Jesus Christ Superstition

By Robert M. Price

Robert M. Price, a former Evangelical Christian, examines the confusing intersection of Christianity and superstition by asking questions. Is "practicing the presence of God" actually a variety of paranoia? Is having a "personal relationship with Jesus Christ" really akin to a child playing with an imaginary friend? At what point does a religious belief become an obsessive neurosis? Price finds that the source of superstition in Christianity is the objectification of the transcendent. As a result, he argues, many of the most destructive superstitions within Christianity are inessential accretions to the faith, interfering with life-transforming piety to the glad benefit of many of Christianity's adherents. Christians who believe that an unexamined faith is not worth having will profit from struggling with Jesus Christ Superstition.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Independent Publishers Group
• Release date: Sep 4, 2019
• ISBN: 9781634311915

Robert M. Price

Robert M. Price is professor of biblical criticism at the Center for Inquiry Institute as well as the editor of The Journal of Higher Criticism.

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Author

Introduction

Just what is superstition? It is related to phobias, which are unreasonable fears, fears that are not justified by any impending threat or danger. A superstition, too, usually involves groundless fears. The superstitious person has certain beliefs, inherited from popular culture and family tradition, that certain actions will produce destructive results without any real-world causal connection. Why should walking under an open ladder curse one with bad luck? Obviously, carelessly stepping under the ladder might topple a can of paint resting on the top. But that is not what the superstitious person fears. He or she dreads some ill fortune not directly brought about by any natural connection. Why would a black cat crossing one’s path make one a lightning rod for misfortune? Or opening an umbrella inside your house? Or breaking a mirror? Spilling salt? And so on. Conversely, why should rubbing a rabbit’s foot, clutching a four leaf clover, throwing a pinch of salt over one’s shoulder, avert such disaster?

If someone believes these things, what is the nature of such beliefs? They must be distinguished from other pre- or non-scientific beliefs such as demon possession, where one’s illness or mania is supposed to be the result of invasion by an evil disembodied entity. In an extended sense, the belief in possession might be considered superstition, though, unlike the black cat business, there would at least be a supposed causal connection, as in L. Ron Hubbard’s classic tale Fear wherein a couple of loitering devils overhear a man scoffing at belief in demons and decide to show him how wrong he is. I should consider belief in possession an example of ancient science, akin to alchemy and astrology, even belief that the rainbow is Jehovah’s war bow hanging in the sky. All these notions are products of intellectual ingenuity, only unaided by scientific technology.

But the same cannot be said for a belief in unlucky cats and ladders. These connections are altogether arbitrary. As far as I know, no superstitious person has tried to explain how and why the deeds in question produce the bad results. If you could find out why the black cat brings bad luck, maybe you could prevent it. But why bother? Isn’t it simpler just to jump out of the cat’s way? Just to steer clear of ladders?

The title of the present book suggests a connection between superstition and religion, specifically Christianity. I think of Plutarch’s statement: The atheist believes there is no God; the superstitious man believes there is a God but wishes there weren’t. Once I spoke with a woman who was hag-ridden by the belief that God hated her and was sending all sorts of misfortune her way, to punish her for not worshipping him. Plutarch might as well have been talking about this woman, Janine. I have never met anyone like her. She was not religious, or would not have thought of herself as such, but was not hers a religious belief? There is most definitely a God, a spiteful and vindictive one, who is firing bullets with Janine’s name on them! She was much like Job in the Bible, unfairly plagued by Jehovah, though he knew he had done nothing to deserve such treatment. Job was pretty indignant, but he didn’t go so far as to hate God.

Neither did any of the biblical writers. They blamed themselves, or rather Israel as a whole, for their troubles: military defeats, exiles, pestilences, famines, etc. The Deuteronomic theology (so called because we find it set forth in the Book of Deuteronomy) held that God had made a covenant agreement with Israel. Henceforth he should be their God and they should be his faithful people. As long as they worshipped Jehovah (Yahweh) alone, forswearing other deities and all idols, God would watch over them, protecting them from their enemies, from disease, from famine, etc. But if his people transgressed the terms of the deal, they could not expect their divine patron to hold up his end of the bargain. The way the Old Testament writers told it, the numerous catastrophes that overtook Israel/Judah were the result of Israel’s faithlessness. This self-abnegating conclusion was entirely deductive. The Bible writers thought the same way Job’s blame-laying companions did: if misfortune strikes you down, you must have deserved it. The Deuteronomic historians (authors of Joshua, Judges, Samuel, and Kings) often fabricated sins to justify the disasters. Why? Because the alternative would be even worse: admitting that there was no covenant, and no God, at least no justice. This would mean man is alone in an indifferent universe with no protection and no reason to hope that the right, and the righteous, will prevail.

