Canon Fodder

I think I’ve largely been avoiding blogging lately, for several reasons I’m sure. One of them no doubt is my awareness that once I started writing, I would have to write about my current struggles regarding my faith, etc. I actually recently wrote one of my long-standing mentors about these struggles, and below is an edited copy of that email. There are a few personal references in the copied text below, but I think most of it should be pretty accessible. It reads:

I think part of the challenge for a lot of people like me is just how to “keep the faith” in the face of a lot of very good reasons not to. For my part, my upbringing in a very abusive, very “Christian” home remarkably served to give rise to and strengthen my faith for a long time, because for a long time God was the only “adult” in my life who, in my experience, was both loving and reliable.

Even so, as I moved away from my abusive, Republican, Bible-believing Texas home (those things don’t always go hand-in-hand, do they?) I became aware of a growing social consciousness that was largely shaped, of course, during my Kingdomworks experience. As I’ve said before, I think I’ve spent much of the past thirteen years (now) trying to re-create that experience. I know, of course, that I can’t, but somehow that doesn’t stop me from trying. It was during that summer that I first learned about and lived in community. It was during that summer that this Texas boy fell in love with “the city” (and specifically Philly), and it was during that time that I learned how beautifully hard a life lived serving the poor in the city can be.

Anyway, part of my experience has been time spent in two amazing postmodern/emerging (though they may not choose these labels for themselves) congregations- House of Mercy in the Twin Cities and Circle of Hope in Philly, and part of my experience too involves my seminary education at Luther Seminary in St. Paul. It was at House of Mercy that I first really experienced grace, I think, however fleeting that experience seems now, and the prophetic witness of House of Mercy’s pastors rings in my ears to this day. Circle of Hope, of course, challenged me to really “be the Church” and to live a life of discipleship- in community- that was truly radical (but ordinary, to borrow Shane Claiborne’s phrase). In seminary, though, I first became truly aware of the Bible’s many shortcomings (that is, if you accept- or used to- what the “fundagelicals” say about it). It was there that I was first disabused of the notion that the Bible is “inerrant,” and came to see the development of that doctrine within Protestantism for what it likely was- a “knee-jerk” reaction to the Roman Catholic doctrine of the infallibility of the Pope.

Of course, this presented a major stumbling block to my faith as I had always known it, which was thoroughly Modern (rational and proposition-based). Unwittingly, I had bought the line which said that faith is about lending intellectual assent to a set of propositions- a checklist of orthodoxy (and behavior). So long as I could check off all the appropriate beliefs, and didn’t engage in any of the usually suspect behaviors (smoking, drinking, voting Democratic, etc.), I was okay, and that’s really what it seemed to be all about. Though this may be a gross overgeneralization, the rest of the Christian life in my experience growing up seemed to be mostly about pursuing the American dream, and I suppose I’m still a little bitter about that to this day (even as I remain stubbornly middle-class in my lifestyle, to my great chagrin). Anyway, in the circles that I grew up in there’s a saying about going to seminary (or at least one like mine) to “lose your faith,” and I definitely experienced that.

If the Bible was, for the most part, the source of the Christian’s faith, and it was as laden with inconsistencies and “factual” errors as I learned it to be, what then? Fortunately, my seminary experience took away (the faith of my youth) and it gave, as I was challenged to look at the Bible in a new light- not as a “magic 8 ball” that could answer any question posed, but rather as the story of God’s wooing of humanity throughout the ages, and as such one that could only properly be understood in light of Jesus. In short, in seminary I learned to ask what the Bible was for (not a science textbook). This, coupled with one of Circle of Hope’s proverbs (“Jesus is the lens through which we read the Bible”), proved immensely helpful in giving new ground upon which to base my faith. Still, it required a fine little theological jig for me to “give account for the hope that is within me” from that point forward. I suppose I’m writing you now because I’m getting a little tired of dancing, while hoping that the “jig” isn’t “up.”

