IMPOLITE TOPICS

Welcome back!

Here’s my helpful tip: never trust a journalist who gives “biblical” advice. In the most recent issue of Time Magazine, Joe Klein makes this statement about what Barack Obama “should have said” to Pastor Rick Warren at the “Civil Forum” at Saddleback Church.

But Obama seems not to have fully assimilated what should be the message of his campaign: It’s the economy, egghead. The economy was almost entirely missing from his dialogue with Pastor Rick Warren at Saddleback Church – and there were more than a few opportunities to insert it. When Warren braced him on abortion, Obama fumbled around, attempting to sound reasonable. He should have said straight out, “We’re gonna disagree on this one. I respect your view on abortion, but I’m pro-choice … And you know, Pastor Rick, Jesus never mentions abortion in the Bible. He did say, though, that it’s easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter heaven. Now, that’s a metaphor – but it’s also good tax policy. Unlike John McCain, I want to make it easier for rich people to go to heaven.”   Where’s Obama’s Passion?

Joe Klein authoritatively quotes Jesus: “He did say, though, that it’s easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter heaven.”

With this statement, a lazy journalist has once again misquoted the Bible without taking the time to verify the accuracy of his quotation. 

This particular Bible verse is misquoted so often that many of the most devout Bible readers don’t pay attention to the actual quotation.

In the three biblical versions of the story about Jesus and a “rich young man,” Jesus made a statement about a rich man entering the Kingdom of God or Kingdom of Heaven. He didn’t say anything about entering Heaven.

“How hard it will be for those who have riches to enter the kingdom of God!”  (Mark 10:17-31, Revised Standard Version.)

“Truly, I say to you, it will be hard for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven. Again I tell you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God” (Matthew 19:16-30, Revised Standard Version.)

“How hard it is for those who have riches to enter the kingdom of God! For it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God” (Luke 18:18-30, Revised Standard Version.)

The gospel stories of Mark, Matthew, and Luke share a common underlying metaphor—the idea of the Kingdom of God or Kingdom of Heaven.

Klein is right to refer to metaphor here, but he has missed the point of the metaphor.The critical idea that most people simply don’t understand is that the Kingdom of Heaven is not Heaven. Jesus is not referring to an afterlife. Instead, he is referring to the idea of the rule of God on Earth.

“When Jesus says that the rich cannot enter the Kingdom of God he is not talking about an afterlife. And he’s not saying that if you have money, you can’t get into Heaven. He is talking about the overthrow of the existing order of things in which those who are rich and at the top of the social system will lose their advantage.” Going Broke With Jesus

In fact, Jesus really did have a lot to say about government, religion, money, and abuse of power, but it was not this kind of simplistic notion about whether or not rich people can get into Heaven.

I wrote my book, Going Broke With Jesus, precisely because of such Bible misquotations, which turn into what I call, “biblical urban legends.”

I have created the term, “biblical urban legend,” for at least three reasons.

The first is that the phrase gets to the essence of what urban legends do. Urban legends might start with an element of truth, but they take on a life of their own, as they are perpetuated. In the same way, Bible verses turned into biblical urban legends might start with an element of truth, but they take on lives of their own as they are told and retold.

The second reason is to call attention to our own era. When Bible verses become disconnected from their original story and social contexts, they take on meanings in our own time and place. This is when they become strange new creations—”biblical urban legends.”

I can think of no better description of so many of the contemporary stories told about Bible verses about money. The core of truth becomes false as it takes on a life of its own apart from the original context of the story, turning a gospel story into a warning about money, as if the words of Jesus could be applied directly to a different time and place as if time and place don’t matter.

The most important reason to use the phrase is to make clear that Bible verses cut off from any connection to original context very quickly turn into cautionary tales, rather than heroic stories. Biblical urban legends do what urban legends do. They create fear, anxiety, and confusion in the minds of believers, as they warn against the dangers facing anyone who violates the rules.  Going Broke With Jesus

Of all of the biblical urban legends about “what the Bible says,” my candidate for the most destructive and misleading of all the biblical urban legends is this assertion that “Jesus said that a rich man can’t get into heaven.”

This one verse—as much as any other Bible verse—has made millions of believers afraid to have money, out of fear for their own salvation.

The focus of much Evangelical, Protestant religion has been on personal salvation. This misquotation simply reinforces this idea that religion is all about a personal relationship with God and getting into Heaven. 

With this focus on getting into Heaven, much of the Evangelical world has missed that Jesus was talking about life on Earth. He was talking about his vision of a just world on Earth.  By making these words say that rich people cannot enter heaven, this misquotation has often robbed people of the capacity to use money effectively and wisely.

The two major points of Klein’s criticism of Obama is that Obama is not sufficiently passionate to win the election and that Obama missed the opportunity to talk about the economy with Rick Warren. 

“One of the great strengths of the Obama candidacy has been the sense that this is a guy whose blood doesn’t boil, who carefully considers the options before he reacts—and that his reaction is always measured and rational. But that’s also a weakness: sometimes the most rational response is to rip your opponent’s lungs out.” Where’s Obama’s Passion?

It could very well be that Klein is right on both points.

• Obama is not passionate enough to connect with voters.
• It’s about the economy, egghead.

But that is not what “gets my blood boiling” about Klein’s article. By nature, I also tend to be careful and measured—probably much too careful and measured for my own good. But if there are ever times when I would like to rip someone’s lungs out, it is when I see this kind of careless misquotation of the Bible.

One of the principles of responsible journalism is to verify your sources and check the accuracy of your quotations. All Klein needed to have done was consult a Bible before he so confidently quoted Jesus. But he didn’t. Instead he used a misquoted Bible verse to tell Obama how he “should have” misquoted the Bible to talk about the economy. And in the process, he reinforced distorted notions about the Bible and money.

Since Klein is putting words into Obama’s mouth, let’s see what might have happened if Obama had followed Klein’s suggestion, and quoted the verse correctly. This is what he might have said.

“We’re gonna disagree on this one. I respect your view on abortion, but I’m pro-choice … And you know, Pastor Rick, Jesus never mentions abortion in the Bible. He did say, though, that it’s easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter [the kingdom of] heaven. Now that’s a metaphor [about economic justice for everyone---not just record profits for oil companies.]

