Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale is back in the news thanks to reporters and liberal voices who imagine that the Catholic Judge Amy Coney Barrett, and a religious group to which she reportedly belongs, will bring about the dystopia portrayed in the book and the movie based on it. Newsweek went so far as to claim that the community, People of Praise, inspired Atwood’s book, later correcting itself to say that it is “a type of Christian religious group that served as inspiration” for her book.
The scare stories about People of Praise, a self-described “charismatic Christian community” made up of Catholics and various Protestants alike, allege that the group is “cult.” The strongest evidence the critics leveled against the group was that they actually used to call certain members “handmaids.” With that, has People of Praise served critics the case against itself on a silver platter?
Before “handmaid” becomes another dog whistle (perhaps it’s too late), it should be remembered that Atwood and her fans didn’t employ it first. According to St. Luke, who detailed the Annunciation, the angel Gabriel announced to Mary that she would conceive and bear a son. She responded, “Behold, I am the handmaid of the Lord. May it be done to me according to your word.” Some newer English translations render it as “servant of the Lord,” though the King James language uses “handmaid.”
Mary’s words have become the basis of one of the oldest hymns and prayers in Christianity, the Magnificat, also known as the Canticle of Mary.
People of Praise has said that it was emulating the mother of Jesus (a woman of unimpeachable importance, especially to Catholic and Orthodox Christians) when it began using “handmaid” to refer to certain members, though it no longer does so because “the meaning of this term has shifted dramatically in our culture in recent years.”
Conservative Christians have a notably different understanding of gender roles than those who are liberal and secular, though it’s nothing close to the dystopian oppression of Atwood’s imagination. Reuters cited a former member of People of Praise claiming that women in the group “are expected to be completely obedient to men” and that independent thinkers are “humiliated, interrogated, shamed, and shunned.”
If that’s true, it’s a wonder that Amy Coney Barrett’s husband and the other male members have allowed her to sit on the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals and to entertain a nomination to the Supreme Court!
