Kierkegaard on Exegesis

The Bible is very easy to understand. But we Christians are a bunch of scheming swindlers. We pretend to be unable to understand it because we know very well that the minute we understand we are obliged to act accordingly. Take any words in the New Testament and forget everything except pledging yourself to act accordingly. My God, you will say, if I do that my whole life will be ruined.

Herein lies the real place of Christian scholarship. Christian scholarship is the Church's prodigious invention to defend itself against the Bible, to ensure that we can continue to be good Christians without the Bible coming too close. Dreadful it is to fall into the hands of the living God. Yes, it is even dreadful to be alone with the New Testament. I open the New Testament and read: "If you want to be perfect, then sell all your goods and give to the poor and come follow me." (Matthew 19:21) Good God, if we were to actually do this, all the capitalists, the officeholders, and the entrepreneurs, the whole society in fact, would be almost beggars! We would be sunk if it were not for Christian scholarship! Praise be to everyone who works to consolidate the reputation of Christian scholarship, which helps to restrain the New Testament, this confounded book which would run us all down if it got loose.

-Søren Aabye Kierkegaard

On First Things (Part Two - The Son)

Read Part One here.

The tenants of Judaism are on the one hand confirmed and deepened by the teachings of Jesus, and on the other hand they are renounced as obsolete. Jesus approaches religion in a way that is remarkably complex and would be deeply offensive to the community around him (as well as to our community today).

In the second chapter of Mark’s gospel, Jesus and his followers pick wheat on the Sabbath, which is forbidden by religious law. When the Pharisees criticize him, he reminds them that when King David and his men were hungry, they ate bread that had been set aside as a sacrifice to God even though only priests were allowed to eat this bread. David had privileged the basic human needs of his companions over the dogmas of religious law. Jesus says “The Sabbath was made for the good of human beings; they (human beings) were not made for the Sabbath.” This is a humanist position, one that demands that the needs of human beings be put above religious precepts and that these precepts have value only insofar as they benefit human beings. Because that is not always the case, the value and purpose of these precepts must be reconsidered.

In the fifth chapter of the Gospel of Matthew, Jesus says he has not come to abolish the law, but to fulfill it. To “fulfill the law” meant to interpret and follow it perfectly. A very pious, observant Jew “fulfilled the law” when he understood it comprehensively and adhered to it above all other things. Jesus claims that he is fulfilling the law even though he and his followers, on the surface, disobey the precepts of that law.

This is more than simply a challenge to religious fundamentalism. Jesus proclaims that he is the truly pious one, in no small part by virtue of the fact that he does NOT necessarily adhere to the rigid moral codes of his faith. It is as if there is something beyond the law, something to which the law points and that “something” is the real reason for the law. If we take him at his word, this means the law was always (and by necessity) doomed to fail, that this religion, and by extension ALL religion, serves its true function only when it fails. Jesus was pushing anyone who would listen to step beyond religion. This is not a step back from religion, or a step around it. It is a step beyond, using the lessons learned from humanity’s religious experience to transcend that experience, an experience which is rapidly losing relevance and meaning.

This is a step beyond the law as well as a step beyond morality. Jesus structures many of his teachings in a formula that says “You have heard it said… But I am telling you…” Each of these sayings builds on the moral rule even as that rule is rejected in favor of a more abstract principle. Not committing murder is adherence to a moral code, while loving your enemy is embracing an abstract principle. Abstract principles must be applied anew in every unique situation to account for the virtually infinite number of possible ethical dilemmas. Now the comparatively abstract theology of Judaism is merged with an equally abstract ethical dimension.

In his excellent book The Subversion of Christianity, Jacques Ellul argues concurrently on the basis of much more orthodox theology:

Not only is it honestly impossible to derive a moral system from the Gospels and Epistles, but further, the main keys in the gospel-the proclamation of grace, the declaration of pardon, and the opening up of life to freedom-are the direct opposite of morality… To elaborate a moral system is to be a sinner before God, not because the conduct is bad but because, even if it is good, another good is substituted for the will of God.

