(Ir)religiosity

This is part four in an ongoing series on systematic (de)constructive theology. See part one for a longer introduction and please keep in mind that the following is provisional, unfinished, and ad hoc. In other words, it is truly theology not a dogmatics. I look forward to the dialogue.

Human beings are first and foremost created in the image of God and bear the divine mark upon their being; the most basic definition of sin, then, is the disintegration of the Imago dei and the disruption of the relational quality that binds humanity together.  Original sin, in this view, is not biological but sociological comprising the destructive and repressive structures in which all human beings participate yet still allow to exist.

What is the human condition?  The nature of the human person?  Is she inherently good or intrinsically tainted and driven to evil?  For centuries the Christian tradition has struggled to make sense of the reality that human beings are simultaneously capable of wonderful goodness and horrific monstrosity.  Since Augustine, Christian theology has been especially preoccupied with the notion of original sin, which, in its more extreme forms, suggests that human beings post-Eden are completely and wholly depraved lacking any inherent ability whatsoever to do good without divine intervention.  Issues of sexuality notwithstanding,¹  such a hard view of original sin is quite problematic, suffering from a shallow and otherwise underdeveloped doctrine of creation.  Whatever else is to be said about human beings, no discussion of theological anthropology can properly begin without acknowledging that humanity bears the mark of the Imago dei (Gen. 1:26-27) and is part of a creation that God originally called good, indeed, very good.  A doctrine of human nature that begins with humanity’s fallenness and so-called total depravity without considering that each human being is created in the image of God and is an integral part of God’s original, good creation is doomed for failure before it even starts.  To be sure, the Imago dei does not preclude any person from being subject to the finite situation that comprises the basic character of limited humanity nor should it be interpreted to mean that human beings are God (in fact, the latter is not a bad working definition of sin).  Even in the face of overwhelming beauty, human life is short, fragile, and unbelievably painful.  As Cornel West describes it with a certain rhythm and cadence:

[W]e’re beings toward death.  We’re featherless two-legged linguistically conscious creatures born between urine and feces whose bodies will one day be the culinary delight of terrestrial worms.  That’s us; we’re beings toward death.²

Being created in the image of God does not free us from finitude; it enables us to appreciate finitude. The Imago dei is simply a statement indicating that within each person, however evil or good they may seem, is a spark of the divine and the possibly of redemption and reintegration into the participation of the divine life, of the event of God.  There is always the possibility of renewed response to divine grace. Read the rest of this entry »

1. Augustine, of course, held that original sin was passed on biologically through sexual intercourse which has resulted in almost 2000 years worth of sexual “hang-ups” in the Christian tradition.   More recently, however, theologians are reclaiming the goodness sex and the diversities of sexuality.  See, for example, Lisa Fullman, “Sex in 3-D: A Telos for a Virtue Ethics of Sexuality,” Journal of the Society of Christian Ethics, 27, 2 (2007): 151-170 and Sarah Coakley, “Living in the Mystery of the Holy Trinity: Trinity, Prayer, and Sexuality,” Anglican Theological Review, 80, 2 (Spr. 1998): 223-32. [↩]
2. Astra Taylor, ed. Examined Life:  Excursions with Contemporary Thinkers (New York, New York:  The New Press, 2009), 5. Or, as Achilles puts it somewhat romantically in the film Troy (2004) “I’ll tell you a secret. Something they don’t teach you in your temple. The Gods envy us. They envy us because we’re mortal, because any moment might be our last. Everything is more beautiful because we’re doomed. You will never be lovelier than you are now. We will never be here again.” [↩]

Tony Jones hits the nail on the head in this video.

If you follow his blog then you’re aware that Tony has been blogging about homosexuality lately and called for an open and honest discussion without reference to the six clobber verses that are all too often taken out of context.

The problem, of course, isn’t that Tony wants to abandon scripture and rigorous exegesis as he and others are accused of suggesting. The problem is that too many of us are limiting our hermeneutic to a handful of verses, the immediate context of which is either replete with other off the wall stipulations that we have long since abandoned, as in the Hebrew bible, or uses vocabulary which is ambiguous at best and more than likely refers to sexual behavior that is hardly analogous to those in long-term monogamous homosexual relationships in today’s context, as in the case of Paul’s letters. The problem is that we are guilty of a dangerous selective literalism that not only creates a highly myopic and repressive ‘canon-within-the-canon,’ (we are all guilty of our varying emphases) but that it blatantly ignores, as Tony points out, the overall trajectory of scripture — a trajectory of liberation, redemption, and restoration in which God’s interaction within humankind and all of creation is steeped with grace tempered with justice.

There is a meaningful, constructive debate to be had here. But until we find a way to mend this gap it seems that communication is at a standstill. We’ll just keep going around in circles rehashing the same old points and probably yelling louder and getting more emotional in the process. Most of the comments on Tony’s blog are a case point.

