October 31, 2016 By Keisha McKenzie

Perceiving too little

Sometimes it’s not so much that we’re wrong. It’s that we perceive too little. We can harp on simple answers when we’d benefit more from deep study, or fixate on the footnotes when we’d be better off accounting for the people living out our theories (or even living well despite them).

Unprotected Texts, one of the Christian theology books I’m reading this fall, is all about expanding readers’ sense of the Hebrew and Christian scriptures and the contexts and historical precedents that shaped the texts and the people who created them. Author Jennifer Wright Knust weaves together biblical scholarship and contemporary comments on marriage, desire, and gendered social roles in a way that allows readerss to attend more carefully to the poetry of the Song of Songs, the stories of Naomi, Ruth, and Boaz, the many sagas of David, and the first stories in this tradition: the stories of Genesis.

In chapter 2, Knust explains how “farming and fertility” drive Genesis’ narratives and the development of its chief characters, the patriarchs. The themes of farming and fertiility filter into the stories that the ancient Hebrews told each other, and therefore they shape the understanding that modern readers can reasonably draw from those stories.

If we only perceive the final narratives, and don’t grasp the reasons people crafted and redacted them long ago, we risk misreading them.

Situating the Genesis creation accounts within a context of ancient myth [including Babylonian epic stories] and within the demands of ancient agriculture reminds us that these are ancient stories designed to address the needs and circumstances of Israel, not twenty-first-century Christians and Jews.”

Even if these scriptures are somebody else’s mail, and weren’t crafted for us or our world, they’re still valuable. We can still learn from them, discover a cautionary tale or an inspiration, or become empowered enough to write stories worthy of being handed down generation after generation, just as the ancient Hebrews handed down theirs.

Because as powerful as our inheritance can be, our chief challenge is to build on it and create our own.

October 13, 2016 By Keisha McKenzie

Practicing faith responsibly

A close-up of a large brown leather-bound Bible. Most of the text is unfocused; a verse about the law is highlighted to the center left of the image. The Bible rests on a wooden tabletop. — Photo credit: Aaron Burden

In Unprotected Texts, Jennifer Wright Knust reviews the internal complexity of the Hebrew and Christian scriptures.

Many voices, communities, and perspectives are part of the anthology we now call “the Bible,” and these many perspectives sit side-by-side, sometimes rather uncomfortably.

The Bible’s polyvalence—its many-sidedness—isn’t something that only anti-religious readers perceive. Over centuries, Biblical scholars have noted it too. Scholars and believers just vary on how they interpret that textual evidence and what conclusions they draw from it about God.

As Drs. Jean Sheldon and Olive Hemmings have said, the concepts of God that religious people take from their scriptures have significant consequences for how we perceive each other and the quality of community that we build together. We don’t rise higher than the level of our gods, and that can be devastating when, as Sheldon shows, our gods are violent, destructive, capricious, or fundamentally untrustworthy.

So when we read the stories of our scriptures, we’re not just reading stories. We’re engaging other and ancient cultures, interpreting their values, mapping our ideals onto our own worlds of experience. We’re responsible for the meanings we assign to their texts, and we’re accountable for whatever the texts inspire in us: we don’t get to blame the text or praise the text for our ethical decisions.

“Ignoring the passages we don’t like and holding onto the passages we love will not make what we hate go away,” Knust writes:

The Bible is complicated enough, ancient enough, and flexible enough to support an almost endless set of interpretive agendas. That’s why abolitionists could find inspiration in the Bible’s pages despite centuries of biblically sanctioned argumentation in favor of the enslavement of fellow human beings… We ourselves must decide what kind of people we will become [and] how best to love one another.”

Does humanity’s future depend on us properly stewarding this responsibility? I say yes.

An increasing number of people disaffiliate from denominations and other forms of organized religion each year. Yet religions and spiritualities still deeply influence individuals and the societies we shape.

In the Christian epistle James is a definition of “true religion”: caring for the vulnerable and refusing to be overrun by the small-hearted and dominating customary ways of the world. If this definition is valid, true religion is a call for us to be totally and faith-fully engaged with all that means life and all that makes good tangible for real people. True religion isn’t like a strong drink: it’s not an escape; it’s rather a call to step up with others impartially and for all our sakes.

For people in text-influenced religions like me, responsibility includes how we read our central texts and apply them to each other and the core issues of our time. For all the havoc and folly we people of faith can wreak, it matters that we choose to practice faith responsibly.

One person who’s done this exceptionally well over the last several years is Dr. Katharine Hayhoe, a Texas Tech professor and researcher who specializes in climate change. Hayhoe explains to ordinary people all over the country that they don’t have to jettison their faith to act on climate.

Peterson Toscano recently shared Hayhoe’s work on Citizen’s Climate Radio. The video of her presentation is captioned. Check it out.

September 16, 2016 By Keisha McKenzie

#2016AFConf: Wrath on the stand

Wrath theology didn’t fare so well at tonight’s first meeting of the Adventist Forum conference on nonviolence and atonement.