I would have to call this belief superstitious for the simple reason that the supposed cause behind misfortunes is an after-the-fact rationalization based on ad hoc unseen factors rather than observation. Causation that is posited to rescue religious belief seems to me little different from positing inexplicable connections between a sauntering feline and bad luck. And, just so as not to discriminate, I would say the same thing about the Hindu-Buddhist-Jainist belief in Karma, where a good reason for any tragedy or affliction may be dreamed up in order to protect the belief in cosmic justice. Master, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind? (John 9:2).

Another major feature of orthodox, traditional Christianity as superstition concerns biblical literalism, the stubborn insistence that all the narrated miracles really happened in the same history we live in, that the world was created inside of a week, that dinosaurs and humans lived side by side, that there is a personal devil, etc. These beliefs were not always superstitions. No one knew any better in biblical times. But since the advent of science and historical methodology, believing these things is a very different proposition. As Paul Tillich¹ explains it, it is a question of natural (or naïve) versus reactive (or reactionary) literalism. Fundamentalists in the modern world know they are defying and opposing a consensus. Their ancestors were part of the pre-scientific consensus. But today’s literalists know they are swimming against the stream. And they will resort to contrived pseudo-science to try to salve their intellectual conscience, even though their efforts at apologetics are only more embarrassing. I used to do this sort of thing with my daughters when they were little: I would try to explain how Santa Claus made it down all the chimneys in a single night. But I knew I was telling white lies. I don’t think biblical inerrantists, Scientific Creationists, etc., are consciously lying. They should know better, but they don’t. They won’t let themselves know better. Their literalism, as a mental operation, is the same as believing in superstitions.

Those who live in an unbroken mythological world feel safe and certain. They resist, often fanatically, any attempt to introduce an element of uncertainty by breaking the myth, namely, by making conscious its symbolic character. Such resistance is supported by authoritarian systems, religious or political, in order to give security to the people under their control and unchallenged power to those who exercise the control.²

But we don’t want to miss the trees for the forest. Does the Bible not only take for granted a prescientific world view but also depict, without embarrassment, particular superstitious practices? In fact it does. In Genesis 35:25–31:16 Jacob selectively breeds goats marked with stripes and spots by having some of Laban’s herd mate in front of wooden stakes from which he has peeled away strips of bark. This is a plain case of imitative magic, in short, superstition. Nothing is said of it being the result of a special divine intervention. It is simply stated without any implication that anything extraordinary is going on.

When the Philistines suspected that Jehovah had smitten them with the Black Plague, their shamans suggested an experiment: load the stolen Ark of the Covenant on the bed of an ox cart and let the oxen carry it wherever they will. If they make a bee-line for the Israelite border, that will confirm that Jehovah was the culprit and wanted his Ark back (1 Sam. 5:6–12; 6:1–12). The premise was that if one creates a zone of randomness, one has opened a window through which God may act. The apostles thought the same way in Acts 1:11–26, when they narrowed down candidates to replace Judas Iscariot to two men. Basically, they flipped a coin or drew straws. They cast lots, regarding the outcome not as random luck but rather as the will of God. Something similar occurs at the Last Supper when Jesus clandestinely designates the one who is about to turn him over to the authorities: Whoever dips with me into the dish. It turns out, of course, to be the Iscariot. There are twelve men present, all of them at one moment or another ready to dip a piece of bread into the herb sauce. Naturally speaking, it might be any of them who happens to do so at the same moment Jesus does. That is already superstition, but it seems possible that underlying the canonical version is an earlier one in which Jesus is actually choosing one disciple to hand him over, a necessary role that someone has to play to advance the plan of salvation. On this reading, Jesus himself does not know who will play that role but is now allowing Divine Providence to make itself known. Any way you cut it, that’s what you call superstition.

