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Have you seen the miniseries, Midnight Mass, on Netflix, yet? If not, you should check it out. It's pretty good (despite way too many monologues and a couple of eye-rolls in the final episode). We won't spoil anything for you, but the story is about a charismatic young priest who brings renewed religious fervor to a dying fishing community . . . in addition to bringing some miracles and a creature in a box. You know, routine religion-type stuff.
While we're not going to talk about the show directly, we do want to explore the idea that the miniseries may be a social commentary on the self-sabotaging effects of certain "conservative" Christian beliefs. Here's what we mean. . .
Penal Substitutionary Atonement
First, a quick definition. "Penal Substitutionary Atonement" refers to the theory that Jesus Christ’s death on the cross turned away God's wrath by his self-sacrifice (propitiation), thereby canceling the deadly effects of sin (expiation). It is characteristic of the Reformers and of the orthodox that they depart from the medieval scholastic theory of a satisfaction made for the sake of the divine honor and rest their views of satisfaction on the justice or righteousness of God, who is angry and wrathful against sin. Subscribing to this particular theory of atonement is an essential element within Christian fundamentalism and other conservative sects, such as Catholicism and evangelicalism.
So-called "liberal" Christians typically don't like the doctrine. For them, it means that God unjustly punished an innocent man to avoid penalizing the people he actually loves. Even worse, God violently murdered his own Son, being somehow incapable of forgiving others without first torturing someone else. As Steve Chalke and Alan Mann once wrote, "If the cross is a personal act of violence perpetrated by God towards humankind but borne by his Son, then it makes a mockery of Jesus’ own teaching to love your enemies and to refuse to repay evil with evil.”
Of course, GCRR neither condones nor condemns this belief (we don't care that much about taking sides in these kinds of theological debates), but it is worth presenting one possible interpretation of the show's religious imagery and metaphor.
Rejecting a Violent God
If the interpretation below is correct, then Midnight Mass is hyperbolically and metaphorically detailing what happens when Christians become interested in Jesus—but only for his blood.
Theologically, the show seems to reject penal substitutionary atonement because it depicts God as a wrathful Father seeking revenge against his own children, which then requires divine blood to rescue the world from its own Creator. It sounds like divine child abuse on a cosmic scale. The show demands that Christians look at the potential negative consequences of their theology: If violence and hostility characterize God’s very personhood, is it realistic to expect Christians (or the world) to act nonviolently toward each other? If God chooses to torture people (whether his own Son on a cross or his other children in hellfire), then isn't it reasonable for humans to choose the same behavior on earth?
Now, we won't go into the actual socio-political history of blood sacrifices that derived from ancient Near Easter religions, but it's fun to note that animal sacrifices first came about because Mediterranean and Mesopotamian peoples believed that the gods needed food to eat. And humans were specifically created to feed them. Over time, this belief became more and more abstract and spiritualized until it reached its present form today. The end.
Going back to Midnight Mass, one social commentary might be the condemnation of reducing people’s relationship with the divine to a mere transactional agreement. "Drink this blood, and you won't die a second death." "Drink this blood, and you'll live forever. To hell with everyone and everything else."
Attending church is now merely an attempt to appease a bloodthirsty deity . . . while losing your own humanity in the process.
Vampire Christians
According to this interpretation of the show, the end result of believing in a vengeful God is a religion full of “‘vampire Christians," who care only about Jesus' blood and little else. What Midnight Mass overtly demonstrates is that these "vampire Christians" are more concerned about their own personal salvation from God's judgment than they are about the existential, social, ecological, and economic dimensions of sin that surround them—and that they themselves help perpetuate!
The result is a warped belief that turns a compassionate God into someone who views his own children as an “enemy.” The consequence is a perversion of evangelism that views nonbelievers as mere cattle unless they convert.
The graphic and violent images in the miniseries help expose the duplicity of the religious establishment and its culpability in destroying our planet. By focusing only on the salvation of the soul, these wrath-embracing Christians watch the world burn around them . . .
. . . only to discover that they will burn along with everyone else on a planet they helped destroy.
Jesus’ message about the kingdom of God included way more than just drinking his blood. It primarily involved redeeming real-life community issues like poverty, ecology, corruption, and racism, as well as personal matters like lying, cheating, greed, lust, and pride.
Making substitutionary atonement a "fundamental" of Christian orthodoxy, while completely ignoring the building of an authentic community that loves and supports each other, is just plain ghoulish. And it'll suck the life out of you.
See you at mass!
Learn about the history and philosophy of depicting a violently crucified messiah in the book:
