Friday, October 23, 2020

The Relic Trap: 'Don Verdean' and the Spectacle of Certainty

The black comedy Don Verdean is about a biblical "archaeologist" who ends up tumbling down the rabbit hole of fraud, fame, greed, faith, media spectacle, and self-delusion. The titular character (Verdean) is a popular apologetic self-proclaimed archaeologist. His claim to fame was "discovering" the scissors Deliah used to cut off Samson's hair. From this find, Verdean gets renown, embarking on several speaking tours and a book deal. He is a consummate folksy anti-academic, self-publishing without ties to a university. Verdean touts his humble inability as a sign of God's providence in revealing these historic proofs. However, as the film begins, his fame is slipping as he has not found any new artifacts as of late.  Verdean is a folksy anti-academic. He self-publishes, has no ties with any universities, and touts his own humble inability as the tool of God's unveiling of historical proofs. He relies on two disreputable Israeli contractors to find things that are biblical "artifacts".

However, Verdean gets sucked into a new campaign for new artifacts to boost a flagging "ministry". The pastor is locked in competition with a rival pastor, with competing "conversion" stories to whip up support (near-death drunk ex-fornicator vs. ex-satanist). The former is a typical folksy, fire-and-brumstone, Baptist type, while the latter runs anti-occult discernment ministry. Both are goofy caricatures, with ridiculous lines (e.g. the Baptist type talks about feeling Satan farting in his brain when he's under stress). But these pastors typify carnival atmosphere as these religious businesses compete for souls and tithes. The Baptist type has enlisted Verdean (with a healthy donation) to find new artifacts for his church. Relying on two disreputable Israeli contractors (which was how he found the scissors), Verdean embarks on a new quests for the ever hungry Baptist ministry.

Quickly, Verdean gets in over his head, faking  artifacts. The first is "discovering" Lot's wife (which is a human shaped pillar of rock), though she doesn't quite look like a she (having both breast-like mounds and a lower bulge). Verdean pivots (inventing a new biblical theory that Lot's wife was a hermaphrodite) to save himself. But the pressure continues and Verdean finds himself caught fabricating Goliath's skull (grave digging the skull of a 20th c. Israeli wrestler with gigantism). Discovered by his confrere (Boaz, a shady and greedy Israeli), Verdean is forced to ramp up his archaeology business. Boaz now wants equal partnership and a ticket to America. He is the stereotypical 3rd world fantasy of American life (specifically: a Pontiac, a homemaker stripper wife, and Levi jeans). After several hijinks of increasingly criminal nature (kidnapping, bribery, theft), Verdean fakes a caper with a Chinese millionaire who wanted to find the grail. But this whole spiraling fraud was set-up by the discernment ministry. In a bid to undercut their competitor, they entrap Verdean (only to be caught in his own net, as this scheme required the pastor to steal money from his own ministry to finance it). The end result is that Verdean, Boaz, and (presumably) the discernment ministry pastor all end up in jail.

The film is a parody of middle American religion, with its bible fraud to prove the truth of Christianity in an increasingly secular world. While not a criticism of Christianity per se, or simply trashing simple country folk, the movie does draw out the desire of many to believe in carnival shows to spice up their life. As the Baptist pastor makes it clear to Verdean: the faith is in danger, church attendance is decreasing, and people are looking for certainty in an increasingly confusing world. A desire to believe drives the designs of this ministry forward (which, an obvious subtext, means the financial survival of the pastor and his gaudy wife). The pressure not only involves inventive theology (e.g. Lot's wife is a hermaphrodite), but increasingly bold-faced lies. Verdean doesn't want to get in on the con, but he believes peoples' faith (and his own well-being) depend upon a little deception and flare (he not only steals Goliath's skull, but digs it in a location, and has his devoted assistant "find" it after some prodding). Verdean is not alone in participating in this scam, as the "conversion" stories, the carnival-like atmosphere of unveiling, and the spooky anti-occult theatrics all add in the creation of mystifying entertainment. It even leads to more mundane, and disturbed, forms of fraud: Verdean is willing to pimp his assistant to Boaz (who wants her as his wife). But the frauds also depend upon cultural assumptions. When searching for the holy grail (which is buried in the south-west), Verdean takes his client (who turns out to be a plant) through an Indiana Jones-esque journey. Hiring an Indian to fire blanks, having Boaz get "wounded" (a fake blood pouch) from a gunshot and miraculously healed by the grail (which foams up as a chemical reaction), all of it depends upon Hollywood expectations. Pop-culture invades reality, as Verdean and Boaz expect these events to make the treasure hunt credible. However, the joke is that everyone's faking it: Verdean and Boaz get suckered by the fake Chinese businessmen because the idea that eccentric billionaires paying them for their services seemed plausible to them. It's commentary on how fantasy has taken over our expectations of life.