With headliner Greg Boyd, and seven different respondants (two formal responses and five questions), the group challenged both the substance and the implications of theories about penal substitution’s wrathful deity.

I tweeted quite a lot and don’t promise to do so tomorrow since I’ll be preparing to speak. But take a look at the tag in the meantime.

The most quotable statement of the evening came for me from a related topic: how we handle battles around biblical translation and interpretation.

Intellectual humility is Boyd’s answer.

Tonight, questions ranged from the right relationship of love and justice to what to do with an apparent divine sadist.
As you review the hashtag, what questions do you have?

February 14, 2015 By Keisha McKenzie

VIDEO: Reading With Different Ears: Amy-Jill Levine and Ethnocentrism

“While the New Testament may be seen as anti-Jewish, it need not be taken that way, because words inevitably mean different things to different readers. More problematic are those verses that on the surface appear quite benign, but when heard with different ears can be quite difficult.

“[For example,] Galatians 3:28, which proclaims that in Christ Jesus there is neither Jew nor Greek, is grand if you’re a Galatian Gentile who’s feeling somewhat marginalized, y’know, because Jesus was a Jew and Paul was a Jew, and the one ‘Bible’ they have happens to be the Tanakh, which tells them amongst other things that in order to be part of the covenant community they have to be circumcised in the flesh of their foreskin if they’re men. To be told that in Christ Jesus there is neither Jew nor Greek is great if you’re a Galatian Gentile.

“But to proclaim that verse today, after Auschwitz, is a little difficult because it suggests that the ideal world is a world in which there is no Jew. Different time period causes a different reading.” —Amy-Jill Levine, University Professor of New Testament and Jewish Studies, Vanderbilt University Divinity School

—

I’ve been reading that Galatians text for more than 20 years, mostly in regard to gender and class rather than ethnicity.

Listening to Dr. Levine today was the first time that the text reminded me of Ellen White’s supposition that “In heaven there will be no color line; for all will be as white as Christ himself.”

White made this claim to a congregation of Black Adventists in 1901 (whether in Vicksburg, MI, Vicksburg, IN, or Vicksburg, MS, I’ve not been able to determine). I wish someone had thought to poll attendees’ for feedback during pot luck afterwards.

May 4, 2014 By Keisha McKenzie

Sabbath Wisdom: Words Matter

Almost every Sabbath morning, I share with my Twitter network a series of tweets rooted in an aspect of faith or religious ethics. These tweets, tagged #SabbathWisdom, are often inspired by study conversations or sermons at my church. A sermon about the power of the word resonated with me yesterday. I may have been primed by Friday’s post about religious violence.

Where the words spread. Displayed under license.

“What you say can preserve life or destroy it; so you must accept the consequences of your words.” —Proverbs 18:21, GNT

“Your words can preserve life or destroy it… Words form us and deform us.” < Language and constructs matter: take care.

We look at ourselves and the outer world through lenses shaped by the words that run through our minds, lives, and scriptures.

We’re probably past the days when our holy texts can be changed, but we can determine how to read & be named by them.

We can’t choose our bio relatives, but we can decide whether to live by their words or change the corpus they gave us.

“I have come in order that you might have life—life in all its fullness” (John 10:10). That’s the offer. It involves responsibility.

We’re not responsible for the tapes we were given. We’re responsible for the tapes we play and our impact on the world.

We can record new tapes, practice a life-affirming vocabulary, and insist on constructs that are healing, not destructive.

“Recognize and live like the accuser has been defeated.” —Mike Speegle

Carol Dweck writes: “Beliefs are central to the way people package their experiences and carry them forward.” And so they are.

Take responsibility for your words, your beliefs, & how they shape you and your impact on the world. Take responsibility.

March 22, 2014 By Keisha McKenzie

Sabbath Wisdom: Texts and Responsibility

Almost every Sabbath morning, I share with my Twitter network a series of tweets rooted in an aspect of faith or religious ethics. These tweets, tagged #SabbathWisdom, are often inspired by study conversations or sermons at my church. This morning’s series was far more extensive than usual, and I decided to share it with you as well.

Much appreciation to everyone who participated by reading, favoriting, retweeting, or replying—especially @runtodaylight, Peterson Toscano (@p2son), Karl Nova (@KarlNova), Mx A. Hooker (@awhooker), and Bryan Berghoef (@bryberg).

Texts and Responsibility

Today’s #SabbathWisdom tweets inspired by my conversation yesterday with @runtodaylight and last night’s vespers at @SouthernNews.

When I read the Christian scriptures as the collection of texts it is, I see both exclusive and inclusive elements.

I’ve been reading that collection all the way through since I was 13 years old. It isn’t a one-theme library.

I’m being deliberate in this thread about not calling it “a book.” Packaging aside, our “bible” is a library, not a book. The library doesn’t have a single author, a single story, or a single theme. Whoever tells you it does is selling something.

