Andre Rabe - Questions About the Bible In A Postmodern Era, Parts 1-12

And Our Eyes Were Opened …Part 13 in The Scripture Series

The problem of interpretation is nothing new. It was as important to the first believers as it is today. The road to Emmaus is a brilliant piece of literature in which Luke gives us a profound insight into the art of interpreting scripture. But I must begin this article with an acknowledgement. Luke 24 has… And Our Eyes Were Opened …Part 13 in The Scripture Series“>read more »

Swallowed Whole, No Questions Asked?Part 12 In The Scriptures Series. (by Dave Griffiths)

In the 1999 film ‘Fight Club’, Edward Norton’s character has an epiphany. Sobbing into Meat Loaf’s weirdly ample bosom, he confesses ‘I let go… I found freedom. Losing all hope was freedom’. Watch the clip here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BtIEquOkDpo I have had a similar experience dawn on me. I didn’t mean to find it. I was pretty… Swallowed Whole, No Questions Asked?Part 12 In The Scriptures Series. (by Dave Griffiths)“>read more »

How Does Scripture Relate To Myth?Part 11 in The Scriptures Series

… I am not convinced by the objection that the performance of a musical work of art is interpretation in a different sense from, say, reaching understanding in reading a poem or looking at a painting. All performance is primarily interpretation and seeks, as such, to be correct. In this sense it, too, is “understanding.”(1)… How Does Scripture Relate To Myth?Part 11 in The Scriptures Series“>read more »

Church: An Anthropological RevolutionPart 10 of The Sriptures Series (by Anthony Bartlett)

We should really forget the popular distinction of spirituality and religion, it is anthropology which is making the difference. What does that mean? It means that the basic way humans relate to their world shapes their core understanding of God. But the God of the Hebrew and Christian bible is remaking the human way of… Church: An Anthropological RevolutionPart 10 of The Sriptures Series (by Anthony Bartlett)“>read more »

The End Of The World – Did The Bible Get It Wrong?Part 9 of The Scriptures Series

What does the end of the world and Biblical inspiration have to do with one another? Let me put it in context: This article is part of a series regarding the scriptures. Today we’ll look specifically at the claim of inspiration found in Timothy. What does that have to do with the end of the… The End Of The World – Did The Bible Get It Wrong?Part 9 of The Scriptures Series“>read more »

Under Reconstruction: Crazy Characters, Unreliable Narrators and the Divine ArchitectPart 8 in The Scriptures Series by Brad Jersak

After Deconstruction The last years have seen a grand deconstruction of Scripture reading and interpretation—some would say of Scripture itself. Of course, this has been an ongoing centuries-long project, but two unique elements dominate the past decade: first, the ‘New Atheists’ are actually reading the Bible—carefully and, unlike liberal scholars, they have read it literally… Under Reconstruction: Crazy Characters, Unreliable Narrators and the Divine ArchitectPart 8 in The Scriptures Series by Brad Jersak“>read more »

What Would Jesus Deconstruct?Part 7 in The Scripture Series

WWJD (What Would Jesus Do) – became a popular christian slogan. I enjoyed the similarly titled book, namely, What Would Jesus Deconstruct. It is so much safer to leave these saying as popular slogans and not give them any serious thought … for one of the things Jesus would surely do today, is deconstruct our… What Would Jesus Deconstruct?Part 7 in The Scripture Series“>read more »

Caleb’s Journey With The TextPart 6 in The Scriptures Series by Caleb Miler

My father was a man who continually studied the Bible. He’s currently a 35-year veteran of pastoring local churches. During that time, I’ve watched him pour over the scriptures, all in an effort to “get to know” this God. Much of what I believe today was fundamentally influenced by his wrestling with the scriptures and… Caleb’s Journey With The TextPart 6 in The Scriptures Series by Caleb Miler“>read more »

When God Disagrees with ScripturePart 5 in The Scriptures Series

How often have you found yourself drifting away while listening to a monologue? When the Chicago Statement of Inerrancy says that Scripture has one divine author and that it is wholly and verbally God-given, without error or fault in everything it states … it basically tells us to shut up and listen. There is no… When God Disagrees with ScripturePart 5 in The Scriptures Series“>read more »

