A Radical Faith

If you’re looking for a new way of going at the Christian faith, Jacques Ellul is your man.  He insists it is not new – that he has not “discovered” some truth that all previous generations have overlooked.  He would point to many groups down through the centuries who dared to oppose the prevailing notion of the faith – as defined typically by the Church, that is, Rome. They longed for an authentic experience of God demonstrated in real life in acts of love, sacrifice, and justice.  They sought to model a new kind of community, one marked not by hierarchy, legalism and power but by equality, love, and care for the poor.

Christendom has been seduced time and time again by power – power corrupts, says Ellul, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.  Instead of faith empowering people to live in trust and harmony and mutual care and respect, it has been more often a means for power, for control over others.

“God is love,” says 1 John, and Ellul takes this as his fundamental belief.   Love requires freedom; God has given us that freedom so that we can love genuinely.  And so any act of control, when one person or an institution such as a government or church deprives another of his or her freedom, is sinful – morally corrupt.

Thus, anarchy: radical freedom of the individual with regard to any institution.  And in a statement that Sam Harris would like, Ellul says that “religion is an incontestable source of war.” (250 But by “religion” Ellul means a corrupted faith, one that seeks to destroy freedom, to make its adherents behave a certain way, especially in obedience to the officers of religion.

Ellul is careful to say that he is not a secular anarchist – the sort who seek to overthrow an institution only to replace it with another that will control people in new ways.  His Christian faith – which includes belief in “sin, not the breaking of moral law but rather covetousness and power (20) – won’t allow him the optimistic view that humankind is capable of a purely anarchist society.  “I do not believe in a pure anarchist society, but I do believe in the possibility of creating a new social model/” (21)

A brief essay in the Appendix by a priest, Adrien Duchosal, states the position most plainly: 

“I reject all human hierarchy.”  We congregationalist ought to warm to that!   But further, and more radically for a person of traditional faith:

“I reject hierarchy between us and God.”   And even further . . . 

“Finally to accept or reject the existence of God is unimportant.  What counts is having the taste and joy that live gives.”  (98)  That should take your breath away.

Ellul in the last half of the book is at pains to show that Christian anarchy is biblically based.  He begins with the Hebrew Scriptures, especially noting that the beginning of the monarchy was not God’s idea, but the Israelites’ – so that they could be like the other nations.  No good will come of it, says the Lord.  And none did, says Ellul.  So far from being instituted by God – Divine Right, we later called it – the monarchy was a human device only reluctantly allowed by God.  (God gave us freedom to do dumb things, remember.)  

In the gospels Ellul is most interested in how Jesus responded to the powers of his day, embodied in the religions rulers and by Pilate at his trial.  That Jesus had nothing good to say about the former is certain.  When confronted with Rome itself, Jesus said nothing – a contemptuous silence Ellul would say. 

The book of Revelation, that strange piece of apocalyptic writing, portrays government – Rome, “Babylon” – as being against all that is good.  Ellul (and an article in the Appendix) also addresses Romans 13 – “a very embarrassing passage” he says, page 86.  Embarrassing because at first blush (and this is the way the Powers That Be have always read it for obvious reasons) Paul seems to be telling Christians to obey every authority as if they are God Himself.  

Of course Romans 13 is “embarrassing” only to those who take the Bible (“cover to cover”) as the authoritative Word of God.  Ellul despite he radical understanding of how Christian faith should be lived is nevertheless quite orthodox in his faith in many ways.  He thus feels it important to show that his Christian anarchy is biblically based and supported by an authoritative scripture.

Jacques Ellul Should Shake You Up

We are beginning Ellul's Anarchy and Christianity.  To set that in the context of our last six months' explorations, I offer the following.

To summarize where we’ve been, and why we’re here now:

In the grand scheme of things (MY grand scheme, such as it is) we have explored cognitive science – trying to have some idea of how this brain of ours works, especially with regard to religious impulse. Then we heard one of the leaders of the New Atheist movement – Sam Harris – as he called for renunciation of all religion, but especially fundamentalism, to be replaced by reason.  He made room for spiritual, even mystical experience, and morality too, but all to be achieved by scientific research.  Just for fun, here’s a great video of Steve Martin and the Step Canyon Rangers, performing “Atheists Don’t Have No Songs.”  

