I received an email from my friend, Todd Truffin, this morning.  He has been published in a series of Lenten meditations by the Episcopalian diocese in Ohio.  His first meditation contrasts the story of Christ and the "woman caught in sin" (John 8:1-20) with the book of Susanna (an apocryphal book that this protestant-backgrounded heretic has never read).

Todd considerately explained the book of Susanna so those of us who were unfamiliar with the book would know the story.  In a nutshell, Susanna is a beautiful, devout, Jewish woman who finds herself entrapped by two evil men in her garden. They give her what seems to be an impossible choice--she must either have sex with them or they will tell everyone that they caught her with a lover. 

Susanna tells them to take a hike.  She won't give in.  And so they accuse her.  Enter Daniel, who knows that something's not quite kosher.  He questions the men, discovers huge discrepancies in their stories, and she is freed while the evil men are stoned.

Todd drew on the parallel New Testament story of the men who were poised to stone a woman "caught in sin" when Jesus stopped them with his admonishment, "Let he who is without sin cast the first stone."

But I was struck by a different parallel--the story of Shakepeare's Measure for Measure.  In another nutshell, a virtuous woman (Isabella) is pressured by a government official to give up her virginity in order to save her brother from execution.  She refuses and, as is typical in Shakespeare, all ends well.

In college, I was one of two people who argued strenuously that Isabella should have given in and saved her brother.  She had no way of knowing that someone else would save him and I viewed it as a sacrifice worth making.

Needless to say, my friend Clay and I horrified the idealistic young Christians in our class who held that she would be sacrificing not only her virginity but her immortal soul to save her brother.  We saw it differently, believing that God would forgive her and her brother would be saved from death by her sacrifice.

I'm still torn as to what I would do.  I suppose scripture urges me to hold fast to the spiritual ideal of purity and let the chips fall where they may for my "brother."  But the example of Christ tells me that to sacrifice my self for my brother is a good thing. 

Though it's an abstract question, I think it's worth pondering.  What would you do?  Hold fast and leave the saving up to someone else?  Or sacrifice those ideals to redeem your brother's life?

 


Comments

Sally

Mon, 11 Feb 2008 11:31:25

I would've laid back and enjoyed it!!!But then you know me,so what can I say.

 

Erik

Mon, 11 Feb 2008 11:44:22

1) I think the whole virginity thing is WAY over-rated. "Give up your virginity" smacks of treating women as possessions, of men deciding what makes woman valuable or not, etc. Bunch of hooey.

2) You need to have sex with me to save a family member? No problem - I'm sure I've had worse dates than you, and besides, I'm an optimist anyway. If nothing else I'll watch CSI prior to our evening together and figure out a way to subtly slip you a mickey, just to make sure my family member gets out. :)

3) Of course using this kind of demand for sex isn't about sex at all, it's about power. So maybe 2 can play at that game, eh?

Erik

 

Kenneth R. Morefield

Mon, 11 Feb 2008 12:34:29

Of course none of us know until we find ourselves in such situations, but...

Short answer, I would generally refuse to participate in most instances of the impossible bargain/blackmail genre, but it really depends on a lot of factors including a cost/benefit analysis of the potential good versus what I'm giving up.

(In addtion to the two examples of the genre you mention, I'm also thinking specifically of Styron's "Sophie's Choice" [and subsequent film] in which Sophie is told she can pick only one of her children to be spared from being gassed [if she refuses to choose they will both be killed], Father Merrin in "Exorcist: The Beginning" who is told the entire congregation will be killed unless he picks 10 to be sacrificed, and the jesuit priest in Endo's "The Silence" who is told that the peasants in the next room will be tortured to death [their heads are cut and they are hung upside down in a pit of filth while straight-jacketed] until he performs the fumie [a recantation of faith done by trampling on a crucifix]).

The major conclusion that I have have come to in pondering these sorts of conundrums is that I think they are built on a false premise (or at least one I reject)--that what happens to the innocent victim is somehow on me (my fault, my responsibility) because the person (or persons) who are responsible claim they would act differently if I did something.

For this to be a real dilemma, I would have to have some theoretical construct in which I could guarantee the person would honor his or her part of the "bargain," which of course can never be, since the dilemma is based on him having the power to do whatever it is he claims he will if I refuse the conditions.