By using the actual biblical metaphor of the Kingdom of Heaven, instead of Heaven, Obama could have talked about the economy in biblical terms. If Obama had put the current economic situation in terms of the metaphor of the Kingdom of Heaven, he could have reframed the entire discussion, from a single-minded focus on issues such as abortion to matters of government misuse of power, taxation, and waging war with borrowed money. 

He could also have engaged Pastor Rick on Warren’s newly found efforts to deal with poverty and disease in Africa. Based on the metaphor of the Kingdom of God, Obama would have had plenty to say about the Bible and the economy. 

Of course, this reframing of the conversation assumes that Obama knows the Bible well enough to know that Jesus was not talking about a rich man getting in heaven. I have no idea if he does or not. 

Klein is right. “It is about the economy, egghead.” And misquoted Bible verses about money don’t help Christians—or anyone else affected by misquoted Bible verses—to get the economy right.

And so Mr. Klein…..If you are going to write about the Bible, it’s about getting the Bible verses right, journalist.

Dr. Kalinda Rose Stevenson

written by Kalinda \\ tags: Barack Obama, Bible, bible verses, biblical urban legends, economy, heaven, Jesus, Joe Klein, Kalinda Rose Stevenson, kingdom of God, rich man and kingdom of heaven, Rick Warren, Time Magazine

[This is the continuation of a series of posts beginning with "Should The Bible Be Taught In Public Schools?" about the decision by the Texas State Board of Education to authorize the teaching of an elective course on Bible in public high schools. It brings to the surface just about every question imaginable about the relationship between religion, politics, and the Bible.]

1. Comment. An individual expressed the belief that knowledge of Biblical stories would be advantageous to understanding allusions/archetypes of literature, but finds the course necessarily limited. The individual suggests a complementary course in Greek/Roman mythology.

Agency Response. The agency has maintained language as filed as proposed. State law and rule do not prohibit the teaching of a course on Greek/Roman mythology.

 2. Comment. An individual stated that mythologies of the Norse, Greeks, Romans, and Babylonians as well as the holy works of Buddhism, Hinduism, and Islam had an enormous impact on Western literature and should be included in this course as well.

Agency Response. The agency has maintained language as filed as proposed. State law and rule do not prohibit the teaching of suggested additional courses.  Comments

These two comments and the official responses to them point out how much our current rules, laws, and practices have complicated any effort to reach consensus about the place of the Bible in our shared public lives.

They point out the unintended consequences of efforts to restrict teaching the Bible in public schools. The Texas State Board of Education has no such restrictions for other religious books or mythologies.

This leads to all sorts of interesting and disturbing situations.

I used to live in the Bay Area of California. The local paper—the Contra Costa Times—published an article claiming that children in the Byron school district were being forced to adopt Muslim practices at the same time they were not allowed to wear crosses or say the name of Jesus.

You can read the original article that was republished in newspapers and on the internet as well as responses to the claims in the story in “Mandated Teaching of Islam in California Public Schools-Truth! & Fiction!”

I have made a few excerpts from the article.

The message says “Public Schools Embrace Islam – A Shocker.” It focuses on seventh graders in Byron, California, and says that although students in a growing number of public schools cannot wear crosses or utter the name of Jesus, they are being required to attend an intensive three-week course on Islam including mandated study of the tenets of Islam, the important people of Islam, wearing of a robe, adopting a Moslem name, and staging their own Jihad. It says that the California-required course uses a textbook that says a lot more about Islam than about Christianity and quotes a teacher who says she couldn’t teach Christianity like that and can’t even say the name of Jesus in the classroom, but the seventh graders are learning how to pray to Allah. Mandated Teaching of Islam in California Public Schools-Truth! & Fiction!

Tom Adams, the administrator for curriculum framework at the state education department, told the Contra Costa Times that state guidelines (for seventh grade) do include a unit on Islamic civilization in the medieval world, however, it should be an academic approach on the historical significance of the religion. It should not be construed as an endorsement of it. Mandated Teaching of Islam in California Public Schools-Truth! & Fiction!

How the guidelines are implemented in the classroom is largely up to the teacher and critics say that in many classrooms, Islam has been emphasized while other religions, such as Christianity and Judaism, have sometimes been hardly touched upon. In an article on WorldNetDaily.com, Diana Lynne said that other parents in California have reported Islam-related activities that have caused them concern. One parent says her daughter was indoctrinated about Islam for four months while in seventh grade in Elk Grove, California. She said one day, she arrived at school to find a banner in front that said “There is one God, Allah, and Mohammad is his prophet.” She says she had also seen children chanting from the Koran and praying. Mandated Teaching of Islam in California Public Schools-Truth! & Fiction!

Whatever the truth and fiction of this particular situation in Byron, it highlights some of the difficulties involved in teaching religion in public schools.

What is particularly ironic in the comments and responses in the Texas State Board of Education situation is that the rules and prohibitions against teaching the Bible in public schools do not apply to other religious sacred books, such as the Koran.

Although I don’t usually use the term “politically correct,” this is exactly the kind of situation in which the language of “political correctness” most applies, which complicates the whole effort to teach the Bible in public schools.

In the many years I subscribed to the Contra Costa Times, I noticed an evolution in how it treated Christian religious topics. I observed that Christmas and Easter—two major Christian holidays—were never mentioned on the front page. If they got any mention at all, it was about food drives to collect toys for poor children or meals served to the poor, but never on the front page.  The paper didn’t publish articles about Christian belief or practices at Christmas or Easter services. Meanwhile, the religious practices on holy days of Hindus, Muslims, Sikhs, and other non-Christian groups received prominent treatment.

As an observer of religion, I became aware of this bias against acknowledging the religion of the majority population. In an effort to be unbiased against minorities, the paper practiced bias against the majority.

The second commenter claims that “the mythologies of the Norse, Greeks, Romans, and Babylonians as well as the holy works of Buddhism, Hinduism, and Islam had an enormous impact on Western literature.” It’s true that these mythologies and holy works have had influence, of varying degrees, but none of them has impacted Western society as much as the Bible.

And so we have a situation in which the religion of the majority of the population—and the sacred book of that majority—are treated as topics that must be controlled carefully, while the beliefs and holy books of other religious groups have no such guidelines.

