Ragbag #3
Blasphemy, memes, a response to my "Talking About Sex" piece, and the next Senate reading group
Blasphemy
blaspheme: βλασ-φημεῖν (Greek), the first half of which Proto-Indo-European scholars think derives from the PIE word mal (morphing to mlas, then blas), which survives today in words like “malicious” and “malevolent.” The second half means “to speak,” so the etymological sense of the whole is something like “to speak evil.” The word latinizes to blasphemare and passes on through Old French into English from there. Interestingly, “blame” is etymologically related.
Demothenes, an Athenian statesman famous for his oratory prowess, uses βλασφημεῖν in the 4th century B.C. to refer to slander against himself, and the New Testament sometimes uses it similarly to refer to “speaking evil of someone” (KJV), but it eventually comes to be used entirely in the context of blaspheming God.
Today, most people probably associate it with theocratic parts of the Middle East or curious old laws still on the books in parts of the United States.
Consider Massachusetts:
“Whoever wilfully blasphemes the holy name of God by denying, cursing or contumeliously reproaching God, his creation, government or final judging of the world, or by cursing or contumeliously reproaching Jesus Christ or the Holy Ghost, or by cursing or contumeliously reproaching or exposing to contempt and ridicule, the holy word of God contained in the holy scriptures shall be punished by imprisonment in jail for not more than one year or by a fine of not more than three hundred dollars, and may also be bound to good behavior.”
— General Laws, Part IV, Title I, Chapter 272, Section 36
Even though it’s still ‘the law,’ it’s no longer enforced; in this way I suppose you could say blasphemy has been “decriminalized” at the state level. In 1838, Abner Kneeland of Massachusetts was the last person to be imprisoned on blasphemy charges; the case centered around Kneeland’s denial of God and life after death, and a quote from Voltaire “so indelicate that four successive judges protected four different juries from the embarrassment of listening to it” (determining what exactly the quote was has proven enormously difficult for me, I suspect in part because modern attunement to blasphemy is so attenuated).
The Establishment Clause of the First Amendment has only been held to bind the individual states since the 1925 Supreme Court decision, Gitlow v. New York. Prior to then, even if states chose not to establish religion, they were at least allowed to do so theoretically. This older interpretation, which only bound the federal government, held for about half a century longer than the modern jurisprudence that enforces Establishment Clause prohibitions against the states.
For quite a very long time, Massachusetts had an official religious establishment (which John Adams thought “most mild and equitable”). Interestingly, in 1692, the province adopted a law requiring towns in Massachusetts Bay Colony to collect taxes to support public worship and elect an “able, learned orthodox minister” at a special town meeting. Then finally, in 1833, Massachusetts amended its Constitution to hold that “all religious sects and denominations, demeaning themselves peaceably, and as good citizens of the commonwealth, shall be equally under the protection of the law; and no subordination of any one sect or denomination to another shall ever be established by law.” Clearly, even this ‘disestablishment’ was not understood at the time to protect Mr. Kneeland from a blasphemy conviction.
Blasphemy is still, nevertheless, an important theological category, even if it is no longer a relevant legal category. I wrote about that some here: “Theology is Dangerous” (Mere Orthodoxy).
Agnus Dei
Whether or not this meme I made is blasphemous all depends on whether God has a sense of humor or not. The classic answer to that question is: “He did make an odd fellow like you, after all.”
G. K. Chesterton (himself an “absolute unit”) ended Orthodoxy with the following line: “There was one thing that was too great for God to show us when He walked upon our earth; and I have sometimes fancied that it was His mirth.” I myself can’t help but fancy that the Lord took a great pleasure in nimbly outwitting the scribes and Pharisees. There is a great Marx Brothers-esque comedy to watch all his antagonists constantly fall on their faces until he finally allows them their victory.
It has often been remarked that those seeking to capture Jesus’ person and personality too often end up describing their own reflection at the bottom of a well. So the liberal Protestants found a liberal Protestant, evangelical scholars an evangelical, and so on.
It’s entirely possible that the mirthful God that Chesterton catches in the corner of his eye is simply more of that. George Bernard Shaw (a rail of a man) is reported to have once patted his friend Chesterton on the belly and asked what the baby’s name was going to be. Whether or not it’s historically true, it is certainly true to character that Chesterton responded “John, if it’s a boy; Mary, if it’s a girl; and Shaw if it’s just gas.” It would be no surprise that such a man would find God humorous. But it also takes a man of great comedy to recognize another.
One day we will know, should these memes not ultimately prevent me from asking God jokes in the hereafter.
Response to “Talking About Sex” Essay
Samuel D. James takes a piece I wrote for Mere Orthodoxy as a launching pad for his own reflections. I focused on the viewing/reading of the sensual, whereas he had some important insights about the actual production of it.
“The reason such a scene exists is not creative genius or concern for historical accuracy. It exists because of one powerful man and his rapacious desires…. It is pornography, specially brewed for Harvey Weinstein.” — Samuel D. James
You can read my original piece here: “Talking About Sex in a Pornographic Culture.” And I wrote a little bit more about it in a recent Substack:
People seem seem to think that it is possible to subvert the pornographic with the pornographic. Outlets, including evangelicalism’s Christianity Today and the Jesuit Catholic magazine America, were positive that Don Jon (2013) had accomplished just this, calling the film Joseph Gordon-Levitt directed “a very moral movie” and insisting that “the literal last thing in the world that this movie does is glorify porn.”
F&L Senate Reading Group (December)
If, through some strange confluence of events, you are both a congressional staffer and a reader of this email, you should join us for Faith & Law’s next Senate Reading Group on December 8th. We’ll be working through C. S. Lewis’ “Meditation on the Third Commandment” alongside Matthew Loftus’ “Kichijiro was Right.” I’m hoping this will be a fun pairing to help people feel more of the attraction of a modest Christian politics. Message me for more details if you’re interested.
If you ever have suggestions for future readings we should do, please let me know in the comments or by carrier pigeon! You can see previous discussions we’ve done on the website (note also that Gary Haugen will be speaking to F&L on December 1st).