seethrough

those who regard the Bible as a book that fell out of the sky, ready-made for Christians to read and obey - a “Manual-for-Life” as I’ve sometimes heard it called - are remembering the role of the Bible in a remarkable way.  They have edited out some inconvenient aspects of the history of the Bible and introduced previously non-existent ideas and concepts which I would argue can best be understood as a reaction to more recent historical developments (as opposed to a faithful ongoing witness from biblical times).  as i have said before, the work of re-member-ing is not just clarifying and reinforcing the dominant story.  it involves a challenging journey of investigation, in an attempt to recover lost threads - especially when those lost threads have been lost by a certain generation or season in history as they wrestled with their own context and circumstances.

a few thoughts to re-consider:

1. the Bible is not 1 book but a collection of books.  Recent Protestant and conservative christian movements (churches) seek to argue that God has determined exactly (i.e. verbatim, word for word) how the book appears to us today.  Of course this claim is impossible to deny - how can anyone prove that God didn’t do as they claim.  But this conviction that the Bible is verbatim “from God” overlooks a significant historical fact.  The church existed before the Bible as we know it today.  In fact the church existed and grew for nearly 300 years without the body of text that we call the Bible.  of course, fragments existed and were circulating - which suggests that scripture has a very practical origin and purpose - to teach and build the local church.  but it was only in the 4th century (from 367) that the 27 books of the New Testament as we know it today began to be regarded as the norm.  This list of 27 books was finally authorised by a Council (Carthage) in 397.  Trying to deny that this 400 year process of discernment was a product of partnership between the Holy Spirit and the authors is futile.  It’s impossible to convince someone that God didn’t intend it all to work out this way.  What is worth considering though is how the church survived for those 300-400 years (or even the first 50 years if you want to argue that “scripture” was still floating around and having an effect)…  i think it survived without a homogenous and finalised Scriptural TEXT because the Word of God is always first experienced by a hearer (not a reader).  It is a living dynamic spoken Word - and that Word is most clearly and dynamically experienced through Jesus.  Followers of “the Way” - the early Christians were a community of faith that represented faithfulness to the life, teaching, example, values, witness, death and resurrection of Jesus.  This “way” is obviously laid out in the New Testament - the Christian scriptures.  But before it was laid out - written down - is was still possible to follow Jesus.  the community held the tradition, values and stories and faith of their saviour and lord…

2. for more than 1500 years scripture was only available in a very limited way through the church - which had originally given birth to these texts.  scripture was painstakingly copied and recopied so that local church communities would have access to at least ONE copy so that they could follow the instructions offered to Timothy… to “pay attention to the public reading of scripture”.  this was the only “way” scripture could be accessed - through the community of faith.  it is only with the advent of the printing press and lower printing costs that followers of Jesus could enjoy their own “personal” copy.  seems that the call to “pay attention to the public reading” is more relevant than ever!  I find it interesting that some of the most individualistic expressions of the Christian faith arise in areas of the world with the greatest access to the Bible…

3.  during those first 1500 years of the church, followers of Jesus traced the thread of authority not through scripture, but through Peter!  It was the continuity of apostleship that provided confidence that the tradition of “the Way” was being upheld and applied in new and changing circumstances.  Always with reference to scripture.  But scripture was never the ONLY authority.  Neither was it regarded as a purely literal book.  The church acknowledged the diversity of it’s texts and encouraged a variety of different approaches to the scriptures.  The focus was always on listening and remaining open to the many layers of meaning in the text.  Along with all the effort required to guard and copy the scriptures, the church also encouraged dedicated scholarship.  Scholars studied scripture and applied their minds to the questions that were raised by new times and changing circumstances.