As I continue to ponder the effort by the Texas State Board of Education to set guidelines to teach the Bible in public schools, I see no simple solution to the multitude of problems involved in this effort.

I remain convinced that any education that does not include the Bible would be equivalent to teaching students to read English using only the consonants and not allowing anyone to teach the vowels. The vowels are part of the alphabet and part of the language. To leave them out is to leave out a significant part of teaching anyone to read English.

The Bible has been an integral part of Western history—far more than Hindu, Buddhist, or Muslim scriptures. No one can be truly educated without it. But HOW to teach it in public schools in a way that respects freedom of religion—for Christians and non-Christians alike—remains the question. I don’t pretend to know the definitive answer. 

Dr. Kalinda Rose Stevenson

written by Kalinda \\ tags: Bible, Bible in public schools, Buddhist, Hindu, Islam, Kalinda Rose Stevenson, Koran, muslim, teach, teaching Islam in California public schools, Texas State Board Of Education

On Saturday, August 16, Barack Obama and John McCain will attend a “Civil Forum” at Saddleback Church in Lake Forest, California. The forum will be moderated by Rick Warren, pastor of Saddleback Church.

Time Magazine made Rick Warren the subject of a recent cover article. The cover identifies Warren as “America’s most powerful religious leader” (Time Magazine Cover, August 18, 2008 Issue.)

A more cautious figure than Warren might have passed on the opportunity to become a political lightning rod. But he has spent the past few years positioning himself for just such a role as a suprapolitical, supracreedal arbiter of public virtues and religious responsibilities.
…
The payoff is the Aug. 16 event, a kind of coronation for the 54-year-old, jovially hyperactive preacher. “It’s remarkable. The candidates are according him tremendous status,” says William Martin, author of the definitive biography of Billy Graham, A Prophet with Honor. “I don’t see them doing it with an Episcopal bishop or a Cardinal – or another Evangelical.”

If Warren is not quite today’s Graham, who presided as “America’s pastor” back when the U.S. affected a kind of Protestant civil religion, he is unquestionably the U.S.’s most influential and highest-profile churchman. The Global Ambition of Rick Warren

The idea of the forum as a “kind of coronation” for Rick Warren raises all kinds of interesting questions about the connections between religion and politics.

What is clear is that Obama and McCain are making a kind of religious pilgrimage to one of America’s evangelical megachurches, to make an appearance before “the U.S.’s most influential and highest-profile churchman.”

What is obvious by now is that neither Barack Obama nor John McCain is an evangelical. This means that both are problematic candidates for a significant number of evangelical Christians. The reason this matters politically is that so many American Christians identify themselves as evangelicals.

“It’s quite an extraordinary thing, it’s the first time a preacher has convened the two presumptive candidates …

They are both fighting for that vote,” said Michael Lindsay, a political sociologist at Rice University in Houston.

Evangelicals account for one in four U.S. adults and have become a key conservative base for the Republican Party with a strong focus in the past on opposition to abortion and gay rights and the promotion of “traditional” family values.

Such issues delivered almost 80 percent of the white evangelical Protestant vote to President George W. Bush in 2004 but the movement is more fractured and restless this year though it remains largely in the Republican camp. Obama, McCain Aim For Faith Vote At Forum 

So, both Obama and McCain are in the position of having to prove themselves sufficiently evangelical to satisfy evangelical voters, especially on the litmus test issues of abortion and gay marriage.

McCain has not excited conservative evangelicals because of his past support for stem cell research, his blunt criticism of the movement’s leaders in 2000 and other political heresies.

But the Vietnam veteran and former prisoner-of-war has long been opposed to abortion rights, a trump card with this group.

“McCain has a good record on that issue (abortion) and he must show that he will continue it as president,” Tony Perkins, the president of the conservative lobby group the Family Research Council, told Reuters. Obama, McCain Aim For Faith Vote At Forum 

The most significant point I want to make here is that the “faith” of these two candidates is being defined by their stances on these issues—especially the issue of abortion.

Once again, public discussion of religion has been reduced to a few critical, hot-button issues. Complicated issues of faith, the relationship of religious groups to political power, the role of religious education in public schools, and a multitude of social justice issues get little attention. Instead, religion and faith become defined by a few issues.

It is important to note how Rick Warren has expanded his focus beyond the evangelical hot-button issues since the 2004 presidential election.

During the 2004 presidential election, he seemed to toy with using his new influence to become the next Jerry Falwell or James Dobson. Although he did not officially endorse George W. Bush, the mega-author made no secret of his preference. Two weeks before the election, he sent an e-mail to the several hundred thousand pastors on his mailing list, enumerating “non-negotiable” issues for Christians to consider when casting their votes: abortion, stem-cell research, gay marriage, euthanasia and human cloning. The Global Ambition of Rick Warren 

Since then, Warren has started a global program to mobilize churches in the Third World to deal with poverty, disease, and illiteracy, among other global issues.

And he is both leading and riding the newest wave of change in the Evangelical community: an expansion beyond social conservatism to causes such as battling poverty, opposing torture and combating global warming. The movement has loosened the hold of religious-right leaders on ordinary Evangelicals and created an opportunity for Warren, who has lent his prominent voice to many of the new concerns.

A shift away from “sin issues” – like abortion and gay marriage – is reflected in Warren’s approach to his coming sit-downs with the candidates. He says he is more interested in questions that he feels are “uniting,” such as “poverty, HIV/AIDS, climate change and human rights,” and still more in civics-class topics like the candidates’ understanding of the role of the Constitution. There will be no “Christian religion test,” Warren insists. “I want what’s good for everybody, not just what’s good for me. Who’s the best for the nation right now?” The Global Ambition of Rick Warren

Yet, despite Warren’s larger vision, for many evangelicals in this election season, “faith” is neatly defined by the “right” answers on a handful of hot-button issues.

So, Barack Obama and John McCain will sit down as Rick Warren—who promises that there will be no “Christian religion test”—will ask Obama and McCain about abortion.

