By the way, you want us to take the “ancient texts” seriously when it comes to religion, how about when it comes to science? Should we be consulting the ancient texts of the Greeks in order to learn our physics? We no longer think the that the cosmos is made of earth, air, fire, and water. We pay homage to our Greek forerunners, but we know that a whole lot has been experienced and learned since them. The same can be said of morals, ethics, politics, psychology, medicine, etc.: a whole lot has been learned and experienced since Jesus walked in Galilee. I can respect Jesus and make his teaching relevant if I choose to, but, I would be a fool to think that I could resolve even the simpler national problems that face us today by consulting the Bible.

That actually sounds a lot like the point I’ve been trying to make this whole time about the moral trajectory of scripture and how it points us beyond itself as humanity continues to develop.

But on the other hand, I think we could solve a lot of our national problems if we had the courage to actually do some of the things Jesus (and the Bible) said: like loving our enemies (Iraq), working for justice for the oppressed and exploited (corporate greed and Fair Trade), canceling the debts of the poor (the Jubilee movement and the UN’s Millenium Development Goals), caring for Creation rather than exploiting our natural resources (Environmentalism and Global Warming), treating all races and nationalities with equality (racism), welcoming the foreigners and aliens (immigration), etc.

These things, I think, are all still very relevant to both national and personal morality, and too often ignored as well – judging by how our nation (and those of us in it) typically seem more concerned with increasing our power and wealth than with these issues of compassion and justice that Jesus preached about.

By the way, you want us to take the “ancient texts” seriously when it comes to religion, how about when it comes to science? Should we be consulting the ancient texts of the Greeks in order to learn our physics? We no longer think the that the cosmos is made of earth, air, fire, and water. We pay homage to our Greek forerunners, but we know that a whole lot has been experienced and learned since them. The same can be said of morals, ethics, politics, psychology, medicine, etc.: a whole lot has been learned and experienced since Jesus walked in Galilee. I can respect Jesus and make his teaching relevant if I choose to, but, I would be a fool to think that I could resolve even the simpler national problems that face us today by consulting the Bible.

Forgive me for my verbosity but, Mike C’s explanation about the O.T. instruction about stoning an unruly adolescent reminded me of something else that his type of Christianity has still not dealt with: it is irrelevant. These parts of the Bible that are so far removed from us in time and world-view simply have nothing but historical interest for modern-thinking people. So much of the Bible is like this; it simply doesn’t matter.

Tell me Darryl, were you one of those kids that thought History class was pointless because it was all just about a bunch of dead people and had no practical use to it today?

Seriously though, I understand why you might feel this way about the Bible Darryl, but my reality is that it remains very relevant to many people. I lead discussions on this “irrelevant” ancient history every week, and each week the people in our discussion find amazingly relevant applications of these stories to their 21st century lives.

For instance, three weeks ago we were discussing the Prodigal Son story – which as I mentioned, has a strong connection to this ancient Hebrew law about killing rebellious sons – and as we retold that story the people in our community were able to see themselves and their own stories in the characters of the Luke 15 narrative. Their own experience, even 2000 years later, still mirrored the experiences of people back then, and we were still able to learn from the reaction of the compassionate father to his two rebellious sons – one a prodigal and one a self-righteous prig.

Because of course, no acts like that anymore…

The relevancy of the Bible is not just that the stories happened but that they happen – that is, we begin to see that humanity today and humanity 2000 or 3000 years ago isn’t really all that different when you get right down to it. We still laugh and love and struggle and fight and all of that. And thus there is still wisdom to be learned from the stories of those who have been there before us.

But again, that’s just my experience, as one who’s job is to help people discover how these ancient texts actually are relevant.

This NY Times story is the other recent article I’ve read on the topic of the evolution of morality.

Yikes – wrong link. Trying again: Here’s the other article.

Mike C’s long explanation of his view of the Bible reminds me of how his brand of Christianity came to its views of Scripture. Christians have continually struggled with a changing world–changing culture, science, politics, ethics, etc. Some Christians realized that to maintain an intellectual defense of their faith they had to modify their religion to match the times. Essential, continual discomfort with the situation of their faith in a post-enlightenment world required the kinds of explanations that Mike C has given.

Kind of, but not exactly. You’re right that I believe Christianity is an adaptable religion, one that can be contextualized and adapted to any culture and to new ideas. However, I don’t think this is a recent idea, and it’s inaccurate to imply that it is “discomfort” with Enlightenment ideas that has forced this adaptation.