The Vulnerability of Scriptures.Part 4 in The Scriptures Series

When I was 4 years old, I thought my dad was a superhero. He could do nothing wrong. Later on in life I discovered that he was indeed human – not as inerrant as I first imagined. His humanness did not deteriorate our relationship, in fact it enriched it. I discovered that I could learn… The Vulnerability of Scriptures.Part 4 in The Scriptures Series“>read more »

Original Biblical Manuscripts to be Destroyed!Part 3 in The Scriptures Series

You can imagine the outcry such action would cause. But no need to panic – that is not about to happen. The original biblical manuscripts have already been destroyed … now panic! We have many translations of the Bible. Some people maintain that any apparent errors in the text are due to translation – that the… Original Biblical Manuscripts to be Destroyed!Part 3 in The Scriptures Series“>read more »

The Error of InerrancyPart 2 in The Scriptures Series

The Bible has been a part of my life for as long as I can remember. Before I could read, it was read to me. Unlike other children’s stories, these had a ring of truth about them for not all the stories had happy endings. In fact the tragedy of the crucifixion had me in… The Error of InerrancyPart 2 in The Scriptures Series“>read more »

Inserted Into a Living NarrativePart 1 in The Scriptures Series

I’m paging through a travel magazine that features safaris in Africa. The pictures are stunning …  and normally I would find these images very engaging, yet I skim through the magazine with little interest. The reason is simple: I’m sitting a few feet away from a camp fire overlooking a vast african landscape. The magazine…Inserted Into a Living NarrativePart 1 in The Scriptures Series“>read more »

Transparent Moments of Scholarship when a Theologian Must Either Stay or Change, Part 16 - Jared Byas

Jared Byas

“aha” moments (19): Jared Byas

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/peterenns/2015/03/aha-moments-19-jared-byas/

by Peter Enns

March 16, 2015

Comments

Today’s post is part of our continuing yet intermittent “aha” moment series, this from Jared Byas.

Byas (BA in Philosophy from Liberty University and an MAR from Westminster Theological Seminary) was in pastoral ministry from 2004 until 2011. He then left to teach Philosophy & Ethics at Grand Canyon University and co-launch MyOhai, a collective of creatives and advisers (that he now runs under the name EMDASH) where he advises individuals and organizations on how to communicate better. In 2012 he co-wrote Genesis for Normal People with me and in 2013 he became the founding operations director for Experience Institute, an innovative graduate school alternative based in Chicago.

Byas and his wife Sarah live in suburban Philadelphia and have four children: Augustine (6), Tov (5), Elletheia (3), & Exodus (1).

* * * * * * * * * *

Some teenagers dream of being musicians or sports stars. My dream was seminary — and becoming a Christian apologist. So, after receiving a B.A. in philosophy at a self-described conservative Christian university my new wife and I moved states for me to live the dream.

Little did I know the dream would include lying awake for countless nights alternating between intense fear that I might go to hell for changing my views about the Bible and giddy excitement, like I had just opened the Bible again for the first time.

Just like many in this series, my “aha” moments concerning the Bible came from actually studying it in my seminary Bible classes and followed Thomas Kuhn’s description of paradigm shift perfectly: minor shifts that over time forced a new framework for understanding the whole.

But a few of those shifts were more memorable than others.

The first was discovering the work of Walter Brueggemann. His Texts Under Negotiation and Prophetic Imagination reminded me of a quote by the great jazz saxophonist Charlie Parker, “Master your instrument, master the music, and then forget that shit and just play.”

When Brueggemann could quote the latest scholarship and garner the respect of the academy while also penning phrases like,

Thus every totalitarian regime is frightened of the artist. It is the vocation of the prophet

to keep alive the ministry of imagination, to keep on conjuring and proposing futures

alternative to the single one the king wants to urge as the only thinkable one...

(Prophetic Imagination, 40)

it was evident that he was engaged in playful mastery.

His writings asked that I stop trying to make the Bible “relevant” (an important phrase in my tradition), whether it be to culture, contemporary church polity, or theology, and instead immerse myself with such abandon that I became relevant to the text.