And many Evangelicals have, like Warren, broadened their agenda of concerns to include issues that should favor Obama like global poverty and the environment. But in practice, abortion continues to be a threshold issue for a large number of Evangelical voters.
Warren has already said he will raise the issue with the candidates on Saturday, and Obama could well take advantage of the opportunity.
…
Large numbers of Evangelical and Catholic voters will be listening for Obama to articulate his abortion position in his conversation with Warren. A significant number of them remain undecided in the race, and their votes may hinge on his answer. Obama and McCain’s Test of Faith

When I read the words of Jesus in the four gospels, I wonder how abortion and gay marriage have become the defining issues for evangelicals. As far as I can tell, Jesus had nothing to say about either topic. Does this mean that Jesus would approve of abortion and gay marriage? It only means that they were not mentioned in the gospel narratives. It is hard to make any case on any issue based what someone didn’t say about it.

Although Jesus did not directly address current hot-button issues, he had plenty to say about power, justice, and the poor. My impolite question is: How is that these are not the defining issues for people who base their identity on scripture as the sole authority in faith and practice?

Emphasis on the “sin issues”—as Time magazine calls them—without giving at least equal weight to such central gospel topics as justice, power, and poverty is an example of “selective hermeneutics.”

Exegesis focuses on “what it meant.”  Hermeneutics focuses on “what it means.” Selective hermeneutics occurs when people pick and choose portions of the Bible, to decide which parts are relevant and which are not relevant to their lives. This is what has happened with abortion and gay marriage, along with stem cell research and cloning. They have become the defining issues of faith, even though none of them is explicitly mentioned in scripture.

When selective hermeneutics is at work, religion becomes reduced to a small set of issues. This means that politicians find themselves in the position of having to tiptoe carefully on a tightrope between the hot-button issues and their own religious beliefs—whatever they are—to placate potential voters who have reduced ”faith” to a limited set of beliefs on a few defining issues.

“Faith” reduced to these few topics is dramatically diminished biblical faith. We all deserve more than a few carefully chosen responses on a handful of topics to determine how any candidate for public office will address the relationship between religion and political power in a multi-cultural, multi-religious nation.

Dr. Kalinda Rose Stevenson

written by Kalinda \\ tags: abortion, Barack Obama, Bible, civil forum, evangelical, exegesis, gay marriage, hermeneutics, Jesus, John McCain, Kalinda Rose Stevenson, politicians, politiics, Rick Warren, Saddleback Church, selective hermeneutics

After writing several articles about evangelicals, I want to pause for a bit to consider the role of the media and their use of sensational language about religious topics.

Christianity Today—a reputable publication that really ought to know better— reported on a session at the Evangelical Theological Society meeting of November 14, 2007 with this title: 
“Postcard from San Diego: Fighting ‘Bibliolatry’ at the Evangelical Theological Society.”

They follow the headline with this quotation from a paper delivered by J.P. Moreland, “How Evangelicals Became Over-Committed to the Bible and What Can Be Done About It.”

“In the actual practices of the Evangelical community in North America, there is an over-commitment to Scripture in a way that is false, irrational, and harmful to the cause of Christ,” he said. “And it has produced a mean-spiritedness among the over-committed that is a grotesque and often ignorant distortion of discipleship unto the Lord Jesus.”

The problem, he said, is “the idea that the Bible is the sole source of knowledge of God, morality, and a host of related important items. Accordingly, the Bible is taken to be the sole authority for faith and practice.” Postcard from San Diego

The title, “Fighting ‘Bibliolatry’ at the Evangelical Theological Society,” is deliberately inflammatory, because of the word, “bibliolatry.”  Bibliolatry is a coined word, combining “Bible” with the idea of idol worship. It is used frequently as a pejorative to claim that evangelical commitment to an inerrant, infallible Bible is idol worship, in which the Bible becomes the idol.

As with any caricature, there is real truth in this charge. But the real truth behind the label is not my point here. My point concerns the tactics of the media when they ferret out something deliberately provocative, to incite anger, interest, and polarization. The media have done this for a long time. As the saying goes—”they want to sell papers.”

In another post, I will deal more directly with the issues that Professor Moreland raised in his paper, because they are significant in any discussion of the relationship between religion and politics. But before doing that, I want comment about the role of the media in both reporting and creating the news.

One of the consequences of watching many political campaigns is that I have seen how many campaigns turn into contests based on slogans. In the earliest televised debates, Kennedy and Nixon went on and on about Quemoy and Matsu. With Bush the Elder and Dukakis, it was Willie Horton. John Kerry was sunk by Swift Boaters. This election is following in the same slimesteps. The media find something provocative to glom onto and will not let go, all the while they tell us know how much they find the slime reprehensible.

One of my own personal frustrations is the way that the news media report on religious issues. When it comes to religion and Bible, the media usually get it wrong. I see it in the articles about John McCain and Barack Obama. The reporters in the various news media—who by and large have no training in biblical exegesis or theological hermeneutics—are looking for the hook, the interesting story, the outrageous claim to put into a headline. They don’t have the time, training, or interest to understand the deeper issues or put issues into larger context.

I imagine that anyone who is truly an expert in some area feels the same way. Journalists working on deadline—who know almost nothing about the topic they are covering—find some juicy tidbit and report on that, all the while missing the forest for the trees. In the process, the media are not reporting on news. They are creating it, and we are all the worse for it.

As a teacher, I think that my greatest teaching skill is my ability to help my students think differently, by nudging them to see beneath their own assumptions. This kind of probing after assumptions cannot happen as soon as anyone tags someone else with a label. Tell an evangelical: ”You practice bibliolatry,” and the discussion is over before it starts.

This reminds me of another story. Several years ago, I attended an internet seminar in Orlando on marketing information products. After the day’s session, the hotel provided a bar at the back of the meeting room, where people could buy drinks.

I noticed a man—I’ll call him Pete—standing in the middle of the room, holding a bottle of beer in his hand. I had met Pete at a previous seminar and even had lunch with him. He was a retired history teacher, and we had talked about teaching. So, as someone who is not a natural schmoozer, I was glad to see someone I had already met, and went over to talk with him.

Very early in the conversation, I said that the last time I was in Orlando, I was there to attend the “Annual Joint Meeting of the American Academy of Religion and The Society of Biblical Literature.”  These are two professional societies for scholars and graduate students in all areas of religion and Bible. I have been a member of both societies for years.

Pete held up his beer bottle and said: “I bet they didn’t have any of this at that meeting.” And then he began to laugh the kind of laugh that can only be described as guffawing.

