Read an article on hermeneutics that essentially described modernism as the objective pursuit of facts, which when gathered would represent 'truth.' One common thread of postmodernism was identified as "an attempt to undo the damage associated with the 'modern'."(Loren Wilkinson "Hermeneutics & the Postmodern Reaction Against 'Truth'"Act of Bible Reading, 116). Wilkinson summarizes the Postmodern Hermeneutic in 2 points. "1. The modern project has erred by searching for absolute, objective knowledge that is accessible through a precisely definable method. 2. We need to recognize that understanding is tentative, personal, subjective and ad hoc. . . . Knowledge is a way of coping, a kind of conversation; nothing more." (133-34)
But postmodernism leads ultimately to a diverse understanding of any single text based solely on the interpreter. This is not satisfactory. Texts do not have diverse meanings. What they do possess is the power to change the interpreter when the text becomes the speech of the interpreter.
In other words, the modern attempt to seek the 'objective' truth through the pursuit of fact erred in making this truth separate from the individual. The postmodern errs in its attempt is to make the truth only that of the individual. The true interpretation of a text is neither objective nor individualistic, rather it is the text lived out in conversation. In other words, when the text becomes part of the individual so that the individual is shaped by the text, then hermeneutic has happened.
Sunday, August 19, 2012
Tuesday, August 14, 2012
Gospel Truth
Many readers of this blog will know that I have had a 'pet peeve' surrounding the term "gospel" in its many limited uses. I have no 'pet peeve' when it is used correctly in its unlimited referential context. There is a blog by Peter Enns about this particular term's limited use in modern vocalizations and he references two other blogs by David Williams (and here). I would like to simplify their argument.
Gospel refers in its original context to a proclamation of rule, in the New Testament that means the rule of the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. In its current context, 'Gospel' takes on the limited meaning and referant of telling someone they need Jesus to go to heaven. This is an oversimplification, but in this current world where words seem to have no meaning except in the group using them, "Sharing the Gospel" is the simplification of a process that found its reemergence in evangelical circles in the 1950's through Dawson Trottman and the Navigators and Bill Bright of Campus Crusade. In its original form the phrase was "Sharing the plan of Salvation." The 'plan of salvation' is limited, it refers to a recognition of our sin (total depravity for the Calvinist), the forgiveness offered by Jesus, and the call to confess Jesus as Lord/Ruler with one's mouth and believe in one's heart that God raised him from the dead. But this "plan of salvation' was only the beginning for these groups and others like Billy Graham. The unseen work was the training in discipleship, i.e. learning to live under the rule of God, and a lifetime of following God empowered by the Holy Spirit.
Any attempt to "share the gospel" and limit it to merely a plan of salvation diminishes the actual biblical message made popular in the song "Our God Reigns!" Until the people of God in the 21st Century take a lifelong commitment to the reign of God seriously, little will change. When the people of God take seriously God's reign in their life and the life of their community, God will be glorified and his reign more visibly recognized on earth as it is in heaven. Could the absence of this public prayer of Jesus lead us to forget God's reign?
Just a thought.
Gospel refers in its original context to a proclamation of rule, in the New Testament that means the rule of the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. In its current context, 'Gospel' takes on the limited meaning and referant of telling someone they need Jesus to go to heaven. This is an oversimplification, but in this current world where words seem to have no meaning except in the group using them, "Sharing the Gospel" is the simplification of a process that found its reemergence in evangelical circles in the 1950's through Dawson Trottman and the Navigators and Bill Bright of Campus Crusade. In its original form the phrase was "Sharing the plan of Salvation." The 'plan of salvation' is limited, it refers to a recognition of our sin (total depravity for the Calvinist), the forgiveness offered by Jesus, and the call to confess Jesus as Lord/Ruler with one's mouth and believe in one's heart that God raised him from the dead. But this "plan of salvation' was only the beginning for these groups and others like Billy Graham. The unseen work was the training in discipleship, i.e. learning to live under the rule of God, and a lifetime of following God empowered by the Holy Spirit.
Any attempt to "share the gospel" and limit it to merely a plan of salvation diminishes the actual biblical message made popular in the song "Our God Reigns!" Until the people of God in the 21st Century take a lifelong commitment to the reign of God seriously, little will change. When the people of God take seriously God's reign in their life and the life of their community, God will be glorified and his reign more visibly recognized on earth as it is in heaven. Could the absence of this public prayer of Jesus lead us to forget God's reign?