Long ago I heard you talk about your interest in not why a person became a Christian but why they’re still one, and for a while now I’ve been answering that question like this: I talk about the Bible, and say that I used to trust Jesus mostly because of the Bible’s authority (which I now would call “Bibliolatry”). Now, however, I trust the Bible’s witness because it points to Jesus, who is the source/foundation of my faith. I think the Bible is somehow “true” on its major points (like the Resurrection, for example, but more importantly- what the Resurrection is for), but it doesn’t bother me so much that the Bible seems to get some of its facts wrong. I’m also not too worried about whether or not all of its stories might have been observably verifiable, for in my view that’s not really the point. I also talk about the whole belief/behavior checklist as being so not what I now understand the Christian life to be about. I also talk about my deeply held belief that “rules are for relationship” (I think I coined that, but I’m not sure). I tell my son not to touch a hot stove or play in traffic (the “rules”) not because I’m arbitrary and controlling but because I know that doing these things will hurt him. Likewise, God tells us not to sleep around or mindlessly pursue our impulses because he knows that doing those things will hurt us. In both cases, though, what’s important are the right relationships with God, one another, and the world that we were made for- not the rules, per se. Unfortunately, many Christians, resorting to their “checklists,” speak and act as if the rules are more important than the relationships they’re meant to serve.

Anyway, all of this puts a ton of pressure on me, though, for if I can’t hide behind some checklist then I’m forced to actually relate to the living God, to struggle to follow Jesus as best I can. Here we move into some pretty tricky territory, for everything that I’m saying seems to come to a crux in my actual experience of relating to Jesus- or not. Though I was raised Pentecostal, I’ve never had an “ecstatic” experience, and while there are many times (though mostly when I was younger) when I’ve felt what might be characterized as “the presence of God,” how can I say with any certainty that it wasn’t something else- groupthink or some psychological projection, etc.? I ask because, if pressed, I don’t know that I have much else to offer. I keep following Jesus, or at least try to, or at least say that I am, because on some level/in some way there is something within me that resonates with the call to a life lived in a community that is actively loving and serving the world- especially the poor. This is particularly challenging to me these days because I have a very good friend (you know who you are) who will say that you don’t really need Jesus to do that, and I suspect that he’s right. I might respond to that by saying that maybe it’s more accurate to say that you don’t need to acknowledge Jesus in order to live that kind of life, but if the Bible is in any way true it’s still Jesus “in whom all things hold together” and without whom we would in fact be unable to love, because God is love. Of course, this brings us full circle- and back to my “problem,” for the preceding statement seems all too propositional and dependent on the authority of a scientifically suspect Bible. I’ve gotten around that by saying that the Bible’s authority rests in Jesus, but I’ve also said basically that Jesus’ authority rests in my experience of him, but he doesn’t “walk with me and talk with me” and in the face of intense scrutiny that experience seems all too fleeting and inconsequential.

In light of all this, all I can really say is that I’ve felt best about myself and my life in those brief times when I’ve been part of a community that was really doing something to better the world. Those communities I’ve been part of that have managed to pull this off have done so in Jesus’ name, and largely in contradistinction to the pursuit of American dream. So I want to do likewise, but is that enough? The fact is that in spite of all too many compelling reasons not to follow Jesus (the problem of evil, the Biblical issues I’ve described), for some reason that I guess I can’t explain very well, I’m still clinging, however weakly, to Jesus. As you say, I’m sure of what I hope to be true, and I hope that the resurrection is true. I hope that God is redeeming the world and that in the end his mercy will outrun our resistance to it. I hope that all of this is true because it’s the only way that I can come up with to account for the world as I find it- otherwise everything truly is meaningless. Still, I wonder if my friend isn’t right after all, and I’m just not honest enough to admit it. Maybe I’m too afraid to cash in my “fire insurance” after all.

Having had some time to reflect further after sending that email, I think there is another layer to my struggle. I spoke above of being part of communities (of faith) that were really trying to live out the kind of Christian life (“together”) that I would like to be a part of. However, it’s been a long time now since I’ve been a part of a community like that. Don’t get me wrong, I have the deepest respect for South St. Ministries (the church that my family and I have been connecting to for a while now) and the ministry of its pastor, Duane Crabbs. In fact, I think Duane, his wife Lisa, and their family live out the gospel (as I understand it) better than most folks I’ve ever met. Following the principles of Christian Community Development, they “relocated” to the “forgotten place(s) of Empire” (to borrow a phrase Shane Claiborne uses) and now live among the folks they feel called to serve. I admire that, and would like to do likewise, but right now my family is not in a position to make such a move (or at least that’s what I tell myself), and so I struggle to know how to do my part (we are about to become foster parents, though). Community is so important to me that I tried to start a cell group with South Street, but it recently failed, and honestly I’m so burned out and tired of “the traditional/institutional church thing” (including/especially the language of traditional/institutional church folks) that even though South St. in many ways is not such a church, the degree to which vestiges of the institutional church remain even in South St.’s DNA make it hard for me to relate. So all of that is simply to say that despite my deep respect and high praise for Duane Crabbs and what South Street Ministries is doing in the Summit Lake community of Akron, I still don’t feel like I’m a part of a community that I can fully immerse myself in and commit to, and I really believe that it takes a “village” to be a Christian; so I’m floundering.