I was momentarily speechless. I was truly surprised that a retired history teacher would jump to such a conclusion. He heard the words “religion” and “Bible” and apparently decided that anyone who would attend such a meeting was a teetotaling goody-goody at a Temperance Society picnic.

For a moment, I thought of telling him that the registration packet for the meeting came with two drink tickets for the annual reception, where both wine and beer were served along with the raw carrots, celery sticks,  cheese, and crackers.

I thought of telling him about the Lutherans and Episcopalians and Roman Catholics who use wine as part of the Eucharist.

I even thought of telling him that he had completely misunderstood that a scholarly meeting of academics is not a church service.

I could have told him that both societies comprise scholars who hold just about every imaginable religious belief and no religious belief, and just about every identity group or “ism” you can think of—from Jewish, to Buddhist, to Native American,  from Asian and African theologians, feminists and womanists, black liberation theologians, textual critics and archaeologists.

But then I decided it was not worth my time or effort to cut through his smug ignorance.

Instead, I thought of the words I read in a class on English poetry in college. They are from the poem by T. S. Eliot, “The Love Song Of J. Alfred Prufrock.”

And I have known the eyes already, known them all–  
The eyes that fix you in a formulated phrase,   
And when I am formulated, sprawling on a pin,   
When I am pinned and wriggling on the wall,   
Then how should I begin   
To spit out all the butt-ends of my days and ways?

And how should I presume? 

 The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock By T. S. Eliot

The words—”eyes that fix you in a formulated phrase” and the image of being “pinned and wriggling on the wall”— have stayed with me ever since. How do you begin to explain anything when you have been labeled, formulated, and pinned up?

And so, I ended the conversation and walked away, letting Pete drink his beer secure in the belief that Bible scholars at professional meetings don’t drink beer.

This is why labels kill any chance for real conversation.  Christianity Today took the most inflammatory word it could take from the professor’s paper, and claimed far more than he intended.

Unlike my decision to walk away from guffawing Pete, Professor Moreland did respond to the slew of comments posted on the Christianity Today blog about his paper. I have quoted parts of the first two paragraphs below. The entire comment is available here.

My paper was read at an academic conference for an audience of professors. Thus, precision was a premium. It was not intended for a lay audience because lay folk have a tendency—and this is not meant to be harsh—of running with ideas beyond the context in which they were originally given.
…
While I am sure it was well intended, the CT editor’s summary of my paper is generally fair (though the use of “bibliolatry” in the title is a bit sensationalistic—I used it once in my paper and clarified it’s meaning by the over-commitment claim), but it is still a summary, and as such, did not and could not provide the needed context for understanding my paper. What followed was a large number (but by no means all) of misleading, irrelevant and tangential comments that had little and, often, nothing to do with my paper. Professor Moreland Comments

This paragraph expresses the frustrations of an academic. I understand in my bones what Moreland is saying here. In each paragraph, Moreland uses the word that most defines what scholars do. It is the word “context.” The paper was read in the context of an academic meeting. An academic meeting is a context in which people are supposed to pay attention to the intention behind the paper, and not make it be something it was not meant to be.

My blog is, more than anything else, my effort to bring what I know as a biblical scholar to the intersecting dimensions of religion, politics and the Bible, and to do it without resorting to cheap shots, easy caricatures, and simplistic statements. I do it as a teacher—nudging people to consider their unconsidered assumptions—with an intention to be as kind as possible in the process.

I want to acknowledge that evangelical Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary—despite the harassment from students and professors who were sure they knew exactly what God intended—was also the place where I began to learn my skills as a biblical scholar from professors who were passionate about scholarship, committed to their faiths, and good and kind men. From them, I learned that there was so much more in the Bible than the restrictive vision of God and church that I had learned from Bible verses taken out of context.  My intention is to pass some of that liberating vision to you. 

Dr. Kalinda Rose Stevenson

written by Kalinda \\ tags: Bible, biblical scholarship, bibliolatry, evangelical, Evangelical Theological Society, Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary, inerrant, infallible, J P Moreland, Kalinda Rose Stevenson, media, news media

The Bible as Word of God—inerrant, infallible, and solely the work of God—remains the single most important distinction between evangelicals and other Christians.

In an interview with Stephen Mansfield, author of the new book, The Faith of Barack Obama, this is Mansfield’s answer to the question:

“So, where do you think Obama fits in the spectrum of Christianity?

I think Barack Obama believes about Jesus and about conversion what your average evangelical does. He believes that Jesus is the son of God and that he died for the sins of the world and God raised him from the dead again. Where he begins to depart from orthodox evangelical Christianity probably begins with his view of scripture. He believes some of it might be of human origin, and some scriptures may be of more weight than others. So in a sense, [his is a] traditional theological liberalism that tends to treat scripture as being at least partially of human origin. Stephen Mansfield Interview with Jessica Ramirez

This is a revealing quotation, both in what Mansfield claims and the language he uses to claim it. He says that Obama believes about Jesus “what your average evangelical” believes.

Mansfield then asserts that Obama “begins to depart from orthodox evangelical Christianity” with his “view of scripture” because Obama believes that some of scripture “might be of human origin.” According to Mansfield, this “view of scripture” is evidence of Obama’s “traditional theological liberalism.”

(In this post, I won’t even begin to address the second part of the claim: Obama believes that “some scriptures may be of more weight than others.”) 

There is so much going on in this paragraph that I hardly know where to begin. It is full of code language with specific meaning for evangelicals.
   
As a student at Gordon-Conwell, I had to learn three new languages: Biblical Greek; Biblical Hebrew; and a code language that I will call “evangelicalese.”
 
In evangelicalese, the phrase: “view of scripture” carries particular weight. On many topics, evangelicals fluent in “evangelicalese” will base their actions and opinions upon “a high view of scripture.”

A “high view of scripture” is that God is the sole source of scripture. Any suggestion that human beings played a part in the origin of scripture is evidence of a “low view of scripture.”

In my seminary years among the evangelicals, I heard a variation of this statement dozens—maybe even hundreds of times: “I would like to support the ordination of women to ministry, but I can’t, because I hold a high view of scripture.” 

Although Mansfield doesn’t use the word “high,” he is clearly contrasting the “evangelical high view of scripture” about the solely divine origin of scripture with the “liberal low view of scripture,” which asserts that human beings might have had some role in the writing of the Bible.

