It is time for
communities of faith to read the Bible together as community. It is time for
congregations to challenge the ghosts of the academy, and eschew a “hermeneutic
of suspicion” in favor of a hermeneutic
of belief.
It is time to return to prioritizing the biblical text in the practice of
Christian ethics. At the same time, congregations should recognize that
Scripture
is not a transcendent text, it
cannot be
authoritative for those who do not believe; and
does not contain any
hidden truths, plain meanings, or hold universal moral authority. It
is
a text in which understanding is contingent upon a belief that Jesus of Nazareth
is a focal point of God's acting in
history.
It
is a text which can only have meaning that is given
to it by its readers and interpreters. It
is a text that can be
interpreted in unlimited variety, and support the meanings given to it by a
diverse collection of communities. Its chief paradox might be that
it is an
authoritative text without authority.
Finally, whatever the Bible might represent to one person or another, it cannot
reasonable be ignored by those concerned with a specifically Christian moral vision.
One will argue
that fundamentalists and conservative Christians will not only disagree with
the above statements, but insist the Bible has unquestionable authority (sola
scriptura) and that it is inerrant. The first response to such assertions
is that the fact of Protestantism and its denominations indicate that the Bible
is open to a variety of interpretations (all of which are socially contingent),
and is authoritative in a variety of ways (but not universally so). Consider:
there are not only never-ending disagreements over which kind of baptism is
biblical, but over the biblical representation of creation, authorship of
various books and epistles, the meaning of the Revelation to John, and the role
of women in the church.
Secondly, the
only matter of concern over fundamentalist and conservative interpretations of
Scripture is that such readings have become
politically conservative.
Such interpretations become concerned with power and control, and are
inherently oppressive when used as a propositional device. It is increasingly
evident that conservative readings of the text are not, in reality,
theologically conservative, but are instead politically conservative and
motivated by the intellectual and emotional need to have the Bible underwrite
political agendas. Such maladaptive exegesis is not limited to the political
right. Christians who favor the politics of the left tend to view the Bible in
much the same way as their counterparts, insisting on quasi-fundamentalist
readings focused on the declaration that there are no virgin births, that Jesus
could not have walked on water, and that there are no resurrections. It seems
that “liberal” views of the text will use the hermeneutic of suspicion as the
natural “literal” counterbalance to the supposed literal reading attributed to
their political enemies.
Consider that
neither of the above illustrations of textual understanding are illegitimate.
Instead, such interpretations are suspect because they are used to grasp hold
of and maintain political power. The use of the text to control the behaviors
and choices of others has made the Bible a weapon in the hands of Christians
who are not so much stuck in the middle ages as they are stuck in the failed
philosophical project of modernity.
Liberal Christians use the text for similar purposes. They may not be caught up
in the downward spiral of modernity (though social sciences serve their
criticisms well), but they are caught up in what appears to be a lack of faith
in the God of the Bible, instead turning to a transcendent universalism that
mocks the narrative with every proof-text used to buoy the call for social
welfare programs, food pantries, and anti-war demonstrations.
Some have
decided that the Bible, and all of its particularity, is an embarrassment, a
technical document for moral discourse, or simply problematic.
The
problem of the Bible as an informant of moral vision or ethics is
not, in fact, a problem. The problem of Scripture can be located in the very
real difficulty of how Americans in particular have come to view the construct
of community, and the Bible can only be a meaningful text of faith when it is
read together by congregations. It is best interpreted in community in a manner
by which the biblical ethic is made credible by no other means than the
embodiment of the biblical narrative in the lives of the interpretive
community. Prioritizing individual growth over corporate faithfulness can only
result in a lack of accountability for how one uses the text to his advantage,
or to the disadvantage of others.
The Bible was
not written by individuals, and is never about individuals; but instead
describes the faith and faithfulness (or lack thereof) of a people and
communities that have confessed that YHWH is the one true God, and that Jesus
is the full representation of God. Yet, the Bible can only be interpreted
properly within the context of community that has no concern for finding a
universally held transcendent truth spelled out within the it. If we can take
Derrida seriously enough to know that he has something to contribute to
theology, then imagine, not so much a that there is no truth, but more aptly
acknowledge that humans will construct a plethora of truths in order to suit
their immediate and long-term needs. Derrida calls, not only for the liberation
of humanity from all oppression by identifying many texts as oppressive by
their very nature, but also, at times, calls for the liberation of the text.
Much of the world must be liberated from bonds of Scripture that are as much
shackles of the empire as representative of western truth.