Such is the phenomenon of the spectacle in hyper-drive. Fantastical stories reach out into real world actions, driving them forward and determining an individual's sense of common sense and credibility. Even professional hucksters, like Verdean and Boaz, get taken in because of their own warped fantasies. In a more mundane fashion, Boaz' fantasy of the American dream leads him to expect an easy seduction of Verdean's unknowingly pimped out assistant. She is tricked into a date because she believes Boaz is close to coming to Christ. Everyone is deceived according to assumed tropes, most of which derive from stories, movies, and fictive carnival performances (Evangelical church services). The movie is pretty silly, but the punchline is clear: we will see and believe not only what we want to see and believe, but what we expect to see and believe. Unlike The Prestige (a better movie, I think), there's no ambiguity about the real and the fantastical. Instead, the simple mundane elements of life (money and recognition) are mystified by all participants, even the con-men. The spectacle of artifacts (not unlike medieval spectacles of relics) is a spectacle of certainty, a public demonstration of proof from an expert.

While the movie focuses on middle America evangelicalism, this same phenomenon is common among internet traditionalists. One can find e-converts to Catholicism or Orthodoxy waxing on about the need to possess an "ancient" or "premodern" mentality. They coo about supposed eucharistic miracles or oozing icons. As Rod Dreher noted in his article about "weird Christianity": he is quite comfortable kissing the (supposed) skulls of saints. But these aesthetics reflect his own cultural contingency (and his reactionary disgust with his own campy, Bible-Belt, evangelicalism): he will kiss the skull, but can't get himself to raise his hand for a praiseband liturgy. Nevertheless, its a similar willingness to indulge a kind of fantasy: a tactile holiness made up of scripted experience. As an Orthodox acquataince one stated: when it comes to all the traditions and hagiographies of the Orthodox church, one must believe everything. It is only this "premodern" (which, as the scarequotes should give away, is role-playing fantasy concept) disposition that can save the world from secular reductionism. The reality is that this sort of thing is simply set-up to get conned. Performative holiness (whether with robes, candles, and reliquaries, or with praisebands, mood lighting, and artifacts) is quite easily a trap for the deceived.

And its fundamentally dishonest. Ancient people weren't credulous dupes (at least, not all of them; not anymore than modern contemporaries are today). Such is the case even for early Christians (who did not "believe everything"). Some found popular practices to be foolish, if not perversely blasphemous. Egyptian Christians, like Athanasius, saw the budding cult of relics as a throwback to popular worship of the dead. Hostile to these practices, Athanasius wanted the dead to stay buried, not turned into popular fetishes. Reflecting this position, Shenoute (a 5th c. influential monastic leader) condemned this tactile obsession as foolish and wicked:
Those who adore [martyrs] in some holy place built in their name worship demons, not God. Those who trust that healing comes to them, or goods, in a place that they built over some skeletons without knowing whose they are … are no different from those who adored the calves of Jeroboam set up in Samaria … Who among those who fear God will not say, “Woe to those who say, ‘I saw a light in the holy place that was built over some bones of a skeleton in the church, and I was eased of my illness after I slept there.’” (quoted in, Robert Wiśniewski, The Beginnings of the Cult of Relics, 2018)
Not pulling his punches, Shenoute equates this practice with a vulgar relapse into paganism. Worship of the true God is replaced with an idol. But, as his fictive quote suggests, the drive towards this form of religion is due to longing and experience. The man sleeping in the tomb almost certainly didn't do it by accident. Rather, he slept there hoping for good results (and got them). Secularity also engages in similar spectacles of certainty. Science is often turned into a cult, a quasi-miraculous religion which can give us certainty. There are many pop-science shows about how "Science" (capital-S) can teach absolute doctrines about politics, economics, the mores of sexual attraction, even ethics. Additionally, pop-science babblers (ranging from Richard Dawkins and Sam Harris to Michiu Kaku and Neil deGrasse Tyson) promote their high-wire claims about social policies and politics from "Science", as if the scientific method was a credo. Bill Nye's recent mature show performed spectacles of certainty, as he put on a show of doing a few experiments, coupled with interviews and authoritative teaching about various social questions (homosexuality, environmentalism, drug use, etc.). The experiment is part of a carnival-like show, shoring up liberalism against its critics (and failings). Bill Nye is really no different from real life Don Verdeans (a has-been selling a mystified show as knowledge of reality). And these are no different from ancient or medieval fetishes of bones, tombs, and "high places" (sacred groves that Israel's prophets condemned).