So, as far as I can tell (and I’ve read most of the comments) Tony’s question is still an open and unanswered one:

If you are one who thinks that homosexual sex is sinful, can you please explain to me WHY a gay or lesbian person who is in a long-term, monogamous relationship would not be able to wholeheartedly follow Christ?

My only stipulation is this: You may not quote one of the six verses in scripture that mentions homosexuality. Instead, you must use theological and/or philosophical arguments to attempt to convince me that when you have genital contact with someone of your own gender, it somehow inhibits your relationship with Christ.

Last week I posted an article over at Emergent Village titled “What Happens After Sola Scriptura?” exploring what I believe is viable alternative to a traditional view of Scripture.  An alternative that maintains a deep respect for Scripture and takes it very seriously while admitting our limitations as human beings who cannot read Scripture (or anything for that matter) in a vacuum.  My contention was that reading is always already interpretation and interpretation is always already situational.  The history of hermeneutics is indicative of that and I think it demonstrative that Scripture is not infallible or inerrant.  Even if it was, our ability to read it without biases or prejudices is permanently inhibited — we are human after all.  And I believe that is part of the human condition.

The article received a quite a bit of feedback, some positive and some negative.  However, I great deal of the responses fell into one of two categories, both of which I feel missed the larger point I was trying to get across.  So I want to take a minute and address each of them.

First, the original post was not written from a historical perspective nor was it meant to evaluated as such.  I understand that Luther and other Reformers posited a different idea of Sola Scriptura than what I delineated.  I also understand that Luther lived in a different time than we do, more specifically a period prior to the Enlightenment.  I’m sure that Luther et al. meant well and I believe that Sola Scriptura was helpful and useful for them during the Reformation.  But as post-Enlightenment individuals, I don’t believe we can hold such ideas in the same manner as we once could.  And I think the various ways in which Sola Scriptura has been abused and misused since then are demonstrative of that fact.  We have a different type of consciousness and Sola Scriptura today means something wholly different than it did in the 16th century.  We can’t help that.  There is no going back in my view.  And because our understand has changed, so must our response.  Which is why I suggest Prima Scriptura as an alternative to Sola Scriptura as it has come to be understood.  I have no desire to take on the entire Reformation.  I believe it was helpful and I admire it, which is why I refuse to let it crust over into dogma.  I believe we must always be reforming.  For some of us who can no longer hold Sola Scriptura, I suggested a different alternative (an alternative that is by no means new by the way) as a means why which we can continue to reform.

Which leads me to the second point I want to make and one that may be the most important. I have absolutely no interest in imperialism of whatever form, be it cultural, historical, social, or theological.  I can say that without equivocation.  I find such an idea to be not only arrogant and destructive, but also decidedly un-Christians and completely counter-intuitive to the way of Jesus.  So when I privilege Prima Scriptura over Sola Scriptura I am by no means suggest that anyone who holds the latter dearly should immediately reject it for the sake of the former.  Not at all.  What I am trying to do is speak for those of us who can no longer hold Sola Scriptura and wish to explore another alternative.  I am not out to win everyone over to my side.  In my view, if Sola Scriptura works for you, if it helps you to better love God and neighbor in your context, if it helps you to participate in God’s kingdom of restoration and renewal, if it helps you bear witness to the good news, and if it helps you embody the fruits of the Spirit in your life, then I have no reason to dismantle it for you.  I would say the same of the alternative.  In the words of William Barclay, “No man can disregard a religion and a faith and a power which is able to make bad men good.”  If that involves Sola Scriptura, more power to you.  Go in peace to bear witness to God’s kingdom.  If it doesn’t, my hope in the original article was that I provide an alternative (again, not at all an original one!) that might you to do that.

My point here is that we should hold our views of Scripture, whatever they are, honestly understanding that they are only efficacious insofar as they push us toward transformation and restoration into the image of God.  If you can hold Sola Scriptura honestly and it does that, wonderful. Let us join together to do the work with which we have been charged.  Personally, I cannot hold Sola Scriptura in such a way.  And it is my hope that others who cannot will find a useful alternative.  For me, that alternative is Prima Scriptura, it is that sentiment that I sought to convey in the original post.

I wrote an article exploring a viable alternative to Sola Scriptura over at the Emergent Village blog.  Here’s a little taste.

“You emergent-y, postmodern-ish types just want to do away with Scripture! You don’t want to take the time to seriously wrestle with the Bible!”

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard those lines or something similar. You would think I developed a good answer a long, long time ago but I didn’t. For far too long I only spoke about the ways I didn’t want to view Scripture, which really only exacerbated the problem. Too many of us do that. I would like to suggest an alternative descriptive to our view of Scripture, something that is both positive and constructive.