I actually do have an idea about how to move forward, maybe, but I’ll stop for now and see if anyone else has anything to say.

Just a quick post this evening about a very famous Bible passage (is “famous” the right word to use about Bible passages?) that I think I’ve misinterpreted.

Then Jesus came to them and said, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.” Matthew 28:18-20 (TNIV)

I always thought that Jesus was telling them to cause people to become His disciples. I mean that’s what Christians are, right? Disciples of Jesus. I think this misses the point in a big way.

These disciples had been following their master for years, but now he was leaving and they would have to carry on the mission without Him. They were ready to become masters themselves. Others were to follow them as they continued to live in the way that Jesus had taught them. In other words, they should teach people to imitate them as they imitated Christ. :-)

I’ve never been a part of a church that practiced discipleship in this way. I think it would have been very helpful to have had a disciple-master relationship with much more experienced people, rather than the all-you-need-is-your-Bible-to be-a-disciple-of-Christ approach of every church that I’ve known (although many of them also felt the need to tell everyone exactly how to read their Bibles). Lipservice was always paid to having older people teach younger people, of course, but it didn’t usually happen and it certainly wasn’t a priority.

I’m not trying to place blame for my loss of faith in any one thing, and I’m not looking to change it, but I am trying to understand it and I have been wondering if things would be different if church had really been about imitating the good examples of real, live, experienced and respectable people. I think it’s possible.

The first one is Jesus for President: Politics for Ordinary Radicals

I’ve been acquainted with Shane for a long time due to his connection to Circle of Hope. His last book, The Irresistible Revolution, really impacted a lot of folks I know, most especially me, as I am still struggling to work out some of its implications for my life.

The second one is From Stone to Living Word: Letting the Bible Live Again

I’ve known Debbie for a long time too (see my previous post). She is one of the most gifted preachers I’ve ever come across, and it was a profound blessing to be able to hear her preach on Sundays for the five years that Kirsten and I were part of House of Mercy. Her last book, Sensual Orthodoxy, is a sermon collection that I would also highly recommend, especially since I heard her deliver most of them.

For those of you who don’t watch Battlestar Galactica, let me first say that if it’s not the “best show on television,” as its promoters like to say, then it’s not far off. One of the many reasons that I’m such a big fan is that it succeeds in doing what the best of the sci-fi genre usually does- that is, it uses science fiction as a “cover” to boldly tell very timely human stories. It’s a purportedly science fiction show that isn’t really about sci-fi. In fact, as I consider it now, I might even go so far as to say that in this it functions much like prophecy (remembering that at least for the Biblical writers, prophecy was much more about “truth-telling” than it was about forecasting the future- think of Nathan’s biting “you are the man” to King David in 2 Samuel 12:7). For example, one recent episode early last season dealt with a supposedly benevolent (at least in this case), militarily superior occupying army and the “freedom fighters” who opposed them- including the rise of suicide bombers. Sound familiar?