When I was in Fundamentalist Hell, I ticked off a number of people by suggesting I objected to calling the young woman in Columbine a "martyr" because I couldn't see how she died because of or for her faith. (In my mind, she was the victim of a horrible, evil crime, but that doesn't make someone a martyr for the faith.) Allegedly, according to some reports that we heard at the time, the two gunmen asked her (and/or some others) "Do you believe in God?" before killing her. My point was that it wasn't like they were letting the people go who recanted.

In a situation like this (or a hypothetical parallel in which the gunmen pointed the gun at someone else and asked the same question), I certainly hold blameless anyone who says or does anything in the hope/expecation that the person in power might relent, but I also think it a perfectly valid reaction to say "Yes, I believe in God" or "No, I won't sleep with you" and that doing so doesn't mean you are placing your faith or virginity over another's life. You may simply be saying, "Regardless of what you say, you will take my life, or his, or my viriginity, or whatever you want irrespective of how I respond. If you are at a point where you are willing to do this at all, no reasonable person can feel confident that you would be bound by my response to not do it anyway. Therefore, what you are about to do, do; the sin is on your head regardless of how I respond."

Realistically, the one example I probably would respond to would be Sophie's choice, because I would suspect/know that I would be able to live with myself and parse my decision to myself as that I saved one child not that I had condemned the other. I really see that option as no different than running into a burning building or some other circumstance where I'm being offered something and not really giving anything up. (Now if, say, the Nazi said I had to pull the trigger to kill the other child in order to save the first, at that point it becomes no longer a matter of my being willing to accept a lesser evil over a greater one but participating in an evil in one evil to try to avoid another.) I doubt I would ever find myself in Endo's situation, because I imagine they could get me to recant with the threat of torture itself. (Unless God gave me a special message or filling of the Holy Spirit to hold out, in which case, depending on how seriously one takes historical accounts of martyrs, He might also provide the courage and/or ability to withstand the pain.)

Now if you, Todd, Clay, and Kierkegaard could just put your heads together and explain to me why Abraham's response when called to sacrifice Isaac is the morally correct one...

 

Erik

Mon, 11 Feb 2008 15:08:11

Wow. Ken's response is, well, a response. :) He certainly took this to a broader canvas...

I like very much the point Ken makes about starting from the assummption that the party "forcing" you to do this or that will in fact honor their part of the bargain. I don't know that we can assume they will or they won't, but two things leap out at me:

1) The Sophie's Choice example is clearly in a different league from the give-up-my-virginity situation. And I agree with Ken - this is evil, pure and simple, and it's really simple torture, not a choice. I think it is bullshit to assume that God will punish you for anything you do in this situation. (Why are we so interested in figuring out all the things God will punish us for? Isn't that an interesting cultural focus?)

2) We LIKE this moral dilemmas, methinks - like how it challenges us to think and to essentially practice what we might do in such situations. Not that we can know for sure - but I think such rehearsal and such thinking can be great critical thinking tools.

And, btw, I STILL think the whole virginity thing is taken much too seriously. I went looking for a way to get rid of mine at the first opportunity - but then my training (for some set of reasons) had left me without any framework whatsoever to concern myself with my virginity. The first time I heard this notion in church I had the vague sense of surprise and subtle embarrassment when someone pants you and everyone discovers you go Commando... :)

 

Hal

Mon, 11 Feb 2008 16:53:13

Not to save my brother's life. If you knew my brother you'd understand.

 

Kenneth R. Morefield

Mon, 11 Feb 2008 18:50:00

Eric, for me the problem is not so much that Laura's classmates (or those like them) have a wrongly high valuation of virginity or that others have a wrongly low valuation...it's that most that I have met like Laura's classmates treat that valuation (and are taught to treat that valuation) as some sort of divinely acknowledged fact when in many cases it is, I think, what their (sub)culture has told them ranks higher on the hierarchy of virtues rather than a particular virtue they have come to love themselves or want to practice in order to please God based on what they have personally experienced of and/or concluded about Him.

Perhaps some are too often taught that the safest way of not ending up on the wrong side of such impossible dilemmas is affirming the orthodox hierarchy of virtues rather than cultivating a relationship with God where He will lead them through those hard decisions with the help of the minds and revelation He has given them.

It seems to me that at least one of Jesus's teachings (I'm thinking specifically of the parable of the talents at the moment) might be used to warn us that if we place our hope in pleasing God on a scrupulous application of one part of His directions so as to avoid at all costs errors or violations we think are particularly egregious to God, we may end up somewhat surprised by His response when we line up for our gold star. (And really, that's what it's all about, isn't it--getting that gold star? Umm...isn't it?)

