Reflections on Andrew M. Greeley’s Contract with an Angel

THOUGHTS & OBSERVATIONS 1

Introduction

Andrew M. Greeley (b. 1928) wears several hats. A Roman Catholic priest, he is also a professor of sociology at the University of Chicago and the University of Arizona in Tucson. A best-selling author as well, he has published over forty books, including academic monographs and many novels. With a core of devoted readers who buy almost every novel he writes, he maintains a Web site (www.agreeley.com) and is a newspaper columnist.

Greeley regularly uses religious and theological themes in his novels. He says that he works at the level of theological novels, in which “questions of meaning and grace are explicitly part of the narrative” (Greeley God 97). His novels might be appropriately classified as narrative theology since he seeks to communicate a theological perspective through his fiction. Greeley stresses the importance of stories in a New York Times article, “Why Do Catholics Stay in the Church? Because of the Stories.” 1 Greeley’s novels also exemplify his long-term interest in the theology of popular culture. One of his groundbreaking books was God in Popular Culture (1988). After sketching out his views on religious imagination in general and Roman Catholic imagination in particular, he analyzes representatives of popular culture such as Bill Cosby, Bruce Springsteen, Madonna, Stephen King, Woody Allen, and Ellis Peters.

In at least three of his popular novels, Greeley created angels as major characters. In the first novel, Angel Fire (1988), Gabriella helps a Nobel Prize winner. In the second novel, Angel Light: An Old-fashioned Love Story (1995), Greeley retells in a contemporary setting the book of Tobit from the Old Testament Apocrypha. In the third novel, Contract with an Angel (1998), which is the focus of this paper, a successful businessman encounters an angel named Michael sitting next to him on an airplane. The angel tells Raymond Neenan that he may have only a short time to live and that he needs to get his affairs in order. After a series of unusual happenings on the flight, Raymond reluctantly signs a contract with Michael, hence the title Contract with an Angel. Many of Greeley’s familiar theological emphases appear in this work, with his emphasis on angels being especially clear. 2 As a Protestant and a Baptist, I will offer some critical comments about the views he presents in this novel, yet I quickly acknowledge that Greeley intended to write an engaging novel, not a study in academic theology.

Risky Business with Angels

Greeley prefaces his story with the cautionary note: “It is a risky business to get involved with angels.” Raymond’s contract with the angel Michael requires him to attempt to reconcile with several people he has alienated or wronged over the years. When Raymond asks Michael what he wants, Michael insists he wants his soul. A nominal Roman Catholic, Raymond argues that he does not believe in God, heaven, hell, the devil, or angels (14). As a successful fifty-five-year-old businessman, he has dispensed with these theological beliefs. He reluctantly signs a contract with Michael in which he agrees to follow Michael’s instructions in the short time he has to live. The novel is clearly an inversion of the Faust story, and a presentation of the Faust opera is a key episode in the novel.

Since Greeley populates his novel with many major and minor characters, a plot summary will not do justice to the fine points of the narrative. Some of the key events deserve mention before I turn to an analysis of some of the novel’s theological themes. Raymond was alienated from his parents, who conceived him out of wedlock during World War II. His mother hoped he would be a priest. Raymond eventually travels to Florida to try to reconcile with them, but his efforts are viciously rebuffed by his father. Much of the novel dwells on Raymond’s renewed relationship with his second wife, Anna Maria. She is more gifted and intelligent than Raymond knew when he married her, and she has maintained her devout Catholic faith. Greeley highlights their sexual relationship, a typical emphasis in his novels, which has attracted the criticism of some conservative readers. For much of the novel Raymond’s relation with Anna Maria is positive and flourishing, but later she feels betrayed by him. They must reconcile again as the story concludes.

Other subplots involve Raymond working to build bridges with his first wife, Donna, his children, and his employees. In most cases, he is successful. Soon after his initial encounter with Michael, Raymond senses that “everything would be all right” (62). 3 Raymond’s drive to reconcile with as many enemies as possible in the short time he has to live is one of the major threads in the novel. Here, however, I will focus on some other theological emphases in the work.

