The Bible and the Handmaids

The Handmaid's Tale Wedding

Is there no balm in Gilead?
    Is there no physician there?
Why then has the health of my poor people
    not been restored?
Jeremiah 8:22

Have you heard about the student who reached out on Twitter for help with an assignment on Margaret Atwood's novel The Handmaid's Tale. Her "crazy" English teacher

Momchil Gavrilov @GavrilovMomchil   

 

My crazy English teacher is making us write essays on #TheHandmaidsTale tale where we are supposed to answer why @MargaretAtwood put the theme of power and control in the book. We do not have telepathy with @MargaretAtwood so I guess twitter is a close second... Helpppp!!!

 

So who responds? None other than Atwood herself, with thoughtful comments and the suggestion that the teacher may not be so crazy.

 

Because it's in the world. (It's not just women who are controlled in the book.. it's everyone except those at the top. Gilead is a theocratic totalitariansim, not simply a Men-have-power Women-do-not world. Lower status men are told when and who marry, eg.)

 

We finally watched the first season of the dramatization of The Handmaid's Tale, which was both chilling and riveting. Recently we watched the second season and while it too was compelling it "freaked my clergy freak." There are so many references to scripture that I began noting those I caught along the way from:

 

Ecclesiastes, Genesis, 1 Corinthians, Proverbs, Psalms, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Joshua, John and (drumroll please) Ephesians 5: 22-23

 

 Wives, be subject to your husbands as you are to the Lord.   For the husband is the head of the wife just as Christ is the head of the church, the body of which he is the Savior.

 

Yup, there's the power and control, alright, and all those other verses are used for pious repression in a stomach-turning way. I don't know who got the assignment to ferret out bible references for season two but they left few stones unturned...or thrown.

 

Whether it's politics or religion or family, power can be abused, and regularly is. Love, compassion, the highest good for the other can disappear in a hurry. The Handmaid's Tale reminds us that we need to be vigilant. As Christians and people of good will we must find another way, which uphold the gospel of Christ.