He showed me that scholarship coupled with deep imagination is the heart of the theological enterprise; that is, he modeled for me the responsibility of pursuing biblical scholarship beyond my own ideological idols and gave me the permission to do it with imagination and passion.

And he let me know it probably wouldn’t be well received by those in power.

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My second memorable “aha” moment was my interaction with Jon Levenson, professor of Jewish Studies at Harvard. After reading his entire corpus and exchanging emails with him for a graduate seminar on Old Testament Theology I felt like I had gone through rehab and boot camp, all in one semester.

Like Brueggemann, Levenson continued to indulge my fascination with “playful mastery.” But Brueggemann, though he had given me the courage to chart a different course, hadn’t really given me any maps. Through his sharp analyses of biblical conflict, tension, and contradiction, Levenson was my map.

Levenson effortlessly quotes biblical and rabbinic texts to animate the conflict within the traditions behind the Hebrew Bible in Sinai & Zion. He creatively interrogates how Deuteronomy and the Holiness Code (Leviticus 17–26) may point to a cover-up about child sacrifice in The Death and Resurrection of the Beloved Son.

And he does it all with an evident passion and respect for the text that avoids both religious eisegesis and dismissive antagonism.

I came to seminary with an protectionist Calvinist orientation, and chose my seminary for that reason. But I came to see that Levenson and Brueggemann took the Bible more seriously than I or my tradition did—or anyone I had read before—and it led them to dangerously refreshing and compelling conclusions.

Their tenacious sincerity about the text wasn’t a means to defending already existing dogmas but a means to understanding, and beyond that, imagination. That was new for me. And I was hooked.

In full disclosure, those months were difficult for me. During this time, I was a teaching pastor and was constantly wrestling with how these “aha” moments would affect my congregation, and, to be honest, my paycheck. They were also hard on my wife, who noticed a change in me. One morning she finally said, “I feel like you’ve lost your convictions about Christianity. What’s going on?”

That stung. I had always prided myself on being a person of conviction. But she was right. And she was also wrong.

I said, “If you mean my convictions about how to read the Bible, then yes. But if you mean my love for the Bible itself, then no. I think I’ve just now found it.” That was enough for her. And thankfully we’ve been on a beautiful journey of faith together ever since.

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Index to Series -

Transparent Moments of Scholarship when a Theologian Must Either Stay or Change

Part 1 - Introduction

Part 2 - Peter Enns

Part 3 - John Byron

Part 4 - Daniel Kirk

Part 5 - Michael Pahl

Part 6 - Charles Halton

Part 7 - Christopher W. Skinner

Part 8 - Christopher M. Hays

Part 9 - Michael L. Ruffin

Part 10 - Athony Le Donne

Part 11 - Chris Tilling

Part 12 - Megan DeFranza

Part 13 - Carlos Bovell

Part 14 - Lindsey Trozzo

Part 15 - Anonymous

part 16 - Jared Byas

Meet Christopher Skinner in Faith and Conversation

Christopher W. Skinner

Crux Sola: An Interview with Christopher W. Skinner

http://nblo.gs/12ded2

by Allan R. Bevere

December 22, 2014

Today's interview is with Christopher Skinner, who is Associate Professor of Religion at the University of Mount Olive in North Carolina. I got to know Christopher when we became contributors to a recent book published by InterVarsity Press, Jesus Is Lord, Caesar Is Not: Evaluating Empire in New Testament Studies. Chris blogs at Crux Sola (along with Nijay Gupta). I have found him to be a careful scholar and a person of deep and questioning Christian faith. If you have not read anything he has written, you need to do so.

Let the interview begin.

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ARB: Tell us a little about yourself.

CWS: Well, that's a little open-ended! I guess I'll start with the most important things first. I have been married to my wife, Tara, since 1997 and our lives together revolve around caring for our three children, Christopher (14), Abby (12), and Drew (9). The four of them are the very best things in my life.

