Category: Bible

Conquest, Empire, and Irony in the Biblical Text

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So this past weekend at the Central Texas Colloquium on Religion I presented a paper titled “Conquest, Empire, and Irony in the Biblical Text.” The paper is an exploration of how our understanding of the narrative of the conquest of Canaan changes if we read it through an ironic lens. A number of people expressed interest in the topic, so I’ve posted the paper as a Google doc – it can be found here.

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.

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Christian Perspectives on LGBT

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So a friend recently asked my opinion regarding the differing views churches hold about LGBT people. Since most people seem to think churches’ stances are limited to the either/or of complete rejection or full acceptance, I thought it was helpful to reflect on the more nuanced opinions that are out there. I’ve decided to post the list of views I came up with below. But first I need to state a few disclaimers and warnings.

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?

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Mary’s Grammar

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as posted at The Christian Century blog –

The final exam in my theology class surprised me. Instead of complex essay questions, there was one simple question: defend the grammar of the Magnificat.

How can Mary sing that the Lord has done great things for her? It’s a little crazy: how can this young, lower-class girl who finds herself knocked up sing that God has already–in the past tense–ended injustice and oppression? All she has to do is look around her to find evidence to the contrary.

I answered the question, working in the requisite readings. But days later the question is still haunting me.

What intrigues me is the gap between what the song proclaims and how the song is commonly used. As the exam question implied, we tend to get confused about the song’s verb tense. It isn’t simply past tense, announcing the fulfillment of the eschatological vision in which rulers are brought down and the lowly are lifted up. Nor is it simply a future hope for a time when all will be made right.

Instead it’s both; it’s the already and not yet. This can be hard to understand, in part because English lacks the aorist tense. The Magnificat testifies to God’s work to reconcile all creation, work that has already begun and will continue forever. Like Mary, we are invited to be intimately involved in this work.

Mary wasn’t crazy. She was carrying the hope of the world inside her; she knew that God had entered the world in a dramatic way. This changed everything–but to accomplish the change, the hope had to be proclaimed with assurance. We don’t just place our hope in a past event or a future reward; we live into it.

When God sent Jesus to the world to reconcile all things, his incarnation and work on the cross did the job. Salvation dealt with the world’s injustices and oppressions. But as humans we could not be transformed all at once–that desire is what got Adam and Eve kicked out of Eden. God works gradually in our lives and world, helping us grow up into the hope that is already there.

Like Mary, we magnify the Lord for already overcoming injustice and oppression–and we also work to end such evils. Mary trusted so profoundly in the reality of the baby she carried that she asserted God’s fulfillment of hope in the past, present and future. Her faith challenges me to join her in magnifying God by making this hope a reality.

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The Entitlement Trap

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As posted at The Christian Century Blog

I can’t stand the word “entitlement.” I use it sometimes, when people annoy me with their belief that the world owes them something or that their needs are more important than those of others. But when I do this, I’m guilty of the same thing they are: dismissing the importance of someone else’s desires and asserting the importance of my own. I get caught in an entitlement trap.

Looking at the story of the prodigal son in church, I found myself focusing on the theme of entitlement. The story is one of those passages that reveals something different each time I encounter it. What struck me this time was how each brother thinks the world owes him something.

The younger brother’s sense of entitlement is obvious: he demands his inheritance so he can live as he pleases. But the older brother displays a similar sense of entitlement in his condemnation and rejection of his brother. He believes that his hard work and good behavior entitle him to the economic benefits and stability of his father’s love. Each brother is deeply flawed, yet the father graciously extends mercy to both.

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Sex in the Bible

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Since starting seminary I’ve had the opportunity to read through the Old Testament in ways I haven’t done since I was in youth group at a conservative evangelical church.  While I think building biblical literacy is something evangelicals do very well, reading through these passages as an adult reminded me in a humorous way the ways my culture context back then shaped how I read the bible.  And it all had to do with sex.

If you’ve ever read through the Old Testament, you know that it’s a pretty racy text.  From rapes and seductions to concubines and harlots, it’s hard to avoid the presence of sex – often illicit sex – in the pages of scripture.  That is unless you are a teenage evangelical.  Amusingly, my most poignant memory of my years of bible studies of such passages in youth group is how hard the leaders tried to convince us that those sex passages actually had nothing to do with sex at all.

Like how when the most beautiful virgin in the land was selected to come lay with an elderly King David to keep him “warm” it had nothing to do with her trying to get him to respond sexually since in the Ancient Near East a King’s power was tied to his virility.  We were instead told that she literally was chosen to raise his body temperature since elderly people get cold often.  Or when reading how when  Rehoboem tries to assert his prowess as compared to his father Solomon and says his little finger is bigger than his fathers sexual organ (1 Kings 12), we were told that the Bible would never include something so base so therefore what he was really referring to was his fathers waist or thigh.