Haught took aim at scientific naturalism like that of Harris, alleging that scientific, purely materialistic reason could not completely explain human experience.  Something beyond us – God, we might say – beckons us on to emerging experiences.  Human intelligence emerging from unintelligent matter, he said, was the greatest evidence for the existence of a god.

Our brains seem to be wired – or is it conditioned, a matter of contention – to be on the lookout for agents (natural or supernatural) acting in the world, from what can easily be explained (I shank a golf shot, I feel rage) to what provokes speechless awe (a view from the Hubble telescope) and seemingly defies explanation.  Especially for people who, like me, whose brain is getting more clogged up every day.  (Time to Defragment.)

Looking for a sufficient agent to account for our reality, we posit a God, or at least most people have.  If I am prepared to explore that possibility (and have not ruled it out before giving the idea a chance – Haught’s charge against the scientific naturalists) then the next question is which God?  -- the human race having come up with a variety of options.

Living where we are, we naturally look first to the Christian faith.  And run smack into some ridiculous claims by its more vocal followers.  Like the world is only 6K years old.  And we hit a book that in places describes God more like an angry child than like a God I want to follow.   Like when your son rebels, have him stoned – that’ll teach him.

Put off by the literalists – here I point you to this great sermon by one such practitioner, on a passage of interest especially to males, er, men -- many of us have dismissed the Bible and Christianity altogether.  Thus , Marcus Borg’s contention that a modern person, without denying all that we have learned about science and culture and language, can read the Bible a new/old way.

Using the lens especially of metaphor, says Borg, modern people can reclaim a faith that is both intellectually sound and experientially satisfying.  His book, Reading the Bible Again for the First Time, was an outline of Borg’s methodology and the faith he sees through a fresh reading of the Bible.

We now are looking at two contemporary theologians -- Jacques Ellul and John Dominic Crossan -- who put forth their understanding of Christianity, understandings that are quite different from mainline Protestant faith and, perhaps especially, Fundamentalists. 

Ellul’s portrayal of faith is starkly contrarian – thoroughly and uncompromisingly opposed to “the Church” as expressed in Catholic and Protestant establishments.  He says he has discovered nothing new – there have always been individuals and small movements who have protested against the authority of (and misdeeds of) institutionalized Christendom.  Ellul’s understanding of Christianity is nothing like what we learned in Sunday School!

So. Here’s What I Think. Part One.

1.  The nature of “Knowing” and “Reality”

While there is some chance that what I am experiencing at this moment – looking out over Lake Winnebago, hearing some lovely music playing downstairs, savoring the taste of good coffee lingering on my tongue between sips, taking a call from a friend – is but a dream , that is, not “real” but something I am merely (!) imagining by the stunningly complex operations of my brain – while the world just might not be, I doubt it.  The coffee just tastes too good to deny.

How do I “know” that?  I just do.  And most people agree with me on this, and that’s always nice.  I disagree with a lot of people, this day after the election, and so am happy to find common ground on this most common of grounds (no, not coffee grounds), namely that the world around me, and me too is really here.

My knowing isn’t confined to the touchable and measurable.  A bunch of it is, and I am thankful for the physical, technological advances that the scientific world has given me, especially, say, when I am in the dentist’s chair.  Praise God for novocain, I say.  And praise science too.

But there are other experiences that, to the best of my knowledge – and I admit my limitations here and everywhere else – are not subject to mere physical or chemical description.  My experience of love and beauty and art and light and poetry; the way the brass sound the last verse of O Come All Ye Faithful on that one word, “Word of the Father now in flesh appearing . . .” and the sopranos are showering us with their angelic descant.  A musician can describe it using the language of music theory (intervals and such), but that says nothing real about what that sound in that place at that moment accompanying those words does to me.  I exaggerate.  The theory is real too, but not in comparison with my experience of that sound.