Phyllis Tickle has suggested that it’s not if Sola Scriptura ends, but when. So what comes next? As much as I love to tag the “p word” before words, I’m not so sure it is sufficient for us to simply say we are post-Sola Scriptura. The Bible is too important for us to only strike-through the “sola.” And I think that many of us who resonate very deeply with Tickle’s sentiment take Scripture too seriously to only be reactionary. Frankly, we can’t afford to.

Read the rest at Emergent Village.

Dr. Philip Clayton thinks we have:

“It’s not that hard. If you go [to scripture] with new eyes, it’s a living and vibrant text about a living and vibrant God. [...] We have fallen into the heresy of orthodoxy.”

His larger point is of course that we have allowed our tacit theological assumptions determine how we approach the text and how we think about God. I don’t think we can ever completely free ourselves from our interpretive biases, try as we might. But we can free ourselves from the old, tired theologies of the past (which were really important and revolutionary in their time) and allow the text to marinate in our culture and our context. Then we can better understand what it might mean to be Christian here and now.

I think he may be on to something.

Thoughts?

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That’s the claim that Tony Jones makes in The New Christians.  I first read the book last year when it came out (read my short review here), but I’m re-reading it now for a class I’m taking on the Emergent/ing church at ANTS (Oh, and Tony is actually teaching it.  So that’s cool) and that quote really jumped out at my this time.

“The Bible is propaganda.”  Pretty provocative.  But it makes more sense when you think about it.  Tony explains further:

Propaganda has a point and a purpose.  It doesn’t claim to be objective.  It’s trying to convince someone of something.  It’s trying to get people to join a cause, join a movement.  Isn’t that exactly what the Bible is? . . .It is a living, breathing document that makes a claim on its readers’ lives.  It’s like the pamphlets surreptitiously printed by Paul Revere and his compatriots in 1776 — propaganda in that sense.  It’s God’s manifesto, Jesus’ Little Red Book.

I think Tony is right.  The bible is propaganda.  Maybe if we actually owned up to the fact that we have an agenda — of realizing God’s kingdom, of pursuing justice, promoting peace, and participating in cosmic restoration and renewal — we might be more effective in bearing witness to the hope that lies within us.

What think ye?

There has been a recent surge in publication of various “special-interest” bibles.  For the comic book and graphic novel geeks there is the Manga Bible, for the hipsters the Bible Illuminated, and for the Methodists the Wesley Bible. Don’t fit into one of those groups?  No problem. There’s always the all-purpose People’s Bible

It just not cool anymore to have plain Jane NRSV or NIV.

The Green Bible is another of these new, hip bibles.  I have mixed feelings about it.  Now, to be sure, all of these new bibles can be useful.  Each of them takes seriously the need to speak in contemporary language with contemporary images and metaphors.  The Green Bible goes a step further, understanding the need, if we are to be faithful bearers of the good news, of taking seriously contemporary problems and providing alternatives.  Many Christian, especially younger ones, are tired of the old ways of “doing” church and “living” theology.  They wonder if their bible has anything serious to say about contemporary issues and if their God cares about what is happening in the world.  And these new bibles communicate that much more effectively than King Jimmy.

According to its website, “The Green Bible will equip and encourage people to see God’s vision for creation and help them engage in the work of healing and sustaining it.”  Which is wonderful; that is indeed part of our task — to understand and take seriously God’s dream for the entire world, the entire cosmos even, and participate in the actualization of that dream in our own peculiar way and in our own particular contexts.  That is good.  That is important  I get that. Read the rest of this entry »

An interesting take:

[L]et us debate about sex and marriage rather than war and violence. Let us concentrate on the bedroom rather than the war room. Let us liberals get trapped — as always — on the right side of the wrong question. I write this in protest against that deviation from what fundamentally concerns the Bible, the biblical God, and Jesus, namely, that escalatory violence that by now threatens our world with destruction.

I think he does have a point.  But — I can see this line of thought leading us to ignore the problem altogether.  And we don’t need that.  We have enough religious people using the bible and religion in general as a weapon to deny persons their civil rights; we need more religious people actively challenging that position.  And yes, maybe even more religious people to say enough with the bible for a while.

To be fair, I don’t think that is what Crossan is suggesting.  He is simply trying to demonstrate how absurd it is that we are even having the argument over same-sex marriage and gay rights at all.  And like I said, that is a valid observation.  But I think we have to be careful that we don’t ignore those that are being marginalized in the meantime by sweeping the problem under the rug.  It should be faced head on.  Those that use religion as a wedge to separate “us” from “them” aren’t afraid to do that.  It’s time that those of us who believe in the “we,” of which all the great religions of the world bear witness, saddle up as well.

What do you think?

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