Whenever I heard the story of the Israelite spies’ visit to Rahab, the leaders made sure we understood that the spies only visited a prostitute because it would be a good place to gather information.  And we were told that Ruth getting under the covers with Boaz and laying at his “feet” had no sexual connotations whatsoever – she just wanted to get him to listen to her.  Other leaders even tried to tell us that Esther’s one night with the king truly was just a beauty contest and not like what typically happens when a member of the harem spends a night with the king.

Although we were told that we had to read the Bible literally – since we believed it to be inerrant – the conservative evangelical attitude towards sex (especially in regard to teenagers) forced us to read those passages as meaning the opposite of what they truly mean.  Lessons on sexual purity being the highest virtue we could strive for were drilled into us.  Any sexual deviancy was condemned in very publicly humiliating ways.  Given these strict views on sex, there was no way supposed biblical heroes could ever be seen as dallying in inappropriate sexual behavior.  Granted, sometimes it was hard to avoid the obvious stories, but those usually were directly connected to some dire consequence (as with David and Bathsheba).  As Christian teenagers our primary spiritual command was to be pure and so our study of the bible had to be just as pure – even if that meant some creative explaining away for the obvious.

 

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Religious Knowledge and the Church

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My laptop crashed last week, so as it was being repaired, I immersed myself in my schoolwork since we’ve reached the point in the semester where it all seems to be piling on. Yet even as I was surrounded with discussions on proper Christology and post-exilic apocalyptic literature, I was not surprised to read the results of the recent Pew Religious Knowledge Survey. It is just part of who I am to seek religious knowledge, but according to this survey the general public can only answer 16 out of 32 questions correctly on a very basic religious knowledge survey. These weren’t questions about Augustinian views of atonement or the historical roots of the Hindu pantheon, these were ultra-basic questions necessary for a working knowledge of the other in a pluralistic globalized world (multiple choice questions like “Which Bible figure is associated with leading the Exodus from Egypt?” (Job, Elijah, Moses, Abraham) or “Ramadan is…?” (A Hindu festival, a Jewish day, The Islamic Holy Month) (you can take the quiz here)). There has been much said regarding the fact that atheists and agnostics scored the highest on the quiz, scoring an average 20.9 questions correctly while Protestants scored an average of 16 and Catholics 14.7. But, like I said, even as it astounds me, it doesn’t surprise me. The numbers are interesting, but they merely reflect the ongoing lack of desire for religious knowledge that pervades our culture.

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.

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Standing Up for Justice

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Should you not walk in the fear of our God?

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.

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Self-Inventory on Biblical Hermeneutics

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Okay, so I’m going to go all geeky here and post my seminary homework assignment – not even the work I’m doing but the straight up assignment itself. Why? Because it is so freaking awesome. (when was the last time you said that about homework?). Basically, for my History and Hermeneutics class I have to answer these questions to help me understand all the “stuff” I bring with me to the biblical text. I’ve thought about some of this before, but am grateful for the chance to look more in depth at the lenses I use for interpreting the Bible. I wanted to share it here because I think everyone should engage in this sort of exercise. Pastors should require it of their congregation just to help us all know ourselves. Admitting that biblical interpretation is always influenced by our cultural setting is difficult for some people, realizing the extent of that truth is something few people ever take the time to consider. Hence, how awesome this assessment is as a tool for helping reveal such things.

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?

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What is the Gospel?

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Last week at her blog Rachel Held Evans proposed the question “What is the Gospel?” She received some interesting responses, demonstrating that this really isn’t a straightforward question. She asked a few of us to write down how we would answer that question so she could share our responses at her site as well. As soon as she addressed that question to me, I immediately started singing to myself that old CEF 5-Day Club standard “G-O-S-P-E-L Spells Gospel.” The lyrics in the song define the gospel as – “Jesus died for sinful men, but he arose and lives again. One day he’s coming for those who’ve trusted in him, coming to take us to heaven.” That answer to “what is the gospel?” is so ingrained in me that it is difficult to not just give it as my default answer – “What is the good news? That Jesus died on the cross for my sins.”

When I was 3 that answer was sufficient for me and so I said a prayer to invite Jesus into my heart. The good news as it were was all about me – making sure I got to go to heaven when I died. I didn’t stop to ask what Jesus meant about preaching the gospel of the kingdom, or what it meant when he said he had come to preach the gospel to the poor, or even what it meant to be a disciple and follow the disciplines Jesus demands of his own. I didn’t wonder why I was only taught the gospel about Jesus, and not the gospel of Jesus. I knew my response to “what is the gospel?” and so I didn’t even think to ask those questions for a long time.

