Exorcising Demons

This post from 2011 speaks to the attack on the U.S. capitol last week.

The people of Jesus’ time assigned behavior or ailments they did not understand to demons inhabiting the individual. Any of us who have witnessed a friend in the throes of severe suffering, chronic pain, addiction, or mental or physical illness can understand how these things may so transform a person as to seem possessed. Naming the demon is the beginning of compassion, care, and possibly, cure.

We would not stop at naming a disease but try to provide treatment. So, to stop at simply naming a disorder or dysfunction and using it as an excuse for bad behavior or an occasion for getting on Dr. Phil, makes us enablers. Cultural anthropologist Rene Girard writes, “Possession is not an individual phenomenon…[it] is always contagious; those who are [so affected] are likely to communicate their desire to you, or in other words, drag you along their same path…” As Dr. Phil would ask, “How’s that workin’ for ya?”

Jesus might as well have been working with an addicted family member, a dysfunctional congregation, the Washington quagmire, or the Israeli-Palestinian stalemate when he confronted the Gerasene demoniac’s “Legion”—a hostile army of demons that caused its victim to live naked among the tombs, exiling himself and stoning himself, the standard punishments (Girard points out) of Middle Eastern societies in Jesus’ time. (See Mark 5:1-20.)

The Greek word for devil in the New Testament is “diabolos,” which means “divider” or “adversary.” I believe that “discerning the spirits” empowers us to name and cast out divisiveness, but not diversity, even of points of view. According to Girard, the demoniac was a convenient scapegoat for the Gerasenes, reflecting their own dysfunctionality. Jesus casts the demons into a herd of pigs which runs off a cliff into a lake to drown, another style of execution. His fellow villagers find the formerly possessed man at the feet of Jesus, “clothed and in his right mind” and they are afraid, asking Jesus to leave their community.

Who exorcises demons in our world today? Whistle-blowers. Prophets. Mediators. Systems analysts. Interim pastors. Therapists. Spiritual directors. 12-Step sponsors. Soul friends. Researchers. Scientists. Journalists. And more.

In our own divisiveness and dysfunctionality, Christians may take comfort as well as challenge in these words from the epistle to the Galatians, “For in Christ Jesus you are all children of God through faith. As many of you as were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus.” 

May we become “clothed in Christ” and in our right minds.

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Copyright © 2011 by Chris R. Glaser. Permission granted for non-profit use with attribution of author and blogsite. Other rights reserved.  

Thanksgiving and Addiction

This past Thanksgiving weekend was largely given up to work around a friend with mental health and addiction issues. As I considered writing about this, I found myself getting angry, given that every day of the weekend—Thursday, Friday, Saturday, and Sunday—was largely given over (by multiple people) to attending to this person, one way or the other.

The crescendo of my anger came as I thought of entitling this post, “You Probably Think This Post Is about You,” alluding to the song lyrics, “you’re so vain, you probably think this song is about you.” And here I was again, in writing this blogpost, devoting time to the individual in question.

But I realize I am not writing this for that person, but for you, the reader who has, has had, or will have the experience. And for those who think a minister or a friend should not have anger about a loved one with mental health and addiction issues: I daresay you have not yet had the experience yourself. Anger is good for boundaries, for setting limits, for speaking truth to the power of demons overtaking another’s life and those who care.

Jesus himself rebuked crippling demons, disbelieving doubters, even his disciples when they got stupid in his presence.

The friend I write about is the same for whom we held out such optimism upon entering a recovery facility in March of 2016 in a post entitled, “Wounding God.” Despite everyone important to this individual participating in the recovery process at this person’s request, our friend eventually bolted when challenged by a counselor in a group setting. It happened the night I was attending a wedding rehearsal and dinner, and I was on the phone with our friend, who was still in the parking lot of the recovery facility. I urged a return to the group to no avail.

Since then have come many a reconciliation followed by reversals and “episodes,” some of which have been threatening, dangerous, or destructive. An otherwise privileged, well-educated, and gifted person “acting out.”

I believe our friend must exercise responsibility to take prescribed meds, attend therapy, and participate in recovery programs, but there is a factor I’ve observed that may weaken our friend’s resolve. When involved in a restrictive religious environment, everything could be held together tightly, including sexuality. But finally realizing that one can be gay and Christian, all the religious trappings that held everything closely bound together were loosened.

Our friend’s obsessive-compulsive disorder no doubt meshed with a church’s obsessive-Christian disorder, but sexuality, like spirituality, needs room to breathe.

Jesus’ friend Lazarus was neatly bound in funeral swaddling cloths. “Unbind him and let him go,” Jesus commanded. Resurrection requires loosening up, letting go.