Just a thought.
Monday, August 13, 2012
A blog for blog followers to read
A professional colleague recently posted his perspective on the new world of blogging. It is worth the time to read: http://ntweblog.blogspot.com/2012/08/vertical-blogs-vs-horizontal-blogs.html
From his description this blog leans toward the vertical. I appreciate and enjoy interacting with commentors, however the blog is an opportunity for me to express some of my personal thoughts on the Bible and the world. For those who don't know, in the 1990's I moderated one of the early list-serve discussions started by Alan Culpepper. In the list-serve format emails were used to correspond back and forth with a discussion on a topic. The follower could either receive emails on a daily basis, thus participate actively, or receive a daily digest, thus lurk in the background and read others' discussion.
The non-professional blogger is more apt to be vertical rather than horizontal while the professional blogger who actively responds to comments more horizontal.
My observation would be that the written word always leans toward the vertical (thus the Bible) while the oral conversation leans toward the horizontal (thus the kerygma). When placed on a common Harstine example, the spectrum, this time with two axes (the plural of axis not ax or axe) similar to the x-y axis of algebraic horror stories, only represented by the horizontal (x) and vertical (y), the question is raised, Where does your view of the Bible fall? Is the Bible vertical (thus definitive and not open for discussion) or horizontal (thus descriptive and inviting discussion)?
Mor importantly, how are your verbal conversations? Do you converse vertically or horizontally? A description of this line of thinking can be found at http://www.patheos.com/blogs/rogereolson/2012/08/remembering-the-progressive-orthodoxy-of-horace-bushnell-part-two/
From his description this blog leans toward the vertical. I appreciate and enjoy interacting with commentors, however the blog is an opportunity for me to express some of my personal thoughts on the Bible and the world. For those who don't know, in the 1990's I moderated one of the early list-serve discussions started by Alan Culpepper. In the list-serve format emails were used to correspond back and forth with a discussion on a topic. The follower could either receive emails on a daily basis, thus participate actively, or receive a daily digest, thus lurk in the background and read others' discussion.
The non-professional blogger is more apt to be vertical rather than horizontal while the professional blogger who actively responds to comments more horizontal.
My observation would be that the written word always leans toward the vertical (thus the Bible) while the oral conversation leans toward the horizontal (thus the kerygma). When placed on a common Harstine example, the spectrum, this time with two axes (the plural of axis not ax or axe) similar to the x-y axis of algebraic horror stories, only represented by the horizontal (x) and vertical (y), the question is raised, Where does your view of the Bible fall? Is the Bible vertical (thus definitive and not open for discussion) or horizontal (thus descriptive and inviting discussion)?
Mor importantly, how are your verbal conversations? Do you converse vertically or horizontally? A description of this line of thinking can be found at http://www.patheos.com/blogs/rogereolson/2012/08/remembering-the-progressive-orthodoxy-of-horace-bushnell-part-two/
Sunday, August 5, 2012
BBI Part Six
For those of you not among my Facebook followers, I will start by reposting a quotation in a book chapter that got me thinking about Part Six. "The antisupernaturalist rationalism that sprang from the deism of the Enlightenment and the pantheism of the Romantic movement had combined with evolutionary euphoria to produce among the professionals a kind of theology that effectively denied the faith of the Bible and the creeds on basics like the Trinity, the incarnation, the atonement, . . ." J.I.Packer, "Theology & Bible Reading" in The Act of Bible Reading, Paternoster Press, 1996, 72. Packer's conclusion is worth including: "There can be much spiritual understanding where there is little or no technical theological education. Anyone who reads and rereads the Bible carefully and prayerfully, asking to be taught by God the Holy Spirit about knowing God through our Lord Jesus Christ, will do well; our faithful God will see to that. These pages of mine are simply making the marginal comment that some knowledge of and commitment to theology may well help such a Bible student do even better." (87).
Following Part Five: Share, Part Six is a bit more difficult, Continue Learning.
I feel that my educational experience permits the following statement, "Biblical Interpretation is not Mathematics." In mathematics a series of numbers used in a formula will always provide the same answer when kept according to mathematical theorems, i.e. 6 + 2 = 2 + 6. There is a constancy and a stability in mathematical studies that permits postulating conclusions, theorems, and corollaries. Biblical Interpretation, despite the influence of "antisupernaturalist rationalism" and/or "evolutionary euphoria" and the efforts of a multitude of scholars working in the modern period is not constant. The assessment of a "living canon" presupposes that each encounter with the biblical text produces a new, if not clearly distinct, event. Since humans are most familiar with interacting with other, living, humans an analogy might be in order despite its inherent limitations. Two individuals, friends in college, sharing experiences and retreats and teaching, do not see each other for five years. They encounter one another, now married, one with kids, the other with none. This second encounter with a living human will be new, if not clearly distinct, in the way that they relate although there will be some familiarity. Why the newness? Because each has a different frame of reference for the encounter!
