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<\/a><\/div>\nTitle: <\/strong>Hating God: The Untold Story of Misotheism<\/em> In the face of inexplicable and extreme personal suffering, the biblical Job refuses to turn on the God who gave him life: \u201cThe Lord giveth, and the Lord taketh away; blessed be the name of the Lord\u201d (Job 1:21). His property and children are destroyed, his body is inflicted with sores. Job\u2019s wife appears and insists that Job ought to \u201ccurse God and die\u201d (Job 2:9).\u00a0She isn\u2019t given a name and she\u2019s never mentioned in the Bible again, but she\u2019s the prototypical adherent of what author and associate professor of English Bernard Schweizer calls \u201cmisotheism.\u201d She is \u201cready to curse God in open defiance and willing to be damned rather than acquiesce in divine caprice\u201d (29).\u00a0She believes in God yet denounces him.<\/p>\n In his new book, Hating God: The Untold Story of Misotheism<\/em>, Schweizer faces the double task of outlining <\/em>the heretofore foggy category exemplified by Job\u2019s wife,\u00a0and justifying <\/em>its relevance to current views of God and faith. By demonstrating that misotheism exists (my spell-checker still says no!), that it has an interesting history and typology, and that it is morally (rather than epistemologically or ontologically) grounded, Schweizer hopes to\u00a0facilitate\u00a0\u201can increased tolerance toward those believers who cannot bring themselves to worship God in the prescribed way\u201d (23).<\/p>\n What is Misotheism? <\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n \u201cMisotheism,\u201d in contrast with atheism, is not the rejection of the existence <\/em>of God, it is the reaction of a believer to the problem of evil\u2014directed toward God\u2014on behalf of suffering humans. Miso<\/em> (hate) + theos<\/em> (God) = misotheism, manifested as anger and disappointment toward a deity who seems either\u00a0incompetent, impotent, or encouraging toward evil. Simply put, it\u2019s difficult to reconcile the suffering people witness in the world with a God who is considered to be the all-powerful, all-knowing, and all-loving creator. Theologians have developed various answers to the problem of evil, but such attempts fall short for misotheists. As Schweizer explains:<\/p>\n \u201cThey are concerned with the conditions of human happiness and with the ultimate causes of suffering, and they cannot square their empirical knowledge about these matters with what they were taught to believe about God\u201d (23).<\/p><\/blockquote>\n \u201cThe misotheist is interested in the human <\/em>ramifications of the problem of evil, and he puts priority on the human response to the seeming randomness of cruelty and pain in God\u2019s universe\u201d (220).<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Schweizer is careful to note that the misotheists he discusses aren\u2019t static in their beliefs and attitudes toward God, nor are they so easily grouped together (224). Any time we take\u00a0to putting people in boxes they tend to pop out when we aren\u2019t looking.\u00a0Still, he divides them into two broad categories: the \u201cAgonistic\u201d and the \u201cAbsolute.\u201d Following a broad overview of the \u201chistory of Misotheism,\u201d Schweizer zooms in to explore these categories in six \u201ccase studies\u201d of writers who couched their misotheism in literature\u2014often but not always obscuring their personal animosity by putting it in the mouth of fictional characters. Algernon Swinburne<\/a>, Zora Neale Hurston<\/a>, Rebecca West<\/a>, Elie Wiesel<\/a>, Peter Shaffer<\/a>, and Philip Pullman<\/a> (who, much more than the others, might be surprised to be listed among misotheists as opposed to atheists or agnostics) each represent different manifestations of misotheism within Schweizer\u2019s overall framework.<\/p>\n \u201cAgonistic Misotheism<\/strong>\u201c<\/em><\/p>\n This category includes people who \u201care struggling with the understanding that God is not entirely competent and good, while resenting the need to praise and worship him\u201d (17). Elie\u00a0Wiesel\u00a0was a pious Jew raised in a Hasidic community in Romania before a horrific eleven-months\u2019 stay in multiple concentration camps during World War II. A decade after emerging from hell\u00a0Wiesel\u00a0penned Night<\/em>, a memoir:<\/p>\n \u201cNever shall I forget that night, the first night in camp, which has turned my life into one long night\u2026Never shall I forget that smoke. Never shall I forget the little faces of the children whose bodies I saw turned into wreaths of smoke beneath a silent blue sky. Never shall I forget those flames which consumed my faith forever\u201d (154).<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Rather than rejecting God\u2019s existence, he wanted answers from Him: \u201cAlthough I know I will never defeat God, I still fight Him\u201d (155). The paradox of a prayer of attack is difficult to account for, but\u00a0Schweizer contextualizes it within a wider trend of Jewish protest theology (169-170).