Monthly Archives: February 2015

On Not Throwing the Theological Baby Out with the Bathwater

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I’ve been reflecting recently on my faith journey, in particular on the “stuff I believe” side of things. I think that journey could be summed up this way: continually sifting through it all, sorting out the essentials, casting off the non-essentials.

Throw out baby with bathwater 2I suspect many Christians go through that kind of process as they get older, whether consciously or not. But I think that’s especially true of those who grew up as I did within a more conservative stream of Christianity.

Very early in my thinking on things theological I determined one thing: this process of “essentializing” my faith would have to be done carefully. I was in my early 20s, and I distinctly recall thinking that it would be all too easy to look around at the sinking boat of my own faith tradition and jump ship to another, only to find that it was in an even worse state.

To quote an old saying, the grass is always greener on the other side of the fence.

Or another: don’t throw out the baby with the bathwater.

My faith journey has by and large been about draining bathwater and saving babies.

I don’t have any illusions that I’ve done that flawlessly, and I’m still very much on the journey. But I find it disheartening to see other Christians either so unthinkingly clinging to their faith tradition exactly as they have inherited it, or so carelessly casting off their faith tradition and jumping to a sinking ship worse off than the first.

There’s an awful lot of dirty theological bathwater still being bathed in, and there are an awful lot of good theological babies being thrown out.

Both sides of the problem trouble me, but lately I’ve been more concerned about the latter. For some reason it seems to me like progressives should know better. But all too often they don’t, and perfectly good theological babies get thrown out with all that dirty bathwater.

Scripture’s inspiration and authority get thrown out along with the naïve, uncritical readings of Scripture we grew up with—instead of developing a more nuanced, sophisticated view of what Scripture is and how its authority works for Christian faith and life.

Jesus’ uniqueness gets thrown out along with the negative, fear-based views of other religions we were taught—instead of exploring ways in which Jesus can still be “the Way, the Truth, and the Life” without denying the reality and truth of others’ religious experiences and claims.

The reality of sin and its devastating consequences gets thrown out along with the legalism and judgmentalism and harmful views of human nature that were modeled for us—instead of crafting healthy and helpful ways of thinking about the harms we commit against one another and our world.

And on and on it goes—babies thrown out with the bathwater.

But how do we stop that from happening? How do we discern the good theological babies when we’re trying ourselves to emerge from all that bad theological bathwater?

I’m sure there are many helpful answers that could be given. Here are two that I’ve found especially useful along the way.

First, don’t assume that the fundamentalist or conservative evangelical way of reading the Bible or thinking about Christianity is in fact the “original” or “authentic” or even “biblical” way.

Many people make this assumption—both conservatives and progressives. No, the Bible’s “divine inspiration” doesn’t mean that the Bible’s every narrative is a historical record or every depiction of nature is a scientific assertion, or that the Bible speaks to every imaginable issue, or speaks with a single, clear voice—so you can believe in biblical inspiration without holding to those rather modern ideas. No, “salvation” in the Bible doesn’t mean “getting to go to heaven when I die”—so you can speak of salvation but understand that in the more biblical terms of restoration, reconciliation, flourishing life, societal justice, and more.

Examples of such false assumptions could be multiplied many times over. Don’t give in to those assumptions, but instead do the hard work of careful biblical interpretation and wide-ranging theological reading and reflection yourself before you reject those long-held Christian beliefs. You might be surprised to discover that the traditional ideas mean something other, or something more, than what you were first taught—and they have real traction within our twenty-first century human experience.

And that leads to a second suggestion: in discerning essentials from non-essentials, let three theologies—biblical, historical, and global—be your guides.

By biblical theology I don’t mean “the teaching of the Bible,” but rather the teachings of the Bible—plural—the Bible’s many theologies, in all their complex diversity-in-unity. Read the writings of Scripture carefully and in context, seeing both what makes them different and what holds them together. Do historical and global theology the same way: explore Christian thinking across time and space, through history and around the world, listening carefully for both dissonance and harmony. The harmony of Scripture and Church speaks to essentials, the dissonance to the ways in which God’s people have worked through the challenge of living out their faith in different times and places.