This is not exactly the same as my position, but the practical result is the same, and it illuminates the fact that the incompatibility of Christianity and morality is not unique to any one specific Christian theology. It is essential to the Truth of the Gospel: the truth that humanity is absolved. This absolution is not earned, it is given. A person’s good deeds or bad deeds are not tallied. They have no bearing on a person’s standing or eternal fate.

In light of this, behavior can no longer be based on rule and authority. Concepts of eternal reward and punishment (contrary to superstitions frequently used as fear-based recruiting tools) lose their meaning. Belief in this absolution can be (and often is) abused as a free pass to behave in selfish and destructive ways, but if correctly applied within the larger picture of the Christian ideal, it means that a person chooses to do the right thing because it is the right thing. This is motivation superior to a construct of reward and punishment. It is a sign of a maturing world-view, and that maturity is essential because the “right thing” will be situational, and principles must be uniquely applied by a developed ethical imagination.

This is wildly idealistic, and places a great deal of faith in humanity, and I am perfectly comfortable with that. Is it ethical anarchy? In a certain sense, yes, but it is not ethical nihilism. The apostle Paul said “Everything is permissible” but he immediately followed that statement with the statement that “not everything is beneficial” and an exhortation to seek well-being of others instead of one’s own well-being. What that will look like will depend on our own abilities and circumstances.

But what becomes of our relationship with God if this is the case? What role does God play if not the role of law-giver and judge?

Read Part Three here.

On First Things (Part One - The Father)

I have long struggled to put what I believe into a coherent written statement, and for the next few posts, I'll be relating portions of my most recent attempt to do this. My views shift and mutate, like anyone else's, but I want to let this writing stand as a reminder of a particular point in my journey.

Originally, I began writing this when asked to contribute a guest-post to a blog on Atheism, and I intended to appeal, first and foremost, to unbelievers, not to proselytize, but to explain myself as a part of a dialogue.

Like most Christians, I share with most atheists a firm belief in the importance of critical thinking and skepticism, and in most of the day-to-day arguments between atheists and Christians (school prayer, evolution and such) I side firmly (I am “excluding the middle” for the sake of brevity) with atheists. I am a secularist not in spite of my faith, but because of my faith. Not only do I wish to keep something that I understand to be a beautiful, complex truth out of the hands of those who would cynically exploit a version of it for political, social (and even moral) purposes, but I also believe that the leaders of institutionalized Christianity have domesticated a radical idea (an idea that should stand in complete opposition to our social, moral, political and economic norms) and turned it into another obsolete dogma alongside others. I believe that the message of Christ is not a religion at all. It is a transformative perception of a Truth (post-modernity, tremble at that capital “T”!) that carries serious implications for our lives.

Thus far my Christian friends and neighbors are likely to agree, but I wish to be absolutely clear that the issue is not semantic; it is not a matter of placing Christianity above “religion” in order to stress Christianity’s privileged place. Not only is the Christian message not a creedal, dogmatic religion, it is an absolute rejection of all creeds, dogmas, ideologies, rituals, and moral laws.

Everything that is a part of religion is renounced by Christ. Even, finally, the traditional relationship with an anthropomorphic supreme being is abandoned. The things gained from humanity’s experiences with these traditions are not abandoned however. If we are willing to rise to the challenge it sets before us, the Gospel (the message that the first Christians derived from their experiences) offers a tenable step forward in the process of which religion is a part; an exit from religion that accounts for the value and meaning of humanity’s religious experiences.

Because the Christian message can only be understood as a leap that follows the leap taken by ancient Judaism, I should say a brief word about the Bible: I believe that our spiritual predecessors, while often brilliant and insightful, were also imperfect people troubled and prejudiced by the mores, political situations and pre-scientific world-views of the times in which they lived. They communicated their ideas and questions through myth and folklore, and their writings should not be understood as inerrant or literal. These stories are not intended as historical stories; they are spiritual literature that uses symbols and tropes that had profound meaning for the text’s intended audience.

