Reinterpretation, Ideology, and Theology

Welcome to Conversations with Bob! Here is Bob's latest!

John,

Nice Post. We have dealt with world and national problems the Presbyterian way. You know the Presbyterian way to solve social problems don’t you? We write a report about it!

Seriously, we clearly agree on ecology, global warming, the sinful use of resources while ignoring the needs of the poor and teen pregnancy. We also agree on our reaction to politicians saying what great Christians they are. I do want policies that agree with Biblical ideals but think such policies can come from a principled non-Christian. Wasn’t it Luther who said that he would rather have a just Turk as a ruler rather than an unjust Christian?

If I understand what you say about theology, ideology and reinterpretation I think we disagree. I’m all for changing theology so that it matches the Bible. If Calvin got something wrong I am willing to say so. And yes, I do look at the whole Bible through the lens, (thank you for the word flycandler), of Jesus. Thank means that I have to say that holy way is not a proper understanding of the purpose of YHWH.

I do agree that the idea that the nation’s rulers set the religion for the state is a non-Biblical concept. Yes, that means I don’t want to try to form a Christian America. Nether do I believe in ultimate destiny, the white man’s burden or America as a model for the world. I think we have seen what happens when we try to create democracy by violence in Iraq.

Can you give me some examples of ideology hiding as theology? I can see it in the desire of Israel to have a king so as to be like other nations. And just how do you make distinctions between theology and ideology? Maybe you could define the terms.

Here’s the thing. I’m not a progressive but I am a traditional Evangelical theologian. I don’t trust governments because those in power, no matter what their religion or ethics, are still sinners. On top of that the ones who claim their Christianity governs their policies scare me. They are too self assured and they can’t seem to make a distinction between their political ideologies and what they think Jesus would do. Let’s see . . . Jesus wants us to bomb the hell out of innocent civilians. Not the Jesus that I know!

I really need you to define what you mean by reinterpretation. If it means deciding what parts of the Bible fit with your ideology, we have a problem. If it means seeing the trajectory of progressive revelation in the Bible and deciding what God intends in the long run, we may disagree about God’s intentions but I think we all make such decisions.

So can you define your terms? How do you distinguish between theology and ideology in the Bible? And what exactly do you mean by reinterpretation?

Maybe we can return to my example of substitutionary atonement. Is this ideology or acceptable theology and if so or if not, what is the difference?

Oh, a comment on Crossan. I like his use of the sociological studies of Mediterranean villagers to examine the gospels. Personally I think Ken Bailey does a better job because he studied villages in rural Lebanon rather than in Italy. And frankly I think Crossan, like many in the various attempts to find the historical Jesus found more of himself than Jesus. I think that is the greatest danger we all face when we come to study of Jesus. We humans have this need for a Jesus like us. I believe Jesus is fully human and fully divine while I believe this has critical theological significance, (and is also Biblical); I also think it is a necessary check on interpreting Jesus. Jesus can’t be like me. Besides, I’m not a 1^st Century Jew. I’m not. I’m a 21^st Century Christian who lives in America. I have to deal with problems Jesus never mentioned directly. Jesus dealt with wealth but didn’t deal with specific problems like the sins multinational corporations.

Grace and Peace

Bob

Jim and Fred on DVD!

You have seen them on YouTube, now you can watch them over and over and over and over again on your DVD player! All the YouTube videos plus ten more! It's the Best of Fred and Jim: Fun and Music. You can watch Chord Hat, Pipe Hat, Mississippi Samba, Folger's Joy, and Yellerows of Texas on Jim's website.

Jim Miller is a First Presby and in exchange for this plug on Shuck and Jive, he has promised to do all the icky church jobs that no one wants to do.

Here is Jim on the Mandomill!

Friday Five

In a shameless attempt to get back in the good graces of the RevGals after my untimely introduction, I thought I would play Friday Five with the Gals:

1. Have you ever been on a pilgrimage? (however you choose to define the term) Share a bit about it. If not, what's your reaction to the idea of pilgrimage?