And so, Barack Obama—whose belief in Jesus is the same as “your average evangelical”—has a “view of scripture” that sets him apart from evangelicals. Obama’s belief that “some of it might be of human origin” turns Obama from “evangelical” into “liberal.”

Notice also the contrast between “orthodox evangelicalism” and “traditional theological liberalism.” “Orthodox” is a theological designation of correctness, in contrast to ”traditional theological liberalism,” with its implied “unorthodox” view of scripture.”

(At some point, I’ll explore how a perfectly noble word, “liberal” got such a bad reputation among evangelicals, but that will wait until another day.)

The key point is that Obama’s belief that human beings “might” have played a role in the origin of scripture makes him a theological “liberal with a low view of scripture.” This opinion about the Bible sets him apart from “orthodox evangelical theology” and its dedication to the belief in the Bible as the inerrant, infallible, Word of God.

Dr. Kalinda Rose Stevenson

—————————————————————

Do you know that you are the product of all the stories you have learned throughout your life? Most of us try to live with stories that don’t serve us. This is especially true with Bible stories. To find out why most of the Bible stories you learned about Jesus and money are not true, be sure to visit Going Broke With Jesus.

written by Kalinda \\ tags: Barack Obama, Bible, evangelical, Faith of Barack Obama, high view of scripture, inerrant, infallible, Kalinda Rose Stevenson, Obama, scripture, Stephen Mansfield

[This is the continuation of a series of posts beginning with "Should The Bible Be Taught In Public Schools?" about the decision by the Texas State Board of Education to authorize the teaching of an elective course on Bible in public high schools. It brings to the surface just about every question imaginable about the relationship between religion, politics, and the Bible.]

“The National Council of Jewish Women and an individual expressed concern that the vague guidelines under consideration focus on skills, not content, and include no meaningful standards schools can use to teach how the Bible has been influential in history and literature. The individual urged the adoption of clear, specific, and unbiased curriculum standards that promote a respectful study of the Bible and protect the religious freedom of students.”  Comments

The words in this comment that jumped out at me are: “focus on skills, not content.”
 
During my Air Force wife years in Arkansas, when I could not find a job because I had three-strikes against me—married, military, and Yankee—I joined the National Teacher Corps to find something to do with my life other than attend “Officer’s Wives Teas,” “Luncheons,” bake sales, and bridge games. Part of my Teacher Corps experience involved working as an intern in an elementary school in North Little Rock—the first elementary school in the district to be integrated.  

One day, all of the interns were required to attend a teachers’ convention on “reading skills.” We sat in a large auditorium and listened as speaker after speaker went to the podium and droned on and on about reading skills. At one point during a very long afternoon, I looked around the room with this thought in my mind: I wonder if any of these people love to read.

I had similar thoughts years earlier as I listened to my college roommate talk about reading skills. She was an elementary education major and her mother was the reading supervisor for a large school district. Between the two of them, they could talk about reading skills for hours. However, what I soon learned is that neither one of them much liked to read. I never saw my roommate read anything she wasn’t required to read.

And so, whatever “The National Council of Jewish Women and an individual” meant in their comments, I have a real concern about using the Bible as a textbook to teach “skills” in a way that misses the essence of the Bible itself. 

Since my years in Arkansas are on my mind, here is an example of what I mean.

I was in the National Teacher Corps during the school year of 1967-68. On April 4, 1968, Martin Luther King, Jr. was murdered in Memphis.

The night before he died, he gave his last speech, ”I’ve Been To The Mountaintop,” which ended with these words:

And then I got to Memphis. And some began to say the threats, or talk about the threats that were out. What would happen to me from some of our sick white brothers? Well, I don’t know what will happen now. We’ve got some difficult days ahead. But it doesn’t matter with me now. Because I’ve been to the mountaintop. And I don’t mind. Like anybody, I would like to live a long life. Longevity has its place. But I’m not concerned about that now. I just want to do God’s will. And He’s allowed me to go up to the mountain. And I’ve looked over. And I’ve seen the promised land. I may not get there with you. But I want you to know tonight, that we, as a people, will get to the promised land. And I’m happy, tonight. I’m not worried about anything. I’m not fearing any man. Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord. “I’ve Been To The Mountaintop” 

You can listen to the entire speech here.  (And I defy you to listen without being moved by these words.)

This “I’ve Been To The Mountaintop” speech is probably the best example I know of why knowledge of the Bible is essential for any educated person. These are the words of a black preacher who was immersed in biblical language and imagery. And he is also a man who knew that he was going to die.

The: “I’ve been to the mountaintop” language is a direct reference to Deuteronomy 34:1-5. After years of leading the people of Israel out of Egypt and in the wilderness, Moses goes up to the top of Mount Nebo and sees the “promised land.” 

Then Moses went up from the plains of Moab to Mount Nebo, to the top of Pisgah, which is opposite Jericho, and the LORD showed him the whole land: Gilead as far as Dan, all Naphtali, the land of Ephraim and Manasseh, all the land of Judah as far as the Western Sea, the Negeb, and the Plain—that is, the valley of Jericho, the city of palm trees—as far as Zoar. The LORD said to him, “This is the land of which I swore to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, saying, ‘I will give it to your descendants’; I have let you see it with your eyes, but you shall not cross over there.”  Then Moses, the servant of the LORD, died there in the land of Moab, at the Lord’s command  (Deuteronomy 34:1-5, New Revised Standard Version.)

Moses saw the “promised land” that he himself would not enter. And King knew that he too would never see the “promised land” of racial equality that he envisioned in his even more famous, “I Have A Dream” speech on August 28, 1963.

How can anyone begin to grasp the power of the civil rights movement as a transformative force in American society who does not locate the motivation for this movement in a biblical vision of justice?

My concern is that “reading skills” teachers will point their students to the connection between King’s words and the reference in Deuteronomy 34 as a literary allusion, but miss the deep religious motivation behind the King’s quest for justice and equality. No one can begin to understand Martin Luther King’s role in the civil rights movement without understanding the place of the Bible in his life. 

And so my deepest concern is that the same type of educational process that can teach reading as a set of skills—without ever teaching students to love reading—will somehow drain the life out of the Bible, as “skills” educators devise guidelines to teach the Bible as simply a sourcebook for literary and historical references.