This is not a new or unique position. Rudolf Bultmann, for example, said as much in his attempts to “de-mythologize” the New Testament, to lift the meaning out of its mythological construct, and Paul Tillich, (more prone than Bultmann to preserve the symbols), stressed that the symbolic is not less true than the literal, it is more true. Bultmann and Tillich had all the advantages of a 20th Century understanding of the world, but their arguments were not unprecedented. Origen, the 3rd Century Biblical scholar wrote in De Principiis (First Principles) that we misunderstand Scripture when we “understand Scripture not according to the spiritual meaning but according to the sound of the letter” because the mysteries transmitted there are hidden “in ordinary Words under the pretext of a narrative.”

The Old Testament narrative is not simply the surface conflict between the followers of Yahweh and the other cultures they encounter; it is a conflict between a convent with the mysterious God who defies concrete depiction and a worldly need for tangible, graven images and the religious security they offer.

In the beginning, humanity occupies a place of total innocence, represented by Eden. This paradise is lost when human beings eat, not from the tree of “knowledge”, as critics are fond of saying (in order to accuse Judaic faiths of anti-intellectualism), but the tree of “the knowledge of good and evil.” Humanity discovers “good” and “evil”, precursors to the concept of “sin” and this is the beginning of humanity’s great problem. Adam and Eve, the archetypical human beings, become ashamed of their nakedness. This nakedness posed no problem before, but with the burden of morality, they irrationally clothe themselves, not simply in literal clothing, but in divisive social constructions. They are now estranged by sin, but their sins are not the problem. The concept of sin is the problem. “Good” and “Evil” become categories into which behavior and even people are divided. As a result, human beings are estranged not only from an original place of innocence, an authentic life that encompasses the fullness and complexity of human-ness, but also from each other: We are expelled from paradise into a harsh world where brother kills brother (the Cain and Abel story) and people are separated into nations by barriers of culture and language (the Tower of Babel story.)

The decision is made to become “moral” people. Moral codes are demanded by such a decision. Religion is a way to preserve and teach these moral codes. For Israel, the stewards of truth in this narrative, God is kept invisible to prevent a shallow, superstitious faith. However, Israel loses faith, someone erects an idol, this idol is worshipped and the worshippers are severely reprimanded. Clearly, the more nuanced faith now demanded is difficult. Their God is anthropomorphic, and he is understood through their eyes but his Ultimate Otherness is still preserved by the prohibition against turning him into a visible object. This will (to an extent) prevent them from totally obscuring God with a god-image based on their prejudices and ideas. It does not work perfectly, but it is a step in the Process. Neil Postman, in Amusing Ourselves to Death, succinctly summarizes the significance of this:

The God of the Jews was to exist in the Word and through the Word, an unprecedented conception requiring the highest order of abstract thinking. Iconography thus became blasphemy so that a new kind of God could enter a culture.

This new kind of theology was, I believe, a major step away from obsolete religious formulations. Christianity, then, arises from this tradition in the figure of Jesus, who provides the next major step.

Read Part Two here.

Freedom is Slavery and Weakness is Strength

Have this attitude in yourselves which was also in Christ Jesus, who, although He existed in the form of God, did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied Himself, taking the form of a bond-servant, and being made in the likeness of men. Being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. (Philippians 2:5-8, New American Standard Translation)

This passage, from Paul’s letter to the Philippians, is believed to be quoted from a first-century hymn. “Emptied” is the Greek word “kenoō” which denotes self-abnegation and sacrifice.

In some translations, “bond-servant” is translated as “slave”. What’s troubling is the fact that Christ’s “taking the form of a slave” is so directly related to his “being made in the likeness of men.” I don’t think Paul is suggesting that slavery is our natural human state, though. Christ is (among other things) the perfect human, not the natural human. This means that submission, being like a slave, is something we are to strive for to achieve like-mindedness with Christ.

