As I mentioned last week, I’m am excited to be part of the blog tour for Daniel Kirk’s latest book Jesus Have I Loved, but Paul? Drop by the blog tour website to read others’ contributions to the tour as they interact with various chapters in the book (and don’t forget to enter the contest to win a free copy of the book!). As luck would have it (or perhaps because I’m the only woman participating in the tour), I was asked to engage with Chapter 6 “Women in the Story of God.”

In my experience, the number one reason people have issues with Paul is because of the passages regarding women's roles in his letters. A few select passages seemingly calling for women to submit to men and to be silent in church are enough for many to jettison Paul from the canon. As some read Paul (or at least have had Paul imposed upon them), he seems to be denying the very humanity and dignity of women – something that Jesus never did. With such an interpretation as a given, it’s difficult for many to figure out what to do with Paul. There are of course those that use such an interpretation of Paul to demean and oppress women. Some believing that they have no right to question that interpretation accept it and yet keep Paul at a distance, like a creepy relative that they would prefer not to show up at family gatherings. Others outright reject Paul, claiming that such a patriarchal attitude nullifies any right his words have to speak into our world today. Some accept Paul, but insist that his words restricting women must have been added by some later scribe. In light of all that, it's easy to see how it's hard to love Paul.

Yet I’ve generally found all those approaches to be lacking. Having to choose between rejecting the reality of the biblical context or rejecting the Bible because of the reality of the biblical context both seemed too limiting for me.

So I appreciate the approach Kirk offers in his book. In situating Paul within the context of the larger narrative of scripture, he begins by addressing how women are treated in the text beyond the traditional “clobber-women-into-submission” passages. What he reveals is a world where patriarchy is the norm and yet women are find opportunities to serve in all areas of the church. From the scriptural evidence of what women were in truth doing in the church, Kirk argues that the controversial passages have both at times been interpreted wrongly and yet give testimony to the ambiguity present in scripture. He states, “As for Scripture, it not only sows seeds of equality whose flowers never fully bloom on its pages; it also continues to reflect and, at times, affirm the inequalities endemic to its ancient cultural context.” (118). In short, the Bible contains both stories of women leading churches, preaching and prophesying, and embracing greater dignity in the church than their culture ever bestowed upon them as well as statements supporting the gender hierarchies of the time. Kirk concludes that to argue that the Bible is either fully egalitarian or fully patriarchal is to ignore its cultural situation.

But although that cultural context might be messy and not reflect fully what we might want to find in Scripture, Kirk argues that what is most important is to remember that we are part of the ongoing narrative of God’s story. He writes that this narrative “is as dramatic and sweeping a gospel narrative as one could hope for. … Paul’s narrative of salvation is nothing less than the proclamation and embodiment here and now of the coming dominion of God” (50). So therefore, “because it is a story of cosmic transformation, the story has to be embodied and lived” (51). To proclaim the dominion of God is to live in its ways here and now – to testify to its transforming power. The gospel gives “glimpses of a new creation that has no hierarchical distinction between male and female. It is not a vision that is worked out consistently in the first-century culture in which the New Testament writings grew-up, but it is one that fits within the plot of a story that turns all social hierarchies on their head as God comes to rule the world through a crucified Messiah” (137) Instead of giving sin power by letting the patriarchy of that time keep us from living out the redemptive nature of new creation now, Kirk calls us to instead embrace Christ’s redemptive work and turn upside-down the controlling hierarchies of this world.

I greatly appreciate this take on Paul that affirms both the reality of his context and the reality of what women were doing in the early church. Placing myself within a continuing narrative witnessing to new creation makes far more sense to me than just rejecting Paul because he isn’t who I would like for him to be. I do wish though that Kirk had explored whether he thought it would have been appropriate for women to live into that narrative of New Creation in periods in history where it might have caused the surrounded cultures to be offended. Should women’s dignity, worth, and equality be affirmed because such things are true or only when affirming them would not give offense within a particular culture? I get that Paul may have imposed restrictions on women so that they wouldn’t offend the culture, but I am left wondering in this interpretation at what point one should simply embrace New Creation in spite of the culture that does not understand the light shining in the darkness?

I found myself most troubled in this chapter when immediately after arguing that we should embrace Christ’s redemptive power by affirming an egalitarian position on gender, Kirk jumped straight to the most common argument used to temper the radical assertion of equality. He is quick to say that real Christ-like egalitarianism is not therefore a call for women to seek out positions of leadership in the church as to be called to Christ is to accept the hard life of submission and servant hood. While I wouldn’t argue that following Christ does involve a servant’s heart, this is an argument that has been used over and over as simply a backhanded way of asserting patriarchy in the name of equality. I honestly don’t think Kirk intended to do so here, but I do wonder if he was unaware of how this argument has been used to give lip-service to egalitarianism while ensuring nothing really changes in the male-dominated church.

