I have been watching The Handmaid's Tale, adapted from the book of the same name, on Hulu the past few weeks. Not the greatest show I've ever seen, but it's still a solid 8. Two things keep running through my head as I watch it.
First, how do the villains in movies in which Bad Guys Take Over The World always find such a ready and willing supply of henchmen? The premise of this movie is that a plot is devised in which the government is overthrown by militias sympathetic to this cause. This, of course, makes one wonder where the police and military and national security agents were in all this. In addition, in this age of constant Big-Brotherism, how extensive could the Gilead government be considering there are it seems a dozen dudes in black vests and stocking hats sitting on each corner in Boston? And are these henchmen all being paid good wages? Did none of them have wives or girlfriends who found out and reported these plots? How on earth did this million-man militia arise without somebody at the Washington Post or the FBI getting word of it?
But second, and more importantly, what has really struck me about this show is how prevalent Biblically illiteracy would have to be for people to allow it to happen. One of the key points of the show is that when the handmaidens are essentially raped each month in the hopes of producing a healthy heir, a passage of the Bible (Genesis 30, I think) is read as a guide for how this can happen. Now, bad hermeneutics have enabled people to justify many terrible doctrines and practices over the years...but usually in every age there have people who have stood up and said, um, I think you are completely misunderstanding the Bible.
The more I think of it, though, even people who claim to be most religious often have no idea what their holy books actually teach, and ignorance allows those who misuse those books to get away with such things. Those who should know better stay silent because, in the end, they don't really know, and when the evil people of Gilead point to Genesis 30, the people who know that this can't be right cannot say why it is not right. Of course, goes in many other directions as well...today many use the Bible to support conservative principles such as low taxation, income inequality, or 2nd amendment rights; of the latter issue, the one that cracked me up the most was the one in which Jesus' disciples say to him, "'Look, Lord, here are two swords. And he said to them, 'It is enough.'" As if Jesus was saying that self-defense weapons were justified before he went to the cross. Liberals, too, misuse the Bible, thinking that Jesus only preached unlimited love and freedom without responsibility, salvation by just 'being good people' and the like...but again, they are just as wrong as conservatives.
This, my friends, is another reason why Biblical literacy matters. It's not just about ensuring that we avoid sins, but that we don't get ourselves believing that the Bible endorses rape, extreme patriarchy, or any other kind of foolishness. If we don't know what is right, then we can't very well speak up for what is right, can we?
