bible is today used for oaths in a multitude of other circumstances, local and state offices, courtrooms.
In the initial case, President Washington used the Bible because he viewed it as a sacred book, and placing his hand on the Bible further solemnized the oath. Given the United States' Christian heritage, this understandably became a tradition that continues to this day. My fear, though, is that somewhere through the years the solemnity imbued by the sacred text has faded into a tradition that carries little of its original weight. Let’s be certain of this: I’m all for politicians keeping their word. Too many these days seem to lose their care for ethics and the truth once they reach Washington; if any action can reinforce to them the need to keep their oath, so much the better. But it seems to me that if the Bible is being used simply as a traditional prop by those who don’t reverence it, it is more dishonoring than honoring to the Book. As one who believes the Bible to be the Word of God, that bothers me.
So where does that leave us? I have come to the conclusion that I don’t really care. I want Rep. Ellison and each of his fellow congressmen to honor the oaths that they take. If Rep. Ellison believes that the Koran will further solemnize his oath, I don’t have a problem with it. If a Christian congressman wants to use the Bible to solemnize his oath, he should use it. Personally, I’d prefer that if a person doesn’t respect or revere the Bible, they not use it at all. Let’s not turn the Holy Book into a prop.