An exposition of the parable of the ficticious ex-homophobe Nigerian archbishop

Yesterday, I parodied the parable of the Good Samaritan.

My priest told us that a scholar believes it likely that Jesus was using the three stock characters joke format that plays a prominent role in humor around the world. There's the priest, who's different from all the other Israelites. There's the Levite, who's also different. If this scholar is correct, the last stock character would normally be an Israelite, who would nonetheless react in a different and humorous way from the other two.

Jesus shakes things up a bit, and casts a Samaritan in the last role. I think he wanted to shock his audience a bit, and get them to think, who really was their neighbor. Given the racial relations between Jews and Samaritans, he probably did.

Down South during World War II, a sergeant gets a telephone call from a woman. "I would love it," she said, "if you could bring five of your soldiers to my house for Thanksgiving dinner."
"Certainly, ma'am," replied the sergeant.
"Just make sure they aren't Jews," said the woman.
"Will do," replied the sergeant. So that Thanksgiving while the woman is baking, the doorbell rings. She opens her door and, to her horror, five black soldiers are standing in front of her.
"Oh, my!" she exclaimed. "There must have been some terrible mistake!"
"Nope," said one of the soldiers. "Sergeant Greenburg never makes mistakes!"

I hypothesized in the tale of the Syro-Phoenecian woman that Jesus, incarnate as a human being, took on all our traits, including our prejudices ... and that, as humans sometimes do, he had an encounter that transformed him. He was forced to reconsider his prejudices. And in doing so, he became more fully human.

And so, there's possibly another element to the Good Samaritan. In Jesus' parable, the audience is clearly Jewish, as is the man who was beaten by robbers. His rescuer was a Samaritan. Upon waking, the Jewish man would have been forced to reexamine his prejudices also.

This was the direction I went with the parable of the ficticious ex-homophobe Nigerian archbishop (the ficticious archbishop, by the way, is Anglican). He had not previously considered the consequences of his condemnation of homosexuality. But now, he sees that his hateful words had incited an attack, the victim of which is lying at his feet. He stands condemned by his previous actions, and he chooses a different path.

Note that this ficticious archbishop doesn't necessarily come to reconsider his opinion on whether homosexuality is right or not. He comes to condemn violence against LGBT people, and to abandon hate speech. Perhaps he still believes that they should be celibate, and he has his church create programs to support those who do choose celibacy. Or perhaps he does come to think that homosexuality is a natural variation in human sexuality.

The point is, upon seeing the consequences of his actions, he comes to give up his need to be right. I once read a book on near-death experiences. Mainstream psychologists will of course be highly skeptical. However, one person described being confronted by a being of light, who showed her all the consequences of her actions that hurt another person. She felt judged, and yet not condemned.

Could this be the sort of judgment that awaits us on the last day?

God's judgment

Christian converts in Asia grow up in a different environment than Christians in the West. People pray to ancestors, and consult mediums in temples. There is much more a belief in spirits. Every year, during the Hungry Ghosts Month, food and joss sticks (incense) are left out, and "hell money" is burnt, to appease the ghosts.

As such, the notions of prophecy resonate differently in Asia, and presumably Africa, than in the West. Here, I see prophecy as the denunciation of social injustice. We must turn from our exploitative ways, or face God's judgment. Back home, people are more likely to see prophecy as foretelling the future. Asian Christians, and I believe African Christians, are more likely to beliefve the signs and wonders stuff in the Bible. They are more likely to believe it when people like Pat Robertson say that God will send judgment on Orlando for flying gay pride flags, quoted here:

After Orlando … city officials voted in 1998 to fly rainbow flags from city lampposts during the annual Gay Days event at Disney World, Robertson issued the city a warning: “I don’t think I’d be waving those flags in God’s face if I were you. … [A] condition like this will bring about the destruction of your nation. It’ll bring about terrorist bombs, it’ll bring earthquakes, tornadoes and possibly a meteor.”

Additionally, Pat Robertson prayed publicly in 1985 that Hurricane Bonnie would not hit his headquarters along Virginia Beach ... I believe that Bonnie didn't hit his headquarters, but the hurricanes caused millions of dollars of damage worth to the state. Could Pat not have prayed for the hurricane to dissipate completely?

How do we attribute the cause of natural disasters? Often we hear people claiming that they're God's judgment on gays, like Robertson and this British CoE bishop. Now, the latter also did say that global warming was God's judgment on the West for their exploitation of the poor in the Global South. I have to say, that claim does make me a bit happier.

The problem remains, though, how are we supposed to tell? There is much injustice going on in the world. When you think about it, how are we supposed to logically attribute the causes of natural disasters? Don't natural disasters harm the innocent, as well as the allegedly guilty? Some say that the use of cluster bombs should be outlawed because they cause indiscriminate destruction. Would we want to associate with a God who destroys indiscriminately? Global warming harms members of various Green parties in the West, who are committed to environmentalism. Shouldn't God look favorably on them?

Personally, I maintain that we will all be judged for our inequities. I don't make any claims on the nature of that judgment. It may occur in the life to come, in our own lifetimes, in those of our descendants. I don't know.

I do know what God said through Micah: Do Justice, Love Mercy, Walk Humbly with God.