How to Use the Bible: Part 2

After several conversations and lunches with friends, colleagues and luminary sages I thought to add a few reflections to the below post.

First - as I was recently encouraged - a Christian scholar should never use the excuse of not being a Biblical scholar or a theologian when using the Bible in scholarship. The Bible is not an exclusively academic book, and not the domain of theologians or Biblical scholars to authoritatively pronounce on. Inviting an academic discipline to serve as such an authority suggests a kind of intellectual magesterium, an idea - I mused over lunch today - which may appeal to my Protestant-academic self; but which must surely be utterly rejected.

Second, I'm not quite sure what to make of what Oliver O'Donnovan does. Conversations with real stalwart academic Christians have swung from "the best thing ever", to "naive Biblicizing" (particularly in the topic of judgment). What I do know is O'Donnovan is not doing political science as such, although I think the act of trying to read contemporary life through the Bible is commendable. At least part of the way O'Donnovan uses the Scriptural text accounts for the problems I think we find in mapping it onto contemporary liberal democratic life. I am open (looking at you Oli'O) to generous debate on this :)

Third, although reading contemporary life through the Bible might be commendable, talking about the Biblical story is more than just so much grist for the worldview mill. It is very difficult, as I discovered recently, to make good sense of the Book of Joshua, without this larger narrative. Parsing the Bible, and readings its themes individually is a real danger - and hence the narrative reading is of utmost importance; not just for worldview'ish public engagement, but for understanding how to read the Bible.

Re: Joshua - I learned also of a story of a former RUC graduate who lost their faith from reading Joshua (friends, there is crazy stuff in that book). Having spent some significant time in Joshua, and on commentaries on it, over the last couple weeks I can appreciate why that might be. I have been recommended God is a Warrior by Tremper Longman on this.

Finally, the Bible is not a political science textbook, or a business textbook or... (etc). This may be simple, but is important to affirm. Scripture is a light upon our path, through which we discern and live, but cannot - itself - answer a-historically the questions of economics, politics, and more. Thus it is incumbent upon the Christian - and upon his or her Church and community - to dive deeply into that Word and so wrestle with it until, like Jacob, we have secured meaning and ways of living which are wise. This process is necessarily subject to epistemological fragmentation, but it remains no less important.

Sometimes I find that my academic and spiritual journey is a process of rediscovering the same place over and over again...

We shall not cease from exploration. And the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time. - T.S. Eliot

How to Use the Bible

I have an academic and a spiritual confession: I don't know how to read the Bible. I also do not know how to use the Bible. Let me describe what I mean very basically.

I read Scripture in two principal ways. The first way, is in reflective prayer. I read it several times a day, in a variety of corporate and individual settings, often in a tradition of lectio devina. In this practice Scripture surrounds my day, it begins with readings in the Psalms, Old Testament and New Testament according to the church calendar. It also ends the same way. My inspiration in this tradition of reading often comes from Catholic sources, from Ignatian practices, and from places, communities and people. This first method of reading profoundly influences my daily life, and feeds and funds my second kind of reading.

The second way I read Scripture is as a story, a complete whole through which I build theological constructs which translate into worldview'ish principles for engaging all of life faithfully. These constructs include things like sphere sovereignty and common grace, ideas that influence me deeply and show their marks throughout my thoughts and actions. The sources of my inspiration here are very diverse, but include books on reformed philosophy, the story of Scripture and finding our place within it.

Neither of these is exclusively spiritual or cerebral, both are integral parts of a whole reading and encounter with the Word. My real problem is these are the only ways I have been trained to encounter and engage Scripture.

My doctoral supervisor has challenged me deeply in my somewhat truncated reading of Scripture, to consider ways of thinking about and using it which do not - technically speaking - fit either of these traditions. He fills my head with ideas of reading books in the Bible politically and theologically, and discerning patterns for contemporary life - not mere reflective prayer, and not basic philosophical extrapolation, but bringing the Bible directly into conversation with political and social problems.

That I fundamentally lack skills at doing. I am even initially put off by this. But - as my supervisor tells me - pastors and theologians are constantly taking Scripture and applying it in backward and confused ways to social and political phenomenon they don't really understand, why shouldn't social scientists work alongside them, or work also to reveal what specific texts say to us about the fields we do know, at least a bit more, about?

Al Wolters writes in The Bible and the University that theology is no longer queen of the disciplines. To be honest though, I sometimes wonder how a book that is the breathed Word of God, cannot grant epistemological privilege to its students. If we're quite serious about Scripture playing this ultimate role, shouldn't it be incumbent upon academics of every stripe - not to mention thinking Christians - to cultivate a Biblical knowledge of their discipline in ways that far exceed the mere extrapolation of base philosophical and theological constructs - and ways that are more intellectually sophisticated than lectio devina?

Reformed theology suggests that one does not need to study Greek and Hebrew, or be a Biblical scholar to do social science well. But the plausibility of this is undermined by the examples of people I see around me. Almost none of the truly excellent and publicly engaged Reformed scholars that I know have not done divinity, theology or theology/philosophy degrees.

I want to be a good political scientist, a faithful thinking Christian in politics and culture. Is it - after all - time to finally give up, pack my bags and head to Seminary?

the Rubicon on the Green Bible

Another great group blog, and a good friend of mine, Geoff Ryan talks about the new Green Bible that's been released. I blog on it partly to highlight his whit, and partly because I ran across it yesterday at a bookstore with a friend who really liked the idea. I did not. Conversation ensued. Quotes from the Rubicon:

I understand that this is just the latest in a long line of niche-market Bibles. Meanwhile the Roman Catholics have been at it for ages with the Apocrypha, of course. It’s a kind of extra revelation just for them. Growing up as an evangelical, the impression given to me was that the Apocrypha fell vaguely in the same category as porn – a thing mysterious and fascinating, but dangerously corrupting and definitely off-limits for any true follower of Jesus...

I can theme my Bible too. For example, I can create a Salvation Army Bible, full of quotes by William and Catherine Booth, Samuel Logan Brengle, George Scott Railton and other worthies from our glorious past. I can diminish the Matthew 26 account of the Last Supper down to 8-point type and highlight in red type John’s account Jesus washing the feet of his disciples. I can put in bold type every passage that supports women in ministry, highlight every military metaphor and include illustrated sections on uniforms and brass trumpets. I can focus on whatever subjects most interest and concern me. In fact, it seems that I will be able to make the Bible say whatever I want it to and serve my purposes perfectly.