The very term religion denotes being bound. But the only thing that should bind Christians is expressed in a song I alluded to in last week’s post:

Blest be the tie that binds

Our hearts in Christian love.

To my friends in Southern California, please attend Pat Hoffman’s latest book launch Friday, Nov 30, 5:30 pm, in the Pavilion at the Museum of Ventura County, 100 East Main Street, Ventura, CA 93001. The memoir recounts her ministry of accompaniment with people living with AIDS. My blurb for her book, entitled Summoned and Shaped:

“When the church equivocated in the early years of the AIDS crisis, Pat Hoffman boldly initiated a ministry with persons with AIDS, many of whom were wary of anything religious. This moving and poignant story of how her own life prepared her to gently join them on their journey may help all of us who serve the ‘spiritual but not religious.’”

https://www.amazon.com/Patricia-L.-Hoffman/e/B001KCJPZS

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Copyright © 2018 by Chris R. Glaser. Permission granted for non-profit use with attribution of author and blogsite. Other rights reserved. 

Gerasene Demoniac Announces Presidential Bid

With gratitude to Matthew, Mark, and Luke.

Unrestrained by the moderates of either ruling party of Gerasa, Mr. Legion has announced (howled, really) that he will run for president of the country, declaring that its dysfunctional government must be replaced by his Lunatic Fringe if it is to accomplish what the people really want.

Campaigning in a nearby cemetery—the only place, he explains, where he will not be interrupted—he says he has no need of the media to bash him, because he can do so himself using the many stones available there. His nudity, he asserts, symbolizes his campaign’s transparency, contrasting with his opponents’ many obfuscations and secret funding.

He explains that his 5000 demons, from whence he takes his name, best represent the many prejudices, fears, anxieties, and evils secretly harbored by the Gerasenes, and which the ruling parties manipulate to win elections.

“There would be no need of a candidate like me,” he wails persuasively, “If the members of the political parties could negotiate their differences without trying to score points in the media, take advantage of the other’s flexibility, or insert narrow ideologies and religious views in legislation.” He adds, gesturing, “Why, that great herd of swine over there get along better than they do!”

As Jesus passes by, Mr. Legion demands gruffly, “And what do you want with me?!”

“Come out of this man, you unclean spirits!” Jesus commands.  And out of Mr. Legion come the people’s prejudices, fears, anxieties, and evils—but they have nowhere to go, save to return to the people who imagine they are above this candidate’s lunacy.

Though Jesus doesn’t want to scapegoat the nearby herd of swine by visiting them with the presidential hopeful’s demons, this seems the lesser evil, and off they stampede over a cliff to drown in the sea (“News at 11!”).

The people of Gerasa, as well as the leaders of their ruling parties, come to find Mr. Legion clothed and in his right mind, and they are afraid. Lest Jesus exorcise their demons, they urge him to move on.

Mr. Legion wants to follow, but Jesus challenges him to go to his fellow citizens and tell them what God has done—how God’s mercy can transform even the most vile and merciless candidates for elected office, as well as their electors.

Likely, many of his fellow countrymen and countrywomen will prefer to join the pigs in the sea.

Today’s post alludes to an analysis of this story by René Girard referenced in an earlier post, “Exorcising Demons.”

This “midrash” on Mark 5:1-20 also appeared in the Huffington Post a few weeks ago, but didn’t get much traction! 

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Copyright © 2015 by Chris R. Glaser. Permission granted for non-profit use with attribution of author and blogsite. Other rights reserved. 

The Crazy Man in the Basement

The intimacies offered me in conversation and pastoral counseling as well as my own self-knowledge have convinced me that many and perhaps most of us live with a crazy man or a crazy woman in our basement. Perhaps that was the intended metaphor of Charlotte Bronte’s Gothic novel, Jane Eyre, that had a deranged relation imprisoned secretly in an upper room or attic. Yet I think my “crazy person in the basement” concept suggests something more basic to our nature than our upper regions, more visceral than conscious.  This is the one stoking our furnace and fueling our engine down below, so to speak. When one escapes, the host makes news, and endures judgment from those of us who think “we are not like them.”

What occasions this rumination was watching an entertaining romantic comedy about a British retirement home for gifted musicians entitled, Quartet (2012).  A character’s frontal lobe has been damaged and so cannot edit himself, bluntly expressing indelicate feelings, observations, and thoughts coming from, one could say, his crazy man in the basement.