In 1994 I was given a trip by my congregation to the Holy Land on one of those Christian tours. By the grace of God, there were a couple of other peurile smart-asses aboard with me that made the tour guide bearable. It was definitely a pilgrimage. We kissed every spot where Jesus stubbed his toe. The tour guide even showed us the rock upon which Jesus ascended to heaven. He had left his footprint. Jesus was a size seven.

2. Share a place you've always wanted to visit on pilgrimage.

Where you went sounds like a great place. I am game to go anywhere. My spouse wants to go on a pilgrimage of some sort next May for our 25th anniversary. I will check other posts for ideas!

3. What would you make sure to pack in your suitcase or backpack to make the pilgrimage more meaningful? Or does "stuff" just distract from the experience?

A map, my digital camera, journal, water bottle. But I probably wouldn't use any of them. I like to travel light.

4. If you could make a pilgrimage with someone (living, dead or fictional) as your guide, who would it be? (I'm about thisclose to saying "Besides Jesus." Yes, we all know he was indispensable to those chaps heading to Emmaus, but it's too easy an answer).

Jesus is the last person I would want to follow on a pilgrimage. He gets in way too much trouble. I guess I would have to say Bill and Ted.

5. Eventually the pilgrim must return home, but can you suggest any strategies for keeping that deep "mountaintop" perspective in the midst of everyday life? (don't mind me, I'll be over here taking notes)

Blog about it! Sounds like you had a great trip! Thanks for the Five!

For Parents...

Church signboards are part of the landscape in East Tennessee. Their messages are for the most part folksy fundamentalism. Every now and again, I find one that hits the point.


Saw this the other day on the way to work...

Interpreting Scripture for Our Time: A Hesitant Start

Can't beat the entertainment of Conversations with Bob! Here is my latest!

Bob,

Beautiful! Loved your comments and your honesty regarding social issues. One good dose of honesty deserves another. I am not fond of the Democrats. I think they are caught up in the same "Domination System" (to use Walter Wink's phrase) as the Republicans. They are not our saviors as much as some other progressives think. I don't like the politics of faith in order to get votes. I don't like Democrats who try to sound religious or wear their faith on their sleeve in order to do that, even as that has been successful for Republicans. Frankly, I don't like appeals to Jesus, YHWH, or the Bible to authorize a viewpoint. If one's viewpoint does not stand on its own merits, then no amount of "supernatural authority" will make it any better.

To alienate more of my progressive friends, as much as I appreciate Al Gore's attention to the environment, I don't think all the facts are in regarding Global Warming. That does not mean I think I will go and by a Hummer (as if I could afford it), but I worry that we may be missing a larger issue, namely, the combined effects of peak oil, food production and distribution, population, human rights, corporate imperialism, and increased international violence to secure resources.

I further alienate my progressive friends by focusing on theological issues. This is where you and I tangle a bit, but most of my progressive colleagues do not challenge the theological ideology that supports the domination system as much as I would like them to do. Many think we ought to continue to retain traditional theological dogma and focus on social and political issues. I think theological dogma needs to be de-constructed and re-constructed in order to deal with the ideology (disguised as theology) that I think supports imperial violence. I can talk more about that as we converse further.

I agree with you on the abortion issue. I think we need a combination of efforts regarding personal responsibility, education, community support, and resources. I am with you also on the issue of ecocide. I also respect your view of the afterlife as motivation to be a steward of this life. I think we both agree that a belief in the afterlife is not an excuse to avoid our responsibility in this life.

I appreciate all your responses to my Bible affirmations! I will let all of those stand with admiration for your clarity. We both stated our points on those. I will address your question to me:

Finally I’m not entirely sure what you mean when you use the word reinterpretation. If it means that the Bible shapes doctrine and not the other way around, I entirely agree. So what do you mean by this?