Likewise, each repetitive encounter with a text will bring new, and distinct, events. Take for instance a short reading, Paul's letter to Philemon. Read it once. Read it twice, Read it twenty times. What will happen through each reading? Each reading will have a decreasing return on familiarity and perceived newness. After the 20th reading, take a moment to read a brief introductory article on the letter in a good Bible Dictionary. Now read Philemon for a twenty-first time. What just happened? Something has made the 21st reading distinct from the 20th reading. Even though after 20 readings the reader is familiar enough with the text that the changes of a 21st reading are minimal, there is an actual increase in perceived newness. What causes the change? It is the new perspective brought to the text by an outside experience.
Similarly, read Psalm 51. Read it again and again. If you are unfortunate enough to have a really, really, I mean REALLY, BIG life failure (Preferably not one that results in prison or divorce court), read Psalm 51 another time. What has happened? The living text has come powerfully alive!
So, BBI Part Six: Continue Learning is crucial to biblical interpretation. The Bible is not a mathematics table that one can memorize and then "spew, heave, retch" (you get the picture) when called upon from a static database that never changes. Instead, the Bible is a living document that grabs one by the throat and raises up to one's toes until the uncommitted victim succumbs to its authority or is cast aside unwilling to engage the potentiality of the Bible's power (envision Darth Vader, Episode 4, with the crewman of Princess Leia's starship).
Continue learning and bringing your newfound knowledge back to the task of biblical interpretation.
Following Part Five: Share, Part Six is a bit more difficult, Continue Learning.
I feel that my educational experience permits the following statement, "Biblical Interpretation is not Mathematics." In mathematics a series of numbers used in a formula will always provide the same answer when kept according to mathematical theorems, i.e. 6 + 2 = 2 + 6. There is a constancy and a stability in mathematical studies that permits postulating conclusions, theorems, and corollaries. Biblical Interpretation, despite the influence of "antisupernaturalist rationalism" and/or "evolutionary euphoria" and the efforts of a multitude of scholars working in the modern period is not constant. The assessment of a "living canon" presupposes that each encounter with the biblical text produces a new, if not clearly distinct, event. Since humans are most familiar with interacting with other, living, humans an analogy might be in order despite its inherent limitations. Two individuals, friends in college, sharing experiences and retreats and teaching, do not see each other for five years. They encounter one another, now married, one with kids, the other with none. This second encounter with a living human will be new, if not clearly distinct, in the way that they relate although there will be some familiarity. Why the newness? Because each has a different frame of reference for the encounter!
Likewise, each repetitive encounter with a text will bring new, and distinct, events. Take for instance a short reading, Paul's letter to Philemon. Read it once. Read it twice, Read it twenty times. What will happen through each reading? Each reading will have a decreasing return on familiarity and perceived newness. After the 20th reading, take a moment to read a brief introductory article on the letter in a good Bible Dictionary. Now read Philemon for a twenty-first time. What just happened? Something has made the 21st reading distinct from the 20th reading. Even though after 20 readings the reader is familiar enough with the text that the changes of a 21st reading are minimal, there is an actual increase in perceived newness. What causes the change? It is the new perspective brought to the text by an outside experience.
Similarly, read Psalm 51. Read it again and again. If you are unfortunate enough to have a really, really, I mean REALLY, BIG life failure (Preferably not one that results in prison or divorce court), read Psalm 51 another time. What has happened? The living text has come powerfully alive!
So, BBI Part Six: Continue Learning is crucial to biblical interpretation. The Bible is not a mathematics table that one can memorize and then "spew, heave, retch" (you get the picture) when called upon from a static database that never changes. Instead, the Bible is a living document that grabs one by the throat and raises up to one's toes until the uncommitted victim succumbs to its authority or is cast aside unwilling to engage the potentiality of the Bible's power (envision Darth Vader, Episode 4, with the crewman of Princess Leia's starship).
Continue learning and bringing your newfound knowledge back to the task of biblical interpretation.
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