Honestly, what really pushed me to start to see the gospel as being about more than just me was how the etymology of the word captured my attention. Wikipedia gives a brief history of the term as follows –

Good News is the English translation of the Koine Greek ευαγγέλιον (euangelion) (eu “good” + angelion “message”). The Greek term was Latinized as evangelium, and translated into Latin as bona annuntiatio. In Old English, it was translated as gōdspel (gōd “good” + spel “news”). The Old English term was retained as gospel in Middle English Bible translations and hence remains in use also in Modern English. 

I loved the dual meaning the term gōdspel – or good spell – evokes in modern English. As a major sci-fi/fantasy/mythology geek, I conjured up images of deep magic working to heal a broken world. The darkness that has crept into our world being fought by the good spells of the power of light.

But this play on words was more than just an interesting literary image for me; it pushed me to start thinking through what it really meant for all things to be reconciled to God. Like a good spell intended to transform the world and push back the darkness, the good news of Christ reaches further than I had ever imagined. The scriptures speak of God so loving the whole world that he sent his son Jesus. We also read of Jesus proclaiming the good news of the Kingdom where the oppressed are set free, the blind given sight, and the brokenhearted healed. The gospel of Jesus challenges believers to pray that God’s Kingdom will be manifest on earth as in heaven, that every person has their daily bread, and that all debts are forgiven. In these inclusive passages I began to see that the gospel as preached in scripture was far bigger than a formula that ensured I went to heaven when I died. Jesus was serious about bringing actual good news to all, and boldly proclaimed that in him this reconciliation of all things had begun. Broken relationships could be healed – shattered relationships within families, amongst nations, amidst creation, and between us and God could be finally be made right. This isn’t just good news for someday in heaven, for, as Jesus proclaimed, in him the prophesies of the poor finding hope, the oppressed being set free, and the blind finding sight are already fulfilled. Those who suffer from oppression and poverty have tangible hope here and now. The good spell has been cast, the deep magic is as work, and the light is pushing back the darkness as Christ reconciles all things to himself.

The gospel, the good news, is about so much more than an economic transaction where I get a ticket to heaven in exchange for intellectually assenting to an idea about Jesus. The gospel is good news for the world. It is about God loving the world enough to send his son and establish his Kingdom. It is the gospel of Jesus, the new way of being that he preached. This good news isn’t just something we believe in or talk about, but something we are called to celebrate and embrace. If it is truly good news we will joyfully accept the challenge to follow in the disciplines of Christ – being his hands and feet working to heal all shattered relationships through his reconciling power. We live out the good news to the world.

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And so we come to the Friday called good. The day we are asked to celebrate the day God died. What strikes me today is the ordinariness of this day. Even on a day of heightened sensibility, life still moves on. The crucifixion seems far away, the events powerful and yet removed. It reminds me of these lines from W.H. Auden’s poem Horae Canonica in which he tells the events of Good Friday hour by hour –

The wind has dropped and we have lost our public.
The faceless many who always
Collect when any world is to be wrecked,
Blown up, burnt down, cracked open,
Felled, sawn in two, hacked through, torn apart,
Have all melted away: not one
Of these who in the shade of walls and trees
Lie sprawled now, calmly sleeping,
Harmless as sheep, can remember why
He shouted or what about
So loudly in the sunshine this morning;
All if challenged would reply
-’It was a monster with one red eye,
A crowd that saw him die, not I.-
The hangman has gone to wash, the soldiers to eat;
We are left alone with our feat.

the crucifixtion - haitiToday I should be in mourning, marking the death of God’s son, repenting of my complicity in the act. But life moves on around me nonetheless. I will drink my morning coffee, I will fix dinner tonight, I will take my children to the park. Good Friday will have to be remembered in the ordinariness of everyday life.

But isn’t that as it should be? That the death of Christ should influence and change everything? That enacting the ritual of the everyday should be imbued with the significance of Christ? That there is something different about changing the diapers, cutting the grass, or doing the dishes because of this death?

At first glance, those habits seem so ordinary as to be meaningless. In the shadow of cosmic redemption dramas, our daily actions seem so pointless and boring. Yet at the same time in light of the call that cosmic drama gave to each of us, those actions now take on new meaning. They become part of the drama, a way of identifying with the story. Acts of remembrance and service and hope.

Nothing is ordinary anymore. The world was wrecked and rebuilt, and even if we can’t always remember why, we walk in that changed world that is now charged with significance. And we call it good.

This week I will be cross-posting the reflections I wrote for Journey’s IFC’s blog relating the events of Holy Week to our church’s value statements. Some of these have appeared in different forms here at onehandclapping in the past. Image – “The Crucifixion – Haiti”

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