How do we read the Bible?

I think the three tools I bring to Scripture most prominently are life stories, current events, and questioning/criticism.  

I bring my life stories and my world to meet the text in what is most often a search for comfort.  I ask how the dominant stories in my life and formation play with (by parallel or contrast) the text.  This can be transformative when the comfort I find resists ways that we are taught to resist love in our lives.  When I consider current events, I look for both comfort and discomfort/challenge.  I try to ask how the "now" meets the stories in the text and how the text might have something to say about our now.  

The third piece is informed by much of my academic career and is the piece that is transformative for me, probably because, as Rowan Williams suggests, transformation happens when our interpretations are least palatable.  I try to bring historical criticism to the text and also ask how what we can glean about a historical context might mean about the ways that our characters or stories were subversive and counter-cultural in their time and how those lessons might be extrapolated.  I try to ask the ways that God might be speaking to or through the characters.  I also try to look for the dangerous places in the text-- the meanings I want to resist and be clear I resist when talking about the text.  I want to try to look for how meanings might be read by people at different margins as well as those squarely in the center.  This involves looking for who has power and lacks it in the text (and why), how this power is wielded, distributed, reinforced, and resisted.  How do gender, color, class, and sexuality play out in the story-- how do roles conform or subvert?  Who is given voice?  In order to make sure I am being effective, I look for ways that I might be reinforcing systems, stereotypes, or harmful ideologies.

Authority

A heavy focus on historical criticism of the Bible is too narrow a search for meaning and a poorly placed source of authority, given how unstable a foundation historical criticism can offer in terms of certainty.  Dale Martin suggests that the church has historically placed authority in Scripture, not interpretation thereof, and highlights how historical criticism is a form of interpretation and problematizes the search for authorial intent.  I have difficulty extracting the idea of authority from myself.  Since I cannot separate myself from my experience of the world and I can only encounter spirit, scripture, church, and religion in this body and mind, I find it hard to place authority concretely anywhere, since I feel it happens in the interplay of my experience with the world.  I feel that all experience is authoritative in some way because it informs our interpretation of God and Life and is therefore very subjective.  I place authority in "scripture" (which I see as an ongoing process in the relationship with humanity, nature, the text, and God), my experience of nature and people, and in certain schools of thought that I trust to produce fruitful work, but I wouldn't suggest that formula would or should work for other people because their vessel might receive and pour in a different way.  Perhaps because "good" authority is given/earned (and not coerced), it must be chosen by each of us individually.  Maybe authority in theological work is useful as a concept that is intensely individual.  

Truth

spinachandmushrooms:

Front of my notebook. #seminary

Now

"Do not be daunted by the enormity of the world’s grief. Do justly NOW. Love mercy NOW. Walk humbly NOW. You are not obligated to complete the work but neither are you free to abandon it."

—

From the Talmud

Pirkei Avos (Ethics/Chapters of the Fathers) 2:16

(via arubasmusings)

(via mormonmonastery)

Justice is Central to Christianity

It is important, at least within my own context, to be able to frame positions scripturally.  Much of my tradition has ignored on-the-surface cries for justice within the gospels and turned toward a religion focused on soteriology.  Some of our foremost rituals, like the Eucharist, are rooted in justice… in the feeding with fish and loaves, in the radically inclusive meals that Jesus shared with followers.  Many of our churches need to get back to the roots of our stories and address the power structures of our own lives, a task that was central to the Jesus we find in the gospels.

Living God's Word

How do we live and preach the word of God?  Scripture can be pretty contradictory.  In trying to glean truth from the idea that my words and deeds need to be aligned with God, I found that, for me, the “book” of God’s created/ing world needs to be a part of what I consider “scripture” in order for me to contextualize and understand what the larger body of my denomination calls “scripture.”  In order for me to authentically incorporate God into my lived and preaching experience, the Four Sources (Scripture, Tradition, Reason, and Experience) combined with my experience of the Spirit need to be considered equally.  Sometimes they will grate against each other, and that can be where the Spirit manifests.

My Life's Scripture

While I claim the Bible as my scripture, I cannot say to the degree that some can that it has been formative.  While the Bible certainly informs my life and my person, it’s a book I didn’t find until my teens.  Considering myself ethnically “American,” I also feel that my racial heritage informs my life very little.  My mother might claim “Irish,” but I don’t feel that way.  I don’t know stories about my ancestors that are particularly meaningful to me.  I would have to suggest that Buffy the Vampire Slayer is a huge part of my identifying story.  I am not sure that translates into preaching contexts, but it is very true for me.  I often turn to that show to ground myself or to explore a feeling.  What I can most glean from that reality is that my storytelling should offer the same kind of connection that I found in the show:  parallel and metaphor.  When I can reimagine Bible stories to include me as a character, to include us as characters, I think I can better communicate the messages I find in the text.

Women in Scripture

I notice that a common portrayal of women/female characters in religious stories is as a seductress. Is it possible that women are frequently portrayed as seductive because seduction was the only power that women had over men? Obviously, this isn’t true in all of these stories… many, if not most of the characters, have extraordinary abilities. Circe has the power to transform men into animals, for instance, and Morgan le Fay is a healer. Yet while these women have magical powers, it is probably true that most women in these societies lacked such extraordinary abilities… however, it might be true that women used seduction as a means of gaining control of certain situations, since women were typically deprived of most forms of control and choice. Although many men would have us believe that certain women simply have no control over their sexual desires, as Jason posits in the story about Medea, it seems to me that the underlying reality in many cases of seduction is that a woman was using what was possibly her only means of gaining control of a situation or manipulating a man into doing something that society prohibited her from doing herself. I would see these frequent themes of women as seductresses as a sign that these women were oppressed and had very little control over their own lives…

I also notice that women are also often portrayed as irrational, which makes me think of the way that many people go about arguing today. It’s easy for the person who has the upper hand in an argument (whether by deftly arguing or simply being backed by a larger/more powerful audience) to dismiss an opposing view as irrational, as if the person they are arguing with is too simple to really understand what the argument is “really” about. I hear a lot of that thrown out in abortion arguments, where the Pro-Life side will assume that the other person simply doesn’t see that there is a human life involved in the situation or the Pro-Choice person (often female) will just assume that a man shouldn’t be involved in the debate simply because he can’t understand what it is to be female. While both arguments might have merit, neither of them acknowledges the complexity of the issue when they simply dismiss the other argument as simple. It perhaps takes validity away from their own argument by making it seem as simple as “You’re not a Christian, so you can’t understand” or “you’re not a woman, so you can’t understand.” Perhaps it’s a tangent, but I was using it as an example… I believe it also applies to a lot of the ways that people argue (or don’t argue by dismissing the opposition as “irrational”).

Adult Vacation Bible Study 2: Luke with Dr. Jan Jan Lin

Jan Jan was my professor for Intro to the New Testament, which was a great class.  She's very knowledgeable and a great resource.  I'm excited that I will be going to the Holy Land on an immersion trip co-led by her in January.