"We Won't Get Fooled Again"
The Search For A New Dogma
If you want to understand the artist, look at his art.
I certainly understand the anger and bitterness felt by many Christians who have grown weary of the polarizing visions of Jesus as articulated within various mainstream churches. This is especially true in American culture, where a schizophrenic god, part wrathful judge and part self-help guru uneasily coexists and competes for our allegiance.
I’m inclined to believe that this reflects the nature of the person hearing, more than a reasonable and coherent view of God and the bible. It becomes, by necessity, a highly specific and personalized form of bible worship. With a god that is the logical outgrowth of our selective readings and our personal desires.
This is made a good deal more complex by asserting supernaturalism as the primary method of knowing God, making biblical interpretation a highly subjective, almost completely individual process. It also makes it impossible to find genuine evidence in support of scripture, since evidence requires facts, and facts are, in the forensic sense, tangible things like; fingerprints, blood type, etc.
For archaeologists, linguists and historians it would be bits and pieces of manuscript, language that corresponds to the time and culture and other relevant historical artifacts. Without all of that messy forensic evidence, there is nothing to separate the bible from any other ancient, religious texts, stories or myths. This leaves us with personal insights that can't be tested, weighed or measured, placing them firmly beyond the bounds of scrutiny. There is, however, a convenience and comfort to this kind of thinking, since you are never likely to be proven wrong. But you can't make a reasonable case for God either, no more than you could for any idea that lacked some evidentiary basis.
This can make the process of discerning the bible’s authentic meaning a good deal more difficult, but, it's also those very real "Footprints in the sand" that indicates that the bible is a genuine historical document and not a more recent creation—although it clearly isn't history as modern people would write it either, but history as an ancient people wrote and preserved it.
This distinction is one of the biggest problems for true believers and skeptical non-believers alike. Only when the evidence is allowed to speak for itself will the bibles message become clear, even if that message isn't what either side would like it to be.
Stating that the bible is infallible, is likewise, so broad a statement as to be a form of double-talk (Words informed by lofty sounding rhetoric but not much else). How is it infallible? And what does that actually mean? These questions should be the starting place for any serious debate. Not placed out of bounds, with calls of heresy and condemnation should they be asked.
We could attempt to answer them by cobbling together disparate strands of existing thought, like someone dining at their favorite all you can eat restaurant—“I’ll take some of this and a bit of that”! We can abandon the tradition altogether and re-write it using comforting self-help psychological methods and "Get rich quick schemes" all framed in the language of the Gospel, without any of its substance, mind you. Unfortunately, that’s already happened.
There is, however, another way.
In the past fifty years our knowledge of the 1st century world of Jesus and his followers, its language and customs, has radically increased. That increase has come from genuine scholarship, not mystical revelations. It is from archaeologists, linguists and historians, most of whom are agnostics, not true believers that authentic revelation has come. They've shed new light on the meaning of Jesus’ words, his actions and the geopolitical environment that shaped his life and that of the Jewish people. They've also shown the profound relationship between the geography of the region and its impact on biblical understanding.
Christians have historically tended to pluck Jesus out of his time and culture, making him into a kind of other worldly God-man, speaking eternal truths independent of time and context. This would have the effect of rendering his words completely incoherent to his audience, since words can only reasonably be understood when the speaker and audience agree about their meaning. By focusing primarily on the supernatural within the gospels we isolate Jesus from his humanity, his culture and the land that is central to all of the biblical writers from Genesis to Revelations. A Jesus that is only peripherally a man, as unknowable as the God he claims to embody.
I fully understand why this is done. Anyone who can raise the dead, heal the sick, turn water into wine, walks on water, multiplies a few fish and loaves into enough to feed thousands and can control the weather, is most certainly not human. This is to say nothing of virgin births and his own resurrection after three days in the tomb.
There is more to the story, however, than a string of extraordinary miracles.
The Old Testament also has numerous extraordinary events throughout. But there is genuine history there as well. The so and so begat so and so, or, stories of the Kings of Judah and Israel, Jeroboam and Rehaboam, seem considerably less exciting, but are, in many ways, far more revealing parts of the narrative. Grasping the context in which theses events occurred, there relevance for the people of that time, and the role they play in the overall ark of the story, may change our perceptions completely.
This would be no different than trying to teach American history without understanding the uniqueness of the land that shaped us as a people.
I certainly understand the anger and bitterness felt by many Christians who have grown weary of the polarizing visions of Jesus as articulated within various mainstream churches. This is especially true in American culture, where a schizophrenic god, part wrathful judge and part self-help guru uneasily coexists and competes for our allegiance.
I’m inclined to believe that this reflects the nature of the person hearing, more than a reasonable and coherent view of God and the bible. It becomes, by necessity, a highly specific and personalized form of bible worship. With a god that is the logical outgrowth of our selective readings and our personal desires.
This is made a good deal more complex by asserting supernaturalism as the primary method of knowing God, making biblical interpretation a highly subjective, almost completely individual process. It also makes it impossible to find genuine evidence in support of scripture, since evidence requires facts, and facts are, in the forensic sense, tangible things like; fingerprints, blood type, etc.