4. the common contemporary view that scripture is the ONLY authority for all teaching and ethical reflection is a very recent historical occurrence.  perhaps only in the last 150 years has this view really taken root.  As the excesses of the Roman Catholic Church undermined it’s influence, Protestants looked for another rock (other than the “Rock on which I will build my church”).  IN an (understandable) attempt to escape the authority of the Papacy Protestants and Evangelicals have raised the profile of the Bible so that it could take the place of the Church and Tradition in the quest for reliable authority.  Making scripture the highest authority hopes to avoid the pitfalls of the Papacy.  It tries to eliminate the problem of sinful humanity.  The Bible becomes the unquestioned authority - and supposedly the final word on everything.  Except, it doesn’t eliminate the problem.  Actually, ironically, it exacerbates it!  Now it’s not just a carefully chosen select group of human-beings (and their sin) that come into play.  Now the sinfulness of every reader comes into play…  We need to reflect deeply on the status of church unity since the Reformation (Protestants breaking from the Catholic church) and the easy availability of the Bible.  In the last 300 years there have been numerous splits, breaks and divisions in churches, both in main-line denominations and in informal church groupings.  Every person is free to read their own copy of the Scriptures, and interpret it how they prefer.  Of course, this is democratic.  But it’s alos contributed to judgement, division and a lack of united and peaceful Christian witness.  We fight more amongst ourselves than we do any significant evil in this world.

I’m not arguing for a return to Autocracy - the rule of the Pope.  But I am arguing that the Protestant Project of scriptural authority has failed.  What we need is a re-member-ing of the wisdom of Christian History - that reveals a much more rich and dynamic way of dealing with the questions of authority and influence.  We must value scripture.  The Bible has not continued to have influence by accident.  It is a powerful gift to the church.  Likewise, we must value the Tradition of the Church, when the community of the the faithful have witnessed passion and obedience to God’s living Word to them - in whatever context and circumstances they found themselves.  Could the church’s witness in previous difficult times provide insight for how we can begin to respond to contemporary overwhelming problems… like global warming, poverty…?  The church has needed thoughtful and prayerful reflection.  We prayerfully engage our minds - common sense must honour God when it applies the best knowledge available to everyday challenges and ethical dilemmas.  Finally, we will shoot ourselves in the foot if we fail to recognise the very practicality of God - the work of the Spirit in the secular - the ordinary of our everyday.  Our experience of life and God and of relationship and marriage and family and worship etc. will continue to provide helpful insights and wisdom that will most often find resonance in the text of scripture as well as in the wisdom of tradition and reason.

Christians are (by definition) followers of Jesus - followers of “the Way”.  How did we get side-tracked by this distortion of our common life of faithful witness?

some people like to remember Jesus like this…

He died on the cross to make it possible for us to go to heaven.  We (humans) have all sinned and angered a righteous God.  God is (presumably) not able to forgive us in the way he forgives numerous people throughout the previous ages - by just saying “you’re forgiven”.  A payment must be made.  A suitable sacrifice must be offered to placate all this pent up anger (that would send us all to a deserved place in eternal punishment).  So Jesus dies, takes our sin upon himself, and in so doing, frees us from guilt and shame thus enabling intimate relationship with God again.  Most importantly, with such forgiveness secured, our eternal place in heaven is assured.  Good news!

Usually people who present this summary have a fairly strong committment to the authority of scripture, which they usually regard as THE vital and inerrant revelation of God’s message to people on this earth.  So as I read said scriptures it seems to me that this sumamry is not properly in line with all that is said about Jesus in the Bible.  It’s not that forgiveness of sins and reconciliation with God is not mentioned.  Of course it is.  The difficulty I have is that forgiveness of sins doesn’t seem to be top of Jesus’ agenda.  In fact, he is so busy dishing out assurance of forgiveness (Mt 9:2-5, Mk 2:5, Lk 5:20, 7:48) that he seriously ruffles the feathers of the religious types of his time, who spent their energy (surprise!) carefully clarifying what EXACTLY was required to please God and earn sufficient atonement.  They are so offended by this generous display of absolution that they accuse him of the highest offence in Jewish Law (breaking the first commandment) - blasphemy.  see Mark 2:7 and John 10:33.  I would argue that it is on these very grounds - with this kind of self-righteous motivation - that the religious leaders of Jerusalem did whatever was required to have Jesus “eliminated” (to use a euphamism more common in political circles…)

Jesus’ great preoccupation was with trying to proclaim that Kingdom of God (Heaven) was already here/near/amongst you (some translations even render “within you”).  “To proclaim release for the captives, sight to the blind, good news to the poor…”

The greater evil in our world is not people who have not repented and confessed their sin.  (Many of them have, they simply don’t want to have anything to do with religion - an interesting distinction that religious groupings will need to consider carefully…)  The real evil is people who claim to have repented - who are openly religious - and yet continue to live without grace, perpetrating some of the greatest acts of injustice, hatred, oppression, cruelty and blindness.

