blasphemy and beauty
what the unforgivable sin actually is
“Does anyone know what sin God will not forgive?” Brian asked.
Far removed from the lighthearted youth group games of Wednesday night, this Sunday morning class was offered to middle school students who wanted to “grow deeper in their faith” and ask the hard questions left unanswered from the Wednesday evening message.
Pastor Brian, the beloved youth pastor with a soul patch and disarming smile, walked between the plastic roundtables set up in the youth center and asked someone to open their Bible to Matthew 12.
Beginning at Verse 31, one student courageously offered to read:
“Therefore I tell you, people will be forgiven for every sin and blasphemy, but blasphemy against the Spirit will not be forgiven. Whoever speaks a word against the Son of Man will be forgiven, but whoever speaks against the Holy Spirit will not be forgiven, either in this age or in the age to come.”
To be honest, I have no clue what Brian said after this passage was read. My head was spinning.
“Have I blasphemed against the Holy Spirit?” I worried. “What even is blasphemy? Oh no … am I going to hell because I said ‘oh my God?’”
I quickly bowed my and prayed some version of this over and over: “God, I am so sorry if I ever blasphemy-ed against the Holy Spirit, please forgive me this time.”
I’m sure Brian answered these questions and my anxiety would’ve been put to ease had I held off on my panic prayer and listened to the remainder of his explanation.
Blasphemy is an odd word. Most of us don’t use it unless we are invoking some biblical commandment or passage like the one above. I, like many other evangelicals, was told that blasphemy was when you swore or said “oh my God” after a scare or “Jesus!” when you stub your toe.
At some point, we realize this isn’t true. God isn’t counting up our curse words and Jesus isn’t taking the blame because rounded a corner too fast. However, in return, we don’t actually get at the heart of what “using the Lord’s name in vain” is.
To blaspheme, I believe, is to appropriate the essence and will of God to our self-interest. It is to act out of malice, violence, hatred, and greed and then use God’s name to justify one’s actions. It is to claim God has spoken when God has not.
To act in the name of God is no small thing, which is why I think Jesus takes blasphemy against the Spirit so seriously. When false prophets arise communities fall, lives crumble, and trust fades.
There are few things that can tear apart our common life like blasphemy. It distorts our relationship with God, with our neighbors, with the land beneath our feet, and with ourselves.
Instead, what I believe we are called to is beauty.
Beauty “draws people and places together in a way that joins while honoring difference. Beauty enables us to see truth in acquaintance—truthfulness—rather than as a cold, abstract reality.” “It is the transcendental that manifests being. It is a metaphysics based on the infinite, ordered beautiful, not the chaotic, totalizing sublime.”
Beauty manifest rightly “decenters all of us and opens us up to such wonder that we seek to replicate it.”
Yes, the replication of beauty is the greatest weapon against blasphemy. It moves us into community, positions us towards the other, and points to this replicating work of beauty all around us.
Reading:
The Great Derangement - Amitav Ghosh
Essential Labor: Mothering as Social Change - Angela Barbes
Watching:
Karl Barth Conference Lectures - 2022 (Youtube)
Listening:
U DON’T HAVE TO ROB ME - DOMi & JD Beck
Nothing's really safe and everyone's insane. What made y'all crazy? No one's friendly.
Enna Sona - A. R. Rahman & Arijit Singh
Shiva - Spillage Village
Sterilize cold water from a tap
Liquidation in my neighborhood, celebrate the current state
Of hate between the acres, separated by the paper
Goods, water, food, schools to news are the clues we choose
True illusions, house of balloons, house of blues
Lollapalooza, in the crowd aloof alone
Feel like a loser for lack of better words
So fool followin' fools