Bribing God
I’m obsessed with medieval history.
My husband finds it slightly concerning. We’d be in a casual conversation, and in his usual manner, he’d ask, “What are your thoughts, babe? I’d love to hear ‘em?” and I’d randomly blurt out some obscure reference like “That reminds me of when King Edward IV dethroned Henry IV in 1461….” Leaving him to wonder what manner of rat poison I may have ingested during lunch.
I just can’t shake off my fascination for the Dark Ages. Arguably, no other period in human history magnifies the darkest side of the human condition. Evil reigned supreme, and each new generation stretched the boundaries of evil further than the one before them. From the 12th Century Sicilian King William the Bad, who kicked his son to death when his subjects tried to put his son on the throne, to England’s 15th Century King Richard III, who purportedly murdered his two nephews to assume the throne.
Now, the medieval era wasn’t all that bad. That period (500–1500 CE) was responsible for many important innovations. The printing press, spectacles, wool cloth, mechanical lock, tidal mills etc., this list can go on. But those pale in comparison to the absolute gore, bloodlust, carnage and massacres the medieval era is famed for.
Fast forward 500 years into the 21st Century. We live in vastly different times. Your father probably never had to sleep with a dagger tucked underneath his pillow, worried that enemy soldiers would invade and pillage your house in the night. Besides relative calm, we enjoy pleasures utterly foreign to our medieval ancestors; electricity, sewage systems, commuter trains, Teslas, 5G internet, ChatGPT etc.
It’s easy to cast off medieval dwellers as utterly bizarre weirdos from a primitive, immoral age. In terms of social, medical and technological advancements, the medieval period doesn’t hold a candle to what we’ve achieved in the 21st century. Economy, finance, science and politics may have changed considerably, but guess what hasn’t? the human heart.
That explains why I find the medieval period so interesting. In many ways, it’s a mirror for understanding the ills that still plague the human condition today. And if you go far back enough, you’d find that many popular but false church doctrines practised today trace their roots back to some anomaly in the medieval period, where a ‘spiritual leader’ gets creative and decides to take shortcuts around the Bible.
Recently, I’ve been fascinated (and very much alarmed) by the number of absurdities the Church put up for sale. I’ll be sharing my reflections in this post.
Here are some things that the Roman Catholic Church (by far the strongest Christian authority during the medieval ages) sold:
- You could pay to earn the complete or partial remission of your sins (including your future sins)
- You could pay to earn the complete or partial remission of the sins of a deceased loved one
- You could pay for the pardon of someone in “purgatory”
- You could offer land, money or servitude to clergy to become an archbishop.
- You could pay to see a holy relic which people thought offered religious pardon. Frederick I, a prince in Northern Germany, kept a collection of 17,000 relics, including a piece of Moses’s burning bush, 33 fragments of Jesus’s cross and some straw from Jesus’s manger.
I could add more to this list, but this short list is jaw-dropping and eye-popping enough.
There are entire blogs, books, and podcasts that rail against corrupt clergy who taught and promoted these ludicrous practices, but I won’t waste another blog post lambasting them. What caught my attention is not the deceiver but the deceived. These practices were flagrantly afoul of biblical principles, yet people latched onto them, and though they were condemned by the Church later, they still endured for a couple of centuries.
Why didn’t alarm bells go off in people’s minds? Why did they blindly go along with these bribes-for-salvation schemes?
One explanation is simply the fact that most medieval folk couldn’t read and write. By 1500, just 50% of the population could read, and less than 10% of men could write. Many people depended on priests or monks to decipher the Holy Book on their behalf during Mass. No wonder they were so gullible to greedy clergy trying to milk their pockets dry.
But we can’t let the common folk off the hook so easily. Let’s be real, they were getting a bargain too. ‘Buying’ a good standing with God was a sweet deal. Consider the alternatives: Either “buy” forgiveness from God for your future sins and be free to sin it up as you please, or work hard to live a righteous, moral life as God desires. It’s a no-brainer. If it were a choice, I’d jump at option #1 in a heartbeat.
But like I said, the medieval folk are a mirror for us in the 21st century. So rather than wag our fingers at them, I’m more interested in how 21st-century folk try to bribe favours from God today.
We do this in many ways, but I’ll focus on two: 1.) Money 2.) Selective obedience
Let’s start with money.
Sometimes we try to substitute our money for our ‘presence’ in our relationship with God.
Last month I was in the beautiful city of Nairobi, Kenya. I got talking with a security guard and invited her to accompany me to Church on Sunday. She responded by telling me how busy she was since she had Sunday duty, and I told her if she ever got a Sunday off, the invitation was always open. On leaving, she beckoned to me and asked, “Even if I can’t stay, can I give my tithe and leave?”. Her money could show up instead of her, right?
Then there’s the ultra-benevolent non-church-goer. They don’t have much time for sermons or bible reading, but you can never fault their benevolence. Their relatives can count on them to support this or that local cause, charities, non-profit events, village associations etc. They’re likely the most generous in the family. Every cousin, step-sister, and brother-in-law knows they’re the ones to call for any type of financial assistance. Their benevolence becomes their spirituality. They may not say it out loud, but deep down, they hope God will overlook their lack of devotion because their generosity makes up for it.
Others wind up making it out to Church in person, but their minds and hearts never quite make it. A good example is the hyper-career-obsessed busy bees (I’m in this camp). They may be sitting in the aisles on Sunday, but truth be told, they don’t catch much of what is said at the pulpit because they are too busy firing off a response to that urgent email or call from work. What they fail to give in ‘active attention’ they try to make up for by having their fat cheques ready to drop in the offering basket.
Not all bribes involve money. We can also bribe God with selective obedience.
This is when we treat the Bible like an ice cream store. We choose the flavours and toppings we want and don’t bother with the flavours we don’t like. We pick apart God’s word, devotedly obeying the palatable parts while ignoring commands that don’t feel “comfortable”, silently hoping that God’s grace will turn a blind eye to our passive disobedience. Pray without ceasing? Oh, heck yeah, we can do that all day. Love your enemies? Surely not. At the end of the day, God will (in fact, He SHOULD) understand, at least we’re trying, right?
Saul was a master of selective obedience. He cherry-picked the parts of God’s commands that he was on board with and ignored what didn’t favour him. And look where it landed him — a rejected, downtrodden King.
I’m not innocent in this matter. I’ve tried to bribe God with my money and selective obedience numerous times.
What about you? Are you tacitly bribing God?
Let’s link up for a Bible Study.
