I have been doing some reading on the nature of Scripture and how to read the Bible, especially as it relates to formation and transformation. Since leaving the critical halls of seminary and the academy and heading to the hallowed halls of the church, it has become more and more apparent to me that the readings in both places have some inherent and flaws and shortcomings. Now, I do not have time to address all of those short comings here, that would be a paper or an article, not a blog post, but I would like to think some about how we read and have read text in Churches of Christ.
With our roots firmly planted on the soil of modernity, the scientific revolution, and Cartesian philosophy, Churches of Christ have tended to read Scripture as a scientific text, something to be mastered. There are many inherent problems in that type of reading. Let me mention two: (1) Scripture isn't a science text, and (2) God cannot be mastered, therefore we must have "modesty before the mystery" (Luke Johnson).
In light of that, I am appreciative of the attempts that some are making right now to read Scripture differently, to read for transformation rather than to read it primarily for information. I have seen the trend in both the academy and in the church. It is a place where I think the two can come together to seek the face of the God revealed in Jesus and in the Scriptures. But, I begin to digress.
In a wonderful little article that I read yesterday, Richard Hays, a New Testament scholar at Duke, attempts to correct the postmodern hermeneutic of suspicion by offering the option of a hermeneutic of trust. (To read the full text, click here.) Hays understands that the critique offered by those who approach the text with some suspicion (such as feminist and liberation theologians) is an important voice to keep at the table. Their moral passion and their desire to challenge the epidemic violence, abuse, and marginalization that has been enabled by poor readings of Scripture is important to consider. The problem is that they have thrown out the baby with the bath water, so to speak, neutering the text of all power and viewing its revelatory power as something that could potentially be "harmful to one's health."
Hays, in a brilliant theological move, compares the hermeneutic of suspicion and his hermeneutic of trust with Paul's discussion of faith (pistis) and "unfaith' (apistia) in Romans. At the end of the article, he suggests three insights that can be gleaned from his analysis of Paul's hermeneutic of trust for our own work as interpreters of God's word.
First, in order to read scripture rightly, we must trust the God who speaks through the scripture. Here, he praises feminist interpreters for rightly concluding that "this God is not a God of violence, not an abuser, not a deceiver." This is the self-emptying God who give up even has given up even his own Son for the sake of humanity and creation.
Second, he suggests any reading according to a hermeneutic of favor is indeed suspicious, but it is suspicious first and foremost of ourselves, "because our minds have been corrupted and shaped by the present evil age. Our minds must be transformed by grace, and that happens nowhere more powerfully than through reading scripture receptively and trustingly with the aid of the Holy Spirit."
Finally, Hays suggests that the real work of interpretation is to hear the text. We must not simply listen to our own self-righteous interpretations or assumptions regarding the text. We must "read and teach scripture in a way that opens up its message and both models and fosters trust in God."
In our tradition, our hearing has been hampered by our assumptions about what the text should be saying to us, as opposed to what it might actually be saying. We have silenced the multifarious voices of the text and made it monolithic, to our own demise. We must put on new lenses and wear new aids to help us read and hear the scripture more clearly. That is never easy work, because it will challenge our assumptions. I guess that is why Hays suggests that we must look at ourselves with suspicion before suggesting that we must hear the text differently. It is only when we view our assumptions with suspicion that we can allow scripture to speak a clear and transformative word into our lives, our context, and our world.
May we all come to a new understanding of how to step into the presence of God in the scripture. May we all find "salvation by trust." May we all be changed from our encounter with God as we receptively and trustingly receive him.
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