But choosing to be like a slave is even more upsetting than discovering that slavery is our natural state. I’m the product of an American youth, which means that submission is something I’ll accept only for a little while, until my personal Easter comes in the form of self-salvation in revolution and rebellion. Luke Skywalker, Patrick Henry, and all that.

Voluntary submission, on the other hand, is either the expression of a Saint’s ascetic disposition, (in which case it has very little to do with me,) or plain perversity; social and political masochism and the irresponsible deferment of my civic duty in favor of a disgusting, self-debasing quietism.

This is partly true: the way of Christ is plainly perverse by almost any widely accepted standard. But this perverse self-debasement is anything but the deferment of civic duty. The choice between political engagement and kenotic submission is a false choice.

Submission is a subversive act. The submissive refuses to seize or exercise power, and refutes the popular myth that pursuing power is a high and noble pursuit. The submissive offers a dramatic example of what happens when the powerful are not restrained by a fear that their victims will retaliate, allowing the oppressor to publicly vilify himself. The submissive offers a strange new approach to power structures, a loving response so bizarre that it can’t be ignored, and so counter-intuitive that it has the potential to change people’s hearts.

In the gospels, Jesus has no political or social capital. He has no legal authority and does not participate in the guerilla warfare of the Zealots. He is an innocent and virtuous man when he is executed, and by going to his death without a fight, he proves and exposes the moral posturing of the powerful and pious. He prays for his persecutors, not only demonstrating that the way of life he taught was actually livable, but also demonstrating a profound love for the misguided people who possess political power. That profound love has lasted for centuries in the collective imaginations of millions.

We are told in the Gospel that the greatest expression of love is laying down life for a friend. And we are also told that while anyone can love their friends, we should even love our enemies. Should we lay down our lives for our enemies?

If we do, we will not escape our Coliseums and crosses. What will happen to us will not be pleasant or pretty, but we will offer a dramatic example that is hard to ignore. It’s easy to hate tyrants. Everybody hates tyrants. But what will people make of those odd women and men who despise tyranny but love the tyrants? With this vivid example burned into our collective imagination, how can hatred be a tenable option? The impulse to kill for our liberty (an impulse which tends to annihilate the liberty of others) is obsolete. Our revolutions, which so frequently offer only temporary relief from oppression, are exposed as transitory.

This sounds pretty unrealistic, but we might as well give it a shot. What have we to lose? Our lives? The lives of a few measly Christians seems like a pretty small price to pay for even the possibility that humanity can abandon this trajectory of self-destruction.

Of course, a charge of conservatism can be raised here. Or a charge of pusillanimousness. To the former I’ll say that this kenotic submission has been so rarely attempted that is radical by definition. To the latter charge I will say that it takes some serious guts to willfully take the form of a slave.

There's a catch: If every human being submits in this way, it would mean ruin for everyone outise the tyrant's palace.

This kenotic ethic is a special obligation for Christians. Other people will fill other roles. Of course, this means that it is absolutely necessary that there be engaged citizens who are not Christians. And so the evangelical impulse must be abandoned.

Anna Mercedes has written an essay (anthologized in The Sleeping Giant Has Awoken) called “A Christian Politics of Vulnerability” that extends the implications of kenotic life into the realm of doctrine:

If Christians are to be in continuity with the kenotic life of God…we will have to empty ourselves even of our grasp on the one incarnation of Christ in Jesus. Our own doctrines will need to reflect an ontology of weakening; we will need to become comfortable with a loosened grasp on truth… Christians immersed in a politics of vulnerability are never able to arrive at one permanent truth claim about God or faith, nor are they able to make one steadfast political claim based on their theology. (The Sleeping Giant Has Awoken, pages 47-49)

Now, if the True Believers in American exceptionalism (welded as it is to American Christianity, sadly) shudder and recoil from submission, this universalism will give them one hell of a migraine.