As many feminist scholars have argued, to accuse women of the sin of self-seeking pride when they attempt to use their God-given gifts leads to many women burying those gifts lest they fall into sin. They are bullied into passivity under the guise of humility. That is not what it means though to follow Christ and live into the telos of who God created us to be. Centuries though of being told that unless we submit and let men dominate us we are sinning and not being sufficiently Christ-like are difficult to overcome. The last thing women need to hear more of is that we are sinning or living in the ways of the world when we choose to accept God’s call to use the gifts God has given us.

We still live in a world marred by the oppressive ways of patriarchy. The dominion of God where there is no male or female is not yet fully realized, although we are called to live as if it is. Perhaps we still need gender specific instructions for how to live in these ways. To men, yes, counter years of living in unChrist-like ways by telling them to be servants and to not pursue positions of power in the church. But, to women, don’t reinforce the idea that they are sining by living into their gifts. Encourage them instead to reject the ways of the world by accepting their gifts and having no fear in using them to serve Christ. I don’t believe that Daniel Kirk was trying to reinforce gender hierarchies by bringing up this standard caution regarding egalitarianism, but I would be remiss to not mention what the warning can imply for women. We are still living into this narrative that affirms the breaking in of the reign of God in the here and now, and so I do greatly appreciate this book’s helpful way of realistically dealing with often unsettling texts. Even as the New Creation is yet unfolding, so it seems is our ability to figure out how to best embrace Christ’s redemption in our lives.

Although I would have liked this chapter to offer more constructive suggestions for navigating gender in the New Creation, I appreciate the ways in which it reframes the conversation regarding Paul and women. For those of us who have never felt comfortable with the options given to us for how we should handle Paul, it proposes an affirming yet realistic engagement that allows both Scripture and the transformative redemptive power of Christ to co-exist as part of the narrative of God’s people.

I’m a fan of Daniel Kirk’s writing. After meeting him at the 2009 Emergent Theological Conversation, I’ve enjoyed following him online. He is one of the few academics that Tweets about all aspects of life – from theological questions to what he’s making his family for breakfast. As a good postmodern who values authenticity, that’s something I admire. I like the questions he asks and his way of presenting possible answers. I don’t always agree with him, but I always respect how he engages in the conversation – which also sums up my reaction to his book. There are places in the book where I have quibbles (and a few outright objections), but on the whole I appreciate his overall vision that Paul is presenting a narrative theology of how the identity of the people of God gets formed which very much holds together with both the story of Israel and Jesus’ teachings.

Growing up as an evangelical, I received heavy doses of Paul (and little of Jesus), but the Paul I received was a Paul who was both quick to criticize and dismiss his Jewish roots and offer the hope of escaping this world soon by shuffling off the despised mortal flesh. But once I started paying attention to the Old Testament and the teachings of Jesus, this Paul no longer made sense. I was one of those that the book suggests needs “a healthy deconstruction of their understanding of Paul” (5). And this book does that and does it well. In rescuing Paul from his forced isolation by demonstrating how he contributes to the ongoing narrative of God working to redeem the world, it transforms the often uncomfortable dogmatic statements and rules into vital (albeit often contextual) parts of that story.

What I appreciated most was how Kirk interpreted Paul’s writings on the hope of the resurrection. He straightforwardly demonstrates that this hope has nothing to do with escape from or rejection of creation, but instead is all about living into the new creation. This hope means that the kingdom of God is now and that Jesus is reigning over it putting it in order. As Kirk writes, what this means is that “The kingdom of God is at hand in the undoing of all the sin and death and brokenness and disorder that mar the very good world of God” (39). The advice that Paul gives in his letters is not about perfecting oneself so that one day one might be worthy of heaven, but practical advice for how the community of God lives in the kingdom here and now as part of God’s work restoring creation.

I appreciate this eschatological interpretation of Paul’s narrative theology that values the present as much as it does the future. It is hard to love the world enough to desire its transformation (as Jesus and the Old Testament prophets did) if one simply desires to escape it someday. But as the book argues, Paul is presenting a vision for how people continue in the way of Jesus and live transformativly in the present. And this is possible because “new creation is not simply something that we look forward to; it is something in which we already participate. The culmination of the story is exerting a sort of backward force, such that the future, by power of the life-giving Spirit, is intruding on the present and transforming it” (47). As one who has had Paul imposed on me as apology for why I shouldn’t care about seeking justice in the world, this rescuing of Paul from his escapist captivity is refreshing. For those who have been uneasy with the Paul they were taught (who seemed to have little to do with the Jesus they love) and who respect the Bible too much to simply reject Paul’s writing, this returning of Paul to the larger narrative context of scripture is a blessing making the book well worth the read. I will be engaging specifically the books’ perspective on Paul’s writings on women next week where I will address a few of my minor concerns with the book, but I wanted to highlight here the book’s exceedingly helpful presentation of Paul in light of the rest of scripture. I encourage readers to follow the blog tour and engage in the conversation as it unfolds.