For archaeologists, linguists and historians it would be bits and pieces of manuscript, language that corresponds to the time and culture and other relevant historical artifacts. Without all of that messy forensic evidence, there is nothing to separate the bible from any other ancient, religious texts, stories or myths. This leaves us with personal insights that can't be tested, weighed or measured, placing them firmly beyond the bounds of scrutiny. There is, however, a convenience and comfort to this kind of thinking, since you are never likely to be proven wrong. But you can't make a reasonable case for God either, no more than you could for any idea that lacked some evidentiary basis.
This can make the process of discerning the bible’s authentic meaning a good deal more difficult, but, it's also those very real "Footprints in the sand" that indicates that the bible is a genuine historical document and not a more recent creation—although it clearly isn't history as modern people would write it either, but history as an ancient people wrote and preserved it.
This distinction is one of the biggest problems for true believers and skeptical non-believers alike. Only when the evidence is allowed to speak for itself will the bibles message become clear, even if that message isn't what either side would like it to be.
Stating that the bible is infallible, is likewise, so broad a statement as to be a form of double-talk (Words informed by lofty sounding rhetoric but not much else). How is it infallible? And what does that actually mean? These questions should be the starting place for any serious debate. Not placed out of bounds, with calls of heresy and condemnation should they be asked.
We could attempt to answer them by cobbling together disparate strands of existing thought, like someone dining at their favorite all you can eat restaurant—“I’ll take some of this and a bit of that”! We can abandon the tradition altogether and re-write it using comforting self-help psychological methods and "Get rich quick schemes" all framed in the language of the Gospel, without any of its substance, mind you. Unfortunately, that’s already happened.
There is, however, another way.
In the past fifty years our knowledge of the 1st century world of Jesus and his followers, its language and customs, has radically increased. That increase has come from genuine scholarship, not mystical revelations. It is from archaeologists, linguists and historians, most of whom are agnostics, not true believers that authentic revelation has come. They've shed new light on the meaning of Jesus’ words, his actions and the geopolitical environment that shaped his life and that of the Jewish people. They've also shown the profound relationship between the geography of the region and its impact on biblical understanding.
Christians have historically tended to pluck Jesus out of his time and culture, making him into a kind of other worldly God-man, speaking eternal truths independent of time and context. This would have the effect of rendering his words completely incoherent to his audience, since words can only reasonably be understood when the speaker and audience agree about their meaning. By focusing primarily on the supernatural within the gospels we isolate Jesus from his humanity, his culture and the land that is central to all of the biblical writers from Genesis to Revelations. A Jesus that is only peripherally a man, as unknowable as the God he claims to embody.
I fully understand why this is done. Anyone who can raise the dead, heal the sick, turn water into wine, walks on water, multiplies a few fish and loaves into enough to feed thousands and can control the weather, is most certainly not human. This is to say nothing of virgin births and his own resurrection after three days in the tomb.
There is more to the story, however, than a string of extraordinary miracles.
The Old Testament also has numerous extraordinary events throughout. But there is genuine history there as well. The so and so begat so and so, or, stories of the Kings of Judah and Israel, Jeroboam and Rehaboam, seem considerably less exciting, but are, in many ways, far more revealing parts of the narrative. Grasping the context in which theses events occurred, there relevance for the people of that time, and the role they play in the overall ark of the story, may change our perceptions completely.
This would be no different than trying to teach American history without understanding the uniqueness of the land that shaped us as a people.
Knowing the history of England and its long march out of the ashes of the Roman Empire, including that debilitating period called the Dark Ages, to becoming an enlightenment-era super-power, would also play an essential role in the search for an authentic American history and culture. The search for an authentic Jesus, the history of the Jews and the extraordinary military and political forces that shaped them in their fight for The Holy Land would be no different.
The bible, by the way, records all of these changes, it simply does so in the way that an ancient, Middle Eastern people would (and did) as they told their own story. Not the way that a modern, post-enlightenment European would. We should always remember, that it was their story first. Understanding how it applies to us would require similar methods.
You’re probably not going to hear these things in your local church, at least not much of it. But it is readily available. If you want to “Know” you can. If you don’t, you can ignore it.
What we don’t need is a "New" dogma—and anytime someone says emphatically “This is the truth”, it quickly becomes the new dogma, same as the old dogma. Or, just another case of the “Dogma chasing its tail”.
The bible, by the way, records all of these changes, it simply does so in the way that an ancient, Middle Eastern people would (and did) as they told their own story. Not the way that a modern, post-enlightenment European would. We should always remember, that it was their story first. Understanding how it applies to us would require similar methods.
You’re probably not going to hear these things in your local church, at least not much of it. But it is readily available. If you want to “Know” you can. If you don’t, you can ignore it.
What we don’t need is a "New" dogma—and anytime someone says emphatically “This is the truth”, it quickly becomes the new dogma, same as the old dogma. Or, just another case of the “Dogma chasing its tail”.