Angels

Although angels are a standard theme in Christian fiction, the fact that Greeley devoted at least three novels to angels partly reflects the recent interest in angels in American popular culture. For example, a Time cover story on December 27, 1993, announced “The New Age of Angels.” According to the magazine’s poll, sixty-nine percent of Americans believe angels exist, and forty-six percent believe in personal guardian angels (Gibbs 66). Several recent books and articles have focused on righteous and demonic angels. 4 Greeley sketched out many aspects of his literary portrayal of angels in Angel Fire and Angel Light. In the foreword to Angel Light, Greeley expressed some of his personal theology about angels: “I don’t know whether there are actual beings in creation like Rae and her crowd.... However, it seems to me very likely that other rational beings do exist in creation.... Since the Other is patently exuberant in Her styles of creation, it seems most unlike Him to have produced only one rational species. Thus I hope there are beings somewhat like the beings in this book.” Although Greeley’s three angel novels appeared while there was a resurgence of popular interest in angels in American culture, an angel in Angel Light complains, “This current tripe about us is degrading.... It is not our role in the cosmos to pull stupid humans out of the way of oncoming buses or trucks because they’re too dumb to take care of themselves” (40).

Two angels make frequent appearances in Contract with an Angel: Michael and his companion, Gabriella. Typically, they are both invisible to everyone except Raymond, but they can take visible form when necessary. If they appeared in their genuine state, they would overwhelm humans (36). Michael initially identifies himself to Raymond as “the boss seraph” (13). When Raymond asks if angels are extraterrestrials, the two angels reply that they are from another world but that they simply cannot explain it to humans (69). Raymond recalls from his parochial school training that there are seven angels who stand in the presence of God (114). Some readers will be surprised that Greeley portrays angels with gender and the possibility of something similar to sexual union. These readers might point to Bible passages such as Matthew 22:30, where Jesus says that resurrected people “neither marry, nor are given in marriage, but are like angels in heaven” (NASB).

When Raymond asks the two angels about their names, Gabriella replies, “Those of course are not our real names.... They are the Hebrew names which describe events in which we participated. We use them when we’re in your world” (135). They also acknowledge that they are Malek Yahweh, the messengers of Yahweh (171). One of the unusual aspects of Greeley’s angelology is the depiction of Satan, or the Light Bearer (136). He “was a good angel, a member of the heavenly court, despite all of your Christian folktales, borrowed from the worshipers of Mazda” (136). Satan was Gabriella’s first companion, but Satan died. Later the two angels point out Rafaella, the child of Gabriella and Satan, who is a good angel (158).

Greeley often has his angels acknowledge their limitations. For instance, although Michael has warned Raymond that he may die soon, Michael and Gabriella do not know the details of that event. They are not omnipotent, omnipresent, or omniscient; they are creatures as well. Greeley also introduces discussions of a prevalent topic, the existence of guardian angels. When Raymond asks Michael if he is his guardian angel, Michael replies, “Only in a very remote sense of that word” (127). Gabriella also cautions Raymond from identifying them as personally assigned to him (138). When Raymond asks if they patrol the earth, Gaby accuses him and other humans of being “so terracentric” (172). Greeley occasionally draws on traditional understandings of angels. For example, he often mentions a heavenly choir of angels. They sing frequently in the background during key scenes. When Raymond asks about angels’ wings, Michael responds, “Wings? Oh, you shouldn’t take that art seriously. It’s a metaphor for how fast we can move” (25).

The Other

The role of God in Contract with an Angel—and in Greeley’s other angel novels—may be perplexing to some readers. In many ways, God is a minor character in this novel, staying in the background much of the time. He is referred to many times but interacts with Raymond less frequently than the two angels do. At the beginning of the story, Raymond denies the existence of God. The angels often refer to God as “the Other” (15). Eventually we learn that God is definitely personal (171) and has feminine characteristics.

Although God infrequently appears as a character in this novel, Greeley argues, “God is the principal character in all my novels...God acts in my stories, as S/He does in the parables of Jesus: as someone working endlessly behind the scenes, pursuing us recklessly and relentlessly and passionately” (Confessions 491). God’s presence is often mediated to Raymond: God does not need to be at the front of the plot in order to be a major character.