I liked Haught’s description of layers of meaning, of truth.  There is the perfectly true and very important, helpful scientific understanding of a campfire.  For millennia we sat around those fires, oblivious to the chemistry of them.  Now we know what fire is, chemically, and that’s nice.  But that campfire means so much more, and has meant so much more to humans for millennia.  And it is that so much more of the world that calls out for explanation, or some attempt at least.

I like to reserve the word “know” to the empirical, observable, factual parts of reality.  Things I am sure of, can count on, or so it seems.  I know I am aging.  A quick survey of my face affirms that, if I needed any personal proof.  I know my dog’s name is Pete, and that he is aging too, as he inhabits the same world  I do.  True enough there may come a time when I won’t be able to remember the name of my dog, but that is another matter.   When I say I “know” something I am talking about the empirical realm.   I don’t “know” anything, really, in the realm of the spirit.

The other word – like knowing, but very different – is “”believe.”   I use this in both the physical world and spiritual world.   “I believe it is 10:00" means that while I haven’t looked at my watch recently I’m pretty sure it’s around 10:00.  A glance at my watch, if I have faith that it is reliable timepiece, and I can say, with certainty, “It’s 10:00.”   I believe things about the physical, observable world that I am pretty sure of, but wouldn’t bet a cow on. 

In the spiritual realm I will always use believe.  Because the spirit realm is not subject to any proofs I know.

Two helpful words here, one I just used – “certainty” – and “certitude.” 

Certainty arises from external evidence of the truth of a statement.  The more the evidence, the stronger the evidence, the more certain I can be about a matter.  Because it is external evidence, others can see it, and their observations together with mine encourages my certainty.  To use perhaps the most obvious of examples:  The sun “comes up” every morning.  I am certain of that because it has done it every day of my life.  Based on my experience and that of the rest of humanity, I am certain it will “rise” tomorrow.  I may not be here to see it, but others will be. And even if there were no people to see it, the sun would “rise.”  We can be certain of that, can’t we?

Certitude may be supported by external evidence, experience.  But it takes into account interior, subjective experience as well.  It does not require scientific proof, support, evidence, but may be glad to have it.  No matter, though: certitude is a feeling that something is true and real.  A person can have a feeling of certitude, say, that there is a God out there.  They really can’t be certain – there is no scientific “proof” for God.  God can’t be demonstrated to the world, at will, every day.  But still millions of people have had this feeling within that there is something, someone beyond. 

Certitude may be, and often is I suppose, placed in the wrong things.  There are people who every week, despite the overwhelming mathematical odds against it – and they know it – give money (large sums too) to the State of Wisconsin because they feel inside – they are “certain” – they will win the lottery.  That’s certitude.  That’s not smart.

I know some things about reality with certainty.

I believe other things about reality with certitude.  Sometimes that certitude is very strong. Other times no so much.

2.  God

Do I know there is a God?   No.  The world looks to me like there is a God – the complexities, beauties, mysteries, from the vastness (infinite?) of space (the photos from the Hubble telescope leave me speechless, see http://hubblesite.org/gallery/album/entire ) to what I am told about subatomic worlds, seem to force me to posit a creative Mind behind, within it.  I seem to long for not an “explanation” but at least some idea of where this all came from.  And God seems to be as good a theory as any.   No certainty here.  But some growing certitude. 

Some very bright people do offer alternative theories.  Richard Dawkins is the most outspoken of these folk, and he is very bright indeed.  But frankly I am not smart enough even to read, let alone intelligently evaluate their theories.  Such discussions take place in a rarefied atmosphere that relatively few people in the world have the smarts to participate in.  That’s not saying they are wrong.  It is saying that their conversation is accessible to few of us, and I am not one of them.  It should be remembered that their theories, while arising from scientific observation, are yet theories – not a lot of certainty here either, given the disagreements among theorists and the changes their theories seem to regularly undergo.  Being very smart doesn't necessarily mean being correct, although it doesn't hurt.

