Thoughts About Gilead

I really am fascinated by the Handmaid's Tale and watching this show is the highlight of my week when it comes to entertainment.  I liked the book, but I think making this show into the dystopian hellhole that the book only hints at is fascinating.  At first I thought the show pulled more punches than the book, but as it goes along it's making the universe of Gilead a lot bigger.  I've upped my rating as this show has gone on from a solid 8 to probably an 8.5, but even when I thought it lesser I wrote about this show before concerning the questions of Biblical literacy and to a lesser extent the problem with every bad guy show, where do they find so many henchmen? 

1. But this season has brought up another question, that of the economy.  It appears that all of the old decadent American consumer economy has been wiped away in this show.  No McDonald's, no Starbucks, no Wal-Marts.  There doesn't seem to be any more television, but at least there's good wi-fi in most of the houses.  The Boston newspapers are abandoned, Fenway Park is now a place for gallows, and the only kind of shopping seems to be done at the equivalent of small corner markets in which basic meats and grains and produce are offered (no advertising, only pictures), and then only to those who are privileged enough to be positions of leadership.  

So has so much of population been liquidated that there really does not exist a need for most of the old economy?  Since there now only seem to be four kinds of people (Gilead leadership and their houses, henchmen, villagers in small towns who go to church all the time, and the outcasts in the 'colonies'), how does whatever food that is being grown get to where it is?  Outside of Boston, are there enough people left that they are either starving or rioting?  

It seems like black GMC suburbans are everywhere, so is the economy of Detroit booming?  As a non-expert in guns, are the factories building the semi-automatic weapons that every henchman has operating at full capacity?  And has the manufacture of black stocking caps become a significant part of the American economy, or are those all imported?  

2.  So that leads to the question of foreign policy.  Gilead seems to have taken over much of American foreign policy apparatus, but why would others put up with this?  Would the remnants of NATO under pressure from the European Union come in and try to restore order for their own economic stability?  Where's China in all this?  Russia?   If the American economy has now fallen off a cliff, presumably taking much of the world economy with it, what does that mean for foreign trade?  Have all old trade agreements gone away?  Does Gilead still hold hegemony over the world because they now have nuclear missiles?  Is that they get their black stocking caps?  

We all know that the military is a mostly conservative American institution, but was its undermining the reason that this overthrow was possible?  Are American soldiers now all swearing allegiance to the Gilead republic?  How much of a civil war was there because of this?  What of American military bases elsewhere?  Are they a rogue military force that stands in opposition much like 'Little America' in Toronto acts as something of an American government in exile?  

3. And in recent episodes there's the question of 'heresy'.  One of the bad guys got offed by being accused of heresy.  This is not surprising, since the people who have established Gilead see it as something of a theocratic republic with the ways of God being given as the reason for the overthrow and radical social shakeup.  But while we've seen the villagers that helped shelter go to church earlier in season 2, what kind of practical religion are they proclaiming?  As I mentioned in my earlier post, it would take some seriously bad interpretation of the Bible to wipe the mainstream churches out and make way for a form of religion like this, but what is the substance of the new faith beyond a glorification of child-bearing that overlooks the murders of others?  

And where does orthodox, Jesus-centered Christianity fit into all this?  When people go to church, is it simply a narrow faith that celebrates the glory of giving birth to children and women Knowing Their Place?  What do people sing about?  Are there pastors and preachers in the traditional sense who give comfort to the flock and point people to the Jesus of the Bible?  Do evangelical or mainline churches still exist, or have they been co-opted in the same manner that most of the German church was overtaken by Nazi ideology in the 1930s?  And if that's the case, is there now a Confessing church that stands in opposition with its Bonhoeffers who seek to stay faithful?  

Oh, there are so many questions I want answered.  I remember seeing somewhere that the creators think they may get 10 seasons out of this show...if so, count me in.  But there's so much backstory and world-building that needs to be done before I will be truly happy. 

The Handmaid's Tale and Biblical Illiteracy

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?