So by this point you may rightly be wondering why I’m blogging about Battlestar Galactica (hereafter: BSG) and what this could possibly have to do with the Bible. Well, when the “re-imagined” Battlestar Galactica was launched as a mini-series in 2004, it began by telling a vivid, compelling story which set the stage for the future series. In the BSG universe, humanity is a space-faring race living on 12 planets that are colonies of a now-lost home planet. There are sacred stories (scriptures) that talk about an also-lost 13th colony- Earth, but this is essentially the stuff of legend/myth. No one has been to earth and no one knows where it is. Anyway, humanity faces a technologically superior, mortal enemy in the Cylons, who, as the mini-series opens, succeed in wiping out all 12 colonies- all 12 planets, leaving a “rag-tag” fleet of survivor ships led by a lone warship (the Battlestar “Galactica”). These few survivors have no choice but to flee or face the extinction of the human race. As they’re leaving, they gather to remember the dead, especially those who gave their lives to help the remnants of humanity escape. Commander Adama, the venerable leader of the warship, looks out upon the faces of those who are left as they wrap up this memorial service. He sees the despair in each one’s eyes, and knows that the fight to survive is already lost unless he can give them something to hope for, some reason to continue the struggle. So, in a moment of desperate intuition, he takes a major gamble. He begins to tell them again that old story of the “lost tribe” of Earth that the Scriptures talk about, and then boldly proclaims: “I know where it is!” In this moment, even if only fleetingly so, hope is re-born and some at least can begin again to imagine a future in which humanity not only survives but has a chance to flourish.

Later confronted by the political leader of the colonies, Adama admits that he does not, in fact, know the location of Earth. Interpreting for him, I might say that he knows the location of Earth, but only in hope rather than “in fact.” Perhaps not coincidentally, however, as the series progresses there is a form of “divine intervention” that does at least steer them in the direction of Earth, thereby confirming the “truth” of Adama’s hopeful proclamation. Backing up a bit, though, the question arises: did Adama tell a lie? A better question, I think, is this: is there any way in which Adama’s proclamation can be said to be true? I think the answer to the latter question is a resounding yes! While Adama’s proclamation, when first uttered, was not “factually observable,” nor did it “correspond” to anything empirically verifiable, still- I say- it has the ring of truth. It is “true,” after all, that humanity yearns and needs to survive, and that (especially in their circumstances) hope is a vital component of that survival. It’s also true, I contend, that Adama was “sure” about his hope for the survival of humanity and saw the dream of Earth as the embodiment of that hope. Thus it can be said that Adama had faith (he was “sure of what he hoped for”) as he made his proclamation.

Okay, so let’s make this a bit more personal. If I am sure of my hope for a (present?/)future in which God’s kingdom is come and his will is done, do I lie when I say I know where the kingdom of God is? I’ve said it before, after all. I’ve proclaimed it even from a makeshift pulpit, with portable heaters around in an unfinished building in the dead of winter, surrounded by between 50 and 100 Jesus-followers, all of them in their twenties. These like-minded, revolutionary “young people” were part of the newly formed Circle of Hope East, and I told them in my sermon that when people ask me where the Kingdom of God is (I get that question all the time, ya know), I can point to it. I pointed to all of them and said “you’re it.” What then, is truth? I know this is (one of) the big po-mo question(s), and you won’t get a full treatment of it in this post (there’s some truth for ya), but I do want to touch on it. Jared- you talk about truth criteria and speak of “correspondence theory”- the classic(al) Modern idea, born in the Enlightenment, that truth statements are those that correspond to something that can be observed, that is factually verifiable, etc. You do a great job in the link above of deconstructing some of that; so I won’t repeat that here. You go on to say that your truth criterion, rather than correspondence, is love. You give the example of the Holocaust and say that the person who, in order to avoid a lie, gives up Jews to the Nazis- likely to be killed- has not actually uttered a true statement, because it was (in my view) one of the most unloving speech-acts imaginable.

To tell the truth, then, is to love, but is it loving to misrepresent the facts of a particular circumstance to most people most of the time? Of course not. In some cases, though, is it more loving to misrepresent the facts? Perhaps so. Did Jesus ever do this? I would argue that he did. In John 19, as he gazed down from the cross he told his beloved disciple and his beloved mother that they were now mother and son to each other. Was this somehow “factually” the case? By no means! There was no Roman- or Jewish, for that matter- adoption court at the foot of the cross that could somehow make it all legal. Jesus didn’t perform a time-traveling, womb-twisting miracle as he died that somehow made his statement biologically “true,” yet for the most part don’t we take Jesus “at his word” here? Don’t we understand that he meant for them to care for each other, and that this hope was somehow realized by his statement?

