Hypermasculinity and Divinity ANALYSIS OF STEPHEN MOORE’S ESSAY.

Hypermasculinity and Divinity

ANALYSIS OF STEPHEN MOORE’S ESSAY

Moore invites us to think about what it is exactly that Christians worship when they worship God.

Theological anthropomorphism— focus of essay

Passivity of God—theme

Revelation is begins and ends with epic divine worship—”setting”

Revelation interpreted through contemporary lens of body building subculture “posing exhibition” and “big reveal” of Extreme Makeover

Moore’s fundamental argument is that what Christians worship is actually hegemonic hypermasculinity

References theological, literary and philosophical scholars to make his argument: Bauchman, Frued, Foucalt, Aune

Theological Anthropomorphism

Focus of essay What is it? Definiton: The attribution of a human

characteristic or behavior to God (personification; “making” God into a man)

Ex: Exodus 3:20 "So I will stretch out My hand and strike Egypt with all My miracles which I shall do in the midst of it; and after that he will let you go.

A Passive God?

Moore invites us to think about the passivity of God presented in Revelations

God : passive/immobile; sits on throne in his first and last appearance in Revelation

Only speaks in Rev. 1:8, & 21:5-8

Otherwise completely absent/ silent

Compare this to Static statuesque nature of bodybuilders who look tough and masculine in their egoist poses

Worship of the Divine

True knowledge of God is inseparable from worship of God ( Moore quotes Bauchmam)

Two primary forms of awareness of God:

Perception of his “numinous holiness”

Consciousness of utter dependence on God for existence itself

Worship elevates God but humbles the worshipper

God’s holiness and essential role in the cosmos cannot be experienced outside of worship

Masculinity in Divine Worship

The relationship between worshiper/God mirrors child’s relationship with human parents (Freud)

A child’s pervasive sense of smallness, powerlessness and utter dependence on parents (contrast w/parents’ greatness, power, independence)

Mirrors the worshipper (child’s) relationship with God (parent)

God regarded as father in our culture because fathers have been regarded as “gods of the homes”?

Moore argues that readers “dress-up” God. Bottom-up flow of reasoning

Bauckham suggests God is innocent of projections of patriarchial domination

By avoiding anthropomorphism, Revelations suggests the incomparability of God’s sovereignty (Bauckham)

Image of the Throne Room highlights difference more than similarity between divine sovereignty and human sovereignty

Apophatic theology

Expresses transcendence

Moore not-so-subtlety denies Bauckman’s ideals of Revelation’s non-patriarchial domination

Not free of anthropomorphism

The being on the throne is human in form

“a likeness like the appearance of a man/human being” Ezekiel 1:26

Though John does lets us imagine what God’s heavenly physique looks like…

Divinity and body-building subculture

Moore links these: Interprets physique of the divine through lens of body-building subculture

Passivity of God

Statuesque appearance of the divine

God of Revelation engaging in a posing exhibition?

God, the body-building idol

Moore suggests that in this “statuesque embodiment of absolute power” God looks like an idol despite John’s “iconophobia”

God’s silence exacerbates this masculinized statuesque demeanor

Compares bodybuilder, Dorian Yates, and his adoring fans to God and his celestial worshippers

Revelation and bodybuilding fascism

These share similar characteristics

Fascism: (Authoritative rule/control/hierarchical power)

Fetishism for spectacle

Worship of power

Grandiose fantasies

Dominance and submission in social relations extended to dominance and submission in divine/human relations

Imperial Rome & the Imperial throne room

Moore argues that the Ideology of Revelation is not a simple inversion of the political/social ideology of imperial Rome

Represents instead a apotheosis (or culmination—absolute pinicle) of imperial ideology— its ascension to a “transhistorical site”

Mirrored worship in heaven and below

“Worthy art though” reflects acclamation used in great Roman Emperor procession during his triumphal entrance

“Our lord our God” is paralleled by Domitian's insistence that he be addressed by this title

24 elders parallels the # of lictors that accompanied Roman magistrates which corresponds to degree of imperium

Aune argues that the popular images of the Roman Imperial Court have been expanded and intensified beyond that of any earthly ruler

Moore argues that if God’s power is only a parody of divine power which exceeds Roman imperial power just as the emperor’s power far exceeds that of his senators and so on and so forth, then the difference between Roman Sovereignty and divine sovereignty would be quantitatively rather than qualitatively different.