When I am not with my family, I serve as Associate Professor of Religion at the University of Mount Olive in North Carolina, where I have taught since 2010. I have a Ph.D. in Biblical Studies from the Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C. (2007), where I was privileged to spend significant time with a "who's who" of NT scholars, including Francis J. Moloney, Frank Matera, Joseph Fitzmyer, and Raymond Collins. 

I'm also a huge fan of the NFL franchise based in Washington, D.C., as well as the Baltimore Orioles…..which essentially means that I have been disappointed every football and baseball season for the better part of two decades.

ARB: What has been your faith journey, thus far? What are your core beliefs as a Christian?

CWS: I have talked about this a bit elsewhere. I was raised in a church culture that was quite conservative. That conservatism included how literally we interpreted the Bible and extended to social and political conservatism as well. While that foundation served me well in some respects throughout my youth and early adulthood, I ultimately found it to be far too restrictive in too many ways.

However, in that context I began to recognize something of a "calling" when I was about 14 years old, though I refused to acknowledge it until I was about 19. I guess you can say that I began to pursue that calling in my early 20s though it looks much different today than it did back then and certainly much different than I expected it to look when I first began the journey.

As far as my "core beliefs" go, I would say that I confess the Apostles' Creed (which we actually recite weekly at my church), even if there are some things in the creed that give me pause. I guess my core beliefs are somewhat Barthian in that I believe Jesus Christ must be the focus of a uniquely Christian faith.

ARB: How have you progressed as a scholar? What did you believe that you no longer can?

CWS: I would say that my progression as a scholar has been steadily incremental during this first full decade of my teaching career. Of course, the most dramatic growth took place during my doctoral program. Compared to most of my colleagues and friends, I had a fairly atypical experience. While many are able to devote themselves solely to a course of study during their doctoral program, I did not have that opportunity. I was married with children and serving on the full-time pastoral staff at a church in Baltimore while working on my Ph.D. at Catholic University. Though this schedule was demanding and created tremendous work (and stress) for me, it was an ideal situation in many ways.

The rigorous emphasis on developing competency in Greek, Hebrew, Coptic, Aramaic, Syriac, etc.-- which was a real hallmark of the program at CUA-- along with a focus on staying close to the text, helped me develop in more ways than I could have ever imagined. When you are that close to a text, its original language(s), and all the trappings of its interrelated cultures, previously "clear" theological formulations and doctrinal commitments can easily become very messy. 

This caused problems for my faith but also opened up other vistas that I never imagined. On the other hand, there was a real sense of urgency in my mind each week, to consider in fresh ways the significance of these texts for the community of faith I was serving. All of this made me much more sensitive to both ancient and modern contexts.

My progression as a scholar continues but it's not as dramatic. It helps to explain it like this: when you see your children every day, you don't get a true impression of how much they're actually growing. But when you look back at pictures from the previous year, you get a real sense of their growth and how dramatic it actually is. Every so often I'll read something I wrote a few years before or listen to something I previously taught or preached, and only then do I get a feel for how I've progressed. 

If I'm being completely honest with you, there are many things that I no longer believe, though I'm not sure it would be helpful to list all of them here. Perhaps it will be helpful for me to express it this way: There have been times when certain biblical texts spoke to me and edified me in clear and substantive ways-- ways that essentially determined major trajectories in my life. Today, those texts do not (and in most cases, cannot) speak to me with that same voice from the past. There's an inevitable sense of mourning and even disillusionment associated with that reality, though I am also driven to discover the new voices and different ways through which the text can speak. These days I find that I don't have a lot of answers, just a lot more questions. 

As I get older, my parents have gotten much smarter(!), and my mother has actually been immensely helpful as I wrestle with these issues. She's a very keen thinker with a great sensitivity toward the fragility of the human experience. I often bounce these things off of her to see if she has arrived at any more clarity than I have. Even if I don't arrive at answers, I find edification in the very conversation.

ARB: What have you written and published. What are you looking to write in the future?

CWS: My specific interests lie in the areas of Jesus and the gospel traditions. I have written or edited six books, all but one of which are devoted to issues in the interpretation of the gospels. I have just finished a manuscript for an introductory level textbook entitled, Reading John, which is set to be published in the Cascade Companions series early next year:

http://wipfandstock.com/catalogsearch/result/index/q=cascade+companions&t_imprint=13441. 