I know of no better antidote to either the narrowness of fundamentalism or the indulgence of hyper-progressivism than a good dose of biblical, historical, and global theology. Read widely across Scripture and through history, listen to diverse Christian voices from around the world, and allow your vision of Christian faith to expand as your list of essentials shrinks and your confidence in those few essentials grows.

Yes, there’s a lot of dirty water to be chucked in current versions of conservative Christianity.

But please, for the love of God, check the water for babies.

Cross-posted from http://www.mordenmennonitechurch.wordpress.com. © Michael W. Pahl.

Can We Read the Bible Devotionally? Should We Even Try?

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I received an email from a church member last night. In it he asks a question that I’ve received in different forms many times in my career as a professor and pastor, so I thought it would be worth posting his question and my response here.

van Gogh - BibleHis question was prompted by comments I had made that every single statement in the Bible is “culture-bound,” that even the most seemingly straightforward assertions or commands in Scripture are part of a complex weave of ancient cultural and literary realities. This means, then, that if we really want to understand what these biblical statements are all about we need to read them, as best as we can, in light of their ancient setting.

Here’s his question:

If absolutely none of the Bible’s commands can be taken at face value, but must be interpreted after major study, the same must apply to promises in the Bible. How can one then read the Bible “devotionally,” claiming and being encouraged by promises, without a major study to make sure of the promises’ meanings, since it is unlikely they mean what they appear on the surface to mean – just like the commands we read in the Bible?

And here’s how I responded, edited slightly for the blog (the smiley-face is original):

Let me try to give an analogy here. The earth spins on its axis and revolves around the sun. Those are basic scientific facts. However, they’re easy to ignore or deny: from our personal perspective it sure doesn’t feel like we’re spinning or moving, and it sure looks like the sun turns around the earth. And in our everyday lives the true facts seem to make very little difference: we go through the seasons, we watch the sun rise, enjoy the sun during the day (or hope it comes out!), and watch the sun set. We even speak in our everyday language about “sunrise” and “sunset,” as if the sun actually goes around the earth.

However, there are moments in our everyday lives, and more significant moments in our collective life as human societies, where we need to make sure we pay attention to those facts. When we want to know the weather forecast, we sure hope the meteorologist has worked with accurate models that include those basic facts of earth’s rotation and revolution. When we want to know what’s going on with climate change, we sure hope the climatologists have considered the implications of the basic realities of the earth’s rotation on its axis and revolution around the sun. And these basic facts have many other implications, from launching the satellites that we now all rely on for our GPS and cell phones, to charting the flight paths of the airplanes we fly on, and more.

Appreciating the basic fact of the antiquity of Scripture is kind of like that. It is a basic fact, there’s no way of getting around it. When we pick up our English Bible and read it and it seems to make sense, it can be easy to ignore or deny the fact of Scripture’s “ancientness.” But that’s ironic: we only have the luxury of sitting down with our English Bibles because a team of scholars has spent years to produce that translation from an ancient text in ancient languages, with that text being reconstructed by other teams of scholars who have spent years comparing ancient manuscripts to come up with the most likely original reading of the text. It’s a fact: the biblical writings are ancient human writings. And that must be taken into account in how we read them.

I have no problem with devotional readings of Scripture, however – I encourage it, in fact. That’s much like everyday people enjoying the sunshine, speaking of “sunrise” and “sunset” without giving much thought to whether their words are really accurate. God can speak through our own private – even inaccurate! – readings of Scripture. Hey, if God can speak through Balaam and his donkey, God can speak through anything – even if that’s not God’s ideal way to speak. So I’m all for people reading their Bibles, hearing God encouraging them or challenging them to greater faith and hope and love, even if they are badly misreading that promise that was actually a covenant promise for ancient Israel in exile (e.g. Jer 29:11), or whatever.

However, there are times when it is very important that we make sure we take into account the basic fact of Scripture’s “ancientness,” because we want to be as sure as possible that we are getting the right interpretation of a particular passage. It’s one thing for someone to be personally challenged to faith, hope, or love by their private reading of their English translation of the Bible. It’s quite another thing for them to take that private reading and impose it on others, or to make it the basis for the faith and practice of their congregation or conference, especially if that reading of Scripture is going to in some way constrain the faith and practice of others. At that point, we need to say, “Hold on – this is important. Let’s go back to the text together and read it in context.”