(Actually that may be more true of the more classically “liberal” streams, like the ones I mentioned above – Jesus Seminar, etc. – but the emerging church stream that I am a part of is more of a third way between liberal accommodation and fundamentalist rigidity.)

Anyhow, the idea of reading the Bible in light of it’s cultural and historical context is not new. St. Augustine, writing in the 4th century, was one of first to propose the theory of “divine accommodation” in scripture – i.e. the idea that God accommodated his word to the cultural and intellectual limitations of those he was communicating with. In fact, Augustine was the first to suggest a non-literal reading of Genesis 1, freely acknowledging that it didn’t even hold up to the scientific knowledge of his day (1400 years or so before Darwin!) if read as a literal, scientific text.

I guess what I’m saying is that one shouldn’t assume that folks like me are just scrambling to find new ways to interpret the Bible because our old fundamentalist ways aren’t working anymore. What I’m saying is that a historically/culturally/literarily contextual way of reading has always been the right way to read it, and has been a common feature in many streams of the Christian tradition throughout history. The fundamentalist/literalist mode of interpretation is actually a fairly recent development, just within the last 200 years or so, and never really even took off until the last half of the 20th century with the explosion of conservative evangelicalism onto the American landscape.

For people like me who have come out of an evangelical background it can seem like this new hermeneutic is just reactionary, but then I talk about this stuff with some of my friends who have lived their whole lives in the more liberal streams of Christianity, and they say “Well that’s nothing new. Our church has been talking about this stuff for decades.”

Anyway, I guess this just comes back to a point that I’ve tried to make a few times, which is that we should all stop assuming that fundamentalism is the norm for Christian belief or practice. From my perspective (informed by a knowledge of Church history) the fundies are the anomaly and the distortion (though a rather large one at the moment) and a more balanced, contextual faith is really the norm.

But again, that’s just my perspective, for whatever it’s worth.

Peace,

-Mike

The fundamentalist, on the other hand, holds a static, authoritarian view of the Bible, so they have by necessity embraced anti-intellectualism and a suspicion of science (e.g., evolution is a myth). I can tolerate Mike C’s brand of Christianity, and I need not fear it; but I cannot tolerate those who will not tolerate me, and fundamentalists will not tolerate. Listen to their rhetoric–they think toleration is an evil idea of Satan.

Oh, absolutely right. Tolerance, pluralism and compromise are “dirty words” in fundamentalist circles.

By the way, notice the parallels between the fundamentalist and liberalist view of the Bible and the “strict constructionist” vs. “evolving document” views of the U.S. Constitution. Antonin Scalia must be quite self-satisfied when he reflects upon how sweetly his conservative Roman Catholicism dovetails with his Constitutional theory.

Wow – that’s a great parallel! I never linked those two, but you’re so right.

Mike C’s explanation about the O.T. instruction about stoning an unruly adolescent reminded me of something else that his type of Christianity has still not dealt with: it is irrelevant.

It reminded me of the very interesting, recent science that’s being done on the evolution of morality and how strongly it is linked to neurological structures in the brain. For instance, studies show that both social primates and humans demonstrate a marked aversion to doing physical violence against a non-threatening individual, even if that violence will save many other lives. If the violence does not involve physical contact (something like flipping a switch), test subjects are more likely to endorse it.

I think this is why we have a naturally negative reaction to the commands of a god that would endorse any kind of stoning. It’s not that morality comes from ancient texts, it’s arisen in our brain structures along with evolution.

The fundamentalist, on the other hand, holds a static, authoritarian view of the Bible, so they have by necessity embraced anti-intellectualism and a suspicion of science (e.g., evolution is a myth). I can tolerate Mike C’s brand of Christianity, and I need not fear it; but I cannot tolerate those who will not tolerate me, and fundamentalists will not tolerate. Listen to their rhetoric–they think toleration is an evil idea of Satan.

By the way, notice the parallels between the fundamentalist and liberalist view of the Bible and the “strict constructionist” vs. “evolving document” views of the U.S. Constitution. Antonin Scalia must be quite self-satisfied when he reflects upon how sweetly his conservative Roman Catholicism dovetails with his Constitutional theory.

I’m sorry to have made you work so hard, but then I suppose you have to give this kind of explanation often.