I am currently working on two projects, both of which are under contract. The first is a book I'm co-authoring with my blog mate, Nijay Gupta entitled, Across the Spectrum of New Testament Studies (Baker, 2017). That book aims to present an accessible and balanced introduction to the "spectrum" of viewpoints on key issues in New Testament studies. For each subject, between two and five positions are outlined, addressing the strengths and weaknesses of each stance.

The second project is an edited volume entitled, Johannine Ethics: The Moral World of the Gospel and Epistles of John (Fortress, 2017). Once these two projects are completed, I hope to write a few things for a wider audience than just students and scholars in the field of New Testament studies. I would like to address bigger questions for a much broader readership.

ARB: Too many persons, unfortunately think faith and scholarship are mutually exclusive. How do you bring the two together?

CWS: I don't think there's any formula for living in the midst of the tension that is created by the messy conclusions of biblical scholarship juxtaposed with the sometimes "tidy" world of faith commitments. I will admit that it is not easy for me. I often find sermons intellectually dishonest and condescending, which can make the tension even more unbearable. I have told my wife over and over that so often I feel like the father in Mark 9 who exclaims, "I believe. Help my unbelief."

I also think it is important to strive for intellectual honesty at every turn and admit when a belief either no longer makes sense or is no longer useful in light of what we are learning about the Bible and the world around us. In my thinking about theology I rely a lot upon the Wesleyan Quadrilateral. What I believe has to make sense in the contexts of reason, Scripture, tradition, and experience.

ARB: As a scholar and a churchman, what would you like to say to the church in general?

CWS: I would love for churches to stop baptizing their political ideologies in the name of Christianity and mining the pages of the Bible for proof texts that will support their political views and affiliations. Recently a study was released that found that an overwhelming majority of Christians in the United States were not opposed to torture. This leads me to wonder, does Christianity conceive of Jesus as the Prince of Peace or the Purveyor of Preemptive Justice? There's a lot more I could say here, but let’s fix one thing at a time.

ARB: If you could attend your ideal church, how would it look?

CWS: I have always found this to be such a difficult question. If we are to believe the accounts we read in the NT, Jesus was a very counter-cultural, non-institutional figure. So a major problem with ecclesiastical expressions of Christianity is that they build entire institutions with their own intentionally normative culture(s).

Ideally, I would love to be a part of an inclusive community that takes Jesus seriously. Too often in western churches the things we should take literally (like turning the other cheek, praying for our enemies) are spiritualized while things like "being forgiven so that we can go to heaven" (never explicitly mentioned in the NT) are literalized to the point of becoming the only basis of faith.

Also, I grew up in a Baptist church and there was always lots of food, so I guess an ideal church would also have an abundant supply of fresh, flaky biscuits. :-)

ARB: Thanks Chris for your time. If you would like to interact with Dr. Skinner, please visit his blog, Sola Crux.

The Collision Between "Beliefs and Facts" and the Evangelical Narrative

evangelicalism, evolution, and the facts

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/peterenns/2014/08/evangelicalism-evolution-and-the-facts/

by Peter Enns

August 13, 2014

Comments

A recent article in the NYT talks about the collision between “beliefs and facts.” It struck a chord.

The author, Brendan Nyhan, argues that simply “knowing” scientific data, for example on evolution or climate change, isn’t as important as one’s beliefs and group identity–be it political or religious.

The force that determines where people eventually wind up is their ideology and the group to which they belong, which give them a coherent life-narrative.

Here is the key point of the article:

In a new study, a Yale Law School professor, Dan Kahan, finds that the divide over belief in evolution between more and less religious people is wider among people who otherwise show familiarity with math and science, which suggests that the problem isn’t a lack of information. When he instead tested whether respondents knew the theory of evolution, omitting mention of belief, there was virtually no difference between more and less religious people with high scientific familiarity. In other words, religious people knew the science; they just weren’t willing to say that they believed in it.