Once again, I return to the point I made in “Teaching The Bible In Public Schools: The Religious Elephant In The Living Room.” The Bible is a deeply religious book. If it were simply a sourcebook of literary allusions and historical references, no one would care very much if anyone taught it in pubic schools. 

The Bible matters precisely because it matters as a religious book, for good or bad. And it matters that educated people know how much the Bible—as a religious book—has mattered in our collective history.

And so, the challenge remains. How can the Bible be taught as a religious book without turning public schools into Sunday schools? 

I return to my previous assertion: ”It is possible for good teachers to teach the Bible as a religious book without indoctrinating anyone into a particular religious point of view.”

I promise that I will write much more about teaching the Bible in later posts.

Dr. Kalinda Rose Stevenson

written by Kalinda \\ tags: Bible, Bible in public schools, civil rights movement, I've Been To The Mountaintop, Jr., Kalinda Rose Stevenson, Martin Luther King, promised land, reading skills, teaching bible in public schools

The sixty-six canonical books of the Bible as originally written were inspired of God, hence free from error. They constitute the only infallible guide in faith and practice. Article I of Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary’s Statement Of Faith.

This first article of the Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary “Statement Of Faith” crams several claims into these two sentences.

Let’s start with the phrase, “as originally written.” Already, we have run into a huge problem. The statement is claiming that the books of the Bible “as originally written” were inspired, and therefore “free from error.”

But notice the second part of the claim. “They” constitute the only infallible guide in faith and practice. Grammatically and logically, “they” refers back to the sixty-six canonical books “as originally written.”

This leads to a question. Are the current sixty-six canonical books of the Bible identical to the sixty-six canonical books as originally written? The short answer is: We have no way of knowing.

Let’s make this as simple as possible and consider only the New Testament books, which were all written at various times and in various locations sometime in the first and second centuries of the Common Era. (By the way, no two biblical scholars would agree on exactly when and where all 27 canonical New Testament books were written, but that discussion would take me far off my point.)

My point is that no one anywhere has an original document for anything in any book of the Bible, whether you call it Old Testament, Hebrew Bible, New Testament, or anything else.

The earliest existing fragment of any Biblical book is a tiny scrap of the Gospel of John called the “Rylands Papyrus” (P52.)

Rylands Papyrus (P52)

One of the earliest surviving pieces of New Testament Scripture is a fragment of a papyrus codex containing John 18:31-33 and 37-38, called the Rylands Papyrus (P52). This papyrus was found in Egypt, and has been dated at about 125 A.D.
It currently resides at the John Rylands Library in Manchester, England. Rylands Papyrus

I don’t know if any scholar of the Gospel of John claims that this piece is part of the original manuscript. Even if it were, this bit of papyrus is only a tiny fragment. The rest of the manuscript is long gone.

So, the Gordon-Conwell Statement Of Faith begins with a claim about the inerrancy of “original writings” that, as far as anyone knows, no longer exist.

Let’s also consider this claim from the perspective of logic. You are probably familiar with the syllogism from classical logic, and its best known example.

All men are mortal.
Socrates is a man.
Socrates is mortal.

A categorical syllogism is an argument consisting of exactly three categorical propositions (two premises and a conclusion) in which there appear a total of exactly three categorical terms, each of which is used exactly twice.  Syllogism

So the major premise is: “All men are mortal.”
The minor premise is: “Socrates is a man.”
The conclusion that follows from these two premises is: “Socrates is mortal.”

(If you want to brush up on your syllogistic logic, check out Silly Syllogisms.)

Just for fun, let’s consider a syllogism based on this claim in the Statement Of Faith.

The original books are free from error.
The current books are the same as the original books.
The current books are free from error.

The major premise is: “The original books are free from error.’
The minor premise is: “The current books are the same as the original books.”
The conclusion is: “The current books are free from error.”

However we have run into another problem. The Statement Of Faith is not a syllogism. Instead, it is a tricky little rhetorical device called an “enthymeme,” also known as a “truncated syllogism.”

The informal method of reasoning typical of rhetorical discourse. The enthymeme is sometimes defined as a “truncated syllogism” since either the major or minor premise found in that more formal method of reasoning is left implied. The enthymeme typically occurs as a conclusion coupled with a reason. When several enthymemes are linked together, this becomes sorites.

Example:

“We cannot trust this man, for he has perjured himself in the past.”
In this enthymeme, the major premise of the complete syllogism is missing: 
“Those who perjure themselves cannot be trusted.” (Major premise – omitted) 
“This man has perjured himself in the past.” (Minor premise – stated)
“This man is not to be trusted.” (Conclusion – stated)  Enthymeme

As an enthymeme, the Gordon-Conwell Statement Of Faith has only the major premise and a conclusion 

Major Premise: “The original books are free from error.”
Conclusion:  “They [the original books] are the only infallible guide for faith and practice. “

Notice that both the premise and the conclusion are about the original writings. But even though the conclusion uses the pronoun “they,” which refers back to the “original writings,” the whole point of the Statement Of Faith is to make a claim about the current sixty-six canonical books. It implies that the current books are the same as the original books, and therefore without error.

Since no original books exist, it is impossible to prove this claim. Therefore the entire argument hangs on an unprovable implied premise, that the current books are the same as the original books.

My assessment of this logic is that the syllogism behind the enthymeme is flawed. We cannot prove that the current books are the same as the original books.

Does mean the claim is false? We can’t prove that either. We can only assert that the Statement Of Faith is what it claims to be. The premise and conclusion can be claimed as part of a statement of faith, but they cannot be proved.

I will never argue against anyone’s faith claim, because a faith claim is not based on logical argument, and cannot be proved or disproved by argument. It can only be claimed. Anyone who claims—as a matter of faith—that the current Bible is inerrant because it is identical to the original writings is certainly free to do so.

However, as a scholar of the Bible, I will point out that the manuscripts that have come down to us from antiquity—whether they are fragments or entire manuscripts—demonstrate multitudes of inconsistencies, variations, and demonstrable errors. All of our current Bibles—in any language and in any translation—are based on these various manuscripts rather than on “original writings” that no longer exist.

In another post, I am going to return to the idea of perfection behind this faith claim, to make the point that this idea owes more to Greek philosophy than it does to any biblical understanding of divine revelation.