Jacques Ellul once wrote that Christians are not people to whom a special reward is given, Christians are people to whom an extra responsibility is given. Following Christ hurts. If it doesn’t hurt, we’re doing it wrong.

Loosing our grasp on truth is painful, but maybe we have to lose our doctrine, like our lives, in order to find it.

Happily Deconstructing

In What Would Jesus Deconstruct?, author John D. Caputo discusses a theme from Derrida’s The Post Card:

Even when it is not lost and even when it is understood, a text remains structurally and in principle capable of being understood differently–by different communities of readers at different times, in other times and other places—so that it is always happening but never arrives decisively at just one final destination that would be authorized to pronounce its meaning once and for all.

Caputo goes on to stress that the first Christians approached the Hebrew Scriptures with a "creative misreading" and that the Christian tradition is a history of "taking the story of Jesus differently, again and again, in the course of the ages, in changing times and circumstances." Many will buckle under this suggestion, and buckle to their pet Truth-claims, fortified against the dreaded Relativism or against a history of ecclesiastical misappropriations used to justify violence. These are fearful responses.

Caputo, as a deconstructionist, advises us to let the New Testament happen to us, as opposed to deriving instruction from the text. You might recall various ministers advising you to read under "the guidance of the Spirit."

And if the Spirit, having blessed you with a critical mind and a modern education asks you to demythologize, lifting the eternal truth from the temporal constructs that house it, what will you do? If this reading denies the historical claims of the Gospel story, and finds a different sort of meaning, will you accept it?

You might recall Origen’s belief that the letter of the text, the surface meaning, is not to be adopted when it would "entail anything impossible, absurd or unworthy of God." With an extra 2000 years of discovery, our ideas of what is and what is not absurd will inevitably differ from those of the writers of the New Testament, and those of Origen himself.

Armed with this knowledge, should we re-interpret the text, as Jesus re-interpreted the Hebrew Scriptures (Mark 2:22-28)? What authority do we have to do such a thing?

Maybe we have no authority, but to faithfully and continually reevaluate the text and read it in a new light, (that is, to make the text a meaningful part of our lives,) we must refrain from pronouncing any one reading as final and absolute. We must deny that we have any authority at all, and also question the authority of previous readers and commentators, while remaining open to their ideas and experiences. We must continually wrestle and fight with the text.

Peter Rollins, in The Fidelity of Betrayal, writes:

It is all too common for Christians to attempt to do justice to the scriptural narrative by listening to it, learning from it and attempting to extract a way of viewing the world from it. But the narrative itself is asking us to apprach it in a much more radical way. It is inviting us to wrestle with it, disagree with it, contend with it, and contest it--not as an end, but as a means of approching its life-transforming truth, a truth that dwells within our limits and yet beyond the words.

The conflicts that will arise from our divergent readings will frequently be tense and uncomfortable, but this will augment the tension and discomfort already within the text(s), an edifying characteristic of the multi-faceted New Testament. I am not suggesting we stretch the text to suit our agenda, I am suggesting we explore it free from our preconceived notions and assumptions about what we are supposed to find there, and I am suggesting that this act be an act of community.
 
It is important that we conduct our dialogue with a sincere love for each other. This will not be easy. We feel we have so much invested in the text that differences in understanding are threatening to us.

In a chapter called "Sentences" from New Seeds of Contemplation, Thomas Merton talks about "the men who run about the countryside painting signs that say 'Jesus saves' and 'Prepare to meet God'":

Strangely, their signs do not make me think of Jesus, but of them. Or perhaps it is "their Jesus" who gets in the way and makes all thought of Jesus impossible… In any case, their Jesus is quite different from mine. But because their concept is different, should I reject it in horror, with distaste? If I do, perhaps I reject something in my own self that I no longer recognize to be there… Let not their Jesus be a barrier between us, or they will be a barrier between us and Jesus.