Next to the sale of indulgences, the aspect of Medieval Catholicism that has attracted the most scathing ridicule from Protestants is the veneration of relics. These have included shavings from the True Cross, bones of the apostles, holy shrouds, even milk from the Virgin Mary and feathers from the Holy Ghost! Holy relics are neither mere museum pieces nor souvenirs. Rather, they are believed to be imbued with some of the sacred power or sanctity of the former possessors of these objects. In other words, it is contagious (contiguous) magic. Surely such rank superstition cannot be found in scripture? Think again! What do you think is going on in 2 Kings 13:21 when, in the face of sudden danger, some men on burial detail toss a corpse into the open mausoleum of Elisha where the prophet’s corpse must have been laid out for permanent viewing (like Lenin’s tomb!). The corpse lands on the remains of the prophet and springs back to life! That’s one heck of a relic!

Jesus is still alive while a fan benefits from his relic, namely his prayer shawl, in Mark 5:24–34. If I can just touch the hem of his garment …! And sure enough, power goes out from him. Even more bizarre, Acts 19:12 tells us that people unable to get an appointment with the Apostle Paul nonetheless managed to grab his handkerchiefs and work aprons in hopes enough of his miracle-working mojo still clung to them to heal whomever one placed them on. And it worked!³

How about Necromancy? Trafficking with the dead? King Saul banned the practice (1 Sam. 28:1–25) but later resorted to it. Isaiah 8:19 condemns the practice: When someone tells you to consult mediums and spiritists, who whisper and mutter, should not a people inquire of their God? Why consult the dead on behalf of the living? (NIV). But it is pretty clear that the biblical writers did not deny the reality of spiritualism or mediumism. No, it was a question of authorized versus unauthorized methods of augury. The Bible writers represent the priestly establishment who tried to control access to revelation, restricting it to the Urim and Thummim (a kind of oracular dice), the ephod (a breastplate vestment encrusted with twelve gems, ostensibly standing for the twelve tribes but probably originally representing the Zodiac), and a staff of court prophets. They wanted to silence rival voices of supernatural guidance as a means to control the populace. (Obviously this is also the motive for defining a canon of scripture: you don’t want people thinking they can get guidance from the Gospel of Philip!) But Genesis presents the other side of the controversy. All those notes about the burial places of the Matriarchs, e.g., Deborah’s in 35:8, must be vestiges of the use of these as pilgrimage sites to which the pious journeyed, paying priestesses to consult the ghosts of the Matriarchs to tell their fortunes. If you have ever heard fundamentalist apologists trying to explain these things away, as if the Witch of Endor had only pretended to be invoking the shade of Samuel while actually summoning a demon in disguise, you were only hearing the propaganda line of the ancient priestly authorities.

In this book my goal is to analyze certain important aspects of Christian belief that I consider superstitious in character. Often these neurotic and destructive features are unfortunate accretions to the faith and by no means essential to it. They could in principle be purged from Christianity to the glad benefit of Christians. But there are other aspects and implications of Christian belief that invite damaging critiques of Christian theology, requiring major surgery if indeed the patient is salvageable at all. I do not draw attention to the difficulties besetting Christianity with glee. I love and honor the Christian tradition, but that does not allow me to cover the sometimes unpleasant truth about it. Sometimes it is necessary to critique a thing in order to understand it.

1. Paul Tillich, Dynamics of Faith. World Perspectives Series. Harper Torchbooks (NY: Harper & Row, 1958), pp. 51–53.

2. Tillich, Dynamics of Faith, p. 51.

3. This reminds me of how Elvis’s adoring fans used to tear off bits of his clothing. Once he kissed my cousin Cathy, and she wouldn’t wash that cheek for days!

Chapter One

What an Imaginary Friend We Have in Jesus

You may know me as a proponent of the Christ Myth theory, the hypothesis that there was never a historical Jesus. But for our purposes here, Mythicism is neither here nor there. Go on thinking there was a historical Jesus, as indeed there may have been for all I know. So I am not suggesting that the belief in a historical Jesus qualifies as superstition. In fact, as we will soon see, the belief in a historical Jesus is threatened by what one might call the quest for the devotional Jesus.

What is the criterion for salvation? If you ask evangelical, fundamentalist, Pentecostal, and Charismatic believers, it always comes down, not to the Nicene Creed or the Westminster Confession, not to sacramental spirituality, but to cultivating a personal relationship with Jesus Christ as personal Lord and Savior. As a student of historical, systematic, and biblical theology, I find this fact astonishing. It strikes me as comparable to the Jesus Only Pentecostal sect’s insistence that one must speak in tongues if one is to be saved. A particular approach to Protestant devotionalism has been elevated to the position of the very essence of Christianity. All sorts of things are wrong with this. I propose to examine, first, the