As Raymond’s relationship with Anna Maria develops, he learns that she is a human link between him and God. Michael announces, “She’s as close as you’re likely to get to the Other in this world, not counting me and my companion, if she consents to meet you” (59). Although God is not presented as a major character in the story, Greeley clearly sees Anna Maria as an expression of God’s presence and involvement in human history.

Raymond’s initial denial of God’s existence soon moves toward an affirmation of a supreme being. He admits he can only pray “to whom it may concern” or “occupant” (132). In a pivotal scene, Raymond goes to a church and prays, identifying God as “Something Else Altogether” (162). The angels’ work and his renewed relationship with Anna Maria have begun his transformation. As he ends his prayer, he admits he does not know much about God but now knows he loves God (164).

Near the end of the novel, Raymond has a direct encounter with God. How much this theophany reveals about Greeley’s personal theology shall be left to his readers to discern. From his encounter with God, God seems feminine to Raymond because of his close relation to Anna Maria and Miriam (or Mary), who appears in the novel briefly (298). Greeley’s characterization of God as feminine might irritate some conservative Christians, but the issue of God’s gender has been widely discussed in contemporary theology. 5 Many thoughtful Christians acknowledge that God is beyond human gender categories. Most biblical references and images for God are masculine, but some are feminine. Also, God has very human-like characteristics in Contract with an Angel. For instance, he laughs and weeps (298).

Raymond wonders if God is as vulnerable as Anna Maria, who has helped him learn about God. God replies, “Only theologians who have read too much Greek philosophy ask that question. Is it not evident that I want my creatures, even more than they want me?” (299). Here Greeley touches briefly but pointedly on one of the major issues in contemporary theology: the possibility of divine suffering. Although many theologians, both Protestant and Roman Catholic, now affirm divine passibility, some theologians maintain the classic position of divine impassibility. 6

God allows humans to exercise their freedom yet likes happy endings to the stories He creates. Greeley often stresses the grace and love of God. “The Other loves you or we wouldn’t be here,” one of the angels announces to Raymond (249). In Protestant terms, Greeley’s theology sounds more Arminian than Calvinistic. Greeley would be closer to a divine-human synergism than a divine monergism in the way he understands the interaction of God and humans. Throughout the novel, Raymond exercises his autonomy, but the intervention of Michael and Gabriella certainly helps him see the wisdom of redirecting his life. 7

In Contract with an Angel, Greeley emphasizes the significance of metaphors for religious discourse. Many contemporary theologians sound a similar note. For example, Sallie McFague highlights the role of metaphors in God-talk. Even though some readers might misunderstand Greeley’s use of “metaphor” to mean mere symbolism, he clearly intends for metaphors to communicate a spiritual truth that transcends ordinary prosaic categories. Humans can be metaphors for God. Thus, God tells Raymond near the end of the novel, “And whenever you wonder whether I am with you and waiting for you, you need merely to contemplate the wonderful metaphor of myself I created with you in mind and gave you as your wife” (303-304).

Miriam (or Mary)

One of the most unusual scenes in Contract with an Angel is the appearance of Miriam, or Mary, Jesus’ mother. After his wife feels he has betrayed her, Raymond sees a young Palestinian woman sitting in a Starbucks coffee shop. When he meets her, he realizes who she is and says, “They’ve sent in the first team” (259). Miriam has a close relationship with the angels that have interacted with Raymond so far, but Miriam has advice for him, speaking as one human to another. She casually mentions that she did not write the Magnificat included in Luke 1. Also, she occasionally appears to humans, but she is not “involved in those creepy apparitions” (261).

Miriam assures Raymond that his relationship with Anna Maria will work out: “Everything will be all right” (262). She reminds Raymond that God loves him and that her “boy,” Jesus, loves him. Miriam adds, “Hope is my business” (263). Raymond will occasionally be reminded of Miriam’s encouragement by hearing a lullaby or by the mysterious appearance of oatmeal raisin cookies.

The appearance of Jesus’ mother in this novel may strike Protestant readers as a little odd. Some Protestants have minimized Mary’s place in theology in reaction to a perceived overemphasis in Roman Catholic theology on Marian topics. 8 Greeley’s inclusion of a Mary figure, however, seems compatible with the intervention of Michael and Gabriella. Miriam does not draw attention to herself but points to God’s love for Raymond and all humans.