So given the diversity inherent to the Christian scriptures, we have an awesome—full-of-awe—responsibility as readers.

We have the ability to express more wholeness or fragmentation through the stories we tell and the dogma we choose. We have the capacity to advance integrity or promote demonization through our reading and reciting. We’re part of a text-centered religion. The God we invoke from our scripture reading will overshadow everything about us.

Earlier I quoted Greg Boyd, a pastor + open theist who writes about how our God-images & reading train us for life.

“There is now a wealth of research demonstrating that violence in literature that is considered sacred is a powerful force in motivating religious violence. It can only be negated by being renounced.” —Greg Boyd, March 7, 2013 (and March 14, 2013)

He argues that our meditations on violence presented as moral in scripture trains us to accept violence as morality in life. (This isn’t an idea original to Boyd; he’s just said it well recently!)

So we who read these ancient stories and draw insight from them for our lives—our responsibility is indeed awesome. Our moral authority doesn’t come from our libraries. But interpreting and applying them is a moral act. We’re accountable.

I’ve learned I have choices in how I read my library, how I interpret its stories, how I apply them to the world about me, how I apply insights to myself & others, whether I wield my library as a machete, what collateral damage I accept.

And I’ve learned to judge my choices by their outcomes in my relationships and my influence on the world I live in.

When I was a child going to Sabbath School and singing songs with the other kids, two songs really touched me.

The first one was “Oh be careful little eyes what you see.” In retrospect maybe it should’ve felt like the Panopticon? But it didn’t. It gave me a sense of universal benevolence and safe presence in this world that I’ve never lost.

It also taught me that what I reflected on, what I did, how I lived mattered and shaped me. Taught me awareness.

The second was “This is My Father’s World.” I’ve felt like an exile in many countries and groups, but never on this planet. This song taught me a sense of belonging, co-ownership, & hope. I haven’t lost that sense either, despite religion’s best efforts!

“This is my Father’s world: Oh let me ne’er forget That though the wrong seems oft so strong God is the ruler yet…
“This is my Father’s world: The battle is not done: Jesus who died will be satisfied And earth and Heaven be one.” —Maltbie D. Babcock, 1901

Yes: My opinions about some of these themes have changed a lot since I first started reading the Bible for myself. But that doesn’t scare me. It’s proof that I’m not a dead thing. Life requires change, and growth requires learning.

Reading our scriptures & living them out w/ others merits care.
Insist on being humane in your exercise of religion.

I think this was the longest #SabbathWisdom thread I’ve ever written. Thanks for hearing me out, y’all. I welcome feedback.

Feedback

I respond in italics.

From @KarlNova: “I love your tweets. I love your heart and mind. I appreciate your train of thought.”

I love you too, Karl. 🙂 *hugs*

From @runtodaylight, re. sources: “Yes, if I recall correctly theologians call this ‘source criticism.’ It’s especially evident in canonical gospels: Matt & Luke both know Mark, plus Q. John’s Gospel is MUCH different than synoptics, but in ‘closing canon’ the early Church deemed all four ‘canonical.’ Not so with other gospels, Peter, Thomas, which have a lot of same info. IMHO. The Westar Institute’s Jesus Seminar is a very reliable resource.”

It goes well beyond source analysis. There is multivalence (many-sidedness) even in works thought to have single sources.

@runtodaylight: “Agree. Didn’t mean to imply otherwise (link on Biblical criticism).”

What I’ve been talking about this morning isn’t so much who wrote what with which informants, but how we make sense of the themes and values within these stories, whatever their sources, and how we apply them now. Walt Whitman’s line “Do I contradict myself?” is apropos here. 🙂

The study of our texts is so powerful in part because we are multivalent, both as speakers/writers and as hearers/readers.

From @awhoooker: “I enjoyed that you talked about how you used your ‘library.’ Important that our faith stories come from the voices of many.”

Thanks! I agree it’s important for more of us to share. Because of experience, I don’t resonate with the text drive-by model. So I want to encourage more text-religion folks to consider alternate and perhaps more healing ways to treat their texts and peers.

@awhooker: “I think a lot is lost when we come to the texts thinking that God spoke them word-for-word from heaven.”

Agreed. Yet even if God had done so, that speech is now mediated through us. And we can’t blame God for our translation work. (When I say “translation” here, I mean both translation of manuscripts and translation from text to life.)

@awhoooker: “If Christ is the Word of God who imparted the Spirit to us after his death & resurrection, I think we are the living words. So, yes, in a sense, our faith lives are translations of what we read, see, hear, & experience.”

Agreed. My communication background teaches me: We are the “speech acts” of God. 🙂

Thanks to everyone who read, faved, retweeted, or responded to the #SabbathWisdom thread this morning. You all enrich me!

If you’d like to join me in conversations like this on Sabbath mornings (Saturdays, usually between 11:00 and 12:30 Eastern), follow me or the #SabbathWisdom hashtag.

hermeneutics

Texts and Responsibility

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