Be sure to stop by the Blog Tour Hub for a chance to win a free copy of the book!

It was this wickedness, this failure to care about what God cares about by challenging the status quo, that Amos witnessed when he came to Jerusalem. A poor herdsman from Judah, Amos was part of a population that was subservient to Israel at the time. Judah therefore bore the brunt of the expenses of Israel, with the poor and needy being trampled to cover the expenditures of those in power. Through the manipulation of debt and credit, the wealthy had amassed more and more of the land at the expense of poor landowners. Some scholars believe that the only thing that would have even brought a poor shepherd like Amos to Jerusalem was the requirement that he pay tribute to those that controlled his lands at an official festival. But what a struggling working class man saw in Jerusalem was a population that not only lived in extravagance, but one that had stopped asking questions about if they were living in the ways of the Lord. In fact they not only had stopped asking questions about whether their lifestyles based on the oppression of the poor reflected God’s desires, they had been told by the powers that be that it was not proper (or permitted) to ask questions that challenged the ways of Israel.

Seeing this abandonment of the faith in the guise of apathy moved Amos, who was not a religious professional, to speak the word of the Lord to Israel. Although the governing religious hierarchy told him to not prophecy against the ways of Israel, Amos knew he could not remain silent about the injustices he saw. He saw the people doing religion as normal while the poor were exploited on their behalf and knew they had rejected their God. So the message he was given to deliver on the streets of Jerusalem was that God hates their worship gatherings and the noise of their praise songs because they have given up on caring about what it actually means to be God’s people. Amos tells them –

Alas for those who lie on beds of ivory, and lounge on their couches,… who sing idle songs to the sound of the harp, and like David improvise on instruments of music; who drink wine from bowls, and anoint themselves with the finest oils, but are not grieved over the ruin of Joseph!”

Not caring about how their lives and not just their ritual gatherings are caught up in following God had turned Israel into the wicked child at Passover. They enjoyed the prosperity injustice allowed them and therefore had accepted the injunction against questioning the practices of the government and economic system. They went through the motions of liturgy without doing the actual work of wrestling with the questions of the faithful. Amos called them to instead to stop exploiting the poor and let justice roll across the land. He begged them to ask the hard questions of themselves and of their rulers – to be disciples despite the cost.

But questioning the status quo is dangerous. Jerusalem had no interest in hearing the word of the Lord that challenged their economic prosperity. The powers that be moved to silence his prophecy and evicted Amos from Jerusalem.

And yet his witness stands as scripture. Thanks be to God.

My daughter has had a difficult time understanding Lent this year. She was all about pancakes and beads on Mardi Gras, but was disappointed that Ash Wednesday was more solemn and faith oriented. The lack out an outward expression to grasp hold of was something she had a hard time wrapping her mind around. But it’s hard to explain faith to a kindergartener, for that matter it’s hard to grasp as an adult. We are so conditioned in our modern post-enlightenment world to assume that everything around us must be scientific and objective that we lose sight of the fact that we are subjective creatures that are immersed in mystery at all times.

Take the Bible for instance. For most of Christian history, people didn’t try to place it under a microscope like we do now. That’s a very recent development. So these days we see passages like Lazarus rising from the dead and we either scoff at the supernatural elements or use historical criticism to dismiss any possibility of them ever happening or we insist on biblical literalism and that one must believe in the historicity of the text. But those approaches don’t reflect what true faith is about. The Bible isn’t just a book of facts giving us a snapshot of past events that we have to swallow whole. It’s a story of God that we are invited to enter into and be transformed by. We are narrative creatures living in unfolding time; our lives come from somewhere and are going somewhere. We inhabit the same world as the authors of scripture and so can enter into that narrative and be transformed by it. The text isn’t totalitarian, forcing us to believe scientifically; it is a story that we enter into. We enter this story and are able to embody its eschatological end which is always leading to Jesus. The point is less about if stuff really happened or not, but if we are allowing our story to be overtaken by God’s story and our lives to be overtaken by that grace.