One key role for Mary in Catholic theology, according to Greeley, is “to reflect the womanliness of God” (Confessions 199). Greeley adds that “the Madonna was the touchstone of the Catholic heritage—that Catholicism was its most radical, most refreshing, most salvific precisely when it said that God’s love is like the love of a young mother for her firstborn son” (Confessions 199). For Greeley, then, Mary is a crucial metaphor for God’s immanence and his love for his creatures.

Death and Beyond

Greeley’s novel touches on several themes related to personal eschatology, the branch of theology that deals with physical death, the intermediate state, heaven, and hell, among other things. 9 At the beginning of the novel, Raymond learns from Michael that he might die soon. Although Greeley notes the parallel to the Faust legend (17), this scenario also echoes the story of King Hezekiah in Isaiah 38. (Instead of an angel, God sent the prophet Isaiah to tell the king he would die soon and that he should get his house in order (Isa. 38:1). Raymond insists then that he does not believe in immortal souls, heaven, or hell. Raymond thinks humans are like flashlight batteries that eventually run out of energy and cease to work (14). Soon, however, Raymond accepts the possibility of his own death and afterlife. His actions thereafter are driven by the concern to repair his relationships in the time he has left.

Early in the novel, Raymond does not believe in hell, and Michael acknowledges, “We don’t use the hell metaphor much anymore. It’s been misused too often” (16). Later, Michael clarifies that he has not denied hell’s existence: “You still face the risk of loss” (71). Apparently hell is an eschatological option, but Michael notes that God hates losing (190). Although Greeley did not intend to develop a full-blown eschatology, he seems to affirm a double destiny view: humans may eventually experience heaven or hell. However, the novelist definitely devotes more attention to heaven than to hell. Greeley also acknowledges what academic theologians call the intermediate state. Gabriella tells Raymond that when he dies he will be separated from his wife for a while but they will be together forever after that (171). 10

One of the most unusual scenes in Greeley’s novel is Raymond’s out-of-body, near-death experience. Raymond has expected his death ever since his first encounter with Michael on the airplane. He is killed in a gang conflict as he tries to save the lives of two children. When Raymond dies, he sees himself on the hospital table, but he starts to float out of the room (295). On his way to meet God, he sees several people. In his conversation with God, he learns that the process of reconciliation that Raymond started on earth can continue in the afterlife (299). God then explains that Raymond died and gives him the option of staying in heaven or returning to earth. God has a “most preferred scenario” (300), but He honors human freedom as well. At first, Raymond wants to stay in heaven, but when he learns Anna Maria is pregnant with their twin daughters, he decides to return to earth.

Points for Discussion

Although Greeley did not intend to engage academic theology in Contract with an Angel, he is clearly conversant with the major developments in contemporary academic theology. He once described himself as “a transcendental Thomist à la Bernard Lonergan and David Tracy, with a strong dash of Whiteheadian process philosophy and Jamesian empiricism/pragmatism thrown in” (Confessions 248). One of the major themes underlying Greeley’s theology is his contrast of two kinds of imagination: “The Catholic imagination continues, as David Tracy would observe, to be analogical (it tends to say God is like the world), while the Protestant imagination is dialectical (it tends to assert that God is radically unlike the world)” (Confessions 228). 11 These two imaginations reflect two ways of understanding the world, God, and religious imagery. These imaginations inform Greeley’s view of how God functions in popular culture. Greeley also acknowledges the dangers of each kind of imagination: “The Catholic compromise, the Catholic appropriation of the material world, leaves us open to superstition. The Protestant, Jewish, and Islamic suspicion of the material world leaves the world in which we live a bleak place” (God 52). While Roman Catholicism stresses the immanence of God in the world, Protestants stress God’s transcendence. While Greeley denies that his theology is panentheistic, he might be fairly classified as a panentheist, a view increasingly popular in contemporary Protestant theology (God 87). 12