<\/p>\n \u201cAbsolute Misotheism<\/strong>\u201c<\/em><\/p>\n If less comprehensible, just as interesting are the\u00a0\u201cAbsolute Misotheists\u201d who seem to \u201cexult in the demise of deity\u201d (18). Rather than lamenting, they happily slam the judges gavel without hope that God might pull things off for the better in the end. Algernon Swinburne\u2019s \u201cHymn of Man\u201d treats God as a criminal on trial being judged and condemned by a jury of men:<\/p>\n By the dread wherewith life was astounded and shamed out of Swinburne\u2019s innovative adaptation of biblical motifs is uncovered in\u00a0Schweizer\u2019s careful literary analysis, for instance he notes Swinburne\u2019s skillful parody of Matthew 7:1 (\u201cFor in the same way you judge others, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you,\u201d 99). It is particularly difficult to classify such writing as \u201cmisotheist,\u201d even most of Swinburne\u2019s contemporaries saw him as atheistic at best. But\u00a0Schweizer points to one perceptive review which said \u201cthe strangest and most melancholy fact in these strange and melancholy poems is, not the absence <\/em>of faith, but the presence of a faith which mocks at itself\u201d (100). In Mormon parlance you might say these are people who \u201cleave God, but can\u2019t leave God alone\u201d (see p. 66).<\/p>\n Drawing the Line?<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n The difficulty of placing any given believer in a particular misotheistic category is apparent as Schweizer compares various believers in sometimes dizzying ways.\u00a0Discerning the difference between a person who really believes in but hates God and a person who wrestles with ideas about God without actually believing in him seems near-impossible. (One perceptive atheist <\/a>who reviewed Schweizer\u2019s book believes the division actually isn\u2019t relevant anyway. Citing the so-called \u201cParadox of Fiction\u201d he notes that people can have emotional responses to characters they know aren\u2019t real.)<\/p>\n <\/em><\/p>\n <\/em>Bloopers and Oversights<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n A few theological blunders or overstatements can be detected here and therein Schweizer\u2019s discussion. Two examples should suffice. First, he asserts that believers ought to know better than to try and make a bargain with God. Following Augustine\u2019s view of Providence, and certain Protestant views about predestination he concludes that \u201ceach individual\u2019s fate has already been decided prior to his birth\u201d (183). This essentially labels all Christians as 5-point Calvinists<\/a> with a heavy emphasis on \u201cunconditional election.<\/a>\u201d Second: Tony Watkins critiques Pullman\u2019s Dark Material<\/em> series by noting that Christians don\u2019t claim a monopoly on morality and values but that they believe \u201cmorality only functions because it has an objective basis in the character of God, whether or not<\/em> anybody believes in him\u201d (204). Schweizer objects to Watkins on the grounds that Watkins presents a contradiction: Watkins can\u2019t consistently claim that morality can exist apart from religious belief and at the same time link morality explicitly to God, the object of religious belief. Regardless of whether I agree with Watkins\u2019s claim, Schweizer has overlooked the distinction that can be made between ontological and epistemic<\/a> considerations. In other words, gasoline can make my car run regardless of whether I understand the actual process of fuel combustion, or whatever it\u2019s called (see?).<\/p>\n <\/em><\/p>\n <\/em>What about the author?<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n <\/em><\/p>\n <\/em>Who\u2019s gonna like this book?<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n<\/div>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n <\/em><\/p>\n <\/em>Mormon misotheists?<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n \u201cIndeed we should pray \u2018Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive thee thine.\u2019 For it seemed to us that there might be a divine plan that would excuse divinity. The agonies of this world might be the birthpangs of a dispensation that should be like the dawn after the dark night of this life. It might be that we were horses dragging the chariot uphill from the dark bog of disorder to the hilltop where there would be a temple full of worshipful and comprehensible gods and all things should be clear and happy. We were part of the plan. But a plan may be too cruel\u201d (134, full quote from Bernard Schweizer, \u201cGod\u2019s Cruel Plan: Where New Atheism Falls Short,<\/a>\u201d religiondispatches.org, 10 February 2011).<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
\nAuthor: <\/strong>Bernard Schweizer
\nPublisher: <\/strong>Oxford University Press
\nGenre: <\/strong>Religion
\nYear: <\/strong>2010
\nPages: <\/strong>246
\nISBN13: <\/strong>978-0-19-975138-9
\nBinding: <\/strong>Hardcover
\nPrice:<\/strong> $29.95<\/p>\n
\nsense of its trust,
\nBy the scourges of doubt and repentance that fell on the soul
\nat thy nod,
\nThou art judged, O judge, and the sentence is gone forth
\nagainst thee, O God.
\nThy slave that slept is awake; thy slave but slept for a span;
\nYea, man thy slave shall unmake thee, who made thee lord
\nover man (99).<\/p><\/blockquote>\n***<\/strong><\/h2>\n