It’s a stance that breaks down the Enlightenment spawned dichotomy of faith versus reason. Those things aren’t pitted against each other, but work together to bring us ever closer to a God that is constantly revealing Godself to us. God created us to be in relationship with him – our purpose is to ever love and praise God. This is part of what it means to enter into the narrative of scripture and become part of the story of the work of Jesus in the world. It’s not about following faith or reason; it is about embracing who we were created to be – which includes both our faith and reason. Treating God or the scriptures like a lab experiment misses the point – such things are not mere pieces in a puzzle that we need to figure out and then statically place in the correct place once we have all the answers. They are transformative glimmers of a story that is given to us as a gift – a story that we have the privilege of living out. It is this story that shapes the community called the church. The church doesn’t exist to tell us dogmatically what to do and believe. It is a place where this story unfolds with a polyphony of voices. This pluralism of voices will necessarily cause conflict, but because we are narrative creatures always moving towards God the point is not to ever impose a false unity on this community. The church, while at times having to take stands, shouldn’t tell people that they are expected to believe in some static way, but instead invite the community with the full humanity of their faith and reason intact to be in constant dialogue as we move forward in this story of following Christ

If we stop pitting reason against faith, the triune God becomes less of a problem to be solved and more of a relationship to experience. Mystery and a relationship grounded in love are not fantasies no matter what our modern world has conditioned us to believe. We cannot put love inside a test tube and objectively declare it to be true, that is not the purpose of love. We love to be transformed, to be part of a story that is greater than ourselves. We were created for love, and to live into that story we need to stop selling ourselves short by forcing ourselves to be people of faith or people of science. Embracing our full humanity changes the lens through which we see the world, encounter the scriptures, and understand how a triune relational God reveals Godself to us. Our faith isn’t a discredited tradition from simpler times; it is a reminder that there is a greater story being told that invites the whole of who we are to step into an eternal drama. We don’t unthinkingly observe Lent or smear ashes on our foreheads on Ash Wednesday because we have to or because someone tells us we must in order to be a good Christian, we do it to remind ourselves of the story we are a part of and the eschatological end we are living towards. My daughter might not see yet the intensity of the invitation to join in on that story – pancakes and beads hold more power in the moment – but to me these ashes are charged with eternal significance that pulls me ever closer in relationship with a dynamic God. And that is what faith is about.

The common interpretation of the conquest, especially the book of Joshua has always troubled me. In the way it is commonly interpreted and taught in Sunday schools it portrays God as an oppressive and violent God commanding genocide. It is a text that has been used to justify acts of colonization and violence done by supposed Christians for centuries. It was used to justify the colonization and enslavement of Africans, the genocide of the First Nations peoples in the Americas, and as the picture here shows (thanks Brandon Frick for sending me this) the ongoing violence in the Middle East. As I see it biblical interpretation and theology must always be practical. If those interpretations lead to practice that undermines other aspects of the texts, there the most obvious conclusion is that the interpretation must be wrong. Yet Joshua is always a difficult text. In a heated discussion about the conquest narrative at the 2010 Emergent Theological Conversation as the evil ways the texts has been used were offered by some as reason to be suspicious of scripture, Colin Greene asked as an aside "what if the text is read ironically?" The question wasn't explored there, but it captured by attention and led to this paper. I in no way claim to have resolved the issues in the text, but merely am proposing an alternative way of reading the text that helps resolve some of its inconsistencies and problems.

So if anyone is interested in reading something a lot longer than a typical blogpost, feel free to read the paper and contribute to the discussion.

I want to post this list to see what other options the readers here might have to contribute. The point of this is not to argue which view is right, but merely to list what views are held by church. Also, I’m writing as someone who has not personally experienced the pain and struggle that typify many LGBT peoples experience with the church. I don’t want to ignore that pain or that in discussing churches’ views I am discussing things that have affected the lives of real people, but I’m only trying here to give a snapshot of what I’ve seen. I’ve also left out the views on the extremes – i.e. the Fred Phelps hatred and the anything goes tolerance – to focus on views that I’ve had experience with in churches. So here’s my 2 cents…

Group 1. This group thinks all forms being gay are a willful choice to sin against God and the Bible. While they might not use hate speech like Fred Phelps, they generally won’t allow gay people to attend their churches. If they do, they insist that they repent and seek a cure for their sinful choices. Often this group tries to hide the existence of gay people in culture as well. They fight libraries that have children’s books about two mommies, they see a gay agenda in the media if a gay person shows up on a TV show, and oppose gay marriage as an endorsement of sin. If they know anyone who is actually gay, it is generally only someone who has been treated of their problem and now asks for continual prayer that they won’t fall back into sin. To them the Bible is clear and easy to understand in its condemnation of same-sex relationships since (in their view) people don’t interpret the Bible, it simple speak the truth for itself.