I’d like to say that I believe in God because of my careful, systematic, rigorous exploration of the evidence and theories offered pro and con.  I’ve done a little of that – a fair amount of questioning my own religious tradition.   But let’s be honest here.  I believe primarily because I was raised in a home where belief in God was assumed, taught – and lived.  I spent most of my childhood (I exaggerate again) in church, singing songs about God, hearing prayers to God, listening to testimonies about God.  Fortunately I saw that faith lived out in good ways – these were decent, caring people who built their lives around their faith community and – as far as frail human beings can – genuinely loved each other and the world.

I resisted that faith as a high schooler, but pretty quickly returned to it and found a place in the Christian community.  In fact I became a professional believer – a pastor.  So belief in God has worked pretty well for me!

Along the way I have studied reasons for faith – “evidence” both for belief in God in general and the Christian God in particular.  But I expect that my basic belief arose from my earliest years – from my being nurtured into faith – much more from careful study of the issues.

3.  Is Belief in God Necessary?

Harris forcefully argued that religion – the traditional expressions of the major religions – contrary to helping people live ethically has caused an enormous amount of suffering – unethical living.  The history of faith is replete with rampant and horrific abuses of faith.  That has usually happened when people in power pretend to know more than they do – are certain of things that no one can be certain of.  Fundamentalism pretends to know the mind and ways of God, and purports to speak for God in the world.  That is a ridiculous claim.

Is belief in God necessary for a person to live a morally good life?  No.  There are people who by the force of their minds –reason – and the goodness of their hearts live moral lives.  By that I guess I mean lives that take into account the good of the community rather than merely themselves, are able to live for the happiness and welfare of others, and not just themselves.  There are plenty of good non-believers around.  Better people often than the mean-spirited and ill informed Christians I see on the news every day.

There are a lot of folks, though, who need a religion to give a structure, a reason, a compass from outside of themselves to live morally good lives.   What I call good religion - no matter the brand – can be a powerful means of reigning in some of humankind’s darker inclinations and encouraging, even rewarding our brighter side.  (Some of the great non-religious leaders and nations of our time haven’t done a very good job of it morally.  Think Joe Stalin, Chairman Mao.)

Religion can provide an impetus to moral living.  From the lowest of motivations (God will roast you if you are bad) to more laudable motives (for the betterment of society, to help my neighbor, to follow the example of my Teacher), religion can make the world more livable.  And that’s a good thing.

But of course religion has also provided great motivation for evil living – from the Spanish Inquisition to our invasion of Iraq cheered on by the likes of evangelist John Hagee and his ilk.  Religious motivation can go both ways.

To summarize: I believe there is a Holy Presence that began and is continuing to be create the worlds around me.  Could be wrong – not certain.  But something inside compels me to believe in that Mystery above and within all things.  That belief offers me some comfort, a purpose, and calls me to live responsibly and morally in the world. 

To be continued . . . .

What's Next?

We will be pushing on into and through the "New Testament" for the next meeting . . .  I encourage you to read that section, and also Borg's section on the "Old" Testament if you haven't done that yet.   The "New" is based on the "Old" and so it's important to have an idea of the major stories and themes of the Hebrew Scriptures if we are to grapple with Christianity well.


When we finish the Borg book . . . what next?  Here's a book just out that strikes my fancy:  see what you think!  Krasny, who seems to have lots of good credentials, is neither in the new atheism camp nor the believing camp . . .  but tries to understand both in his own spiritual journey.  You can see the Table of Contents, the Index (quite extensive), and read the first chapter at Amazon.

























Another possibility:  Anarchy and Christianity, by Jacques Ellul.  Recommended by Mick:   
















A book recommended by Brian:  God and Empire: Jesus Against Rome then and Now.  This expands what Borg said talking about God and Caesar.

Sacred "treasure" always in earthen vessels

Quaker writer Parker Palmer talks about an image that St. Paul used 2000 years ago when he said, "We have this treasure [the sacred, the presence of God, the Spirit, an experience with the Holy . . . or whatever else one may call it] in earthen vessels."  Frail, transitory "vessels" that "hold" the Holy -- be they words or metaphors or rituals, religions -- are not what is Holy, sacred.  They are important, but they are not the Holy.


