Your Kingdom Come

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Sweet Briar Chaplain Adam White philosophy professor Kevin Honeycutt recently delivered a lecture on the religious and philosophic aspects of Susan Sontag’s essay “Illness as Metaphor.”  During the lecture I was particularly struck by the notion that the sick are treated differently from the well; they are avoided or even removed from society.  I began to wonder if we, as members of a society based on Judeo-Christian values, see the diseased as exhibiting physical evidence of the Biblical Fall and therefore individuals we wish to avoid.

We observe this ostracizing as far back as the Old Testament times, specifically in the book of Leviticus. 

Now the leper on whom the sore is, his clothes shall be torn and his head bare; and he shall cover his mustache and cry, ‘Unclean!  Unclean!’  He shall be unclean.  All the days he has the sore he shall be unclean.  He is unclean, and he shall dwell alone; his dwelling shall be outside camp. (Leviticus 13:45-46)

These orders are given by God Himself, perhaps in an effort to protect the healthy from this contagious disease. 

If we stop to think about it, the other diseases in history warranting isolation from society were all contagious.  Remember the plague, the scarlet fever, tuberculosis, and AIDS; even the common cold and chicken pox, although rarely deadly, are grounds for staying away from others.  However, cancer, the latest scare, is not something we can catch or contract from others.

But why do we still shy away from the ill, such as cancer patients—or even AIDS patients, which is not airborne?  Susan Sontag, in her essay “Illness as Metaphor,” claims, “With the advent of Christianity, which imposed more moralized notions of disease, as of everything else, a closer fit between disease and ‘victim’ gradually evolved.  The idea of disease as punishment yielded the idea that a disease could be particularly appropriate and just punishment” (Sontag, 43).  While this philosophy passé in the Reformed (Calvinistic) Church, man still views disease as blaring evidence of the Fall. 

Ernest Becker, a writer and teacher, expands on this in his book Escape from Evil.  “Man wants above all to endure and prosper, to achieve immortality in some way.  Because he knows he is mortal, and the thing he wants most to deny is his mortality” (Becker, 92).  Unfortunately, seeing others ill reminds man he is neither perfect nor immortal. Genesis 3 recounts mankind’s slipping from God’s grace.  Because of the devil, disguised as a serpent, Eve, the first woman, ate from “the tree of the knowledge of good and evil” (Genesis 2:17a) and convinced her husband Adam, the first man, to eat of it also, even though God explicitly told them not to eat from it.  Consequently, God told Adam, “Cursed is the ground for your sake….  In the sweat of your face you shall eat bread till you return to the ground, for out of it you were taken; for dust you are, and to dust you shall return” (Genesis 3:17b, 19).  This not only brought suffering and disease into the world, but God’s words were also man’s death sentence.  Suddenly, man is not invincible; he is not immortal. 

Chaplain White says this shying away from illness comes from the Deuteronomistic teaching that says God will bless those who obey Him and curse those who do not obey Him (Deuteronomy 30:16-18).  In this mindset, only evil people get sick.  This skewed interpretation of Scripture is addressed later in the Bible when Jesus’ disciples, upon seeing a blind man, ask, “‘Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents that he was born blind?’  Jesus answered, ‘Neither this man nor his parents sinned, but that the works of God should be revealed in him’” (John 9:2b-3).  By this, Christ does not deny sinful nature (the result of the Fall) itself, only God’s punishing man through disease.  He says the man is blind so God’s perfect will may be seen through him.  God works through man’s pitfalls and darkest thoughts, and even man’s illness, to further His kingdom. 

I think man isolates the sick because illness reminds him of his imperfection and mortality.  “All you have to do is to say your group is pure and good, eligible for a full life and for some kind of eternal meaning.  But others…are spoiling everything for you, contaminating your purity and bringing disease and weakness into your vitality” (Becker, 93).  Disease is physical evidence of the Fall, which man tries to forget, so he isolates the sick as an act of denial and desperation.

Works Cited

Becker, Ernest. Escape from Evil. New York: Free Press, 1975. 92-93. Print.

Sontag, Susan. Illness as Metaphor and AIDS and Its Metaphors. New York: Picador, 1977. 43. Print.

The MacArthur Student Bible: New King James Version. Nashville: World Publishing, 2000. Print.