Mr. Kahan’s study suggests that more people know what scientists think about high-profile scientific controversies than polls suggest; they just aren’t willing to endorse the consensus when it contradicts their political or religious views. This finding helps us understand why my colleagues and I have found that factual and scientific evidence is often ineffective at reducing misperceptions and can even backfire on issues like weapons of mass destruction, health care reform and vaccines. With science as with politics, identity often trumps the facts.

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Applying this to the question of Christianity and evolution, it’s not enough to “show people the facts” of the fossil record or genetics, even if in doing so some change of thinking results.

If anyone wants to re-educate evangelicalism about evolution, they need to do more than “re-educate” evangelicals–it takes more than slides and YouTube videos explaining the compelling evidence.

Education doesn’t correct bad thinking if one’s narrative relies on that bad thinking. One also has to offer an alternate coherent and attractive structure whereby people can handle these new ways of thinking without feeling as if their entire faith and life hang in the balance.

I wrote Inspiration and Incarnation, The Evolution of Adam, and The Bible Tells Me So with this process in mind. The “aha” moments series I am currently running lays out examples of others (and more to come) who have come to accept, for various reasons, an alternate “structure” for their theological narratives–specifically, how they read the Bible.

If you’ll allow me to get on my soap box, this entire evangelical dilemma comes down to: “What is the Bible and what do I do with it?”

Learning to read the Bible differently–in a manner that is consistent with reason, tradition, and experience (yes, that is the Episcopalian “three-legged stool” and 3/4 of the Wesleyan Quadrilateral)–is the key issue for evangelicalism in order to relax a bit about evolution and think through it rather than reacting and vilifying others.

Unfortunately, holding fast to familiar ways of reading the Bible is the core pillar of the evangelical narrative structure. And there you have the problem facing evangelicalism in a nutshell.

It’s a hard thing to let go of. But for those who are ready to, alternate narrative structures abound and many have found a good home elsewhere and haven’t lost their faith in the process.

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Do Americans understand the scientific consensus about issues like climate change and evolution?

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/07/06/upshot/when-beliefs-and-facts-collide.html?_r=1

by Brendan Nyhan

July 5, 2014 

At least for a substantial portion of the public, it seems like the answer is no. The Pew Research Center, for instance, found that 33 percent of the publicbelieves “Humans and other living things have existed in their present form since the beginning of time” and 26 percent think there is not “solid evidence that the average temperature on Earth has been getting warmer over the past few decades.” Unsurprisingly, beliefs on both topics are divided along religious and partisan lines. For instance, 46 percent of Republicans said there is not solid evidence of global warming, compared with 11 percent of Democrats.

As a result of surveys like these, scientists and advocates have concluded that many people are not aware of the evidence on these issues and need to be provided with correct information. That’s the impulse behind efforts like the campaign to publicize the fact that 97 percent of climate scientistsbelieve human activities are causing global warming.

In a new study, a Yale Law School professor, Dan Kahan, finds that the divide over belief in evolution between more and less religious people iswider among people who otherwise show familiarity with math and science, which suggests that the problem isn’t a lack of information. When he instead tested whether respondents knew the theory of evolution, omitting mention of belief, there was virtually no difference between more and less religious people with high scientific familiarity. In other words, religious people knew the science; they just weren’t willing to say that they believed in it.

Photo Credit: Eiko Ojala

Mr. Kahan’s study suggests that more people know what scientists think about high-profile scientific controversies than polls suggest; they just aren’t willing to endorse the consensus when it contradicts their political or religious views. This finding helps us understand why my colleagues and I have found that factual and scientific evidence is often ineffective at reducing misperceptions and can even backfire on issues like weapons of mass destruction, health care reform and vaccines. With science as with politics, identity often trumps the facts.

So what should we do? One implication of Mr. Kahan’s study and other research in this field is that we need to try to break the association between identity and factual beliefs on high-profile issues – for instance, by making clear that you can believe in human-induced climate change and still be a conservative Republican like former Representative Bob Inglis or an evangelical Christian like the climate scientist Katharine Hayhoe.Continue reading the main story

But we also need to reduce the incentives for elites to spread misinformationto their followers in the first place. Once people’s cultural and political views get tied up in their factual beliefs, it’s very difficult to undo regardless of the messaging that is used.