I’ll end this post with my own opinion that the world could use a lot more syllogisms and a lot fewer enthymemes. This doesn’t mean every enthymeme is always based on a false missing premise. Enthymemes are often both logical and valid. It’s just that it’s easier to jump to a false conclusion with an enthymeme than a syllogism.

Classical rhetoric and logic, with their stodgy old syllogisms, sound very dull and dry, the kinds of things that equally dull and dry scholars talk about in musty seminar rooms. Who needs that kind of stuff in the real world? 

This scholar is convinced that if everyone who made any sort of claim about anything first sat down and attempted to put the claim into a syllogism, with a major premise, a minor premise, and a conclusion based on those two premises, our public conversation about topics—both polite and impolite—would be elevated to a point where we could have real debate about significant topics, based on real arguments rather than rumors and character attacks. 

If politicians had to identify the syllogistic logic behind their conclusions, we wouldn’t have to endure the kind of illogical claims that get bandied about, especially in what passes for political debate in an election year.

The same goes for religious debate.  Imagine what would happen if people who make public statements about religious beliefs had to demonstrate the logic behind their conclusions.  My mind boggles at the possibilities. 

But instead of syllogistic logic on political and religious topics, we too often get flawed enthymemes. People make claims that jump from a premise to a conclusion, based on a faulty implied premise. And all of us are worse off from the use faulty enthymemes instead of logically valid syllogisms.

If you want to read an excellent, engaging, and funny book on what classical  rhetoric means by argument, I highly recommend:

Thank You For Arguing

Thank You for Arguing: What Aristotle, Lincoln, and Homer Simpson Can Teach Us About the Art of Persuasion ,

by Jay Heinrichs 

Dr. Kalinda Rose Stevenson

____________________________________________________

Do you know that you are the product of all the stories you have learned throughout your life? Most of us try to live with stories that don’t serve us. This is especially true with Bible stories. To find out why most of the Bible stories you learned about Jesus and money are not true, be sure to visit Going Broke With Jesus.

written by Kalinda \\ tags: biblical inerrancy, biblical infallibility, classical rhetoric, enthymeme, inerrancy of the Bible, inerrant, infallibility, infallilble, Kalinda Rose Stevenson, Rylands Papyrus, syllogism

The role of human writers in the Bible is probably the most debated, contested, and complicated topic in the evangelical world. Although I am making a complicated topic too simplistic, the basic question is this: Did God write the Bible all alone or did God have human help?

This is the question that definitively separates evangelicals from non-evangelicals. It is also the question that continually roils the evangelical world, as evangelicals dispute among themselves how human beings played a part in writing the Bible.

When I enrolled as a Master of Divinity student at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary, I was so ignorant of the evangelical world that I didn’t even know that this question was the heart of the matter.

My enrollment at Gordon-Conwell is an object lesson in the wisdom of that old adage. “Look before you leap.” This is wise advice…and if I had heeded that advice, I would never have enrolled in Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary. I am embarrassed to admit that I tend to be more of the leap-before-you-look type–the kind of person who dives off the diving board before checking that there is water in the pool.

Actually, I’m not that foolish about diving into swimming pools. But when it came to enrolling as a student at an evangelical seminary, based solely on the recommendation of the minister of the church I was attending, I took a giant leap into a swimming pool without checking out the pool before I jumped in. The pool did have water. However the water was filled with prowling, hungry sharks. (By the way, this is the same minister who told me in my second year of seminary that I no longer had the right to pray because I was disobeying God by attending seminary.)

And so, I enrolled as a student at an institution that defines itself by its relationship to the Bible as the inspired, inerrant, infallible Word of God.

The sixty-six canonical books of the Bible as originally written were inspired of God, hence free from error. They constitute the only infallible guide in faith and practice. Article I of Gordon-Conwell’s Statement Of Faith

My sink-or-swim immersion into an evangelical seminary made me painfully aware that the nature of scripture as the inspired, infallible, and inerrant Word of God was the central defining issue of the evangelical world.

Since then, I have observed how rarely non-evangelical Christians understand the power of this claim in the evangelical world. Non-evangelicals often caricature evangelicals as simply “fundamentalists,” without understanding how either evangelicals or fundamentalists define themselves.

I’ll leave the shark tank metaphor to use a metaphor from photography. The claim that the Bible is the inspired, inerrant, and infallible Word of God becomes a polarizing filter in the evangelical world.

A photographer puts a polarizing filter in front of the camera lens to reduce glare. The polarizer also has the tendency to turn so-so pictures into spectacular ones. If you see a dramatic photo with stunning white clouds against a brilliant blue background, you are probably seeing the effect of a polarizing filter.

The filter blocks some reflected light rays. This means that the filter enhances some light rays as it blocks others. This is also what happens with the polarizing effect of the doctrine of the Bible as “solely” the Word of God. The claim that God is the sole author is dramatically enhanced. The claim that humans had any part as authors is blocked.

Despite the faith claim of the evangelical world that the Bible is solely the word of God, based on the 1646 “Westminster Confession of Faith,” many evangelicals are not so willing to deny any role to human authorship. This is especially true for biblical scholars.

I’ll end this post here by introducing a recent situation involving the evangelical seminary, Westminster Theological Seminary, and one of its tenured professors, Dr. Peter Enns. Professor Enns wrote a book, Inspiration and Incarnation, in which he urges readers to understand the Bible as both divine and human. As a direct result of this book, the trustees suspended Enns as a professor.

“Trustees said it appeared that Enns had defied the school’s founding principle, based on the 1646 Westminster Confession of Faith, the core creed of the Presbyterian tradition. It says that Scripture is solely the word of God and proclaims the “infallible truth” and “entire perfection” of the Bible.” Westminster Trustees

I will continue with this story in another post.

Dr. Kalinda Rose Stevenson

____________________________________________________

Do you know that you are the product of all the stories you have learned throughout your life? Most of us try to live with stories that don’t serve us. This is especially true with Bible stories. To find out why most of the Bible stories you learned about Jesus and money are not true, be sure to visit Going Broke With Jesus.

written by Kalinda \\ tags: 1646 Westminster Confession of Faith, authority of scripture, Bible, Dr. Peter Enns, Enns, evangelical, Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary, inerrant, infallible, Inspiration and Incarnation, inspired, Kalinda Rose Stevenson, Westminster Theological Seminary