At least, that’s how I see it. 🙂

For more on these ideas, check out my post on “What is the Bible, and How Should We Read It?” Cross-posted from http://www.mordenmennonitechurch.wordpress.com. © Michael W. Pahl.

Things Jesus Didn’t Say

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This morning I got thinking about ways in which we ignore or distort Jesus’ teachings (note the “we” there – that’s me implicated as well!). Why do we do this? Well, to put it bluntly, Jesus’ teachings are hard!

Bloch Sermon MountJesus’ teachings are sometimes hard to understand, but even when they’re pretty clear, they are even harder to put into practice. They make us uncomfortable. They might make us unpopular. They force us to confront our fears and prejudices, or face up to our own sin, or otherwise dig deep into the darkest parts of our hearts. They force us to action, to not just speak about loving others, but to actually love others in the way of Jesus.

Well, I had a little fun with all that on Twitter this morning, tweeting a few #ThingsJesusDidntSay:

#ThingsJesusDidntSay “Anyone who is angry with a brother or sister will be subject to judgment – but be as passive aggressive as you want.”

#ThingsJesusDidntSay “If your right eye causes you to sin by looking lustfully at a woman, insist that she dress more modestly.”

#ThingsJesusDidntSay “Do not turn away from the one who wants to borrow from you – as long as they’ve got a good credit rating.”

#ThingsJesusDidntSay “I tell you, demonize your enemies and dehumanize those who oppose you. Much easier to keep things straight that way.”

#ThingsJesusDidntSay “Love your neighbour as yourself – except for the one that looks different, or thinks differently, or…”

#ThingsJesusDidntSay “Pray this way: ‘My Father, my own special Father, no one else’s Father…”

#ThingsJesusDidntSay “Pray this way: ‘Our political and economic empire come, our will be done, on earth as it is in [insert nation here].”

#ThingsJesusDidntSay “Pray this way: ‘Give me for the rest of my life all the luxuries that Madison Avenue tells me I need.”

#ThingsJesusDidntSay “Pray this way: ‘Forgive us our sins, whether we forgive others or not.'”

#ThingsJesusDidntSay “Judge others, or you will be judged. It’s not about compassionate concern for the other, it’s about truth!”

#ThingsJesusDidntSay “In everything, do to others what they have done to you.”

#ThingsJesusDidntSay “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord,’ will enter the kingdom, but only those who have the right doctrine.”

I say this was a bit of fun, but of course there’s a serious side to it. Many of us, especially as Mennonites who grew up on the Sermon on the Mount, are so used to Jesus’ teachings that we actually miss their radical significance. We’ve made them comfortable – for ourselves, that is, not for others. We may think they’re about some special religious realm, when in fact they’re about life right now, right here, God’s kingdom coming on earth, God’s will being done on earth.

So what did Jesus actually say about these things? Check out Matthew’s rendering here – but be careful, because you might just have to change the way you think and live.

Cross-posted from http://www.mordenmennonitechurch.wordpress.com. © Michael W. Pahl.

The Lord’s Prayer

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“Lord, teach us to pray.”

That’s how Luke’s Gospel introduces the prayer that we today call the Lord’s Prayer: Jesus’ disciples so moved by Jesus’ own praying that one of them asks Jesus to teach them to pray.

Tissot - Lord's PrayerAnd so Jesus does. He gives his disciples a prayer to pray. But it is also a pattern for prayer, a way of praying. It highlights the attitudes and perspectives we should have in prayer, it sketches out the kinds of things we should focus on in our prayers—and in our lives.

When we pray the Lord’s Prayer thoughtfully and patiently, we find ourselves becoming more and more aligned with Jesus, more and more in tune with Jesus’ way of seeing things and doing things. We not only learn how to pray in the way of Jesus, we are also shaped by this prayer into the image of Jesus.

