Giving Satan His Due
Sep. 28th, 2011 08:24 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
elfsOn the other hand, Kuhner may be on to something, but only within his own vision of the world.
Elaine Pagels wrote a great book I read many years ago entitled The Origin of Satan: How Christians Demonized Jews, Pagans, and Heretics. In her book, Pagel writes that humans have an unending supply of suspicion that something is wrong and, if so, it is not our fault. If you eliminate all of the external enemies, and still things suck, then the search inevitably gets turned toward inner enemies. That's why Pagel's list must be read in order: the first threat is one outside the borders of the nations under the early Church's control; the second threat is perceived of those who lived side-by-side with the medieval Church, and finally; the last threat comes from members of the Church itself who dissent even in small ways.
A charitable reading of Kuhner's worry is that, deprived of external threats, human beings in relationships will turn on each other. If the marriage isn't perfect, and there are no external threats, then it must be the other person who's at fault.
Basically, Kuhner's essay is a fundamental one: an unnamed other people aren't quite so emotionally savvy and secure as either church leadership or the leadership of the sexual anarchy[1]. Kuhner could even point to the wrecked homes on both sides as evidence that his thesis holds true even of intelligensia, regardless of their ideology. But for him, the strictures with which he has lived his whole life, which have served him well, should not be allowed to fall away. If we have to keep mortal terror to keep such order, so be it.
[1] If you think "anarchist leader" is oxymoronic, please read one book on anarchy, and another on leadership.
Elaine Pagels wrote a great book I read many years ago entitled The Origin of Satan: How Christians Demonized Jews, Pagans, and Heretics. In her book, Pagel writes that humans have an unending supply of suspicion that something is wrong and, if so, it is not our fault. If you eliminate all of the external enemies, and still things suck, then the search inevitably gets turned toward inner enemies. That's why Pagel's list must be read in order: the first threat is one outside the borders of the nations under the early Church's control; the second threat is perceived of those who lived side-by-side with the medieval Church, and finally; the last threat comes from members of the Church itself who dissent even in small ways.
A charitable reading of Kuhner's worry is that, deprived of external threats, human beings in relationships will turn on each other. If the marriage isn't perfect, and there are no external threats, then it must be the other person who's at fault.
Basically, Kuhner's essay is a fundamental one: an unnamed other people aren't quite so emotionally savvy and secure as either church leadership or the leadership of the sexual anarchy[1]. Kuhner could even point to the wrecked homes on both sides as evidence that his thesis holds true even of intelligensia, regardless of their ideology. But for him, the strictures with which he has lived his whole life, which have served him well, should not be allowed to fall away. If we have to keep mortal terror to keep such order, so be it.
[1] If you think "anarchist leader" is oxymoronic, please read one book on anarchy, and another on leadership.