Group 2. The second group would still say that being gay is unbiblical/sinful, but they would be more nuanced and loving in that assertion. They may or may not see being gay as a choice, but they will generally admit that it is something that goes so deep in a person that they cannot willfully choose not to be gay. So while they might say that being gay may not be a choice (and therefore not wrong in and of itself), for them acting on gay desires is always wrong. So while they love and accept people who have the condition, they condemn gay sex, gay relationships, and gay marriage. So there are churches where people who openly identify as gay can attend (although they are always known by that label) and they might even be allowed to serve in some non-leadership positions in the church (but generally never with children). Like hetero singles, they are constantly encouraged to keep pure but have the harder struggle since they know that they will never be allowed to find love without slipping into sin and being rejected by their church community. There is generally much outreach in these communities to get practicing gays to join this “accepting” community where they have support to stop practicing.

Group 3. The third group generally believes that being gay is a condition and not a choice. They may or may not believe that practicing being gay is biblical or not, but what they believe about that matters less than the fact that they know they need to be loving and accepting of all people. Gay people are God’s beloved just as hetero people are, so the church should love them just as God loves them. The discussions here are generally about rights and justice. The language is that all people should be granted the same benefits of civil society no matter who they love. So gay marriage is supported and any discrimination whatsoever is fought against and condemned. Some in this group would still speak against gay promiscuity, just as they would hetero promiscuity (which is part of why they support gay marriage). They understand that the Bible has been used in hurtful and hateful ways against gay people in the past and they want to move past that. They might have read some alternative interpretations of the few Bible passages that seem to condemn same-sex relationships, but they may or may not be convinced by either interpretation. Since they generally know and are friends with gay people, they are okay with the ambiguity of biblical interpretation because they see being in loving relationship as being far more important than dogma.

Group 4. In the fourth group I would place those that have devoted the time to digging through scripture and history and have decided that there is nothing unbiblical about same-sex relationships. Their decision generally isn’t based on cultural-pressure or a sense of tolerance, but the conclusion of a serious wrestling with scripture. They are often told that they are unbiblical and just want to support sin, but often they have very strong doctrine based on the Bible and Christian tradition (although it often is more of an ancient or postmodern interpretation than modern evangelical). They will be advocates for the gay community when needed, but since their theology doesn’t see gay people as other, they often don’t see people first by that label. They often have a hard time finding churches where they fit in as many churches either still see gay people as somehow inferior or make the entire church’s identity about including gay people. While many people in this group devote themselves to wrestling honestly with the whole of scripture, there is a portion who knew they had to try to figure out the gay issue in scripture and so that is the extent of their wrestling. So while they have intellectually resolved that scripture does not condemn gay people, they still might hold to “biblical” ideas of sexism and racism because they were taught such things when they were younger. So it is hard to classify this group as liberal or tolerant, they are simply those who are willing to wrestle with scripture and conclude that there is no need to condemn.

Do these groups seem accurate? What other perspectives would you add?

God Showed Up
(to be read by two readers, like slam poetry)

A: Unexpectedly
B: Intrusively
A: Undeniably
B: God showed up
A: In the least likely of places
B: Where no one thought God would ever go
A:God appeared
B: Fear not, I am with you, Be not dismayed
A: For unto you this day is born, a savior
B: A baby
A: A child for the woman who thought she could bear none
B: A child for the girl who was not yet wed
A: A child to change their lives
B: A child to change the world

Elizabeth's Story

I was, how do I put this nicely, well advanced in years when God showed up. You would think with a priest for a husband that I would be ready for God to appear in my life, but I think God likes to show up where we least expect him.

You see, my husband served in the temple, we were good folk, but that doesn’t mean that I never heard the rumors. The whispered questions wondering how Zechariah could be approved to serve as a priest when God was so obviously withholding his blessing from us. The questions that echoed the cries I had uttered to God for years. Why God can we not have children? Why are we not granted this joy? Eventually my cries had turned to reluctant acceptance. At the age when other women were getting a rest from their labors as daughters and daughter-in-laws assumed the brunt of the day to day chores, I finally had to accept that I would never have what I had spent so many years longing for. That doesn’t mean that my heart didn’t break everyday knowing that the dream was lost to me forever, but I had no choice but to accept that my body had long since passed the point where children were a possibility.

So the last thing I expected was for God to send an angelic messenger to my husband to tell him that we would soon have a child. Thankfully I didn’t laugh out loud like my foremother Sarah did when she heard similar news. But I do admit to a moment, okay, maybe a few moments of incredulity. Me, have a child? At my age? It seemed impossible. But I soon learned that the words “God” and “impossible” don’t go together well. God showed up and turned my world upside down.

I barely knew what to do with myself. How I ached and the confinement nearly drove me crazy, but I rejoiced in every moment of it. This blessing was so unexpected and wonderful at the same time. I think I started even seeing the world differently. When God shows up in such a dramatic way in one area, it was hard to expect God not to show up in similar ways in everyone’s lives. So I think it was this impact of the unexpected blessing of my pregnancy that prompted my exclamation of joy when my cousin Mary showed up for a visit. I took one look at her and felt my babe leap inside me. Out of nowhere I exclaimed, “You're so blessed among women, and the babe in your womb, also blessed! And why am I so blessed that the mother of my Lord visits me? The moment the sound of your greeting entered my ears, The babe in my womb skipped like a lamb for sheer joy. Blessed woman, who believed what God said, believed every word would come true!”