It is the Bible,
however, that needs liberating as much as humanity does: liberated from the
insistence of its constituents who insist it is an overarching arbiter of
truth; liberated from dogma and systematics and the aggressive contentions that
the text has absolute authority. Any authority given to the Bible can only be
legitimized by its ability to produce positive outcomes resulting from the
embodiment of the interpretive twists and turns of any community who comes
together in the name of Jesus as Messiah.
There can be no
a priori authority assumed, but instead an awareness of
a hermeneutic circle that results in repeated readings, understandings, and
actualizations that lead back to reading the text through fresh hermeneutical
lenses; once again ready to be acted out and reviewed by others. Reading the
Bible, as Fee says, “for all its worth,”
means that it must be read, not so much by every individual as much as it must
be read together by individuals who are part of a community which prioritizes
corporate faith. Otherwise, readings of the text, understandings of the
messiah, and the mission of the church inevitably stagnate. The proof of such
stagnancy, so to speak, is evident in the post-Enlightenment pudding that we
call the contemporary church.
In the
introductory piece of this project, I discussed the nature of twentieth-century
liberal religion and the tendency of major theological thinkers to relegate the
Bible to the periphery of Christian ethics. While Conservative preachers
certainly enjoyed a significant amount of control, it does not appear that
those thinkers contributed much to the contemporary discussions of American
morality and ethics. However, an integral piece of the religious conservative
political public face was a patriotism and
anti-communism. After WW II, a now legendary preacher named Billy Graham
took the anti-communist concerns of religious conservatives and forged a new
role for the church as a significant voting block. Jerry Falwell and others
grabbed hold of Graham's coat-tails and launched their own, very public and
politically aggressive, ministries. The effects on American politics were
realized very
quickly.
During the
1980's, through political power struggles and emotional manipulation, political
conservatives seemed to hijack Scripture as their own. They followed
Rauschenbusch in an important and familiar way – that being an insistence that
the Bible contained universal truths, and that Jesus could be fully represented
in the realm of liberal democracy. Yet, there is also a difference. Political
conservatives came to insist that they had special access to this truth and a
divine mandate to legislate a universal moral vision, much of which was left
over from the anti-communist crusades that served to counter anyone who might
interpret the stories of Jesus in a manner that prioritized
kenosis,
sacrifice of privilege, and the eschewing of power as a reflection of the
cross. Additionally, conservatives have relied upon a marginalization of those
communities that understand the text to be saying something different by
publicly questioning the legitimacy of that community's
faith.
Conservatives
have commandeered biblical language to the point that many Christians avoid the
any reference of central biblical themes such as sin and redemption;
forgiveness and salvation. It is not only from embarrassment related to
quasi-literal readings of the Bible that prevent many from prioritizing it as
an informant of ethics, but an embarrassment that might be realized when ethics
are discussed in biblical discourse. There are some who perhaps do not want to
risk being confused with their political opponents and what they believe to be
“magical thinking” about God and
America.
But consider
this: there are very few groups or individuals who concern themselves with the
lives of the Amish, the Bruderhof, the Hutterites, or most Pentecostal
congregations. It is pertinent to the conversation that these groups do not
vote or run for public office. Such Anabaptist or Radical Reformation groups
practice an ethic that is closely bound to very conservative interpretations of
the biblical text. However, not only do they not engage the world through
ballot boxes, but they are generally known to be pacifist groups who
self-marginalize. Because of their perceived harmless political status, or,
their eschewing of the electoral process, these groups are rarely scrutinized
for their religious beliefs. However, they are generally considered to be
positive communities, if not somewhat enigmatic.
However, conservative groups who work to elect
politicians that will insist on ordering school texts that contain information
on biblical “science” or teach that same-sex intimacy is sinful, or want to
make access to abortion illegal; are not only viewed as political threats, but
are indeed attacked because they hold very specific religious beliefs that are
used to indict, with a broad stroke, the whole of Christianity as aggressive,
oppositional, and oppressive constituency. I
suggest that the failure of Christian ethics is related to Christianity's
continuing quest for power as a political force, because it is perceived to be
a coercive force in peoples lives.
Yoder wrote that the good news cannot be good unless it is perceived as
such.
The failure of
Christian ethics is in fact the failure of the church to be Christ-like. The
downfall of Christendom is its insistence upon maintaining political relevance
at the expense of identifying the need to embody ethics in a manner that makes
it credible to others. Human history
shows that political power and the ethics of power are, if anything,
in-credible. Such is the case for the contemporary church and it's insistence
upon making universal claims of transcendent truth, biblical inerrancy, and
divine right to rule (often, the right to rule and control social and economic
expression politics). What can be done?