First, something we agree upon. Our confessions are a reinterpretation of scripture to respond to the needs of the historical context. Our confessions are time-bound expressions of faith to a particular situation. No one would have thought of the Confession of 1967 in the time of Westminster or Westminster in the time of the Nicene Creed. As situations arise, we look to the scriptures to discover its wisdom. Yes, scripture shapes doctrine. Yet, of course, as I write that I realize that the Bible is the Church's book. Its final shape was determined by a long, complex process of canonization.

Second, something we may not agree upon. This gets back to some of the other things we are floating past each other, perhaps, and that is the extent to which the texts and themes in the Bible are revelatory of God or are apologies for human sinfulness. I think it is difficult to determine that, perhaps impossible. This is why we need the Holy Spirit. That Spirit engages us to analyze our time and the time of the biblical writers. The result is always at once time-bound and timeless. There is nothing as idolatrous as yesterday's word of God.

I am reading a fascinating book by John Dominic Crossan, God and Empire: Jesus Against Rome, Then and Now. We finished the first chapter in our Thursdays with Jesus group. This book is an example of what I would call reinterpretation for our current context.

More about that as we go ahead.

Play Fantasy Congress!

Found this cool website, Fantasy Congress. Kind of like Fantasy Football, you get to play politics! Here is the intro:

FantasyCongress.com works just like fantasy sports leagues except instead of sports players, you draft politicians who receive scores based on their legislation, votes, news*, election metrics* and other measures. This fun, educational experience lets you trade and bench politicians. Best of all it is free!

For instance, you can play on an important piece of legislation before congress now, H.R. 969. Here is an e-mail from a friend who is a supporter of HR 969. I think it is a good idea as well.

Please call Representative David Davis Friday morning (phone -- 202-225-6356) and ask him to support H.R. 969. Here is a sample message you can leave:

"Hello, my name is ____ and I live in_____. I'm calling to urge Rep. _____ to vote yes on the H.R. 969, the Udall (D-NM)-Platts (R-PA) renewable electricity standard."

H.R. 969 creates a renewable portfolio standard (RPS) requiring utilities to generate or buy 20 percent clean, renewable energy by 2020. This bill would create a large and growing market for clean and truly renewable sources of energy.

Energy from the sun and wind lasts forever and conserves resources for future generations. By requiring utilities to generate an increasing percentage of their electricity from renewable resources—rather than fossil fuels which emit carbon dioxide, soot, mercury, and other pollutants—a national renewable energy policy would dramatically expand America’s use of solar, wind, geothermal, and energy from crops.

Analysis by the Union of Concerned Scientists of a 20 percent RPS shows that the standard will:--create 355,000 new jobs, nearly twice as many jobs as generating the same amount of electricity from fossil fuels;

1. save consumers a total of $49 billion dollars on their utility bills for both natural gas and electricity
2. reduce carbon dioxide emissions—the main cause of global warming—by over 400 million metric tons, the equivalent of taking 71 million cars off the road or planting 104 million acres of trees.

Please tell your representative to cosponsor H.R. 969.

Ecocide, Ethics, The Bible, The Whole Ball of Wax!

More Conversations with Bob! Hop in!

John,

Nice response. I think it does point to areas where we agree and areas where we may disagree.

But first, Progressives and Evangelicals, Ecocide and Ethics.

As you have discovered from my posts we Evangelicals disagree with one another on a lot of social issues. Then again Evangelicals disagree about all kinds of stuff. Some accused Billy Graham of being a communist for preaching in Russia back in the 70’s or 80’s and not saying negative things about the government of the time. Like the Catholic bishop quoted in the article, I’m a whole life kind of guy. I’m against abortion and capital punishment. Speaking from the viewpoint political strategy I don’t think that trying to reverse Roe v. Wade is a good idea. I think abortion kills a life but reversing Roe v. Wade at this point would simply kill more lives, the mother and the child. I’m ready to go with Hillary Clinton for the time being that abortion should be safe legal and rare. I suspect that most evangelicals would disagree with me about this.