Our religions -- our sacred texts, our traditions, our ways of "understanding" God . . .  these are always incomplete, flawed, misleading, and subject to all sorts of abuse.  But they are what we have.  


Palmer writes,
"Every container we create to hold the sacred treasure is earthen, finite, limited and flawed -- and is it never to be confused with the treasure itself lest we confuse God's power with our own.  These containers include everything from the words and propositions that constitute our theologies and creeds, to the forms our worship takes . . . "

"If our containers prove too crimped and cramped to hold the treasure well, if they domesticate the sacred and keep us from having a live encounter with it . . . then our containers must be smashed and discarded so we can create a larger and more life-giving vessel in which to hold the treasure."

He tells of an old Celtic story about a monk who died and was interred in the monastery wall.  Three days later, the monks head noises coming from inside the crypt.  When they removed the stone they found their brother alive.  He was full of wonderment, saying, "Oh, brothers, I've been there!  I've seen it! And it's nothing at all like the way our theology says it is!"  So they put him back in the wall and sealed the crypt again.

The Borg Approaches Planet Earth

Chapter Four: Creation

Having laid the foundation of how he invites us to "see" the Bible (or, rather, see God through the lens of the biblical stories), Borg addresses the Hebrew Scriptures, what Christians have called the "Old Testament."   First up:  the "creation stories" that are at the heart of the creationism/evolution battles that mar our time.

There are, so most scholars the last 100 years would say, are at least TWO creation stories in Genesis --  one from a "J" school, another from the "P" school of thought.  One very important word comes up here:  "myth."  In ordinary language if we say something is a "myth," we mean that it is false -- period.  The goal is to sort out "myth" from "fact," and there is nothing redeeming about "myth."

But in the world of religion -- this should be no surprise -- folks use that word in a very different way.  "Myth" on the lips of theologians means a sacred story -- non-literal language, metaphor, that is relating the spiritual and material realms.  Myth in religion is a good thing;  it is not pretending to be a literal description of the world.  It is only through myth -- metaphor -- that we can access the sacred.

Thus, the myths of Genesis are attempts to assign meaning to the world, to human nature, to God.  We see in the simple stories of Adam and Eve, Cain and Abel, something of ourselves:  we know fear, we know jealousy, we know how easy it is to do things we know we should not.  We long for "paradise" where all is well, where you can have an evening stroll with God; yet we know the pain of having lost Eden.  The myths of Genesis reflect us -- and can help us grapple with the great questions of life.  "Grapple" does not mean that we find "the answer," though. It is a lifelong search, the joy being in the journey rather than in arriving at the destination.  For Jews and for Christians the sacred stories -- sacred because over the centuries people came to call them that -- impart to them the Holy.  In them they sense God's presence -- not completely, nor in any finality, but in the present.

Chapter Five: The Pentateuch

With the 12th Chapter of Genesis begins the story of the Hebrew people, the story of Abraham and Sarah.  There follows stories about "the patriarchs:"  Abraham and Sarah's children and grandchildren . . . winding up down in Egypt.  Genesis closes with the Hebrew people in Egypt doing pretty well; Exodus picks up a century and more later, the Hebrew people now enslaved by Pharaoh.  Then comes in about the 13th century BCE Charleton Heston (Moses) leading them out, through the Red Sea, and on into the Promised Land.  Unfortunately the Promised Land was already inhabited, and so the need (ordered by God, say the stories) to do battle.  Battle they do -- here we find those stories of slaughtering women and children, and men too that embarrass us.  Surely, we say, this was not God's doing, but the doing of humankind who in the telling of their tales of conquest added the blessing of God.

Along way -- through Moses "the lawgiver" -- comes "the law" in the form of the 10 Commandments that are still proudly displayed in courtrooms across the nation. (That one about keeping the Sabbath, though, we have quietly dismissed even in the Bible Belt.  Go figure.)  In addition to those 10 laws there are 603 other rules, mostly in the book of Leviticus.  Things like taking your unruly son to the elders of town to be stoned.