The answer to
the problem of discredited Christian ethics is to deconstruct the church, yet
not to some primeval state that wishes to return to a sort of first-century
purity. Many might agree that Derrida goes too far in his assertions that all
texts are inherently controlling and oppressive. A text will be oppressive if a
group asserts that it is transcendent and universally
authoritative. Writers such as Yoder, and Cartwright have rightly
proposed that the text is liberating when it is read and interpreted by
communities who eschew any stake in
coercive political activity.
The focus on Matthew 18 and the nature of how a congregation practices
binding and loosing is important to communities of interpretation as it allows
the hermeneutical process to play itself out.
Interpretations
are always contingent, and so it follows that each community must interpret
according to its historical and social place in time, then, within the greater
context of a world
community.
This is an ancient practice, and is evidenced in the four canonical gospels,
each of which use the sayings of Jesus in a manner that suits the context of
that community. For example, the gospels were written by members of a Jewish
sect that insisted God's messiah had come and changed the nature of the
relationship between Jews and Gentiles. As such, messianic Jews interpreted the
Hebrew texts in a manner that supporter their
claim.
There is much
evidence of competing Jewish groups that contextualized the Hebrew narrative.
Obviously, groups such as the Pharisees and Sadducees, interest groups like the
Scribes and Hasmonians, and messianic pretenders on either side of the time
Jesus ministry. And, there was a larger context. The Promised Land was occupied
by the Romans, who propped up Herod's regime, which was considered
illegitimate. The Romans demanded sacrifices to the emperor, and taxes were
paid by the temple elites with the funds collected form Jews via the temple
tax. Taxation is claimed to have been
around 30 to 40% of all earning, and there were no social services outside of
slavery.
There was also
the context of Hellenistic philosophy and literature, the Hebrew and Greek
texts of the faith, and all the other realities of first century life. In other
words, the gospels are all a product of the first century, and are social,
political, and religious documents intended to make sense of the times and
legitimize the specific claims of a small community. The very same realities
and contingencies apply to any community that reads the text and interprets
them. All of a congregation's social baggage, positive and negative, is going
to influence the way the Bible is understood, the way it is embodied, and the
manner in which a congregation uses it as a “community rule.”
As the readers
continue with the text, a few things become evident. Christian communities will
read the Hebrew texts through messianic lenses. Whatever the understandings of
Judaism might be, and that Jewish commentators will rightfully be cited to
inform the interpretive maneuvers, Christ is necessarily at the center of this
first-century hermeneutic. Contemporary Christian communities will also read
the text through tinted lenses, by church history and tradition, the social and
economic standing of the community, and the material resources that each
congregation might have access to will be the baggage that it is necessary to
unpack during the interpretive task. Primarily, the readers of the text will
interpret it through the unshakable lens of the contingent though contemporary
zeitgeist.
Two things are
of primary importance. The first is the recognition that we can not interpret
first- century texts with any understanding of the author's particular
intention. We can assume general circumstances, but making more then general
assumptions prioritizes academic exercises that are consistently evolving as
new information comes to light. Academic advances should be used as critiques
of a community's reading, but the reading cannot be dependent on such
exercises. The second item of importance is a firm recognition that we can only
interpret the text in light of our own understanding of what is real, what
things are meaningful to us, and why they are meaningful. Considering the above
few paragraphs, I now present one way of many to interpret the text and
restoring the Bible to its rightful place as the authority of Christian ethics.
Of course, according to all that has been written above, this cannot be the
way, but a way. By this example, I hope to provide some insights to the notion
that the Bible can be authoritative without having any claim to transcendence,
or used to support propositional claims, which by default would make the text a tool of oppression.
An important place
to begin is back at the top. The concept of a “hermeneutic of suspicion” was
introduced by
Paul Ricœur.
Ricœur also introduced the concept of “second
naivete.” In his book
Symbolism of Evil, Ricœur suggests that it is not
possible to properly interpret first-century texts because they concern
themselves, for the most part, with particular and singular outcomes, and
describe this particularity in metaphor
and symbols that cannot be interpreted because we cannot relive this past, or
recreate the particulars.
Ricœur believes that modern readers can only
approximate first-century conditions, concerns, and possibilities. The concept
of second naivete can be especially useful to moderate-to-liberal communities
who get caught up in gospel narratives that include miracles, angels, satans,
and virgin births.
The main
function of the hermeneutic becomes its place as the facilitator of belief,
because we begin to interpret the text with an understanding that it is we who
gives meaning to the text.