No worries! Funny thing, but I actually just had to give the same explanation to some conservative evangelicals I’m dialoguing with over at a friend’s blog. I get it from both sides!

I’m afraid that most people don’t have the mental suppleness to view these things from so many angles… Hence we get folks who take it all literally or chuck the whole thing.

I know what you mean. Sometimes I think God must have a higher opinion of our rational faculties than is sometimes warranted if he made his book so dang complex!

But on the other hand, I have hope that people are capable of growing beyond mere literalism eventually. I’m currently leading a whole church full of people who are on that journey with me. And it’s slow, but they’re getting it!

(And why not, after all, humans had a hand in writing the Bible in the first place – not to mention all the dozens of other types of literary creations throughout history. If human beings can produce and understand something like Joyce’s Ulysses, I think there’s hope that we can eventually make sense of the Bible too. We’re a pretty creative bunch when you come down to it.)

For instance, (and I’m not being sarcastic) Leviticus says something about smashing my kid’s head in with a rock because she mouths off to me. If I take that in a historical context, that somehow doesn’t mitigate what I see as horrific lunacy. Millennia ago that made sense? How did any teenager survive? If I take it in a symbolic context, is he just saying it’s really important to respect your parents? Seems like a rather extreme metaphor for something that can and has been expressed in positive and very beautiful ways in non-biblical literature and poetry.

Anyway, I don’t want to bog down this discussion with a tedious scripture debate. There are so many what-the-hell-does-that-mean parts for me that we’d never be finished.

You’re referring to Deuteronomy 21:18-21, and you’re right, neither of us have the time to get into explanations for every confusing bit of scripture (Lord knows there are enough that I still haven’t figured out!)

However, just to give you a little snapshot of how I might approach a difficult passage like that from a historically & culturally informed perspective, consider the following:

1. In the context, the command is clearly referring to an adult son, not to a young child or even a teenager. We’re talking about someone who has reached maturity and yet continues to act in destructive & rebellious ways.

2. Keep in mind that ancient Israel, like most societies up till the industrial era, lived on the razor edge of survival (see the opening chapters of Jeffrey Sachs book “The End of Poverty” for more on that). Their economy was not unlike that of most third world nations today where whole families and whole villages often teeter on the brink of starvation. We’re not talking about people with a lot of resources to waste.

In that context then, look at what the rebellious son’s crime is: he is profligate and a drunkard. In other words, he is wasting his family’s precious resources on his own selfish desires. He is literally putting his family’s very survival at risk. And he is stubborn (v. 20), meaning his family has already tried to correct him, extend grace to him, and he still continues in his selfish and harmful ways. There is nothing else they can do. You might say that at this point it’s a choice between the son’s death or the death whole of the family – maybe even the whole village depending on how slim their resources are.

Anyhow, I think by looking at it through that lens of historical context we can see how serious the situation would have been. It’s not about stoning your daughter for mouthing off. It’s about a grown son who cares more for his own pleasures than for the survival of his family. Indeed, it seems very harsh to me too; but at the same time, I’ve never had to live in a subsistence level society. If everyday is a fight to have enough food, and the lives of my whole village depend on social unity, I can imagine how a wasteful and selfish individual would be seen as a very dangerous threat. I can begin to see why the Bible takes this kind of thing so seriously.

Of course, I also think that the Bible eventually points us on an upward trajectory away from this kind of punishment. Jesus’ parable of the prodigal son in Luke 15 seems like a direct reversal of this scenario – in which the son wastes half of the family’s wealth and yet the loving father still comes running to him with tears to forgive him and lavish even more good things upon him. But consider… would Jesus’ story have been nearly so subversive and powerful if his 1st century Jewish hearers didn’t have Deuteronomy 21 in mind as he spoke? Would the wonderful absurdity of the father’s grace be as overwhelming if they weren’t well aware of the seriousness of the son’s crime (serious not in terms of the punishment, but in terms of the destructive effects on the family and society)?

Anyhow, I’m just throwing that out there as an example of how this approach works. And I hope you can also catch a little glimpse of why this approach gets me so excited. When looked at this way, there are so many layers of cultural and historical meaning, so many interconnections between the different parts of scripture, so many nuances. Even if you think it’s complete fiction, it’s still a marvelous piece of literature. Well worth taking some time to understand, IMHO.

Thanks for the dialogue,

-Mike