This is the purpose of apophaticism in imagery (God’s otherness)

Suggests incomparability of God’s sovereignty

But Revelations isn’t usually though of in terms of apophatic theology…

Power and Freedom

“Power of an alarmingly pure kind is what God’s sign in Revelation boils down to” (88)

Foucault: internalized constraints on freedom (a psychological/sociological internalized ‘prison’ of self-policing)

Revelations presents an absolute displacement of outward subjection & tangible coercion by means of inner self-policing

John’s presentation of a false dichotomy: only two choices— with God or against God

Physical punishment for those who oppose God vs.

Total loss of will— in exchange for God’s will (and eternal life?)

Which shall they choose…….? Do they really have a choice?

The Beatific Vision

Who is the God of Revelations?

Moore suggests that the God of Revelations is revealed not through Christ but through the Roman emperor (anthropomorphism)

Greco-Roman culture and contemporary body-building subculture converge in respective conceptions of God-like physique

Emperors faced the temptation of becoming “divinized flesh”

Moore argues that John’s attempt to counter the imperial cult with image of profound heavenly cult has ended with confusion of figures

The Roman emperor coalescing into the Christian God

Revelation looks like an image of Domitian on earth

Hypermasculinity and the divine

Heavily muscled roman manner attributed to heavenly image

Rev. 4:3 “appearance like precious stones”

Jasper and carnelian

Divine physique characterized by transparency and redness

Hard and phallic (chiseled, muscled, defined)

‘hardness” the sine qua non (the essential condition) of a god-like appearance

The turn of the rainbow

“A mighty warrior needs a mighty weapon”

RainBOW around throne

Domitian very good at archery

“I have set my bow in the clouds and it shall be a sign of the covenant between me and the earth”

Rainbow in Rev. 4:3– instead of representing the cessation of war and devastation against humanity, it signifies its continuation

Moore’s conclusion thus far: God of Revelations is a hyper-masculinized God

Masculinity, though, in excess tends to drift into its opposite: femininity

The vast audience of idolizers (nameless, faceless) is nothing more than an “infinite row of mirrors lining the interior walls of the city” reflecting pervasive masculinized ideology

The emperor has become his own love object

The “Big Reveal”

Relationship between beatific vision and voyeuristic vision

Objectifying/degrading its object or exalting it?

Voyeurism– the sexual interest or practice of spying on people engaged in intimate behaviors

Moore suggest voyeurism is what the reader of revelations is engaged in

Beatific vision— the object elicits worship

The vast mirrored enclosure: purpose is to reflect the divine perfection back to the deity who becomes his own eternal love object

Man is reflected back to himself, but he is now “changed” (transformed)

Extreme Makeover: The Big Reveal

Social/death and certain resurrection (old self died; new self lives)

Comparison between modern reality TV shows and Revelation

Reality TV (Extreme Makeover and the Swan)

Complete transformation ( before and after)

Big Reveal: the revealee whose transfigured face we have not yet been permitted to see (Rev 3:2)

Theophany as self-revelation: “They shall see his face”

This beauty is heavily gendered and beautiful, Male.

Beautiful in our culture: dieting and exercising (body-builder)

“A narcissistic male fantasy enacted in a claustrophobic mirrored enclosure”

Conclusion

The God of Revelation is a Hyperidealized and masculinized male image: beautiful and heavily gendered and coded as male.

The celestial city, throne, and audience merely provide a pedestal: an illusion of transcendence.

transcendence doesn’t actually exist—it is only a defection of man’s masculinity in the throne room which deflects back again

Ruling the Nations with a Rod of Iron (Masculinity and violence in the book of Revelation) Author: Colleen Conway

“…And from his mouth came a sharp sword, so that he may strike down the nations and rule them with an iron rod” (Rev. 19:!5 her translation)

The Christological forms of Jesus: angel, lamb, warrior

Not human

Gendered nonetheless

Conway argues that no where in Revelations is Jesus found in human form (Congruence with Moore)

Although we are invited to imagine Jesus as a man, and imagine his physique anyway we’d like (Congruence with Moore)

Christological forms of Jesus

Revelation: Jesus cast as an angel, a lamb, and a warrior

Contrasts sharply with Jesus in the Gospels: teaching, preaching, suffering, dying and resurrecting

Not recognizable in human forms

Gendered nonetheless

In Revelations there is tension between the image of imperial masculinity and the image of Roman imperial Violence

Though commonly assumed, These are not congruent!

Image of imperial Masculinity

This ideal projects a masculine image for God and Christ that follows w/ideal of ruling and authority

Worthy of honor and worship, and glory and power…etc.