Christianity (and I think Islam as well) must answer for how it has failed to honour the teaching of it’s own scriptures… “do not judge”, do not condemn”, “do not resist an evil doer”, “love your enemies”, “pray for those who persecute you”…

Religious people (so easily, and regularly, it seems) feel the need to delimit the boundaries of God’s forgiveness, allowing the “story” to beomce about who’s IN and who’s not.  Re-member-ing the story of Jesus, and the glorious good news that the Bible offers to a hurting and broken world, requires a re-reading of scripture, seeking to open ourselves to all that Jesus is about.  Jesus’ agenda is contained in John 10:10, life (in all it’s fulness).  Heaven is not so much the goal as it is the measure.  the measure of how well we are grasping and living the life that God has intended.  Eternal life is not worth considering draggin ourselves through until we’ve allowed God’s Spirit to bring us to life - to know what it means to really live!  Then eternal life will be something to look forward to…

if only we could forget all the limiting stuff we’ve heard about Jesus and be able to read the Bible again, as if for the first time…

if only we could forgive people as willingly, and quickly as our heavenly Father seems to…

if only we could catch a glimpse of the earth/world/universe transforming vision that motivated and guided all that Jesus said and did…

what made the NP (apartheid) government overthrow PW Botha (at the historic cabinet meeting in George)?

My first take on that (from my tender teen-age perspective) was that FW de Klerk was an intelligent and reasonable man who, along with others, saw the errors of the apartheid ways and moved for change.

Of course, later I needed to reconsider this naive view.  FW was no angel.  He sat in on cabinet meetings where conversations about “eliminating” people happened.  The TRC (and most powerfully for me, Country of my Skull by Antjie Krog) brought my attention to the levels of violence that characterised our country, especially in the last few decades of apartheid.  This raised the question: was it the armed struggle, the work of Umkhonto we Sizwe and the spiralling violence and unrest that finally brought the NP government to the negotiating table?

Even more recently I was invited to consider another alternative.  Non-violent resistance to the apartheid government included rallies, stay-aways and boycotts.  Under the UDF this pressure intensified.  International resistance to the South African regime was also intensifying with increased political pressure and economic sanctions.  To what extent did non-violent resistance contribute to a negotiated settlement and democratic elections in 1994?

It seems FW would like history to remember him as a humanitarian.  People who suffered and lost friends and family in the armed struggle and violent resistance would (understandably) want the comfort of knowing that their effort was not in vain.  And those who continue to keep hope that non-violent resistance is not only an ethical but also effective way of dealing with violence and oppression, would obviously prefer to emphasise the value and significance of non-violent contributions to change in South Africa…

so what’s the truth?

the literal meaning of the word muslim is “one who submits to God”.  if that be the case, i am (proudly) a muslim.

the history of the relationship between christians and muslims has been one of opposition and conflict.  having grown up in the “christian west” i have experienced the way that history is retold.  For me, this always included a certain way of speaking about Islam that portrayed that religion in terms of threat.

Even today, with conflict in the middle east, people in (relatively) unaffected southern africa have strong opinions and characteristic ways of speaking about Muslims.

I think christians (and especially the zealous kind) have a lot in common with many muslims.  We are keen to share our convictions with others.  We believe we have found the “truth” and that we are (more) right than anyone else.  We are sincerely convinced that we know the way to please God.  We appeal to our scriptures as a primary (and final) authority.

In fact, christians who view the Bible as a product of divine inspiration with no real human involvement in it’s authorship reflect a strong resembalnce to to the most common Islamic view of the Q’uran.  For most Muslims the Q’uran is believed to be an accurate word-for-word transcription of the “original” text given to the prophet Mohammed to record.  These are the exact words of Allah given to people to aid their submission to the Almighty.

Not all Christians understand the Bible in this way.  In fact, I would argue that in the Christian tradition, this view of scripture is not the way of the faithful through the ages.  Faithful Christ-following has been a product of careful interpretation of scripture.  The perception of the Bible as a book that dropped out of heaven can be seen as a relatively recent historical occurence which reflects a deviation from the traditional interpretive understanding.