I think I scared the poor child. She heard me say those words and immediately burst into tears. It took a while to work it out but apparently God had shown up a bit unexpectedly in her life as well. Young and not yet wed she too was with child. And she was beside herself with fear. She knew she carried the hope of our people inside her, but who in the world would ever believe that the child was of the Lord?

We needed that time together, helping each other see the joy in the unexpected. Sharing in those few months our special bond, a secret that shouldn’t be so secret, but somehow always is – that God can show up in the most unlikely of places. That God can shatter every preconceived notion of how this world should work. That God uses even ordinary folks like us to turn the world upside-down.

Sending Blessing
May God enter your life in unexpected ways. May you see God at work in even the busyness and commercialism of the season. May you always be discovering that your box for God is too small. May you be impregnated with possibilities you never dreamed were possible. May God turn your world upside down. Go in peace and expect the unexpected.

One can obviously point fingers at the recent trends fearing learning about non-Christian religion here in America. The Texas School Board pushing to eliminate a seemingly pro-Muslim (and hence “anti-Christian”) bias in textbooks since those texts actually teach about Muslin history. Or the protestors of the Park51 community center who proclaim “all I need to know about Islam I learned on 9/11.” Or even the families at the church I used to work at that got upset that we were exposing the youth to (as they called them) “non-Christian religions” when we took them to visit Catholic and Eastern Orthodox churches. That sort of prejudice and ignorance is sad, but willful. What troubles me is the ignorance of Christians of our own faith. Mike and I both discovered in attending mainline seminaries that most of our classmates readily admit to having never studied or really read the Bible. As my theology prof quipped recently after having to ask a Baptist student in the class about a scripture reference, “if you want to know which fork to use for dessert, ask an Episcopalian, if you want to know something about the Bible ask a Baptist.” It’s funny, but with the evangelical obsession with Bible memory, sword drills, and Bible knowledge, it’s a fairly true stereotype.

And yet even with our of our Bible knowledge, evangelicals often willfully avoid knowledge with the best of them. For all the Bible trivia we amass, there is generally very little depth in that knowledge. We do countless “Bible studies” where fill-in-the-blank answers and “what does it mean for my life” reflection questions masquerade as knowledge. And I can’t tell you the number of times I’ve heard pastors (or youth pastors) warn people about the liberal influence of education – as if just the idea of thinking for oneself is a threat to the faith. Or the number of testimonies I’ve heard that focus on how the person realized they trusted too much in their intellect and so had to let that go and follow God. It’s like the Kurt Cameron clip I saw recently where he actually said that to have faith we have to “bypass the intellect.” I was reminded of this stance this past week, when on a whim I pulled out the Old Testament Survey textbook I used at Wheaton College to compare it with the text I’m using in my survey class in seminary. I fully admit that both texts are biased, but it was sad to read how my Wheaton text willfully rejected most biblical scholarship. Instead of engaging with historical facts and textual criticism, the Wheaton text presented those arguments only to reject them. Almost every chapter is framed as – here is the evidence of scholars, but since we believe in the supernatural/unity of scripture/predictive prophecy we have to reject those arguments and just believe in the text as it is (as if that somehow actually exists). If knowledge falls outside of the tiny little box they were preconditioned to believe in, it is that knowledge and not the box that gets rejected and suppressed in the church. (although, I have to say, it made for a far easier Old Testament survey class…).

I think the church, in all its forms, is failing its members in this realm. Fearing learning about other religions or even about one’s own has crippled the body of Christ. The church doesn’t know how to navigate knowledge well. I understand why so many people do lose their faith when confronted with knowledge about history, or cultural influences on our faith tradition, or how the Bible came to be. When our faith is based on ignoring such knowledge, or even willfully hiding from it, its revelation can be devastating – especially when the church is utterly ill-equipped to provide a lens to help people understand that knowledge. We all always have more to learn and discover. What we think we know about God, the Bible, our faith, or other faiths is only just the very beginnings of what we can know. Fearing truth because it might force us to understand and love others or because it might challenge our presuppositions doesn’t seem like a healthy way for anyone to be living. To me what matters the most here is not whether people in our culture can answer certain questions correctly or not (although some of those Pew questions were rather basic), but whether or not we care enough to be continually learning and growing. And sadly, that is what I generally see lacking.