Ricœur writes that interpretation is belief. While those who lived within the
historical and social place in time in which the text was first written and
edited could perhaps exegete meanings that were in fact extensions of authorial
intent, all the 21
st century interpreter can do is read the Bible “
as
if.” A modern reader can interpret the text, despite a wealth of possible
outcomes and multiple meanings, by practicing a re-enactment of the text that
is in sympathy with the particular narratives.
While we cannot possibly know what Jesus meant
when he claimed that if, he wished, twelve legions of angles could drive out
the oppressors, we can sympathize with the text and understand it in a manner
that suggests non-violence as the Christ-centered response to evil. Properly
stated, a community can interpret the text in any manner that suits its own
reality.
The
key to second naivete is that an ethic held in sympathy with the text will lead
to the performance of the interpretation. Interpretation becomes belief, which
is then lived out in faith; a faith that
believes such activity will later be vindicated in a manner imagined by
the interpretive community, regardless if that truth is represented by metaphor
or literal belief in heaven, etc.
It is “as if” we access meaning in the text, and through our hermeneutical
lenses, live the meaning out in the manner that makes it intelligible to
ourselves and our contemporaries. We live as though, if we practice
non-violence despite our privileged position to benefit from living within the
safety of the empire, we will not make use of the strength of the empire, but
empty ourselves of privilege in order to live in sympathy with the text, and no
less in sympathy with Jesus. Of course, such an interpretation is contingent on
any number of realities and truths that are manipulated to serve the goals of
the interpretive community. Every interpretation will be – can only be, as
much.
It must be
stated that some interpretive twist, much like beliefs in general, will be
deemed not credible, which is different than saying they are in-credible. An
in-credible practice might suggest that the imagined outcomes are not realistic,
or that the practices of a community are the result of magical thinking,
misguided or unreasonable assertions of reality, or simply unrealistic
according to the observable nature of human activity. Certainly, many
liberal-to-moderate thinkers will deem the resurrection event in-credible.
Other potential responses to an ethic as constructed by biblical interpreters,
is that the public performance of interpretation by its believers prove to be
unfruitful, oppressive, or destructive. Walking on water is in-credible, but
such an event can be interpreted, and sympathetic performances can provide
meaning to such a text that makes the belief productive and beneficial to the
lives of others. It is a matter of a community interpreting the event at the
Sea of Galilee and in some way applying
Ricœur's “sympathetic imagination”
in order to make sense of it. Might walking on water indicate something greater
than the sum total of the words on paper? Only an interpretive community can
make that possible, then, credible.
On the other
hand, if a community insists that walking on water is a literal miracle,
indicative of Jesus as a divine being capable of altering physics, then uses
this interpretation to underwrite militarism in the name of the divine – an
observant public might be forced to consider whether such an ethic is credible.
As Lindbeck wrote, it is incongruous to claim that God is love “while cleaving
the skull of an infidel.”
Militarism of this sort may be appropriate
for nation states in the defense of citizenry or the conquering of another people, but if a
congregation claims that God is Love, they may be hard-pressed to use the Bible
to underwrite such practices as being Christian, or biblical. To claim God is
love while hating one's enemy is simply not a credible claim, for Jesus
instructs disciples to love enemies and pray for persecutors. It can be deemed
credible for the nation-state to use military force, but a government's claim
that God is love would, in most every instance, have little credibility.
Liberation
theologians and philosophical thinkers refer to the embodiment of beliefs as
praxis.
The concept of praxis best describes the concept of biblical ethics. An ethic
is the intentional behavior of a community whose public performance of
particular texts are intended to define and make credible the claims about a
specific moral vision. If a community of interpretation has a moral vision
based on the theme that one should love God, and love their neighbors as
themselves, the public performance would intentionally enact the drama of, say,
feeding the hungry or visiting the prisoner. The stories of the Bible provide
narratives that the congregation can re-enact with sympathetic imagination –
like understanding the story of the good Samaritan as an indicator of what it
means to love your neighbor, and, to love your enemies. Since these practices
are public, they are both witness and drama to be observed by outsiders, thus,
open to critique. Herein lays the hermeneutic circle.
Hermeneutics act
as a community's pre-understanding of reality. It is through this
understanding, perhaps prejudice is an apt word, that individuals, communities,
and societies interpret events and the rest of the world. The hermeneutic is
what one or more brings to the text to begin the interpretive process. All
hermeneutics contain meanings that are socially and historically contingent
meanings, they are inextricably linked to a person or community's time and
place in history, their shared experiences, shared language,
self-understanding, a corporate concepts of truth.
It is through
the hermeneutic that individuals and congregations interact with the text,
interpreting the text or historical events in accordance with their reality.