Last year I attended a Muslim Propogation Soceity rally.  I felt safe and respected.  The speakers were sincere.  They communicated a respect for other views.  They reminded us that people can be sincerely wrong or simply ignorant.  They sought to help us understand the limits of our knowledge and understanding by showing the relative value of adopting the Islamic view of various things.  I think they were sincerely moticated by loving conern.  If they are right, and if we are misguided, shouldn’t they seek to share their insight with us - for our benefit?  (a familiar argument?)  Mostly they compared the Bible with the Q’uran showing how (if we accept the assumption that Holy Scriptures drop out of the sky from God to humans) the Q’uran is a far more reliable source than the Bible. (which from a scrictly textual critical perspective it is!)

They also encouraged us to acknowledge (properly) the belief in ONE God - identifying the dangers of Trinitarian thinking - and taking Christians to their own Bible, showed them that in the original Hebrew texts, the name for God is recorded as “Allah”.

At question time I  stood up and  conceded that if to be a Muslim one needed to “submit to the will of [the one] GOd”, then I was a Muslim!  The room cheered and I was rewarded with a complimentary copy of the Q’uran.  I then asked a curious question about interpretations of the Q’uran (recognising from my own experience of the Bible that the greatest problems are not about agreeing on the sources of the text, but rather on how those texts should be understood…)

The speaker was not willing to concede that there are significant differences in interpretations of the Q’uran, by different “schools” or “teachers”…  Perhaps in a more frank and open conversation - without the need to convince a crowd - a Muslim may acknowledge some difficulties with the interpretation and application of the text to current and contextual challenges.  Somehow I find it hard to believe that there are not varying opinions within Islam on how the “law” is to be interpretted.

If only we could see beyond the competition.

I am not suggesting that Islam and Christianity are “different paths up the mountain”.  I think they are distinct and unique and different in many significant ways.  And I am even clearer now (having visited a Muslim rally) that I am a Jesus-follower.  What I am suggesting is that we have more in common than we would like to admit.  And that if we could re-member our “history” and reconsider some of our opposition stories there might be space for us to tell stories of humanity and relationship… stories of living as neighbours and stories of respect and mutual understanding.

At the very least, i think we could stop killing each other!

there are some threads running through my last few reflections on this blog…

yes.  it always matters who is saying it, but sometimes it’s irritating who it comes from!

the thing we seem not to learn from painful experience is that we often don’t learn from it.

part of that is because there is no one story - there is no single history.  just as there is no one “truth”.  there is a quest for truth, no doubt.  and there is our truth.  that is, the way we tell the story.

these are all the “threads of truth”.

this is why memory is so interesting.  history will tell the story in a very limited way.  historians do their best work when they get beyond simple re-telling and ask: why have we come to tell story in this particular way?  (and the follow-on questions, who benefits from this way of telling?  who is remembered?  who is forgotten?)

remembering is not a science.  memory is the work of those seek meaning.  re-member-ing is the work of those who intentionally and actively look beyond the most common ways of telling “the” story… and piece together the threads.  they choose to value all the “members” of the story, both the members of the story who are honoured by the retelling AND those members of the story who have been side-lined or simply forgotten.  memory is the work of honouring the untold stories - the untold “truths”.

re-member-ing is the work of open-minded and open-hearted people.  curious people.  people who seek to put their dominant opinions on hold just long enough to consider another perspective on events.  and then drawing together the threads to allow the lost members to find their place in the story again.  it is a work of tracing lost threads and weaving them back into the fabric of the story.

the work of confession and repentance is always about re-member-ing.  gracious YHWH helps us to re-tell the story before him, drawing together lost threads of truth that, being neglected, have caused us to live (and tell the story of) a half-life.  memory will help us to tell a more complete (and complex) story of our own lives.  we’ll tell it with compassion.  and our compassion for others will grow.

there’s no need for violence or “justice” in God’s work of reconciliation.  (justice has always been our concern)

for a case study of history being told from one limited perspective try reading this article in the M&G: Why women should rule

I suggest you link to the John Pilger article on the M&G website. He describes how this Paul Weinberg photo has given him strength over the years - to continue to stand up to the powers of force and violence and control.

He quotes Milan Kundera, who writes: “The struggle of people against power is the struggle of memory against forgetting.”

That is the work of faithful spirituality. This is what Jesus does with the disciples who are so quick to forget. In the face of horrific violence they forget his life and teaching, his principles and his foot-washing example… They forget in the face of fear.

Fear has a way of doing that - making us forget what got us started on this path in the first place.