For a Christian (according to scripture), God's work is manifest through rational history. Prophets demonstrate wonders through authoritatively-delegated power, not through wizardry. The difference may seem overly subtle (and self-serving). However, the miracle does not involve substances. Things do not possess innate traits or transmogrify (in some sort of thaumaturgic or alchemical metastasis). Instead, God as Creator simply acts. Unlike our words, God's Word acts with power. Social rites may transform a simple band of metal into a wedding-ring (now possessing greater symbolic significance to whatver may befall it). Ground is hallowed (literally, set apart) for a grave site, a place of worship, or the seat of government. In God's usage, these ritual actions can transform reality. But the elements in these rites have no inherent power. God commands Moses to build a bronze serpent to heal those who suffered the divine wrath of venomous snake bites. Yet this bronze serpent later becomes part of a derivative cult (venerated as an image of Nachash, a snake god or God in the form of a snake). The righteous king Josiah melts it down as part of his purging idolatry from the land. It is God who possesses these powers, not things or people (who only exhibit them through delegation). It is faith/faithfulness that drives the Christian, not certainty. It is personal knowledge of character, not impersonal knowledge of patterns and rules. However, as Don Verdean lampoons, Christians all too often mix these up (justifying their deeds as part of God's providential oversight). Christianity (at its truest) does not fetishize the common elements of the world. Rather they, as fellow creatures, participate in the life-giving communion between Creator and creation, Artist and art. As bread and wine communicates the life giving friendship (flesh) and forgiveness (blood) of Christ, so too does the Christian's life reflect divine nature: to bless the righteous and unrighteous, to shower the virtues on the just and unjust.

The spectacle of certainty is a great temptation for all of mankind. Its the root of much idolatry, as well as credulous superstition. It breeds stupidity and commotidization, as fetishes, idols, icons, relics, artifacts, etc. become marketed receptacles for the divine. The rational and living God is traded for cosmic forces that the talented carnival barker mediates to the gawking mob of consumers. This approach not only applies to images, but words. Popular phenomena, like the prayer of Jabez, is sold like a magical incantation (not unlike premodern charms, enchantments, and the names of several divinities or spirits). This idiocy is possible for the theist and the atheist, the faithful and the secular. If one does not take heed, he will end up as one of marionettes (controlled by lust, fear, and fantasy) in Don Verdean.

4 comments:

  1. You mention the phenomenon of incantation of words which I think is prevalent in charismatic circles where the emphasis is on personal spiritual encounters (some circles with greater emphasis on more vivid techniques of visualization). I think such impulses if desired continually can alter the dialogue between God and man (towards a more subjective romanticized form of pietism).
    Still, the desire to expect God performing miracles and signs can prevent Christians from slipping into full-blown functional deism, the lack of discernment to test all spirits and things often cause the movement to be tangled by presence/absence of the bona fide signs from God and people involved get tantalizing notion of power and glory that ironically downplay the humiliation and debasement of Christ.
    Jesus ends up being a mere "high price" in the transaction/exchange for greater favor, wealth, success, healing of diseases and forgiveness of sins. The lines between magic and trusting God blurs, sadly.
    I certainly do not wish to deny the Providence of the Father in our lives, but I struggle to find out when does one step out of the boundaries of Scripture? True enough, God called Abraham a rich man from Haran to head to Canaan, he also delivered the long-afflicted Hebrews from the land of suffering (who plundered the Egyptians gold), at the same time, he also sent the Jews into 70 years of exile, punishing all the nobility, priests in the land. Jesus also called Zacchaeus and prostitutes and other sinners into repentance. I know for God works in in wisdom, able to call forth the rich and the poor. But i still don't think I have figured it all out yet but here's my conclusion.
    Forsaking our old habits and idols and Fixing our eyes on Jesus while being surround by this great cloud of witnesses is the only way to press on in this race until we behold his face. Offering the fruit of our lips to bless the Triune God and equipping ourselves with full armor of God while fighting this good fight of faith is the 'hard' and tedious way for pilgrims on this world. We who have lasting city on this world know this journey of sanctification is fraught with trials, tribulation, grief, persecution and hunger, yet we are protected by the Father that not a single hair shall fall off from our head, we are more than conquerors through Christ who sees at the right hand of the Father and soon return to judge the living and the dead. Maranatha.
    Pax in Christi

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    1. One of the main issues is just simply a love of truth. Rigorous honesty is a challenge, and even miracles in Scripture receive contemporary challenge. The Father talks to Jesus in Jerusalem, and people don't know what they heard. God's providence is always contestable and is about drawing people into a confrontation with the Creator. But it's easy to want something more controllable and stable for our purposes, and that's what gets us in trouble.

      Maranatha indeed

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    2. Yes, I agree, miracles are still disputed in age where desire control over the world and nature but god will still reveal himself to man even as humanity lays in darkness, pining for redemption or wasting away. Our living faith in a living God ultimately turns the world on its head, just Paul and his companions in Ephesus and miracles of Saint-Menard in the Age of Enlightenment. I wonder if this sounds the death knell of cessationism...

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