This is the question Nehemiah addresses to the people of Judah when he sees the way they are treating the poor in the land. The families of the educated, aristocratic, and wealthy Jews had been exiled during the Babylonian occupation while the peasants had been allowed to stay in the land. When the Persians allowed these upper-classes to return to Judah, they immediately started oppressing the people who had remained in the land. Times were tough, but the rich continued to take advantage of the poor of the land sending them into debt slavery and taking their lands from them. So the oppressed people came to Nehemiah and said “Now our flesh is the same as that of our kindred; our children are the same as their children; and yet we are forcing our sons and daughters to be slaves, and some of our daughters have been ravished; we are powerless, and our fields and vineyards now belong to others." (Neh 5:5)

Theirs is a story told over and over again in our world today. Families in India find themselves in a position where they must borrow money to pay for a doctor and the lender takes advantage of them by imposing high interest rates. To attempt to pay off the debt their children must work rolling cigarettes or shaping bricks. But of course the debt never gets paid off and the children become debt slaves. Or to earn enough money to feed the family, a father in China arranges for his daughter to work a job in a big city factory, only when she arrives she discovers that she is actually captive in a brothel where she is repeatedly drugged and raped. These stories happen every day as economics and greed instead of love guide our actions. Or a wealthy country sends an occupying army into another land (for their “protection”), claiming the best strips of land and resources for themselves. They leave the country ravished and then offer high interest loans to help the country get back on their feet. The rich then continue to be sent payments from the poorest countries in the world.

Our flesh is the same as their flesh. Our children are the same as their children. But our children go to school, eat three meals a day, have toys to play with, are vaccinated against disease, and enjoy the luxury of the innocence of childhood which their children can only dream of. Their daughters are ravished, their lands have been stolen by corporations, their children trafficked or tricked into slavery under the economic system that helps us remain rich and in power.

When Nehemiah heard the plight of the people he burned with anger. After much thought, he brought charges against the nobles and the officials telling them, "The thing that you are doing is not good. Should you not walk in the fear of our God?” And the scripture says that the people were silent and could not find anything to say. They didn’t call him a socialist or complain that he suffered from white guilt. They heard the messenger of the Lord and were humbled by their sins. They pledged to stop taking advantage of the people who worked the land, promising to return whatever they had unjustly taken from them. And it wasn’t just a pledge to cover their rears or get them re-elected. It was an oath before the Lord, with the understanding that whoever failed to abide by their pledge would be ruined and cast away from God.

This weekend marks the Stand Up, Take Action event – an annual worldwide mobilization where citizens around the globe spread the message and take action against poverty and toward reaching the Millennium Development Goals to reduce poverty by 2015. Part of the call is to tell the world leaders who have pledged to stop injustice and oppression and reduce poverty that “we will no longer stay seated or silent in the face of poverty and the broken promises to end it!" It is celebrated in conjunction with Jubilee Sunday, a day dedicated to praying for global economic justice, deepening our understanding of the global debt issue, and for taking concrete action for debt cancellation for all impoverished countries.

This weekend is a reminder to listen to the words of Nehemiah and examine if we do truly walk in the fear of the Lord. To ask in what ways are we contributing to oppression and injustices worldwide and to pledge to put an end to such actions. We are God’s people, committed to following his ways. To take advantage of our brothers and sisters for our own material gain is in direct defiance of the way of life God calls us to. We must instead make good on our pledge to follow Christ. To take a stand against poverty and oppression and commit to ending such injustices worldwide. And like the people who heard the charge from Nehemiah respond not with grumbling or excuses or entitled justifications, but by saying “Amen," praising the Lord, and doing as they had promised.

And for the curious, "this self-inventory was first developed in an ongoing working group on the politics of biblical hermeneutics sponsored by New York Theological Seminary. The working group’s membership included faculty from New York Theological Seminary, General Theological Seminary, and Union Theological Seminary, as well as pastors and denominational staff members." It can be found in N.K. Gottwald's “Framing Biblical Interpretation at New York Theological Seminary: A Student Self-Inventory on Biblical Hermeneutics” in Reading from This Place, Vol. 1: Social Location and Biblical Interpretation in the United States (Fortress, 1995).

1. CHURCH HISTORY/TRADITION

What is my denominational history and tradition regarding interpretation of the Bible?

2. AUTHORITATIVE CRITERIA

What are the norms or standards beyond the Bible recognized in my tradition to indicate how and in what particulars the Bible is the word of God? This may include a founder of the denomination, a church body, a confession, a creed, a set of customs, a type of personal experience, a social commitment, as well as other possibilities.

3. WORKING THEOLOGY

What is my actual working theology regarding interpretation of the Bible? To what extent is this the same or different from the official position of my denomination or the ‘average’ viewpoint among my church associates? Is my working theology more or less the same as my formal theology, such as I might state in an application to a seminary or before a church body?