Centered on God, Focused on God’s Kingdom

Jesus begins his prayer by centering on God:

Our Father in heaven,
hallowed be your name.

Prayer is directed to God. It’s not merely inward reflection or meditation—as helpful as those things can be, and as much as those things can even be a part of prayer. But prayer itself is centered on God, not ourselves, not our world. It is a looking to God, turning our thoughts toward God, the one in whom we live and move and have our being.

This is a very personal prayer. Jesus called God “Father,” “Abba.” That’s an Aramaic word that both young children and grown-up children used to refer to their fathers. It’s a term of endearment, a term that combines affection with respect. Calling God our Abba, our Father, highlights the fact that prayer is a very personal thing: we as persons relate to our Creator as a person.

But this is also a collective prayer, even a universal prayer. You see this throughout the Lord’s Prayer: it’s not “my Father,” it’s not “I” and “me” throughout. It’s “our Father,” it’s about “we” and “us.” This loving Creator is the mothering Father of us all on earth: all humanity, every nation, every tribe, every culture, in every time and place.

If “our Father in heaven” highlights this as a universal prayer to the Creator, “hallowed be your name” emphasizes that our Creator is the God of ancient Israel in particular. In the Old Testament, God’s “name” is YHWH, and this name was viewed as sacred, never to be used “in vain,” that is, in empty, meaningless ways (Exod 20:7).

But this idea is not just about God’s name being special, as if there’s something magical about the name YHWH. It’s a way of saying that God himself is holy: God is utterly unique, completely unlike anything or anyone else. It’s a reminder that we are not merely praying to someone who is like us, only bigger and better; we are praying to God, the one in whom and through whom and for whom we exist.

The whole prayer is God-centered: it’s a prayer to YHWH, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the everlasting I Am, who is the personal, loving Creator of all peoples. Jesus calls us to center our prayer on this God, the one true and living God.

But the prayer is also kingdom-focused.

The kingdom of God is the consistent theme of Jesus’ teaching. His miracles are like signposts pointing to God’s kingdom. Everything Jesus says and does is connected to the kingdom of God. Indeed, his whole mission given by God was to be the Messiah, the promised King, to bring about God’s kingdom on earth, to establish God’s rightful reign as King over all things, a reign characterized by love, life, justice, and peace—true shalom.

And so it’s no surprise at all that, after that opening address to God, Jesus’ prayer begins and ends by referring to God’s kingdom.

Your kingdom come.
Your will be done,
on earth as it is in heaven.

“Your kingdom come, your will be done.” These are equivalent phrases: God’s “kingdom” is God’s “will”; God’s kingdom “coming” is God’s will “being done.” God’s will for all things is flourishing life, a life filled with love and peace—and this is exactly what God’s kingdom is all about.

“On earth as it is in heaven.” The biblical authors can use the language of “heaven” or (more often) “the heavens” to refer to the sky above us in contrast to the earth below. However, when they speak of God in connection to “heaven,” as here, the word “heaven” is more about being in God’s immediate presence, wherever that might be.

Here’s the point of Jesus’ prayer, then: it suggests that God’s reign, God’s will for justice and peace, is eternally evident in “heaven,” in God’s immediate presence, but it is not always evident on “earth,” in human experience and human history.

This explains a lot, doesn’t it? We long for life and love because God is life and love—God’s kingdom, God’s will, is fully manifest in his presence, for which we are created. Yet we don’t always experience flourishing life and genuine love because there are things about the human condition—sin and evil—that keep us from fully experiencing the life and love of God.

But here’s the thing: Jesus has planted the seed of God’s kingdom in the soil of earth, and it is growing slowly but surely until it will be fully present on earth, like a mustard seed growing into a plant that provides shade for all. And this is what we long for, what we pray for, what we strive for.

Concerned with Provision, Forgiveness, Protection—for All

Bloch Sermon MountThe Lord’s Prayer is God-centered and kingdom-focused, all the way through. This means that when we get to the petitions at the heart of the prayer we’re still centered on God and focused on God’s kingdom. Provision, forgiveness, and protection—these are kingdom matters, wrapped up in God. And again, note the “us” in all these: provision, forgiveness, and protection are not just for each of us individually, but for us collectively, as Jesus’ followers and as a human race.

