Commentary
Christian festish
Agnostics anonymous
The deep kinkiness of humanity's relationship with God is a
theme that has endured down the ages. The word 'religion' comes
from the same Latin root as 'ligature' suggesting binding or
bondage. God in the Latin Church was Dominus, 'Master'. Submitting
to the bondage of this master was to enter into a sado-masochistic
relationship. So John Donne implored God: 'Take me to you, imprison
me, for I, / Except you enthrall me, never shall be free, /Nor ever
chaste, except you ravish me'.
God-the-ravisher is a familiar figure in antiquity, many of the
classical myths involving Zeus' sexual plunder. Another patriarch
god, Jehovah, settled into a monogamous relationship with the Jews,
and 'was a husband unto them' (Jeremiah 31). It wasn't a cosy
set-up though: the Prophets dwell rather on the bride's repeated
'whoring after strange gods' and subsequent chastisements.
Jesus softened the image of God-the-bridegroom. But glance over
the torments of the martyrs as lovingly reproduced in any Catholic
cathedral and the centrality of erotic violence to the Christian
imagination is obvious. Eight centuries before Mel Gibson, the
Christian passion was made pornographic and explicit, the agonies
of the body rendered in enthralled detail.
For suicide bombers slaughtering their way to a paradise of
houri, religion remains pretty hot stuff. But looking at British
Christians, you can't help but feel that the spark has gone. It's
all safe words and no sizzle. The need to talk endlessly about your
relationship, whether with a god or person, should set alarm bells
ringing. Analysing and agonising it, or loudly insisting that it's
strong, happy and fulfilling, isn't a promising sign.
Meanwhile, Fifty Shades of Grey is now the best-selling
book in British history. It made headlines when a hotel owner
replaced his Bibles with the E.L. James tome, drawing a predictable
denunciation from his vicar. But Christianity only has itself to
blame for being superseded in this way.
Like other recent bestsellers, Fifty Shades speaks to
the emotional needs that were once satisfied by religion. The
Da Vinci Code gave Christianity's esoteric mystery back to the
people. Harry Potter gave them the apocalyptic confrontation of
Good vs Evil (with additional redemptive sacrifice). And now
Fifty Shades revives the figure of the masterful, dominant
alpha-and-omega male, in the form of the 'divinely formed' sadist
'Christian Grey'.
All this in a novel that began as an amateur tribute to the
Twilight series. Though again, this isn't an area where Christians
ought to cast the first stone. A loose collection of sequels,
glosses and retellings ... what is the New Testament if not a trove
of first-century fanfic?