This is the act of interpretation of text or event. Once the event occurs, or
the interpretation of the biblical text has been engaged through the
hermeneutic vision, a community will gain new understanding of truth, of self,
and of “the other.” This interpretive move marks the beginning of Caputo's
process of “repetition.”
With every opportunity to interpret comes an opportunity to develop deeper
relationships with the text, and one another. Also, the repetitive act of
interpreting facilitates a firmer grasp of old and present truths, and potentially,
even a radical change in such understandings, such as understanding the life
and death of Jesus, followed by resurrection, as events that were interpreted
in a manner that Jesus became identified as the messiah of Israel. This was a
radical change in understanding of truth that could have only been accomplished
by a Jewish community of belief who used the Hebrew Scriptures to both
understand the ministry of Jesus and his death, and then, witness to others how
God had acted to change the world through resurrecting him. The matter of Jesus
in history makes absolutely no sense when taken out if its ancient Jewish
context.
The next aspect
of the hermeneutic circle is praxis. This point of repetition depends upon a
community's ability to experience new possibilities, and test these new
understandings and possibilities through the process of sympathetic
imagination. This is an important part of hermeneutical repetition because an
community anticipates publicly performing new actualities as a means of testing
and meaning-making. Also, it displays a witness to the public so that the
matter of credibility may be established, and further self-reflection occurs.
The last aspect of repetition is the re-inauguration of the circle, as new
understandings of the text and truth become a interpretive group's new
pre-understanding, discursive language, and understanding of truth. The
process, as stated, is continuously repeated, and it is only through this
repetition that that old narratives can be continued and passed down, and new
understandings can develop. There can be no actualization of praxis without a
process that allows for consistent re-evaluation.
It is now time
for applying meaning to the hermeneutical process described above. Herein lays
the possibility that the text cannot be universally authoritative due to the
contingent nature of all understanding, but is still authoritative because it
provides a community with textual discourse by which the world and truth claims
can be evaluated in faith. One of Yoder's biggest fears is that others would
interpret his work as sectarian to the point that it would be dismissed an
anarchistic.
I
contend that there is no hermeneutical catastrophe lurking behind dark
interpretive corners if the understandings of the Bible as understood in
community leads to both sectarian understandings, and even the sort of anarchy
in which the community may understand that nation states claim authority, but
the congregation is free to test and challenge laws and demands of the state
through a hermeneutic process that is wholly contingent on the
biblical
narrative, and not upon the fear of consequences.
Such praxis can
sometime result in martyrdom or imprisonment, yet such are the consequences of
maintaining a ethic that intends to make sense of reality in a manner that is
dependent upon the interpretation of Scripture and believes that God is the
final arbiter of history.
Returning to
Derrida, an interpretive community must discard the need to make the Bible
universally true, or universally authoritative. This begins the deconstructive
process that allows for the hermeneutical theme of repetition to be fully engaged.
The point of deconstruction of the text is “to expose limitations, to de-limit
the authority of every assertion which sets itself up as authoritative.”
Removing any propositional claims about the contents of the biblical text
reduces the opportunities for interpretations to become oppressive when
embodied by believers. Yet, Derrida does not want to destroy all authority, as
Yoder fears, but instead he wishes to eliminate absolute authority, and further
suppose that all authority is suspect, being
only as credible as the results
they produce!
We then turn to
Yoder to identify how the text can be authoritative. The practice of
binding and loosing as delineated in Matthew 18:15-22. The text gains its
authority through the meaning given to it by an interpretive community that
reads the text together and corporately enacts the interpretation. The
authority lays in the text as it provides a boundaried discourse through which
church understandings are developed, dialogue takes place, and forgiveness for
interpretive disagreements can be a priority. Discipline is not the primary
result of the Matthean pericope, but rather a means of reconciling voluntary
members of the congregations who have disagreements or hurt one another. Where
two or three are gathered, the praxis of a community can be established through
engagement with the hermeneutical circle. Whatever a community binds together
becomes a new possibility, or a deeper understanding of tradition and ongoing
praxis. Whatever is loosed by the community means the repetitive process has
lead to the rejection of a particular interpretation, and the member of the
community may choose to leave, or, continue with behaviors and be continuously
forgiven upon repentance.
Caputo suggests
that repetition and hermeneutics are important due to the following. The
church, and its adherence to a truly biblical ethic, represents an attempt to
“restore the difficulty of life, not to make it impossible.” Faithfulness is a
difficult proposition. The difficulty lays in reading the text “for all its
worth.” The impossible part may be using a text that has little meaning despite
attempts to make it universally authoritative, so that any use of the text in
the discussion of social, religious, or controlling narratives makes the text,
and the Christian ethic, unintelligible. and a rather empty and in-credible
witness at best.