Furthermore (I’m treading lightly, here, believe me), take the Eucharist. Did Jesus “lie” when he said that the bread was his body, that the wine was his blood? A Roman Catholic can answer with a confident “no!” because in the miracle of transubstantiation, it is “in fact” his body and blood. But even then, is this “factually observable” or “verifiable?” Of course not. Protestants don’t have it so easy, especially the so-called “free churches.” Taking Baptists as being representative of this group, they contend that in the Eucharist Jesus’ words are to be taken as symbolic, as the Feast is representative of a (non-“observable,” non-“verifiable”) spiritual “truth.” Isn’t this playing a bit fast and loose with Jesus’ words, though? How do we know this is what he meant? Is this a “literal” reading of that text? Is that argument made simply because it would be un-“reason”-able to think otherwise? Alternatively, take Lutherans. They’re (in my view) at least good enough to take Jesus at his word. They believe that Jesus meant what he said, (it somehow “is” his body and blood), but are wise and humble enough to admit that it’s something of a mystery, and that’s okay.

Getting back to my point then, and in an effort to bring this to a close, perhaps then you can see why I might say that one can learn something from Battlestar Galactica about how to read the Bible. In my example from the show that opened this post, Adama stated something that wasn’t factually true in order to serve the greater truth of the people’s need to have hope that they might survive. Does the end, then, justify the means? No! For truth must be guided by and always serve love, and love must enter into every part of the equation. It must be considered along every step of the Way. I, for one, see this dynamic at work throughout Scripture, and as I let the Bible interpret me a bit for a change, I hope that this will be evident in my own journey of becoming a Christ-ian too. I’ll have more to say about this, but (with some trepidation) let’s make it a conversation. What do you think?

Today I came across a really interesting piece (that’s almost four years old!) written by Andrew Perriman and called Strange but true: the irrelevance of Scripture for the church today. How could I not read something with that title? Below is my favorite paragraph.

I would question the assumption that Scripture ought to be immediately accessible, easily intelligible, to the modern reader. The problem is that the Bible is not a modern text: it is an ancient text, written to address ancient circumstances, constructed out of the peculiar thought-forms of an ancient worldview, and it should seem strange and irrelevant to us. Although we may want to construe it theologically as the Word of God for his people today, always pertinent, always meaningful, this understanding of Scripture is unavoidably at odds with its intrinsic literary nature. In my view this contradiction between real identity and perceived identity accounts for much of the misinterpretation of Scripture – and indeed the bad theology – that has sustained modern evangelicalism.

Now that is thought-provoking! I want to focus on the connection Andrew makes between the assumption of relevance and the misinterpretation of scripture and development of bad theology. Could it be that the simple assumption that the Bible is relevant has led to things like, triumph of triumphs, dispensational theology? I must confess, I can see it. If we’re just going to make simple statements like “the Bible is relevant” then it sounds like we’re saying that you can ask it any question and get an answer – an answer which you will consider relevant. As if the Bible were a Magic 8-Ball: shake, shake, shake… “What’s coming in the near future, for me and for the world?”

So if there is a real danger in characterizing the scriptures as always relevant, does this mean that we should instead say that they are irrelevant. I don’t think so (even though I agree with Andrew’s point here and in much of the rest of the piece). I think either characterization left by itself is a gross oversimplification. This question of relevance reminds me of Tom Wright’s treatment of the related question of the authority of scripture (see his book, The Last Word). Wright wants to know how such an ancient text can be authoritative, and his answer is brilliant: it bears the authority of a narrative. The Bible presents us with the grand story of the world and the people of God, and invites us to find our place in this story. As we do so the flow of the narrative itself directs us to the range of appropriate actions left for us. We shouldn’t simply be repeating what has gone on before us (bad story), nor should our actions be incongruent with what has already happened (bad story). Accepting the narrative causes us to think and act in its terms, and in this way it exercises its authority.

Back to the question of relevance, perhaps the answer is that the Bible has (or should have) the relevance of just such a formative, ongoing narrative. It’s usually indirectly relevant (to the extent that it shapes us into the very people who will judge its relevance in relation to our own interests), and only occasionally directly relevant or irrelevant (because it wasn’t written to us, or in many cases even to people like us). It can of course have relevance for people outside of the church, but not more than any other similar text. This shows that the relevance of scripture, whether direct or indirect, to the church is still qualitatively different than its relevance to others (I guess this was implied as soon as I followed Wright in the assumption that the Bible should be in some way formative for Christians). It seems to me that this is as it should be.

If you haven’t done it yet, I definitely recommend that you read all of Andrew’s post… it’s well worth it.