Hermeneutical Humor

Is Your Bible Too Liberal?

Colbert on the Conservative Bible Project, 2

“The meek shall inherit the earth if we can repeal the federal estate tax. Seriously. 45 percent for estates over 3.5 million? Spareth me.”

Update: Video isn’t embedding properly, *dead link*

Update 2: Seems the above link isn’t working either … try this one.

On Elisha, Bears, and Christian Spin

Exploring our Matrix is quickly becoming one of my favorite blogs. McGrath tackles all of the fun and challenging issues in his blog that I used to tackle around the lunch table and in the dorms while in college and then seminary. I don’t have those opportunities anymore, so my theological conversations happen mostly through the internet, on Facebook, Twitter, and blog posts/comments.

One of his latest posts is of the best kind – satire. Recently, another blogger challenged other biblio-bloggers to tackle interpreting 2 Kings 23-24. In short, how would you preach it?

McGratch suggests several “semi-serious” to “not-so-serious”  attempts. If you’re willing to take them for the satire that they are, you should get a good chuckle or two!

 

 

(1) The allegorical approach: This is a well-established classic way of dealing with problem texts. The children who insult you are the negative thoughts that draw attention to your own shortcomings; the bears are the positive thoughts which you have the authority to bring to combat the negative thoughts that plague you.
(2) The rationalistic approach: For Liberals, another option is to find some sort of naturalistic, rationalistic explanation. Elisha was known to be part of a school of prophets, and was headed there when the youth insulted him. Elisha sent two of the school’s hit men to deal with the youth. They then circulated a cover story that the youth had been attacked by bears.
(3) The rabbinic Christianity approach: My own Liberal Protestant Christian faith is perhaps closest to the position of Reform Judaism, but one great thing about the Rabbinic tradition is that such an approach is not completely marginalized because of the conversational and playful approach to the text. And so offer a Talmudic-Midrashic commentary in which a number of possibilities are explored. Suggest alternative readings, such as playing on the similarity between Hebrew words for bear and slow or sluggish. Then discuss how, if they were sluggish, they could have mauled the youths. Then discuss how many of the youth were drunk and thus were slowed in their responses, and only the "bad boys" among them who were thus overly intoxicated could not get away from their sluggish attackers. Explore possibilities and a variety of interpretations; don’t pronounce any one of them as "the right interpretation".
(4) The history-of-religions approach: The final redactor of this text has given it a monotheistic spin, obscuring the fact that Elisha invoked two female warrior deities to punish the youths who accosted him.
(5) The end-of-the-world Republican antichrist approach: Take a Strong’s Concordance. Note that the Hebrew word for bear is dov. Note too that ‘d’ and ‘r’ are very similar in Hebrew and sometimes confused. And then make a YouTube video arguing that the reference here was to (Karl) Rove and the harm he caused, prophecied millenia earlier.
(6) The Morton Smith Secret Book of Kings Approach: Discover a lost manuscript in which a secret ancient Israelite Gnostic group is said to have had an expanded copy of 2 Kings, in which one finds phrases like "naked man with naked bear". Then have someone else suggest that the manuscript is a forgery, a major clue being the reference to baldness, which is too close to your own lack of hair to be coincidental.
(7) The Marcionite Approach: The evil God of the Old Testament sent bears to maul people. God the Father of Jesus would not send down fire from heaven to destroy those who rejected Jesus and his followers.
(8) The gangstas in the hood approach: The youth were a gang, armed with knives. Elisha only cursed them. The bears did the rest – in self defense. You see, the bears had a gang too, and the boys were on their turf.
(9) The dispensationalist approach: God used to send bears in response to prophets cursing their enemies. That was then, this is now. Accept the Bible’s inerrant authority, but never curse your attackers with bears, because you are in the New Covenant era.
(10) The delegated authority approach: God delegated to his spokespeople power to perform miracles. Sometimes they misused it. And so Elisha can be both a "man of God" and a "bad boy". Aren’t we all a little bit of both at times?
(11) The fill in the gaps approach: Elisha not only cursed the youth but smeared them with honey, knowing that there were bears in those woods. He later repented of having done such a horrible thing. He had been having a really bad day.