When I was in Oneida I served on a community board that oversaw the work of a group that worked this teens and sexual issues. It was n abstinence based program. (Abstinence based means that the group promoted abstinence as the best policy but understood that some teens weren’t going to abstain so the group taught sexuality, encouraged abstinence and provided information about contraception and sexually transmitted diseases.) Planned Parenthood was part of the group too and I was pleasantly surprised that they promoted abstinence first. The PP from Utica was pretty strong about this, particularly as a way to prevent sexually transmitted diseases. I agreed with them and so did the Pentecostal pastor on the board that there so youth, including some in each of our youth groups who were going to have sex and we didn’t want them to have babies at 15!

So I think there are a lot of issues on which Progressives and Evangelicals can agree or at least agree partially and work together. Certainly ecology, poverty, the spread and power of multinational corporations, making support available to those who might seek an abortion because they think they have no other choices and, some of us Evangelicals, the war in Iraq, are issues on which we can and should work together. Finally, I think some Evangelicals have allowed themselves to be too closely tied to the Republican party and Progressives may be in danger of doing the same with the Democratic part. We all need a place to stand that allows us to speak to the principalities and powers.

Ecocide. I think we really agree. While I think some life would survive the attempts humans are making to destroy all life on God’s good earth I do think we have reached the crisis stage. I think those who look for a quick trip out through rapture are not only theologically but also ethically wrong. But remember there are a lot of us Reformed types and Wesleyans and others out there that believe in radical stewardship of creation. I don’t think believing in an afterlife, at least for me, makes any difference in the way I think and act about stewardship of God’s creation and the false belief that we can actually own part of creation, (all of creation belongs to God!). In fact it is in part my belief in life after death that gives me motivation. A day will come when I will have to give an account to God about my stewardship of creation as well as the rest of my life. I want to be able to stand before God and say I worked to heal the damage we humans have done to the earth.

On to the Bible

I’m going to respond to your list but I’m not going to repost it here. Those who wish can zip back and forth.