“Noble ruler”

(We saw this reflected in Moore’s essay– in the cult of the throne room singing praises to God “worthy is the lamb..”

Image of Roman Imperial Violence

Produces figures of rage and violence: the warrior on the white horse who tramples the winepress, until blood flows up to a horse’s bridle for 200 miles

Draws more heavily on military imagery than any other NT text

Revelation’s soteriological figures (savior-figures) are successful in battles

When Revelation employs images of warfare, it engages a very basic element of imperial masculinity

Though these savior-figures in Revelation deviate from standards of roman hegemonic masculinity (masculinity that rules) precisely in the ways they engage their enemies in war (image is similar; action is different)

This is similar to Moore’s apophatic depiction of God— His “wholly-otherness)

Although the action of the savior-figure in Revelations employs Roman rhetoric of warfare and victory, Revelation is ultimately driven by vengeance then by an interest in cultural standards

This suggests God is actually more cruel and vengeful even than earthly Roman emperors

So, yes God is different (Wholly other than earthly emperors) but arguably in a very negative and terrible way

Christ in Revelation is far more unmanly than manly— he is beastly

Christ the Angel

Opening chapter of Revelation

Most anthropomorphic of all

Has a head, hair like wool, bronze arms/legs, blazing eyes

Still we don’t know the gender!

BUT, he bears a weapon a double-edged sword (issues from his mouth)

This depiction of action stylized masculine

Similar to Daniel, Ezekiel and Enoch, which depict son of man as a supernatural entity– an angel

The terrifying Angel and the Edict

Double-edged sword depicts imperial authority; issuing instructions to the 7 churches

7 letters of Revelations resemble imperial edicts more than standard epistolary letters

Formal introduction

Expresses decisions and sanctions

Final clause intended to reinforce obedience

Promises for those who obey

Punishment for those who do not

Ch. 14 double-edge sword traded for a sharp sickle

Dispensing judgment– a central function of emperor and now the son of man, too

Revelation 14:20 : the harvest is ready

Angel is a sign of masculinity

Christ the Warrior Rider

Revelation 19:11-16 Rider treading on the wine press

Here he is not named son of God, but Word of God

Wears many crowns, clothed in a robe dripped in blood

Many crowns symbolize imperial aspects of the figure: Glory and honor

Not his own blood, but blood of enemies

This figure sanctions divine violence founded on the basis of manly virtues

Rules with iron rod and slaughters entire armies BUT is called faithful and true

Christ the Lamb

Rev. 5:4-5 speaks of a lion— the most masculine in the animal world but a lion doesn’t appear, a lamb does; one which looks as if it has been slaughtered

This can be read in two ways

Popular reading: Non-violent resistance to evil; faithful endurance rather than violence

Alternative reading: 7 horns and 7 eyes symbolizing strength and power

Slaughtered (resurrected Jesus); because of death, he is worthy of honor

Would have been known to the Roman world who heard this phrase at public processions

So the lamb presents a masculine status

After the first mention of the slaughtered lamb there is only a vison of a wrathful lamb, a conquering lamb and a lamb as bridegroom and then only one more mention in Revelation 13:8

These images of the lamb represent multiple sides of imperial masculinity and imperial violence

The tyranny of the Lamb

Conway juxtaposes Antiochus in 4 Maccabees to God

Antiochus was cruel and gave harsh punishment but could also be just and merciful— was known for both

Lamb as a tyrannical ruler– those who obey given power, those who refuse will be tortured (akin to Moore’s interpretation)

If God punishes those who engage in the Roman imperial cult, it raises the question:

Are God and the lamb also tyrants whose conduct suggests they have lost key traits of hegemonic masculinity such as self-restraint, reason and clemency?

Conway reminds us that even though some Roman emperors were cruel and calloused they were nobly so. “Noble rulers”

Her final argument suggests that if the lamb’s conquering death made him a manly lamb, his vindictive rage actually moves him further down the hierarchy- to a savage beast

Authority, Kinship and priesthood which highlights masculine nature is gained by those who endure (gendered rewards)

If Christians die by suffering a noble “manly” death they will be rewarded

Sounds very much like the authority of ideal masculinity in the context of the Greco-Roman world

Conclusion

When Revelations portrays a wrathful God who wreaks eternal vengeance on his enemies, it is not drawing on Roman masculine ideology— far more than this

The Book of Revelation mirrors the worst of violence in Rome in its own saving figures.

Revelation's displays both civilized masculinity of Imperial Roman Rhetoric, but also gross beastly unmanliness