Listening to Strangers: An Experiment

What if we (okay, I) were to walk up to a stranger, a neighbor, and a friend, as ask an open ended question about a biblical text? Asking questions like "what do hear in this passage?" or "what words or images come to mind when you hear this...?" What would be the types of responses? Maybe a text like, "the earth is the Lord's and the fullness thereof;" or, "love your enemies;" or the "children of God... shining like stars."

I'll let you know if I do it. If you do it first, let me know.

Zwingli's and Luther's Kids

My friends, a Presbyterian minister, and a Lutheran minister are studying the Apostles Creed with a joint confirmation class. A nice experience of ecumenism: the children of Zwingli and Luther sitting in a class reading the Bible together, studying the historic creeds and confessions, and Luther's Short Catechism. As this class began to study the Apostles Creed, I was invited to speak on the first article from a Mennonite perspective.

Mennonites, after all, are perceived to be connected to the land. My years in Kansas affirmed that assumption. The emerald green waves of winter wheat draw your sight to ground, then to the horizon, and eventually to the big wide open sky. The earth, its sky and soils are a providential act of unconditional love.

I tried to explain a little of the Mennonite history of baptism upon confession and how it was interpreted as a protest against a state run church; how refraining from infant baptism was an act of treason against the state (a form of tax evasion); how Anabaptist folk were driven to the wilderness and countryside through harsh persecution. Persecution made all the more harsh by the wedded powers of the church and the state. Eventually transitioning to a rural and agrarian culture. It was hard to keep this moving forward for a bunch of 12 and 13 year olds. So I tried not to dwell on too much history.

We talked a little about the historic experience of Mennonites in Europe, fleeing to Russia. While not trying to slight the Swiss Mennonites, we spoke only briefly of the 13 families that came to Pennsylvania by invitation of William Penn. But manly, we spoke of the Dutch/Low German Mennonites who journeyed to Russian, becoming, at Catherine the Great's pronouncement, the "quiet in the land". These Mennonites quietly came to America beginning in the 1870s to the Great Plains, leading to the growth of Mennonite farming and the affected the world-wide production of wheat. A historical event that we still experience with every bite of bread.

But most interesting was the open conversation around the question of similarities and differences. What is the difference between Lutherans, Presbyterians, and Mennonites. When confronted by this question in front of kids in seventh and eighth grade, sophisticated answers don't cut it. While we have different interpretations of the Bible and the creeds, we had one moment in which we three pastors made clear to the kids that we read from the same text. And that that same text, the Bible, we all agreed was a document given by God to people.

The idea of a "normalizing norm," is just this kind of conversation. A conversation, not among esoterica and theological sophisticates, but with kids seeking to mature in faith - in this conversation we had to come to the norm we all hold in common and common esteem. It's not the differences we begin with, but our shared value of the Bible. Then, from a common text in which we can dwell we can begin to talk about the different histories and reflections that have shaped our theological imaginations and cultures.

It's not a big thing. This was a casual, relaxed encounter among three Christian traditions. The lasting power of the content of the evening will wane - quickly, most likely. However, if these young people in Christian formation can get a glimpse of the fact that we are all held together in the same body of Christ, then the lasting lesson is probably the best.

Needing Another Method for Reading Scripture

Grenz makes an a common sense appeal that scripture be for us the norm for theological reflection. As "people of the book" that should be no-brainer. But no matter how ofter we read the common text, we continually find various ways to spit hairs and split communions. Few things seem as fraught with potential conflict as our most common heritage; i.e. reading scripture.

Recently, I was having lunch with some Presbyterian ministers while sharing strawberries, sharing thoughts on Luke 10, and trying to share a common approach to scripture. We looked at a passage from a PC USA resource (http://www.pcusa.org/oga/publications/scripture-use.pdf) called, Presbyterian Understanding and Use of Holy Scripture. Helpfully the document delineated three predominant approaches to reading scripture....

Model A Distinctive Characteristics: The Bible as a Book of Inerrant Facts

1. The rational procedure of mathematics, empirical science, and Common Sense philosophy are used in approaching the Bible as a collection of true facts and doctrinal propositions that can be organized into a logical system truly representing the mind and will of God.

2. Each word of the Bible is considered divinely chosen, and it is inerrant in all things, including science and history.

3. In all regards he Bible is considered to be the judge of human thought and in no way is it to be judged by us.

Model B Distinctive Characteristics: The Bible as Witness to Christ, the Word of God

1. Faith relationship replaces dependence on rational procedures. God can be known not by the mind alone, but by faith encounter with Jesus Christ, God incarnate.

2. The Bible is the word of God because by the Holy Spirit it is the instrument by which God in Christ encounters a person. The Bible is not diminished in its power by the presence of archaic and superseded conceptions of past times and cultures in matters of science and history as well as in religious and ethical realms.

3. The major emphasis is on God's act of self-revelation rather than on the process by which Scripture was written. The inspiration of its authors is not denied, but the stress is on the impact of the Holy Spirit on the readers of Scripture.

Model C Distinctive Characteristics: A Divine Message in Human Thought Forms

1. The social sciences such as psychology, sociology, and anthropology provide crucial insights for a thorough understanding of Scripture.

2. The accent is on the Bible's function as communicating a divine message in human forms of thought. The message speaks to the needs of people in all cultures despite its particular historical context of ancient Near Eastern culture. To understand the divine message one must pay the closest attention possible to the human words, neither presuming the meaning to be obvious nor forcing meaning into arbitrary harmonies or a preconceived theology.

3. Human, relational metaphors, rather than scientific or propositional statements aptly describe God's communication with his people and provide us with invaluable attitudes, approaches and analogies by which people can cope with contemporary problems in a Christian perspective.

The only disturbing thing was this was where the description ended. The first might be characterized as the Princeton School which gave rise to folks like Hodge, Berkhouer, Ryrie and contemporary fundamentalism. The second looks a lot like my seminary education, and most western seminaries of the mainline denominations. Steeped in Neo-Orthodoxy we read Barth, Brunner, and Bonhoeffer. The third option reminds me of my years studying existential philosophy and the method of correlation formed by Paul Tillich and the University of Chicago.

What is lacking in this list? Isn't there a fourth position that has emerged since the rise of postmodernity? Where do we put the likes of Grenz, N. T. Wright, and even Gordon Fee? So, what I am asking, can we begin to forge a unifying theory of biblical interpretation? Is there a fourth way appropriate to the context in which we now live and minister?