There are four issues that work as starting points for further interaction with Greeley’s theology, though many others would deserve attention in a longer theological analysis of his works. First, Greeley’s emphasis on reconciliation is salutary. Raymond’s attempt to reconcile with family, friends, and colleagues he has alienated in his earlier life is one of the major themes in the book. Greeley acknowledges the multiple dimensions of the need for reconciliation in Raymond’s life. All actions have consequences, and Raymond’s actions have produced alienation in many areas of his life. Although the novel highlights his relation with his wife, Anna Maria, Greeley helpfully includes a number of other relationships that Raymond needs to restore. Greeley also knows that reconciliation is not easy. Raymond’s efforts to reconcile are not always successful. For example, his father is extremely angry at Raymond when he comes to Florida to visit. Even though the idea that everything will turn out all right is mentioned several times in the novel (62, 262, 275), the plot developments demonstrate that, at least in this life, Raymond is not easily reconciled to everyone.

A second point for discussion of Greeley’s theology is his perplexing portrayal of Jesus. On the one hand, Greeley rarely mentions Jesus in the novel, and when one of the characters does refer to Him, Jesus rarely seems close to classical Christology—Jesus as fully divine and fully human. For instance, Jesus is identified as “the Teacher” by Michael (96, 161). Miriam naturally calls Jesus “my boy” (262). Perhaps the development of this novel’s plot did not require many explicit Christological comments, but some readers might come away with the impression that Greeley is a functional Unitarian by his neglect of Jesus. 13 Also, Raymond’s wife, Anna Maria, may in fact play a Christ-like role in his redemption in this novel. Since Greeley suggests that God the Father has both feminine and masculine characteristics, perhaps he intended readers to identify Anna Maria as the Christ figure in this novel. Certainly her relation to Raymond is redemptive for him.

Third, Greeley’s treatment of the nature and tasks of angels could be disconcerting to some readers. As a writer of fiction, Greeley certainly has the right to develop his characters, human and angelic, in ways that make the story engaging. The notion that angels have something like gender and reproduce in a manner somewhat like sexual relations goes beyond the explicit teaching of Scripture. On the subject of guardian angels, however, Greeley is more guarded in his comments. If each person has a guardian angel that constantly monitored that person’s life, why do bad things happen so often? Why would the angel not protect his or her charge? Greeley’s emphasis on human freedom would likely be part of his answer. Greeley might even approve the comment of a Protestant theologian that angels play zone defense rather than man-to-man defense (Grudem 400).

Finally, a general concern for some of Greeley’s readers would likely be the prevalence of coarse language and references to sexuality. If Greeley’s novels were made into movies, they would be rated PG-13 or perhaps R. This aspect of Greeley’s fiction has been a bone of contention among scholars and critics. Greeley has responded to this concern many times, usually noting issues such as the need for realism in his novels. Once he wrote, “I’m told on occasion that I am obsessed with sex. To which I reply that humans are designed by God to be obsessed with sex and that if the person who is attacking me is not obsessed by it, s/he needs to see a doctor” (God 81). Defending Greeley, Ingrid H. Shafer claims that “sexuality as a sacramental agent of renewal and rebirth” is a “fundamental theme” in Greeley’s fiction; this theme, she says, is consistent with his “incarnational thinking” rather than being “revolutionary, blasphemous, and even heretical” (Eros 103, 151). A reviewer of one of Greeley’s earlier novels defended him this way: “In his novels, life is depicted in all of its profanity, infidelity, and ugliness—sin doesn’t just go away. Christian people do not always act or talk as they know they should. Yet an overwhelming sense of God’s grace and love for everybody concerned is always present” (Ulstein 34).

Notes

1 Reprinted in Andrew M. Greeley, White Smoke (New York: Forge, 1997), 448-58. For a brief introduction to narrative theology, see Stanley J. Grenz and Roger E. Olson, 20 th-Century Theology: God & the World in a Transitional Age (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 1992), 271-85.

2 For a collection of essays in honor of Greeley, see Ingrid H. Shafer, ed., The Incarnate Imagination: Essays in Theology, the Arts, and Social Sciences in Honor of Andrew Greeley (Bowling Green, OH: Bowling Green University Popular Press, 1988).