1. We agree
2. We agree but I have a comment. See #3.
3. I would add that the Bible is not only God’s word to me but God’s word to the whole world.
4. I don’t think that saying the Bible is the Word of God can be objective. Objective suggests to me that it can be proven. It can’t. Even the Westminster Confession says that while the Bible has lots of great attributes a person cannot perceive that it is the Word of God without the Holy Spirit opening one’s eyes. I also think every theological statement has to have some “God is greater than we can know” in it. While I do believe that God reveals God’s self in the Scripture (particularly when the Bible describes God’s relationship with humans and how God acts in covenant with humans) I don’t think we can say that we can ever know all there is to know about God. We can know what God has revealed about God’s self and even then human minds have to say that we can’t really understand all of it.
5. Here we agree and disagree. It is certainly a book written by humans. Nevertheless I believe it is inspired by God in a way that no other book is inspired. It is revelation from God.
6. I agree with reservations. First I believe YHWH is an actor in the NT as well as the OT. When I read the word Lord applied to God in the NT I hear the writers/editors carrying over the Hebrew tradition of saying Adonai in place of YHWH. Also while I think I understand your use of the word characters here for YHWH and Jesus and agree that they are persons in the stories and therefore characters I would add that YHWH/Jesus are the main actors in the stories in the sense that they act and humans, (in the case of Jesus other humans), respond.
7. I agree.
8. I agree but I would add that I suspect we might disagree about some on what might be horrific and what might be wonderful. An example: the doctrine of substitutionary atonement.
9. Hmm . . . I believe both YHWH and Jesus exist. I know you do too so let me say how we might disagree. I suspect that I think there is more historical accuracy in the Biblical stories than you do. Having said that the Bible sure isn’t history in the sense that modern historians use the term. Every writer/editor of the books of the Bible brought theological perspectives to their writing/editing of the text. We see this in the arrangement of material in the Synoptic Gospels. I believe the people who recorded progressive layers of the stories and people who edited the texts put the materials in specific orders so as to make their own theological points. Certainly the choice of materials reflects those theological viewpoints too. I think that people saw things happen, told the stories with theological interpretation of what happened, and those stories with further theological interpretations were put in their final forms. Do I think that some of the things that the Bible says happened didn’t happen? I’ll go with Karl Barth on this: I think so but don’t ask me to say which is which except where I see evidence that the writer intended to write fiction to make a theological point. I will add that I think Genesis 1-11 is prehistory.
10. I agree. But while I love the stories I think that we have to pay attention as much as we can to the Holy Spirit as we interpret the text. The problem is, fallible, sinful human beings that we are, how do we know when we are guided by the Holy Spirit and when we are not? I think this is best done in groups. I need the help of others to correct me. And even then we make mistakes in groups too. Sometimes the lone individual is right and the group wrong.
11. I agree. I think one of the best things we could do is talk about, to the extent that we can, why we chose our particular interpretive grids.
12. I agree and disagree. Certainly creation, fall and redemption is a New Testament Christian grid placed on the Old Testament. Having said that I do think we can say that creation and fall are themes in the Old Testament and redemption, though portrayed in a very different way, is also a theme in the Old Testament. The Exodus story is a story of redemption according to Deuteronomy. I don’t think Augustine is the be all and end all. He carried a lot of his Neoplatonic baggage with him into Christianity. And I do think that Paul must be interpreted in the context of the rest of the Bible. One of the prime Reformation statements is that Scripture must be interpreted by Scripture with Christ at the center. And yes, this does mean that we interpret the Old Testament through New Testament eyes. Nevertheless I like seeing the Old Testament through Old Testament eyes too. It is a lot of fun that way. (Elijah to the prophets of Baal: “Maybe your god is in the bathroom!” I love it!)

Finally I’m not entirely sure what you mean when you use the word reinterpretation. If it means that the Bible shapes doctrine and not the other way around, I entirely agree. So what do you mean by this?

Grace and Peace

Bob

April DeConick is Biblioblogger of the Month!

I really enjoy reading April DeConick's blog. She is being interviewed this month on Biblioblogs.


She is an expert in early Christian origins and knows a great deal about the so-called Gnostic Christians (Hence the Forbidden Gospels Blog). She finished a book on the Gospel of Judas. If you haven't checked out her blog, you may want to give it a click.

Out In Scripture

A new resource advertised in our very own Presbyterians Today is "Out in Scripture" by the Human Rights Campaign.

You don’t have to leave your mind, heart and body behind when you encounter the Bible. This Human Rights Campaign resource places comments about the Bible alongside the real life experiences and concerns of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people of faith and our allies. With the help of skilled scholars, you will discover a fresh approach to Scripture. Here you can be honest, question and go deeper. Read More

It is a great resource. Check out the lectionary readings.

Can We Blog?

I was reflecting on Conversations with Bob, and I came across this post on Faith in Public Life, Progressives and Evangelicals Together Speak Out.

There's been a lot of buzz in the media this year about the broadening of the evangelical agenda, and attempts by some progressives to reach out to evangelicals and vice versa. Evangelicals who have sought to broaden the agenda to include issues like poverty, global AIDS, human rights and torture, immigration and global warming have been fiercely attacked by some conservatives who claim they are distracting attention away from issues like abortion and gay marriage. On the other hand, some progressives have dismissed the efforts of religious progressives to reach out to evangelicals around these issues, accusing them of seeking meaningless common ground and ignoring core progressive issues, or of attempting to build a conservative religious coalition within the Democratic party. This week, we are asking evangelicals who are reaching out to progressives and progressives who are reaching out to evangelicals to speak for themselves. Read More