Borg raises the question about the historicity of the stories of Abraham and Sarah and their offspring -- this stuff did happen a LONG time ago, after all, and these are the only records we have of them.  He concludes, as we should expect given what he said in the first three chapters, that it really doesn't matter if they are historical figures.  History is not the point; meaning is.  The question to ask is not "Are these real people in history . . . can we trust the factuality of the stories?"  The questions to ask instead are, "Why did Israel tell these stories?  And why did she tell them this way?"

The overarching theme of the Abraham stories is that of "promise and fulfillment." The repeated barrenness of the Matriarchs intensifies this -- even when fulfillment looks to be impossible, God comes through for the Hebrew nation.

The fulfillment theme carries through the Joseph stories, and pre-eminently in the story of Exodus, "Israel's Primal Narrative."  The story of slaves being freed from bondage -- the "meta story" that God frees people -- is rehearsed over and over again in the rest of the Hebrew Scriptures, especially in the Psalms.  The Exodus in many ways created the Hebrew nation, and gave it its identity:  "We are the people that God by his great love and mercy and power brought us up out of the bondage of Egypt, and gave us a Land."

"The Covenant" is another key concept in the Pentateuch:  a "contract," or "agreement" between God and the Hebrews that God would be their God -- doing the things Gods do, like protection and provision and fertility -- if they would do their part: obey the laws of God, and serve God -- "Yahweh" -- alone.  There was one other aspect to this Covenant that emerged over the centuries, though:  this was a "everlasting" covenant.  As the prophets were to say later, after Israel had repeatedly failed on their side of the bargain, Yahweh would continue to be their God, no matter what.  Yahweh would continue to love them, calling them back, accepting them back again and again.  This is the grace of God that is made so clear in the New Testament, especially in the writings of St. Paul.

Chapter 6:  The Prophets

Here come the preachers: Jeremiah, Isaiah, Amos, Micah, and so on.  These were not primarily interested in foretelling the future; they were interested in speaking for God ("Thus says the Lord . . . ") to the present situation:  they called the kings and queens to be fair, to be just -- to treat the poor with equity.  They told the same thing to the rich.   They dared to say that what was important in religion is not the ritual -- animal sacrifices in this case -- but being just.  "What does God require?" asked Micah.  "To do justice, love mercy, and walk humbly with God."

The prophets, while critical of the status quo, including the political and religious establishment, were always prophets of hope:  God will not forsake us, they said. If we will return, God will greet us with open arms.  Jesus in his "Parable of the Prodigal Son" uses this same proclamation of hope.

Chapter 7: Wisdom Literature

Here we have the poetry of the Bible: the Psalms, especially.  Even the "literalists" have to see the metaphor that is at every turn: The Lord is my shepherd . . .

The book of Proverbs is a book, well, of proverbs on how to live.  Not a lot of "religion" here, but a lot of good advice.

Ecclesiastes is always a challenge -- everything is but vanity, says the writer.  It all comes to naught in the end.  So "eat your bread with enjoyment, and drink your wine with a merry heart!"

The story of Job absolutely denies that suffering is caused by sin.  Absolutely denies it.  Period.

Reading the Bible Again, or Maybe for the First Time

From the very start we have been running across that fundamental word of faith, "believe."  We speak of those who "believe" and those who do not.  We ask of ourselves, or others, "Just what do you believe about God?" Or, "Do you really believe the Bible?"

The Barrett book was all about how the brain "believes" anything at all, that is, how we come to accept certain things as true and real, or false and unreal.  It seems that we are incessantly looking around for "agents" -- the causes of effects in our lives -- and that we are not adverse at all to finding agents we can't see or hear or touch.  That doesn't make those gods real, but he made a good case I thought that our inclination toward believing in gods is part of who we are.

Harris took religionists to task for believing things for which there is no empirical, scientific evidence -- stories that not only defy common sense and experience but, in the hand of the wrong people of which there have been many in every religion, have motivated "believers" to do horrifically evil deeds, in the name of God. Rather than keep on believing stories that are  patently false and provide fodder for hatred, he said, let's do away with them and be reasonable people who will through science find ways of living in peace, caring for each other.

