(Ir)religiosity

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Contrary to the plethora of blog reviews I’ve read, I don’t think Brian McLaren goes too far in his newest book.  I think he doesn’t go far enough.  I’ll explain.

One of McLaren’s major claims in the book — in fact, the claim on which the entire book rests — is that traditional biblical hermeneutics have been limited to what he calls the “six-line Greco-Roman narrative” which constructs the rigid dualisms and binaries with which we are all familiar: spirit/body, heaven/earth, form/substance, good/evil, etc.  When applied to Scripture, this interpretive lens results in the following trajectory that has prevailed in traditional, conventional Christianity for quite some time: (1) perfection in creation, (2) fall into sin, (3) condemnation, (4) the possibility of salvation, and either (5) eternal damnation or (6) a return to perfection in heaven.  The picture below gives you sense of the movement of the lines.

McLaren maintains that this Greco-Roman narrative has been transposed over Scripture as a narrative overlay.  As such it guides interpretation of the text and, in turn, the trajectory of theology.  For McLaren, this is the dominant way of reading and interpreting Scripture, it is, quite literally, the water in which every Christian swims.  The deeper question, though, is whether Scripture is being circumscribed and restricted by this narrative overlay.  That is, whether the arc of the Greco-Roman narrative is actually indicative of Scripture itself or whether it has been imported to the text.  McLaren thinks it has.  And he spends a good deal of time drawing comparisons between the six-line interpretation of Scripture and Platonism.  I’ll spare you that piece and simply throw up another picture that does the trick.

So there you have it.  The trajectory of conventional biblical hermeneutics and traditional Christian theology parallels exactly the Greco-Roman narrative, heavily influenced by Plato and Aristotle.  To some of us this may come as no surprise.  Many constructive theologians today have long recognized the reliance of theology upon Platonic thought and are seeking a new way forward beyond it.  That is, of course, easier said than done.  And in way, Christianity will always be beholden to Western thought, that is not necessarily a bad thing.  It is simply our inheritance.

McLaren is doing the same thing.  He recognizes the narrative trajectory bequeathed to theology from the Greco-Roman tradition as problematic and offers an alternative hermeneutic.  Again, contrary to the hype and explosion on the blogs, this is really nothing new.  Perhaps it is new to certain strands of evangelicalism but not to Christianity broadly conceived.

Like many contemporary theologians, McLaren suggests that we set the six-line narrative aside and start with the Hebrew Bible and the narrative trajectory it imbibes.  In other words, we should go back to Genesis without the philosophers on our shoulder and own a part of our history that has been neglected for far too long.  On McLaren’s reading there are three movements present in the Hebraic narrative:  creation, liberation, and peacemaking.  Notice, these are movements.  Not lines or steps — movements.  Which means they are not limited a simple linear, historical progression like the six-line narrative.  This creation-liberation-peacemaking framework is the story that Jesus was familiar with and, mostly likely, the one he saw his own life and ministry to be subsumed under.  In other words, Jesus stands in line with Abraham and Moses, not Plato and Aristotle.   Once again, this is not new. Liberation theologians have been doing it since the 1960s.

I find this to be appealing.  For one thing, I think it is very important for us to understand and critically evaluate the philosophical underpinnings of our theological heritage.  In fact, that is not a bad definition of theology — a critical engagement with the tradition, sources, and norms of the faith.  Further, I too, find the narrative overlay the we have placed upon Scripture to be problematic.  Not just the arc of the narrative itself, but that the fact that all of Scripture is circumscribed to its movement, which squelches and marginalizes texts that may not fit within the framework.  So I certainly appreciate what McLaren is doing.

But, still, I don’t think he goes far enough.

While I find his reading and use of ancient philosophy a bit dubious and his description of the Greco-Roman narrative a bit overplayed (as other bloggers have aptly noted and I need not repeat here), I understand that is to be expected given his audience.  The deeper and more pressing question for me, however, is whether it is helpful to simply replace one totalizing narrative overlay with another, even if it is more appealing.  Though I resonate with the creation-liberation-peacemaking framework much more than its Greco-Roman antecedent, I am left wondering what is lost when the entirety of Scripture, in all its diversity, is circumscribed to a singular, normative narrative arc.  It seems to me that even under McLaren’s overlay some texts which may not fit the trajectory might be glossed over or ignored.

This became even clearer to me earlier this week as I was reading womanist theologian Delores Williams’ fantastic book Sisters in the Wilderness.  Her critique of black liberation theology’s hermeneutics is poignant here.

Womanist theologians, especially those who take their slave heritage seriously, are…led to question James Cone‘s assumption that the African-American theologian can today make paradigmatic use of the Hebrews’ exodus and election experience as recorded in the Bible.  Even though Cone sees that for the Hebrews “election is inseparable from the event of the exodus,” he does not see that non-Hebrew female slaves, especially those of African descent, are not on equal terms with the Hebrews and are not woven into this biblical story of election and exodus. (149)

Postcolonial theologians have levied significant critiques against the exodus narrative as well.  Even those narrative overlays that are seemingly liberative can, in fact, be just the opposite depending on whose perspective we adopt.  Exodus, for instance, is only liberative if your are an Israelite and pretty bad news if you are a native Canaanite.  Williams fears that placing all of the text under a singular hermeneutic lens glosses over and represses the antagonisms and and ambivalances present in the text itself.  The example that she uses throughout the book is the story of Hagar, which does not lend itself to a liberationist reading.

The point I am trying to make is that we have to be careful and mindful of the overlays we place on the text.  We must hold them loosely and always ask ourselves: who is the other, the repressed that is being left out in this reading.  While I find McLaren’s alternative a useful and accurate way of describing Christianity, I am doubtful that placing a new narrative overlay on the same throne once occupied by the Greco-Roman narrative will, in the last instance, be more liberative as it still circumscribes the text to a specific arc and is prone to minimize or gloss over those texts (like Hagar) that do not coincide with its trajectory.

I am not, to be sure, suggesting that there is not thrust to Scripture.  I believe there is — a thrust downward toward the other who is left out by the dominant culture (and its hermeneutics).  The bible is a diverse body of different texts and I think when approached as such it resists the tyranny of a singular lens and rather beckons us to hold our own lens very loosely, understanding that the immense world of possibility is not limited to the Greco-Roman reading or the creation-liberation-peacemaking reading alone.  In the moment we are quick to place texts into a pre-fabricated schema, that is the moment we overlook what is hidden, what can only be revealed as we sit and wrestle with the text rather than simply absorbing it under an overlay.  The former is quite easy, I think; the latter quite difficult.  But much more rewarding.

What are the limitations of placing a narrative overlay on Scripture?  What is left out when the text is circumscribed to a singular arc?