What you read on this blog I carefully edit, because writing my posts is like working without a net—after all, I have no editor or copyeditor as I have had with all my other writings. Thus I read and review each post multiple times to make sure it says what I want it to say as well as to avoid misunderstandings.

But my whole life—and I would suggest others’ lives—is a product of similar, careful editing. I cannot speak for others, but Christ, culture, and Chris are primary editorial filters for me. I follow Jesus as spiritual guide, and he represents specific views of God, so Christ is also my God filter. Multiple cultures serve as editorial filters for me: spiritual, ethical, theological, literary, social, scientific, liberal, marginal—the list goes on. Most in need of explanation is “Chris,” but all this means is that my life must reflect and reveal what I believe about myself, and I believe this is common for most of us.

The crazy man in my basement is one who resists Christ, culture, and Chris. This is the one I sometimes meet when I become angry or anxious, infatuated or lustful, greedy or envious or vengeful, obsessive or pious, one who is fearful and fearless, vulnerable and arrogant, clueless and clever.

Christian mystics from the Desert Fathers and Mothers to the more contemporary Thomas Merton and Thomas Keating have recognized that the crazy man or woman in the basement rears his or her unwelcome head as our spiritual lives progress. Like the demons who asked Jesus, “What have you to do with us?” so our shadow selves emerge in the presence of God’s light, needing redemption and healing. This is considered a natural progression in spiritual growth.

Some keep the crazy person in the basement, often secretly, preventing their shadow side from encountering Jesus’ or God’s TLC.  Some externalize and scapegoat the crazy person, attempting to restrain the demoniac as the Gerasenes did, or allowing him to exile and stone himself naked and vulnerable among tombs, failing to recognize that “he is us.” (See Mark 5:1-20 and my post, listed below, “Exorcising Demons.”)

I believe what is needed is an honest encounter with the crazy man or crazy woman inside each of us. Only then may we come to ourselves, and through spiritual practices and the help of a spiritual community, spiritual director, or soul friend (anamchara), find our right minds.

Progressive Christian Reflections is an authorized Emerging Ministry of MCC. Your donations are its only means of support. Thank you!

Related posts:

Exorcising Demons

Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein

Copyright © 2013 by Chris R. Glaser. Permission granted for non-profit use with attribution of author and blogsite. Other rights reserved. Check out past posts in the right rail on the blogsite. Consider using a post or quotes in your congregation’s or group’s newsletter, including the blog address: http://chrisglaser.blogspot.com.

Exorcising Demons

Copyright © 2011 by Chris R.Glaser. All rights reserved.

The people of Jesus’ time assigned behavior or ailments they did not understand to demons inhabiting the individual. Any of us who have witnessed a friend in the throes of severe suffering, chronic pain, addiction, or mental or physical illness can understand how these things may so transform a person as to seem possessed. Naming the demon is the beginning of compassion, and possibly, cure.

We would not stop at naming a disease, but try to provide treatment. So, to stop at simply naming a disorder or dysfunction and using it as an excuse for bad behavior or an occasion for getting on Dr. Phil, makes us enablers. Cultural anthropologist Rene Girard writes, “Possession is not an individual phenomenon..[it] is always contagious; those who are [so affected] are likely to communicate their desire to you, or in other words, drag you along their same path…” As Dr. Phil would ask, “How’s that workin’ for ya?”

Jesus might as well have been working with an addicted family member, a dysfunctional congregation, the Washington quagmire, or the Israeli-Palestinian stalemate when he confronted the Gerasene demoniac’s “Legion”—a hostile army of demons that caused its victim to live naked among the tombs, exiling himself and stoning himself, the standard punishments (Girard points out) of Middle Eastern societies.

The Greek word for devil in the New Testament is “diabolos,” which means “divider” or “adversary.” I believe that “discerning the spirits” empowers us to name and cast out divisiveness, but not diversity, even of points of view. According to Girard, the demoniac was a convenient scapegoat for the Gerasenes, reflecting their own dysfunctionality. Jesus casts the demons into a herd of pigs which runs off a cliff into a lake to drown, another style of execution. His fellow villagers find the formerly possessed man at the feet of Jesus, “clothed and in his right mind” and they are afraid, and ask Jesus to leave their community.

Who exorcises demons in our world today? Whistle-blowers. Prophets. Mediators. Systems analysts. Interim pastors. Therapists. Spiritual directors. 12-Step sponsors. Soul friends. Researchers. Scientists. Journalists. And more.

In our own divisiveness and dysfunctionality, Christians may take comfort as well as challenge in these words from the epistle to the Galatians, “For in Christ Jesus you are all children of God through faith. As many of you as were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus.” May we become “clothed in Christ” and in our right minds.