Haught took issue with folks like Harris who, Haught would say, arbitrarily have chosen the scientific method as the only way of knowing.  The scientific naturalist's world is too limited.  And so Haught argues for a multi-layered understanding of  what is real -- the empirical to be sure, but also intuitive, relational, spiritual too.  The strongest evidence for the existence of a "God," he said, is the existence of critical intelligence.  "God" is beckoning to creation, and our longing, our anticipation for something more is a clue to the existence of that something more.

If one is open to the possibility that religion may be on to something -- that there may be a spiritual realm not accessed by scientific, empirical observation but nevertheless still  "real" -- then perhaps it would be good to look into it.  The best place to start is one's own religion -- the prevailing religion of one's culture, one's family.  In our case that would be Christianity.

Thus, Marcus Borg's book, Reading the Bible Again for the First Time.


The first three chapters lay the foundation - without which the rest of the book will make little sense.  It is crucial to understanding his starting point, because it is very different from what most of us have thought about the Christian faith.  Our word "believe" is critical to Borg's view of the Christian faith, because he doesn't think "believing" is at the center at all, at least not in the traditional meaning of that word.
 
Here are my notes on those chapters.

Chapter One: Some history about how Christians have understood the Bible and faith
Re-visioning Christian faith, experience.  A new way of “seeing” the Bible, God, Jesus, what “being a Christian” is about.

We “see” by using different “lenses.”  The old lenses, made by “modernity,” no longer work for many people in this “post modern age.”  The problem is not what we are trying to “see,” but the lenses through which we look at things, like the Bible.

Three foundational questions about the Bible:

1.  Its origin: where did it come from? Who wrote it?  Were they “inspired” by God? 
2.  Its authority: Is the Bible the only source of truth?  Does what the Bible says trump everything else, including science, including texts that others consider to be sacred, “God’s Word?”
3.  Its interpretation: What do the various texts of the Bible mean?  What do they teach?  Before we can apply its “authority” to a situation, we have to know what the Bible is saying - and that requires interpreting the text.

De-literalization of the Bible: especially around issues of the Genesis stories, homosexuality, and the Gospels.

Christian fundamentalism is a relatively recent development, starting in the late 1800s in reaction to Darwin’s theories and to “critical” study of the Bible taking root in seminaries.

The Old Way of “seeing,” of approaching the Bible:
“Natural literalism:” “Of course” what the Bible says to be factual is true – it “really” happened.  Until the advent of the scientific method people had no other choice – there were no alternatives to reading the Bible in any way other than “literally.”

With the coming science, those who wished to retain a literal reading of the Bible had to become “conscious literalists.”  That is, they knew of objections – problems in taking the Bible to be historically and scientifically true – but insisted that to be Christian one needed to keep on believing the Bible, even when that meant taking rather large “leaps of faith.” 

In the last quarter century more and more people within the church, having grown up in a climate of “natural literalism,” have come to a place where they simply cannot believe, literally, many of the biblical stories and teachings.  Their knowledge of science and culture prevents them from saying, “I know it sounds silly to believe this, so I will just turn off my critical thinking, say I believe, and hope for the best.”

“Traditional” Christianity has been founded on a literal understanding of the Bible, and is “doctrinal, moralistic, patriarchal, exclusivistic, and afterlife-oriented.”  Note that this is exactly the way Sam Harris understood Christianity.  Borg is going to argue that yes, this old way of seeing faith is not longer adequate or helpful.  It has proven to be in fact very destructive at times.  But rather than pitch the religion out altogether, Borg offers a new way of faith, one that takes into account what we now know scientifically and culturally, one that is satisfying to individuals and healing for societies.

Modernity: born of the Enlightenment, the “modern” way of viewing the world embraces science as the primarily (only?) way of knowing – epistemology.  Haught’s scientific naturalist has a closed system of cause and effect.

But a exclusively scientific worldview, a materialistic understanding of reality, has caused us to be “preoccupied with factuality – with scientifically verifiable and historically reliable facts.”  (p 16)   Fundamentalists insist that everything in the Bible be “factual,” and that if it is NOT factual, then faith is lost.   Hence, they have to insist, at all cost, that the Bible be factually “true.”