 

Erik

Mon, 11 Feb 2008 20:13:01

You said this beautifully Ken. Right on. What do I think? What do I hold dear? Sadly that takes some training (I would argue) in critical thinking and self-examination, not something human civilization has found important to transmit to the vast majority of us. I look forward some day this year to sitting down at the same spatial coordinates and having conversations like this with you and Cindy. :)

 

Laura

Tue, 12 Feb 2008 07:23:50

I laughed uproariously when I read Sally and Hal's comments. Thanks for a bit of levity this morning!

 

Laura

Tue, 12 Feb 2008 07:44:53

Ken,

Your first response strikes a chord with me. As I was writing the blog yesterday, one thing kept gnawing at me about my original conclusion during the Shakespeare class: Isn't it awfully co-dependent to assume one has responsibility for the "saving" of another individual?

In the case of "Measure for Measure," Claudio is in prison due to his own law-breaking. He is sentenced to death due to the unjust laws of the land. Neither of these circumstances is Isabella's "fault."

The broader context you outline, including the conundrum of "Sophie's Choice," leads me to rethink my conclusion of 10 years ago on an objective level. That is to say, mentally I believe the "better" choice would be to refuse to do the action based on the two things you mention; 1) the premise that I am not responsible for the consequences of their actions and 2) the supposition that the person proposing the deal cannot be trusted.

I suspect that, in the actual situation, I'd still act from a lifetime of taking responsibility and try to save the person as best I could. I like Erik's solution! Don't accept the either/or...make your own path.

In Sophie's situation, it's a bit different though because we're talking about "innocents." Only the most detached, abstract thinker would see herself as not responsible in that situation. The "responsible" individuals to such a one would be a) the Nazi guard--for his evil act and b) God--for allowing it to happen.

Which, I suppose comes closest to the situation with Abraham and Isaac. The thinking had to go like this: If God tells me to kill my son and I know God's character, I also know he will not instruct me to do evil. Therefore he will either stop the knife, resurrect my son, or make the killing better than the not-killing would have been.

In light of scripture, Jesus asks much the same thing of his followers, doesn't he? Nothing is to be more important than him. Not family, not wife, not livelihood. Give it all up and follow.

Another thing I've not been very good at, I'm afraid.

 

Laura

Tue, 12 Feb 2008 07:48:32

Erik,

I quite agree with you that this sort of "mental rehearsal" is something that benefits the critical thinking capabilities. I am particularly interested here in how I've come full circle.

Today, I might argue that Isabella should refuse the advances of the Duke's emissary--not because her virginity is so damned precious but because Claudio's dilemma is not her responsibility.

I still would annoy the idealistic young Christians, I suspect. Ah, well.

 

Laura

Tue, 12 Feb 2008 07:52:57

Ken,

I forgot to mention, I also loved your analysis of the talents parable. That's a parable I've always just sort of tossed aside, but your reading opens it up to me.

Thanks!

 

Kenneth R. Morefield

Tue, 12 Feb 2008 09:24:50

*Spoilers*

Laura,
Well, if I remember my Styron correctly, Sophie eventually commits suicide because whatever logic tells her, she feels responsible for the choice she made. I think we are all on the same page, though, in thinking that Sophie's guilt has its origin not in the fact that she made the wrong choice but that she found herself in a situation in which there was no right choice.

I agree with you, though, that understanding that intellectually and accepting it emotionally are two very different things. The latter can be much harder...which is one reason why, I think, some people invest so much energy into insisting there is (or arguing for) the "right" choice. It may be easier at times to believe that we are suffering the consequences of the wrong choice (and therefore could have protected ourselves from suffering by making the right choice) than it is to contemplate the possibility that sometimes we suffer (and God allows us to suffer) despite no wrong doing on our part.

Ken

 

Laura

Wed, 13 Feb 2008 08:00:26

Hey Ken,

There are resonances with your last paragraph and what we've witnessed (and confronted personally) with our friend in prison.

It's the hardest spiritual lesson I've faced to date...but like all spiritual lessons, it's multidimensional and has tentacles to humility, grace, the nature of faith itself, friendship, justice, love.

Thanks for this discussion. It has far-reaching effects for me.

 



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