It may be possible for institutions to help people set aside their political identities and engage with science more dispassionately under certain circumstances, especially at the local level. Mr. Kahan points, for instance, to the relatively inclusive and constructive deliberations that were conducted among citizens in Southeast Florida about responding to climate change. However, this experience may be hard to replicate – on the Outer Banks of North Carolina, another threatened coastal area, the debate over projected sea level rises has already become highly polarized.

The deeper problem is that citizens participate in public life precisely because they believe the issues at stake relate to their values and ideals, especially when political parties and other identity-based groups get involved – an outcome that is inevitable on high-profile issues. Those groups can help to mobilize the public and represent their interests, but they also help to produce the factual divisions that are one of the most toxic byproducts of our polarized era. Unfortunately, knowing what scientists think is ultimately no substitute for actually believing it.

Transparent Moments of Scholarship when a Theologian Must Either Stay or Change, Part 15 - Anonymous

“aha” moments: a pastor tells his story (15): anonymous

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/peterenns/2014/08/aha-moments-a-pastor-tells-his-story-15-anonymous/

by Peter Enns

August 11, 2014

Comment

I have long thought that the #1 factor in bringing about theological change is that “life happens”–new experiences that cannot be held in old containers.

Many (but not all) of the “aha” moments posted thus far, including my own, have centered on some moments of intellectual clarity concerning Scripture that led to rethinking one’s view of the Bible, faith, and life.

For others, like today’s anonymous author, “aha” moments originate in painful personal experiences that drive one to go back and re-examine one’s theology.

I’m sure many readers will resonate with the author’s story–it is tragically common–and you will see the wisdom of his request to remain anonymous. I honor the author for wanting to tell his story and am privileged that he asked if he could post it as part of this series.

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I am a pastor. I wish I had been a scholar and could have gotten my a-ha on with study and consideration. My a-ha, sadly, began with oh-no.

From the time I was a teenager I was taught that the Bible was “the Maker’s Manufacturer’s Instruction Manual.” I remember my parents having a sign that read: “God said it, I believe it, That settles it” in our car.

I was taught that the Bible “was” God’s Word and that was very different than the Bible “containing” God’s Word.

It was made obvious that everything in the Bible could be supported by everything else in the Bible without one single contradiction.

I was taught that everything needed a chapter and verse and then you were golden.

It was with the wooden-literalism of what is today being called Biblicism that I was taught to:

• Follow exactly, the Matthew 18 model of confrontation — being sure to get the math exactly right (just two, take two, between two and three, etc.) “Have you Matthew 18’d them yet?”

• Keep women out of the pastorate as they were to keep silent in church (because only the modern-day pastoral vocation was in mind in 1 Timothy 2:12) and we needed them in Sunday School, up through Junior High, anyway.

• Always have all the children in all the worship services, per Matthew 19:14 “let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them.”

• Stop and unleash all bad thoughts I’d had about a person to them and ask for forgiveness (Matthew 5:23 “If you are offering your gift at the altar and there remember that your brother has something against you…) I was also taught that only Catholics had altars and they weren’t Christians.

• Demand head coverings for women (1 Corinthians 11:6, If a woman does not cover her head, she should have her hair cut off; and if it is a disgrace for a woman to have her hair cut or shaved off, she should cover her head.) Okay, we did eventually find a workaround for that one.

• Oh, and of course, to not entertain an accusation against an elder unless it is brought by two or three witnesses. (1 Timothy 5:19 says: Do not.)

I was taught not to be a liberal, to have a high view of Scripture, and to stay off of slopes that were slippery by sticking with those who were right and taking the Bible seriously because they were taking it literally.

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In our church there was a lady who brought an accusation, of sorts, about an elder. She had an uneasy feeling about him that she couldn’t identify. I told her she should talk to him as they were family friends. We prayed. She did. We Matthew 18’d him.

She returned to me much later with the same feeling, indicating that it was a feeling she had about him with my young daughter. We prayed. I went to him.

No one else had said a word, so when the woman returned much later, and the two of us prayed, and then went to him, and then to he and his wife, I was staying well within 1 Timothy 5.