Christianity, in reaction to and to live within modernity, came to prioritize “believing.”  Believing, that is, that certain statements about God are factually, historically true. 

Postmodernity: We are between periods, transitioning into a new way of thinking, of knowing.  Three key elements of postmodernism as it impacts faith are:
1.  Realizing that every culture, including our own, is conditioned and therefore limited.
2.  Turning toward experience of God, rather than mere doctrine about God.
3.  Stories can be “true” without being literally, factually true.  “Metaphor” is more important that history.

Chapter Two: The Bible and God

1.  A Human Response to God: its Origin
    Borg says that there is first the experience of God/Spirit/Sacred that people in various times and places have had.  People today profess to having such experiences.
    The Bible is the record of how some of those people tried to describe that numinous experience in words. “Whatever we say about the sacred is a human creation.”   It is a human construction.  The Bible tells us now “they” saw things, not how God saw things.”
    Borg gives five excellent examples of how seeing the Bible as a human response makes interpreting the Bible a very different matter from the literalist point of view.

2. The Bible as Sacred Scripture
    The Bible is sacred in status, not in origin.  It became “sacred” over a very long period of time.  It became sacred because of its use, over a long period of time, within the Judeo-Christian culture.
    In the old way, the Bible stands over us as a monarch, telling us what to believe and do.  In the new way the Bible is the ground of the world in which Christians live.  (P 30)
    Its authority is in that it is the primary body of writings that shape our world.  We approach it critically, with all the knowledge we can have scientifically and historically and culturally, to listen for God nature and ways as we “dialogue” with the stories.  It provides our “foundational images of reality and life.”

3.  The Bible as Sacrament of the Sacred
    “Sacrament:” a means of grace, a vehicle by which God becomes present, a means through which the Spirit is experienced. – occasions for the experience of God.  Historically many people have encountered God through the stories, the psalms, and other parts of the Bible.  Many today sense God’s presence in meditation using the Bible.

4.  The Bible as “the Word of God”
    It is the “Word” of God, not the “words” of God. Very important distinction.  “Word” means disclosure, revelation – unveiling . . .  A metaphor for God’s self-disclosure, a means of connecting with God.

Concluding Metaphors for the Bible
    A finger pointing to the moon . . .
    A lens through which we see . . .
    Sacrament . . . a means of experiencing God.  But we should not focus on the means, but on God. 
    Additional metaphor: Bible as a window through which we see God.  It is smudged, broken, distorted . . . and so we look not at it, but through it.

Chapter Three: the Historical-Metaphorical Approach of reading the Bible

    The Historical approach brings the findings of historical, cultural, linguistic scholarship to the Bible, asking why a text was written, what it meant in its original context, how the text was used since then.  There are HUGE differences between our world and the worlds of the Bible.  Reading a text as if it were written next door leads to much confusion.
    The historical-critical understanding of the Bible is very complicated and technical.  And scholars within any given field of research disagree with one another.  But still, it is important to bring our knowledge to the text to better understand its meaning for us.
    The metaphorical approach is mutlilayered.  There is always more than one nuance of meaning in every metaphor.  This approach emphasizes “seeing” rather than “believing.”  The point is not to “believe” something about God, but to experience God, or at least an aspect of the sacred.  Metaphors can be profoundly true, but not factual, historical.  It is not less than fact, but more.
    Metaphor can go too far, wandering far from the intention of the text.  Thus the need both for the historical/linguistic study of a text and also the community of faith: the community will discern if an interpretation has missed the mark, going too far from the intention of the story.
    Three stages of encountering a text:
1. Precritical - accepting a story on face value, not questioning its factuality, and accepting the meaning explained to us.
2.  Critical thinking – concerned only with factuality.  Adolescents are big into pointing out the non-factuality of metaphors: “The sun doesn’t really “come up,” you know!  The earth is revolving!”
3.  Postcritical naivete - the ability to hear the biblical stories one again as true stories, knowing that they may not be factual stories.  Truth does not depend upon factuality.