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The Bad Parable of the Prodigal Son

June 20, 2016 by Adam Lee
The Bad Parable of the Prodigal Son June 20, 2016 Adam Lee The tale of the prodigal son is one of the Christian Bible’s most famous parables. But there’s something about it that’s never sat right with me:

Now his elder son was in the field: and as he came and drew nigh to the house, he heard music and dancing. And he called one of the servants, and asked what these things meant… And he was angry, and would not go in: therefore came his father out, and intreated him.

—Luke 15:11-32

Even before I became an atheist, this story bothered me. It’s supposed to be a beautiful lesson about forgiveness and redemption, but it’s always been obvious to me that the moral is skewed at best, and at worst outright bad.

What bugs me about this is that the older son was right to be angry. He stayed home, he worked in the fields, he was responsible and prudent, and he got nothing for it. Meanwhile, his brother squandered his entire inheritance on frivolous partying and only came crawling back when he was poor and hungry, and he wasn’t just welcomed, but richly and lavishly rewarded. What kind of message does this send?

If you want people to behave morally, you have to get the incentives straight. It’s certainly allowable to forgive repentant wrongdoers – after all, when people do evil, you should give them some motivation to stop – but shouldn’t we reserve the greatest rewards for people who did the right thing from the beginning? Doing anything else sends the message that what we value most highly isn’t “good all along”, but “evil for as long as you can get away with, then a turn to good as a last resort”.

After all, the prodigal son (and note “prodigal” really means “wasteful”) didn’t come back because he had a sudden epiphany, because he realized his conduct had been greedy and wasteful. No, he came back because he ran out of money and got hungry! In other words, he started to feel consequences from his irresponsible behavior. That’s the lowest and most self-serving of reasons for regret. It’s like a criminal who only feels sorry because he got caught.

Even when we’re willing to forgive, the wrongdoer should have to put forth some proof that they’ll behave differently in the future, both for their sake and for everyone else’s. The prodigal son said he’d come back even if he had to work as a servant, but that commitment was never put to the test. What lesson did he learn from all this, do you think? If he comes into a second inheritance, is he likely to spend it more wisely, or to blow it all again, knowing that forgiveness will always be waiting down the road?

This is the same flawed religious morality that says you can lead a life of wickedness, be wasteful and thoughtless and greedy, but everything will be OK as long as you repent on your deathbed, even if you never make restitution or apologize to the people you’ve harmed. And the flipside of this is that God doesn’t care about good works, so trying to be an honest and compassionate person is just wasted effort if you haven’t uttered the proper magic words.

This forgiveness-for-free mentality is prevalent in our politics and our culture. It’s what allows preachers, professional sex scolds and family-values politicians who go through multiple divorces and affairs, or get caught covering up other misdeeds, to survive. They may issue a blubbering apology, maybe resign or step back from public life for a while, but then inevitably announce that they’ve been forgiven and that they’re better people for it. And more often than not, they’re welcomed back with open arms by their pious colleagues. It’s a moral narrative that doesn’t just allow for, but actively expects, misdeeds and hypocrisy.

Image credit: FranzMayerstainedglass, released under CC BY-SA 1.0 license
 Weekend Coffee: June 19