4. ETHNICITY

How does my ethnic history, culture, and consciousness influence my interpretation of the Bible? This may be somewhat easier for Blacks, Hispanics, and Asians to answer, but it is also a necessary question for Anglos to ponder.

5. GENDER

How does my gender history, culture, and consciousness influence my interpretation of the Bible? With the rise of feminist consciousness, this may be an easier question for women to confront, but it is also an important question for men.

6. SOCIAL CLASS

How does my social-class history, culture, and consciousness influence my interpretation of the Bible? Since the dominant ideology in our society tends to deny that social classes exist among us, or to belittle the significance of class, it may take considerable effort on your part to identify your class location. For starters, you can ask about work experience, inherited wealth, income, education, types of reading, news sources consulted, social and career aspirations, and so on, and you can ask these questions about yourself, your parents, your grandparents, your associates, your neighborhood, your church.

7. EDUCATION

How does my level and type of education influence my interpretation of the Bible? If I have had technical or professional training in nonreligious fields, how does this impact my way of reading the Bible? How does my age and ‘generation’ affect my experience of Biblical interpretation?

8. COMMUNITY PRIORITIES

Does my congregation have a vision of the common good of the community in which it is located? Does it have any explicit commitments to the attainment of the common good? How does my congregation’s view of its relationship to the larger community influence my interpretation of the Bible?

9. EXPLICIT POLITICAL POSITION

How does my avowed political position influence my biblical interpretation? Politics is about as narrowly conceived in this country as is class. The term ‘political position’ in this question refers to more than political party affiliation or location on a left-right political spectrum. It also takes into account how much impact one feels from society and government on one’s own life and how much responsibility one takes for society and government, and in what concrete ways. Also involved is how one’s immediate community/church is oriented toward sociopolitical awareness.

10. IMPLICIT POLITICAL STANCE

Even if I am not very political in the usual sense, or consider myself neutral toward or ‘above’ politics, how does this ‘nonpolitical’ attitude and stance influence my biblical interpretation? What is the implicit political stance of my church and of other religious people with whom I associate?

11. ATTITUDE TOWARD JUDAISM

What is my view of the relationship between Judaism and Christianity? To what extent is my view informed by direct experience of Jews or Jewish communities? How does my view affect my understanding of the relationship between the Old and New Testaments and my understanding of the religious identity of Jesus, Paul, and other central figures in the New Testament.

12. CUSTOMARY EXPOSURES TO THE BIBLE

How does the mix of uses of the Bible to which I have been or am currently exposed influence my biblical interpretation? Such uses may include worship, preaching, church-school instruction, private study, Bible school training, ethical and theological resourcing, solitary or group devotions or spiritual exercises, and so on.

13. BIBLE TRANSLATION

How do the Bible translations and study Bibles I use influence my interpretation of the Bible? What translation(s) do I regularly or frequently use, and why? If I use a particular study Bible with explanatory essays and notes, what line of interpretation is expressed in it? Do I accept the study Bible interpretations without question or do I consult other resources of information to compare with them?

14. PUBLISHED RESOURCES

How do the published resources I regularly or sometimes consult influence my biblical interpretation? Among these resources may be one’s private library, a church or seminary library, periodicals, church-school educational materials, sermon helps, and so on.

15. INTENT AND EFFECT OF BIBLICAL PREACHING

How do my church and pastor (or myself as pastor) understand the role of the Bible in preaching as an aspect of the mission of the church, and how does that understanding influence my own pattern of biblical interpretation?

16. ORIENTATION TO BIBLICAL SCHOLARS

Are the categories and terminology of biblical scholarship completely new to me, or do I have some familiarity with them? How does my attitude toward and use or nonuse of biblical scholarship influence my biblical interpretation? Am I inclined automatically to accept or to reject whatever a biblical scholar claims? Does the biblical scholarship I am familiar with increase or decrease my sense of competence and satisfaction in Bible study?

17. FAMILY INFLUENCE

What was the characteristic view of the Bible in my childhood home? Have I stayed in continuity with that view? Do I now see the Bible rather differently than my parents did (or do)? If there have been major changes in my view of the Bible, how did these come about? How do I feel about differences in biblical understanding within my current family setting?

18. LIFE CRISES

Have I experienced crises in my life in which the bible was a resource or in which I came to a deeper or different understanding of the Bible than I had held before? If so, what has been the lasting effect of the crisis on my biblical interpretation?

19. SPIRITUALITY OR DIVINE GUIDANCE

What has been my experience of the role of the Bible in spiritual awareness or guidance from God? What biblical language and images play a part in my spiritual awareness and practice? How do I relate this ‘spiritual’ use of the Bible to other ways of reading and interpreting the Bible? Do these different approaches to the Bible combine comfortably for me or are they in tension or even open conflict?