Then the two of us with another elder prayed, and went to him when she came to me the next time. She couldn’t identify the problem, and though some instances could be seen where there wasn’t always the greatest maturity being shown by this man, there was nothing suspect.

No one was bringing a specific accusation against this guy, and up until this time only one woman had a weird feeling. We kept 1 Timothy 5:19 in clear view.

Over time, as her feelings and paranoia increased (to the point that she came to believe she might even be dealing with mental illness), things began to change and the elder-in-question’s behavior became very strange and erratic. In a tumultuous series of events it came out that the man had been molesting my daughter for several years.

Oh-no. Actually, far, far worse than that.

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In an instant, those (years now of the) woman’s suspicions came into complete clarity. In an instant, the Bible, and the God of the Bible, came crumbling down around me. 1 Timothy hadn’t righteously protected us; my literalizing of it had, instead, destroyed.

At first, the only thing that made any sense was working to protect my daughter, my family, and then the church. It was oh-no for years, and we all did the best we could. That was the only important thing to begin with and God’s graciousness, over time, did, and has done much healing and restoration.

But, though a lesser issue for me at the time however significant, I didn’t completely realize in those days that God had, in a sense, died to me.

Well, at least the God I thought I knew, and my understanding of the Bible He had given me had died.

The God I had known, and the Bible I had were somehow magical, and faithful adherence to them, alongside the certain and truly faithful, could never have brought about this result— even though I was told by several that this was God’s will for my daughter, and that she needed this for her discipleship. I think they needed to be certain about something.

Fortunately, when I came to the end of myself in all this, I somehow still knew one thing “Jesus Christ and him crucified.” The oh-no was terrifying and tragic. But it was also watershed, and gave birth to a-ha.

Backtracking from 1 Timothy 5:19 — because of pastoral experience and not because of scholarly consideration — I began to divest myself of everything I thought I had known about the Bible. It was like a big reset button had been hit.

The underlying programming was there, Jesus and him crucified, but otherwise the hard drive had been wiped clean. It wasn’t easy as I remained a teaching pastor during the entire time.

Along the way I uncovered multiples of untruths purported as absolute truth, and in some cases flat out fabrications of facts by noted scholars, apologists and pastors, with the supposed intent of keeping me safe from the slippery slope of liberalism and disbelief.

When I ran into some of those that happened to bring my former university under fire, I returned to campus after many years to talk with a faculty member about his less-than-literal Genesis views. It was a warm day, during summer break, and this professor — whom I had never met before — spent more than five hours with me to talk me through what he really believed, what he contended the Scriptures are, and what the university held to.

I discovered there really were other honest ways to read the Bible. I walked away from that meeting knowing that one of the hell-bound liberal Bible scholars I had been warned about for years, was in every right and best way, my brother in Christ.

Oh-no, had progressed to a-ha, and finally, climatically became A-HA! I felt like the little Who named JoJo, in “Horton Hears a Who” who finally discovers he can YOPP!

In the face of great tragedy, I remain thankful for Paul’s example and that I too resolved to know nothing except a crucified Jesus. Those events are now many years in the past. My family and congregation continue to heal, and my daughter has married and even given me grandchildren.

And, I am thankful for the fruit of the trauma, even if I could never be thankful for the trauma itself. Which, yes, means I don’t think 1 Thessalonians 5:18 means what I was once taught it meant:

"18 give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God 

in Christ Jesus for you. (NRSV)"

* * * * * * * * * *

Index to Series -

Transparent Moments of Scholarship when a Theologian Must Either Stay or Change

Part 1 - Introduction

Part 2 - Peter Enns

Part 3 - John Byron

Part 4 - Daniel Kirk

Part 5 - Michael Pahl

Part 6 - Charles Halton

Part 7 - Christopher W. Skinner

Part 8 - Christopher M. Hays

Part 9 - Michael L. Ruffin

Part 10 - Athony Le Donne

Part 11 - Chris Tilling

Part 12 - Megan DeFranza

Part 13 - Carlos Bovell

Part 14 - Lindsey Trozzo

Part 15 - Anonymous