3 A similar idea appears in Greeley’s Angel Light: “Everything is all right, Paddy” (101).

4 For a good review of biblical and historical material, see Duane A. Garrett, Angels and the New Spirituality (Nashville: Broadman & Holman, 1995) and Stephen F. Noll, Angels of Light, Powers of Darkness: Thinking Biblically About Angels, Satan & Principalities (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 1998).

5 See Ingrid H. Shafer, Eros and the Womanliness of God: Andrew Greeley’s Romances of Renewal (Chicago: Loyola UP, 1986).

6 For a defense of divine suffering, see Paul S. Fiddes, The Creative Suffering of God (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1988). For a defense of divine impassibility, see Thomas G. Weinandy, Does God Suffer? (Notre Dame: U of Notre Dame P, 2000).

7 In Angel Light, the angel also reminds Toby, “Nothing is predestined” (55).

8 For a good survey, see Jaroslav Pelikan, Mary through the Centuries: Her Place in the History of Culture (New Haven: Yale UP, 1996).

9 For a recent overview of options, see Jürgen Moltmann, The Coming of God: Christian Eschatology, trans. Margaret Kohl (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1996), 49-128.

10 Intermediate state is the term used by theologians for the time between physical death and our final states, heaven or hell.

11 See David Tracy, The Analogical Imagination: Christian Theology and the Culture of Pluralism (New York: Crossroad, 1981), especially 405-56.

12 For example, Sallie McFague and Jürgen Moltmann are panentheists.

13 Some readers might argue that Greeley’s novel is implicitly Christocentric. Elsewhere, Greeley contends that Jesus’ Incarnation implies a world-affirming perspective (God 56). Greeley’s overall theology is undoubtedly orthodox and Christocentric. For instance, he claims that “Jesus was the sacrament of God and the parables were the best clues we had to the nature of the God Jesus came to disclose to us” (Confessions 249). From the standpoint of the Catholic or analogical imagination, Jesus is “the metaphor (or sacrament if you wish) par excellence of God,” yet “the Catholic religious sensibility sees the whole of creation as a metaphor: everything is grace” (God 94). For a sample of Greeley’s Christology, see his The Great Mysteries: An Essential Catechism (San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1976, 1985).

Works Cited

Fiddes, Paul S. The Creative Suffering of God. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1988.

Garrett, Duane. Angels and the New Spirituality. Nashville: Broadman & Holman, 1995.

Gibbs, Nancy. “Angels among Us.” Time 27 Dec. 1993: 56.

Greeley, Andrew M. Angel Fire. New York: Tor, 1989.

_______. Angel Light. New York: Tor, 1996.

_______. Confessions of a Parish Priest: An Autobiography. New York: Pocket, 1987.

______ _. Contract with an Angel. New York: Forge, 1998.

_______. God in Popular Culture. Chicago: Thomas More Press, 1988.

_______. Religion as Poetry. New Brunswick: Transaction Publishers, 1995.

_______. The Great Mysteries. San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1985.

_______. White Smoke. New York: Forge, 1997.

Grudem, Wayne. Systematic Theology. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1994.

Lewis, C. S. Letters to Malcolm. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1964.

McFague, Sallie. Metaphorical Theology. Philadelphia: Fortress, 1982.

Moltmann, Jürgen. The Coming of God. Trans. Margaret Kohl. Minneapolis: Fortress, 1996.

Noll, Stephen F. Angels of Light, Powers of Darkness. Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 1998.

Pelikan, Jarsolav. Mary through the Centuries. New Haven: Yale UP, 1996.

Shafer, Ingrid H. Eros and the Womanliness of God. Chicago: Loyola UP, 1986.

_______, ed. The Incarnate Imagination. Bowling Green: Bowling Green University Popular Press, 1988.

Tracy, David. The Analogical Imagination. New York: Crossroad, 1981.

Ulstein, Stefan. “When the Church Sins.” Rev. of Fall from Grace, by Andrew Greeley. Christianity Today 22 Nov.1993: 34.

Weinandy, Thomas G. Does God Suffer? Notre Dame: U of Notre Dame P, 2000.

Warren McWilliams, Ph.D. <Warren.McWilliams@okbu.edu>
Auguie Henry Chair of Bible
Department of Religion
Oklahoma Baptist University