Fall term is over. I can only describe it as harrowing. To on outsider, I am certain there was little indication of the interior foment.
By the time I delivered my last paper, I was satisfied that I achieved—maybe even exceeded—my goals. I had used my courses, not merely to learn the material described in the curriculum, but also to apply it to my personal ends. I want it to provide substance for my broader endeavor of creating a reasonably full-bodied reflection on matters theological as refracted through the prism of mental health concerns.
Here are my papers. I’m not entirely satisfied with either. Time is the enemy. The more considered of the two is the paper about Brian’s Law and surrogate decision-making.
Brian’s Law: A Compassionate Tyranny? (168 Kb)
Brian’s Law was a series of amendments to Ontario’s Mental Health Act passed in 2000. Among other things, it introduced Community Treatment Orders, which is a regime for structuring outpatient treatment for the seriously mental ill. I use it as a point of departure for more general reflections upon surrogate decision-making.
Queering Martin Luther (92 Kb)
This paper uses elements of queer theory as an analytical tool in order to interpret seminal events (in particular, the Leipzig debate) in Martin Luther’s life.
I conclude the first paper by asking why no faith-based organization testified before the legislative committee that was reporting upon the proposed law. The final paragraph flowed from my fingertips and, when I read and reread it, I realized that I am onto something here:
“Why, then, is faith-based advocacy of mental health issues so sporadic, and all but absent from expressions of “official” concern? Lacking empirical evidence, I can only speculate. I suspect that the anxiety which attends personal contact among individuals also affects the behaviour of religious institutions. In addition, there are factors which make religious institutions more resistant to changes in attitude where mental health is concerned. For example, there are numerous biblical references to major mental health disorders and these entrench negative typing of the mentally ill. It is difficult to set aside powerful images first given to us in our childhood. For me, one such image comes from the stories of Jesus casting out demons. For a Christian, nothing can be more alienating than identifying with a being whom Jesus rejects. I do not anticipate a revision or deletion of this text in the near future. Nevertheless, an accompanying commentary in plain language would help those of us whose behaviour is sometimes “demonic.” Perhaps before religious institutions can assume an advocacy role, they must first initiate an internal and continuing dialogue on how to think about, and more urgently, how to care for some of the most vulnerable among us.”
When do we decide that, on balance, the metaphors which require a “special” interpretive gloss in order to make them intelligible outnumber those which sit easily on our tongues? We read John and try to explain away the anti-Semitism. We read Paul’s letters, so full of wisdom, and yet wonder at his ready acceptance of slavery. And even those letters filled with misogyny we overlook by saying that the real Paul didn’t actually write them. Nevertheless, the early church felt moved to include them in the canon. Noah was a drunk; Moses, a murderer. David was a polygamist, and got one of his wives by killing her husband. And Jesus said he came to bring the sword … These are all difficult facts and they force us to exercise our interpretive faculties.
Still, the mentally ill always get short shrift. Ah, but it’s just a metaphor. Mental illness is just a metaphor for a kind of spiritual depravity.
That’s the same rationale we give to the black man who takes offense at the metaphor which ties darkness to the forces of evil.
That’s the same rationale we give to the blind man who takes offense at the metaphor which ties the loss of senses to a lack of insight.
At some point, we may ask: why these metaphors? What assumptions are betrayed by the choice of these particular metaphors when others can be imagined? We may ask: are metaphors not culturally contingent? Do we lose anything of the spirit if we decide to abandon certain modes of expression because, it seems now, that our world has changed and has ascribed new and sometimes cruel meanings to these ancient words? What is at stake if we are inspired to re-imagine scripture? Or even to reinvent how we invest our words with holiness? Nothing hangs on words. We leave the power of magic incantations and ritual formulations to witchcraft and hucksterism.