Selling Redemption
Things do not change. They do not change as long as there is a market for a good pitchman. I was invited to listen to Dr. David Jeremiah, a current television preacher of some note. I agreed, not wanting to be rude. I was hopeful that I might learn something. Perhaps I’d discover a responsible presentation aimed at elevating the viewer morally and psychologically, emerging from the wasteland of on-the-air religion. In my growing up years in the South, I listened to a good helping of exhortation from the radio evangelists, the faith-healers. Oliver B. Green is one that sticks in memory. I attend an old fashioned tent revival once that featured him—unforgettable.
Dr. David Jeremiah proved to be an apple that did not fall far from the tree. Neatly coiffed, backed by a spiffy choir singing several gospel standards, the
evangelist held forth, shilling the perennial favorite themes of “prophesy” which foretells the end of the world as we know it. It was the proclamation of a Christian ragnarök, a cataclysmic paroxysm of judgment, where everyone and everything gets their just deserts. It was a disturbing few minutes of viewing. I’m glad that I did not have to watch the entire program. I no longer believe that shtick. By the good fortune of a education, surrounded by a supportive family and friends, — I understand clearly that I am not 100% at fault for the person that I am. The configuration of my self-identity, is a combination of chance and choice, and so it is with all humans who have lived. The chance and choice is inextricable, — so how is judgment to be assessed? I get it. Shame and self-loathing is a lesson learned by many, and a difficult lesson to un-learn. I am not at fault for the past, and I certainly cannot change what is past. Could’ve, should’ve, would’ve, etc.
There is still a robust market, from what I could tell by the attendance at the vast arena where Dr. Jeremiah was holding forth—a thirst for the rage of God’s judgment. And no question, a lot of rage is going around these days.
Here are some statements that Nietzsche had to say about this whole business:
WARNING: What follows is a extended quotation. So buckle-up, settle in, and hang on.
And ye also asked yourselves often: “Who is Zarathustra to us? What shall he be called by us?” And like me, did ye give yourselves questions for answers.
Is he a promiser? Or a fulfiller? A conqueror? Or an inheritor? A harvest? Or a ploughshare? A physician? Or a healed one?
Is he a poet? Or a genuine one? An emancipator? Or a subjugator? A good one? Or an evil one?
I walk amongst men as the fragments of the future: that future which I contemplate.
And it is all my poetisation and aspiration to compose and collect into unity what is fragment and riddle and fearful chance.
And how could I endure to be a man, if man were not also the composer, and riddle-reader, and redeemer of chance!
To redeem what is past, and to transform every “It was” into “Thus would I have it!”—that only do I call redemption!
Nietzsche’s character, Zarathustra is regarded as a “holy” man, a seer, not unlike the viewpoint a follower of a TV evangelist would have of his/her “teacher.” Such is the expectation of those who tune in to Dr. Jeremiah Sunday after Sunday, or take a seat in the arena to hear him speak. They hope for “a word” that will redeem, will transform their unsatisfactory life.
Will—so is the emancipator and joy-bringer called: thus have I taught you, my friends! But now learn this likewise: the Will itself is still a prisoner.
Willing emancipateth: but what is that called which still putteth the emancipator in chains?
“It was”: thus is the Will’s teeth-gnashing and lonesomest tribulation called. Impotent towards what hath been done—it is a malicious spectator of all that is past.
Not backward can the Will will; that it cannot break time and time’s desire—that is the Will’s lonesomest tribulation.
Willing emancipateth: what doth Willing itself devise in order to get free from its tribulation and mock at its prison?
Ah, a fool becometh every prisoner! Foolishly delivereth itself also the imprisoned Will.
That time doth not run backward—that is its animosity: “That which was”: so is the stone which it cannot roll called.
The crux of the problem is trying, doubling down on ones devotional practice, to pray more, to read more scripture–does nothing to change the past, to alter choices made, and consequences imagined or real. What is done cannot be undone by acts of will. The will is impotent.
And thus doth it roll stones out of animosity and ill-humour, and taketh revenge on whatever doth not, like it, feel rage and ill-humour.
Thus did the Will, the emancipator, become a torturer; and on all that is capable of suffering it taketh revenge, because it cannot go backward.
This, yea, this alone is revenge itself: the Will’s antipathy to time, and its “It was.”
Verily, a great folly dwelleth in our Will; and it became a curse unto all humanity, that this folly acquired spirit!
The spirit of revenge: my friends, that hath hitherto been man’s best contemplation; and where there was suffering, it was claimed there was always penalty.
Always one thing leads to another. Guilt and shame over one’s past, a past which one can do nothing to change causes resentment, ill-will, a simmering rage that spills over, a seeking of revenge –all in a wrapper of Christian piety! Where can one get pay-back? Where to direct this stored up rage…..
“Penalty,” so calleth itself revenge. With a lying word it feigneth a good conscience.
And because in the willer himself there is suffering, because he cannot will backwards—thus was Willing itself, and all life, claimed- to be penalty!
And then did cloud after cloud roll over the spirit, until at last madness preached: “Everything perisheth, therefore everything deserveth to perish!”
“And this itself is justice, the law of time—that he must devour his children:” thus did madness preach.
“Morally are things ordered according to justice and penalty. Oh, where is there deliverance from the flux of things and from the ‘existence’ of penalty?” Thus did madness preach.
“Can there be deliverance when there is eternal justice? Alas, unrollable is the stone, ‘It was’: eternal must also be all penalties!” Thus did madness preach.
Nietzsche points to the hunger for a settling of accounts, as the genesis for the undying popularity of preachers of “prophesy” in evangelical circles. The “judgment of God” is sought after, and the preacher is the mad purveyor!
“No deed can be annihilated: how could it be undone by the penalty! This, this is what is eternal in the ‘existence’ of penalty, that existence also must be eternally recurring deed and guilt!
Unless the Will should at last deliver itself, and Willing become non-Willing-:” but ye know, my brethren, this fabulous song of madness!
……..Hath the Will become its own deliverer and joy-bringer? Hath it unlearned the spirit of revenge and all teeth-gnashing?
And who hath taught it reconciliation with time, and something higher than all reconciliation?
Something higher than all reconciliation must the Will will which is the Will to Power-: but how doth that take place? Who hath taught it also to will backwards?
Here Nietzsche gets to his point. What must happen for release from this conundrum? The Will must cease its striving to change what is past, to lay aside the effort to balance the accounts, to reconcile what is past, the unchangeable—-to accept the past. This is higher than reconciliation.
—But at this point in his discourse it chanced that Zarathustra suddenly paused, and looked like a person in the greatest alarm. With terror in his eyes did he gaze on his disciples; his glances pierced as with arrows their thoughts and arrear-thoughts. But after a brief space he again laughed, and said soothedly:
“It is difficult to live amongst men, because silence is so difficult—especially for a babbler.”—
The speaker indeed laughs. A disciple will be the very last to “get it.” Better to just shut up, difficult that may be,–silence is preferable.