Give us this day our daily bread.

The Greek word for “bread” here is a rare word—in the New Testament it’s only found in the Lord’s Prayer. It’s so rare no one is sure exactly what it means, but it probably has the idea of “what is necessary.” It’s not talking about extra things, luxuries in life, but life’s most basic necessities: food, water, clothing, shelter.

Using the word “bread” to translate this rare word is not a bad idea. It evokes a particular story that can help to appreciate what Jesus is saying here: the story of the ancient Israelites, wandering in the desert, collecting manna, bread from heaven, each day. God only gave them enough for one day at a time: if they tried to save it for two days (apart from the Sabbath) the manna spoiled.

“Give us this day our daily bread.” In other words, “God, give us just what we need, just when we need it.”

Again, though, remember the collective “we” here. We don’t all get just what we need, just when we need it. The reality is that some of us get more than we need and others less. But God does give us, collectively, just what we need. We have a responsibility to each other, then: when we have more than we need, we are called to share with those who do not have what they need; and when we do not have enough, we are encouraged to accept generosity from those who have more than enough.

And forgive us our debts,
as we also have forgiven our debtors.

We often separate out God’s forgiveness of our sins with our forgiveness of others’ sins against us. But Jesus brings them inseparably together. “For if you forgive others their trespasses,” Jesus goes on to say in Matthew’s Gospel, “your heavenly Father will also forgive you; but if you do not forgive others, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.”

Strong words! We cannot expect God to forgive us if we don’t forgive others. Hard words! But we need to hear them. Just as God has forgiven us so freely, so largely, so also are we called to forgive others: family, friends, strangers, even enemies.

If you think about it, this is just another angle on the Greatest Commandment. Jesus says that the greatest commandment is to “Love God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.” But he’s quick to point out that there’s a second commandment attached to it: “Love your neighbor as yourself.” Love of God is inseparable from love of others. Likewise, forgiveness from God is inseparable from forgiveness for others.

And do not bring us to the time of trial,
but rescue us from the evil one.

We think of this as “temptation,” and most of us probably think of being tempted to do some private, personal sin. But the word here is more general than that. It means “trial” or “testing, not just “temptation”—it’s any weakness we may have, any hardship we may endure, any wrong desire we may experience.

This points to the reality of sin and evil in the world—in our own hearts, yes, but also the larger and wider sins and evils that are out there. Not just inward sins like lust, but social sins like materialism, systemic evils like racism, natural evils like cancer. These are all wrong, they are all outside God’s kingdom, God’s will, and so we pray for God to protect us—each of us, all of us—from these wrongs, or at least to preserve us through them.

Provision, forgiveness, and protection. These are at the heart of Jesus’ prayer, they’re at the heart of God’s kingdom. And these are the things our world so desperately needs. Provision for all of humanity’s most basic needs, not hoarding what we don’t need but sharing with all. Forgiveness of harms done against each other, not perpetuating the cycles of violence and vengeance. Protection from suffering and evil, especially for the most vulnerable, the most innocent in our world.

Centered on God, Focused on God’s Kingdom

Jesus’ prayer ends right where it began, centered on God, focused on God’s kingdom:

For the kingdom and the power and the glory
are yours forever. Amen.

We think these are ours, or we strive to achieve them. Having power over other people, over our circumstances. Our will being done, getting things our way. Receiving honour, fame, glory for how great we are, how good we are.

Yet these things are God’s, not ours. And it’s a good thing, too, because we humans have shown time and again that whenever we build our own kingdoms or pursue our own power or seek our own glory, we only increase the evil and suffering of this world.

God shows us a different way in Jesus: building a kingdom through self-giving love for the other, through weakness and humility. And it is only in this way that a kingdom can be built that will last forever, a kingdom of love, and life, and justice, and peace.

May God’s kingdom come, God’s will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.

Starting with you and me, right now, following in Jesus’ footsteps, shaped by this very prayer.

Check out also “The Lord’s Prayer for All People,” an expanded version of the Lord’s Prayer which incorporates the themes described here.

© Michael W. Pahl