Here was a wonderful response that came to me through a friend who sent the article, “The Gadarene Madman and His Dysfunctional Family.” to another friend, and he wrote back to Paul with this response. It is a fascinating response.
Paul:
Interesting article. It is interesting to me for several reasons. There is a theologian by the name of Kenneth Bailey who spent 25 years in the “backwoods” of Lebanon studying the oral traditions of the peasants. One of his discoveries was how the Gospels contained structures whereby the people, who were totally illiterate, could carry forward via oral tradition the stories of the gospels. He discovered that after 2000 years, these people could recite the gospel of Luke virtually unchanged from the ancient text. A friend of mine has virtually mapped these structures for the entire New Testament. According to him, these forms were not only a tool for remembering the scriptures. They were also an interpretive key. He calls the structure ”delta forms” because they indicate a parallelism that seeks an apex, or central verse. A great example is the way the gospel of John and the book of Revelations are virtual mirror images of one another. John begins where Revelations end. John ends where Revelations begins. He sees that as an interpretive key to understanding Revelations. (Sorry for the ranting. It isn’t pertinent to my point). One of the other assertions of Bailey was that every story in the Gospels was a microcosm of the gospel itself. When your author takes the demoniacs characteristics apart, I see the gospel clearly revealed. The demoniac becomes a clear type of the what Jesus would become for all of us- chained to our sin, accused for our sin, shamed for our sin, punished for our sin by taking on our punishment himself (self stoning), cursed and separated from the Father for our sin and thrown into the abyss for our sin. He is the ultimate and prophesied scapegoat. But the story doesn’t end there. The man is completely freed and resurrected by Jesus by His grace and mercy, not because of his works. Kenneth Bailey does a beautiful job expressing this with the story of the prodigal son. The father lifting his skirt running through the village becomes the scapegoat in place of the returning son by taking on the shame of the village. He becomes the spectacle to shield the son from the mockery due him for leaving with the inheritance. Bailey points this story out, in particular, because of the Muslim apologists who claimed the prodigal earned his reward by his repentance. Bailey shows that the son’s restoration is a result of a sacrifice of grace and mercy by a loving father who passionately watches for his son’s return, takes on his judgment, and welcomes him home- the gospel.
It was interesting to me to me that your author also drew from the work of Murray Bowen. Jay Haley, another family systems guru, wrote a book that I read over 25 years ago called “The Double-bind Theory of Schizophrenia”. In it, he draws from the concept of Bowen’s work. He states how the family sets up roles with double-binds, which essentially assign what each family member is to do in order to support the sick system. An example of a double bind was a mother who would ask the schizophrenic child for a hug only to turn very rigid when the child gave the hug, sending a come here-go away message, and then say, “Why are you hugging me this way? Do you not love mommy”?- the double bund. In schizophrenic families, these roles are extremely rigid and highly resistant to alteration. The purpose is to assign the scapegoated schizophrenic the role of taking on the family’s dysfunction, i.e. demons. About two years ago I read another book called “Paradox”, which a study done by Italian Systems therapists. They studied the family structures in homes where there was a child who was schizophrenic. They had teams of therapist who worked with these families. Two would actually do the work, and four would be observers behind a two way mirror. As they watched these families interact they were amazed at how each member played a role, including the schizophrenic child, to maintain the child’s mental illness for the sake of the family. The therapist intervened with a double bind paradox to break up the structures in the family. For example, in the presence of all the family, they would thank the child for doing such a great job of taking on all of the family’s dysfunction so the rest could all be comfortable and not have to deal with their individual illnesses. The paradox set up a double bind for the other family members. If they continued to let the child take on its role, the family would stay sick. It made the covert roles overt. To stay in them would be to sacrifice the child. They were surprised at how the families reacted, sometimes with violent threats towards the therapist. Even the children who were schizophrenic would often walk over and hit the therapist. When the adults seemed to get their place in assigning their children the sickness and worked to change them, the children were usually cured. It interested me to see how far parents will sometimes go to unconsciously assign their children the roles of carry forward their sickness and generational sins. This article certainly demonstrates this within the community and once again, we see Jesus as the willing scapegoat to take on the sins of the community.
Well that is enough of my ranting an raving for a while. I have to get to work, but thanks for sharing with me.
Mike