Jesus encourages the two disciples on the road to Emmaus to remember the long story of God’s faithfulness - as a way of helping them to overcome the fear of their immediate circumstances. “How foolish you are, and how slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken!” (Luke 24:25)

We were once moved by a vision of the Kingdom - a kingdom of peace and justice. A place of respect and dignity. Jesus painted the picture, in the long tradition of the prophets, of a time when the lion would lie down with the lamb. And he encouraged his disciples to pray “your will be done on earth as it is in heaven”. It was powerful and moving vision of a transformed world where power was used to free and build, not constrain and punish.

But power has a way of wanting more power. And control doesn’t let go of control easily. It fights and beats and maims and kills. It lies and exagerates and holds on to the bitter end. Why not? It’s got everything to lose! If control loses control then it’s lost everything!

So it beats us into submission and helps us to forget.

We forget the vision of Jesus - the kingdom of God.

We forget that God has called us to be partners in freeing people to live abundant lives.

We forget that the church and the bible and everthing religious will return to dust in the face of the Reign of God. They are not ends in themselves but simply means to an end - the purpose and will of God.

But, frustratingly, God will not move to control things toward the Kingdom. (of course God could take charge on this earth and establish the Kingdom in an instant.) To take control would be to adopt the way of control - which always leads to the protection of that control. If God were to take charge - he would have to continue to take charge. Rather he resists taking charge. He resists resorting to the way of violence. In stead God surrenders to the punishment violent and controlling people deserve - he recieves the punishment controlling people will always enforce and impose on those who refuse to submit to their control - their “word”. He does not so much speak a “word” - his non-violent resistance IS the Word - the Word of God for us: the eternal encouragement of God to trust the way of invitation andself-giving love, over powerful attempts to control and force history into submission and obedience.

When will we get it?

God does not force us to obey? He will not and will never. The Cross is the most powerful symbol of surrender to the violence of other that we will ever be given.

God is waiting.

for us!

(repentance means - stop fighting, stop controlling, stop insisting, stop condemning, stop condemning, stop condemning, stop. and start loving, praying, waiting, listening, watching, praying, praying, praying…)

…to be continued…

how do you face a tragedy?

I sometimes sit with a family who are preparing a funeral for a loved one.  Paying tribute to the deceased is an important part of the funeral service, and the grieving process.  (assuming that the person who has died was really loved and appreciated by the family…) the family often hesitate over the tribute, voicing the fear that they “might not be able to”.  by this they mean they might be overcome with emotion and cry while speaking.

My question is why would we want to avoid tears at a time like this?  Ok, so there’s the public eye.  No-one wants to stand sobbing in front of a group of people.  But is that it?  Have we in some way conditioned ourselves not to feel.  Are feelings of pain, sadness and grief an inconvenience?  even an irritation?  Or perhaps just an embarrassment?

What does weeping during a tribute suggest?  That the person weeping is weak?  That the person weeping has loved and lost?

my sense is that we approach tragedy with our feelings well hidden.  (a huge generalisation, but made on the basis of a growing assessment of a cultural “way of being” of which I am a part.) On Good Friday we come to tragedy of the Jesus’ death on a cross with our heads.  We analyse and consider and theologise the Cross - and in so doing probably miss the horror and the absurdity of Jesus’ death.  We sit and stare at a Cross - the symbol of tortuous punishment and death - and come to some carefully considered opinion about it’s significance.

and then we go home and eat hot-cross buns.

I think we need a dose of feeling.  we need to encounter good friday, and the cross of Jesus, with our hearts.

This Friday co-incided with the anniversary of the Sharpeville Massacre.  In 1960 69 people were killed - mostly shot as they fled the gun-fire of South African police.  Innocent people killed while protesting the discrimitary nature of the pass-laws which required all black south africans to carry special “pass” identification with them at all times.

When we take time to remember - when we face the tragedy - we are tempted to analyse, to attach significance. That’s ok, we are meaning-makers.  that’s what we do.

But when do we weep?  When do we face the absolute tragedy of an innocent person condemned to painful death for no real reason?

on monday i invited people to look back and remember this past year under four headings:

the triumph -  the victory, the goal reached, the great achievement…

the ache -  the pain, the loss, the bereavement…

the hunger -  helpful or hurtful, the healthy longing, the harmful addiction…

the growing clarity -  in the light of the above, finish the sentence: One thing that is becoming increasingly clear to me is that…

take a few minutes to reflect and write something under each of these “headings”