Our interpretation of Scripture informs our values and directs our actions. Or, is it the other way around: our actions and values focuses our interpretation of Scripture. Or, do we use Scripture to justify our values and actions? In any case, how we interpret Scripture is directly related to the character of our actions and values. Interpretation deserves our highest respect.
I have been reading Matt Taibbi's The Great Derangement. Matt is a contributing editor for Rolling Stone and winner of the 2007 National Magazine Award for Columns and Commentary. He calls himself an athiest. He writes of "deranged" aspects of American culture, whether in politics, religion, or social movements. In short, he is dismayed by the prevalence of cynical, unthinking hatred in each of these areas.
What I find most interesting is his journey into a fundamentalist congregation, even to the point of joining it so he could better understand what was happening. In this expose' he traveled to San Antonio, Texas to join Cornerstone Church, pastored by John Hagee. Remember that John McCain claimed Hagee as a spiritual advisor. Cornerstone has a membership of about 18,000 people. At Cornerstone he was surrounded by Left Behind followers, anti-gay, anti-anyone critical of the USA, anti-environmentalists, anti anything that was anti-Republican, pro-corporation, pro-capitalism, strongly pro-Israel, and definitely pro-personal salvation. Anything that was not of God was demonic. Going on a church retreat, Taibbi was showered with lessons on the demon of lust, the demon of handwriting analysis, the demon of philosophy, the demon of cancer, the demon of anal fissures, the demon of the intellect, the demon of pornography, the demon of disconnect. Taibbi's response to this demon talk is: "...asking these people to be objective about anything is just absurd". About fundamentalism, he writes: "...this kind of Christian is mainly wrapped up in a tireless study of various do's and don'ts-how to get through the day and interact with other human beings without slipping and inviting a demon into one's home or into one's abdomen". In all of this expression, Scripture was literally interpreted, with a major focus on the Old Testament, and the ethics of Jesus almost non-existant. The Bible was essentially a law book of rewards and punishments.
Recently, I had an exchange with a pastor of a congregation that has to deal with the recent ELCA sexuality votes. He commented that people need to address how scripture is interpreted. What this means is that how we interpret scripture informs the character of our values, of our approach to sexuality, of our actions. Likewise, the church Linda and I attend is sponsoring a series on understanding Islam. The conversation led to the content of the Koran. I asked about the truth of martyrs being given the gift of having sex with 70 virgins upon their death. He said this is not in the Koran. And finally, a group is promoting The Conservative Bible Project, which seeks to take the text back to its supposed right-wing roots. They say the Bible is too progressive: There is a "Lack of precision in the original language...lack of precision in modern language, and [there is a] translation bias in converting the original language to the modern one". Their solution to this problem is to propose a Wikipedia-like group editing project, focusing on avoiding unisex, emasculation of language, utilizing powerful conservative terms, expressing free-market parables, excluding liberal passages, and more.
Interpretation shapes our values. Respect for the integrity of the text, for what is there and what is not, is crucial to our values and ethics. We must let the text shape us first, allowing the Spirit of Christ to address the contexts of our lives. We will often be surprised by the creativity within the text. This creativity will have as its base the freedom to love, the freedom to do justice, the freedom to be merciful, the freedom to forgive, the freedom to make for peace, the freedom to welcome the stranger, the freedom to believe, the freedom to bring our contexts to the text trusting that the text will inform our actions, and the freedom to acknowledge Christ as the Center of life.
Interpretation deserves our highest respect, our sharpest intellect, our depth of heart, our humility of faith, our surrender to the grace of God. When this happens, Truth may arise to the glory of God and the greater realization of the Reign of God.
Peace!
Ron
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Thanks, Ron, for taking into a consideration of our values and beliefs. In liberal Christianity, it seems that we have done a miserable job of nurturing folk in biblical interpretation. They shy away from simplistic fundamentalism, but have no idea of how a responsible person might be informed by scripture. Thanks for opening up this conversation. -- Peter Sawtell
ReplyDeleteMy question regarding the 'Conservative Bible Project', is if it is a Wiki-style project, is there anyone editing? Can non-scholars 'translate' and have that be included? Do people need to have some background in ancient languages, or are they translating from a more recent version like the King James? What we are witnessing in this project is the birth of a new post-modern religion, where the historical context doesn't apply; the God of the early church, and Christ himself, could be reformatted into something labelled 'Conservative', but which is actually a brand new interpretation reflecting the values of these 'AmeriChristians'. Because they conflate Americans, particularuly white, Republican, pro-military, pro-corporate capitalism Americans, with the 'chosen people'. Clearly their 'interpretation' of the text is far different from those of us who believe Jesus came for the poor, the excluded, the illegal.
ReplyDeleteThanks Ron for not going into the problems of finding meaning in a text (exegesis) and reading meaning into a text (eisegesis). Unfortunately, there is a group now engaged in reinterpretation of the bible from a conservative perspective so as to expunge anything that seems liberal out of the text. They are saying that, in fact, the ideas of liberalism taken from the bible are the results of errors in interpretation. They may have a point. Gomes says if we take Jesus in modern political/economic terms, he would only be communist.
ReplyDeleteThanks again for you clear work.
Zakir L. Henson
You go, Ron!
ReplyDeleteI've worked on this problem a bit. One chapter in my book "God With Us, the Biblical Message of Jesus" offers one way to honestly approach the Bible. Take a look if you want. It is the faith from an Anabaptist perspective, without Anabaptist history.
ReplyDeleteJeff Neuman-Lee