 

Beautiful!

Conformity vs. Unity

At lunch this afternoon, I read an interesting blogpost about the differences between conformity and unity — and where Christians can err when it comes to the two.

I left some stream-of-thought comments at the blog, but I quickly realized it’s a topic that warrants some further thought and some additional theological framing.

Here’s my best stab. I’d welcome yours.

As the author argues (my paraphrase), conformity is primarily about defining oneself and one’s group through negation — that is, we are we who are because we have subtracted X, Y, and Z from what we do and who we are. These groups may also define themselves by what they do, but that positive element usually takes an “us over against you” type of mentality. In short, someone from this group might say, “I’m a good person because I don’t drink, smoke, or chew, and I read my Bible and pray for two hours a day. How about you?”

She gives a very good example, the Pharisees of Jesus’ day. This group largely derived its identity from what it did and did not do over against its contemporary culture. It that defined itself by saying, “We are not you because we don’t do _____ and practice ________”

She goes on to correctly notice the parallels between the way the Pharisees defined themselves as a group and the way we tend to do so as Evangelicals. In her words,

For example: “A true Christian will not drink.” “A true Christian will never swear.” “A true Christian doesn’t wear high heels.” “A true Christian is not gay.” “A true Christian will never have premarital sex.” “A true Christian follows everything their Christian leader says.” “A true Christian does not believe in Evolution.” “A true Christian knows AIDS is God’s punishment for sexual deviants.” “And the way we can tell you are a true Christian is that you believe what every other true Christian believes; you say what every other true Christian says.”

Her argument blossoms with the claim,

The Pharisees, who led many astray and placed burdens on people that they were never meant to carry, were about conformity. Christ, from what I can tell, and what I believe, is about unity.

By her definition, unity does not necessarily imply sameness or agreement but rather implies harmony and wholeness. Conformity breaks us apart because conformity is inherently exclusive, i.e., you can only join the club if you do and say as I do. By contrast, unity is inherently inclusive because it does not insist that you do and say as I do.

All in all, I think there are some great points here, and the post has clearly got my own wheels turning. And I’d like to share some of my thoughts, as well as welcome yours.

Here, the terms conformity and unity are primarily employed sociologically, and that in itself isn’t a bad thing. But, I think that we can think about these terms theologically as well, and if we do, we might end up understanding them differently.

If conformity is defined as uncritically submitting to a set of arbitrary beliefs and practices, then let’s chuck it out the windows – I agree wholeheartedly. But what if we think about conformity in terms of sanctification, i.e., in terms of being continually renewed by God’s Spirit and being continually conformed to God’s image. If we frame “conformity” that way, isn’t it a thing to be desired?

And what about the term “unity.” It’s a term that is touted by liberals and conservatives alike, but usually means very different things depending on who you ask. Here, I get the impression the term is employed to describe a radically inclusive unity that would include anyone who names Jesus as their Lord. That’s a pretty amazing picture, I think, and I can only add one other point for clarity. If we are going to propose unity as the goal of the church, then we should be clear about what we mean, and I would suggest something like this. Christians pursue unity when and only when we collectively submit our collective will to the will of Christ. That type of unity allows for diversity – doubt, questions, and (loving) debate among Christians – and is thus inclusive. But it avoids the pitfall of an “anything goes” mentality by binding itself to Christ as the definitive qualifier.

That’s the type of church I desperately want to be a part of. The type that refuses to define itself in “us against them” terms. The type that takes Jesus seriously and is willing to admit that others may disagree and still take Jesus just as seriously. The type of church that puts more emphasis on living into the teachings of Jesus vs. fighting about which political party to embrace.

And maybe one reason why it was so hard for me to find a job is because those churches are few and far between …