Partiality

I am a student at seminary located in the leafy suburbs of a major US city. The seminary looks out over an understated but relatively wealthy neighborhood. The respectable residents of these beautiful quiet streets commute every morning to the city and bring home city paychecks. In the summer months, early mornings hiss with those automatic sprinklers that keep the lawns green and lush no matter how dry the weather gets. Mexican laborers manicure the gardens and keep the stainless steel kitchen shiny. Things are comfortable and good. On days with snow on the trees, or when the leaves are turning color and lit by the low autumn sun, it is a beautiful place to be. Glory to God!

One road snakes through campus. Recently, construction closed the road and split the campus in half. Some dorms were inaccessible by car. The back gate was opened so that students could drive to those dorms. One day, in a fit of lethargy inspired by a trip to the local donut shop, I decided to drive rather than walk to the dorms by the back gate. This was the first time I had driven through the neighborhood on the back side of seminary, the neighborhood on the opposite side of the aforementioned leafy 'burb. This neighborhood is a rather drab collection of town houses and apartment blocks, with patchy lawns and litter. The residents of this neighborhood seem to be working or lower working class, and much more racially diverse. This neighborhood, which is less prestigious, and a little grubby, is usually completely cut off from the campus. 

The geography of my own seminary expresses certain aspirations and hopes. It faces the neighborhood that is more respectable, comfortable, and wealthy. Nothing wrong here, right? We all (including me) aspire to improve our financial and social situation. We want beauty around us, and we want to live relatively comfortably. These things are a gift of God, and not to be taken for granted.

Yet a fence and locked gate cuts off the campus from the less desirable neighborhood. We face what we want and turn our back to other neighbors.

We think of ourselves as this church: 

photo credit here

We do not think of ourselves as this church:

photo credit here

As I pondered this, I happened to read this passage of Scripture: 

"My brethren, show no partiality as you hold the faith of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Lord of glory. For if a man with gold rings and in fine clothing comes into you assembly, and a poor man in shabby clothing also comes in, and you pay attention to the one who wears the fine clothing and say, "Have a seat here, please," while you say to the poor man, "Stand there," or, "Sit at my feet," have you not made distinctions among yourselves, and become judges with evil thoughts?... If you really fulfill the royal law, according to scripture, "You shall love your neighbor as yourself," you do well. But if you show partiality, you commit sin, and are convicted by the law as transgressors." (James 2.1-9)

God gave human beings the desire for comfort, respectability, and financial security. These qualities produce stability and continuity in human society. Yet, as many early desert Christians knew, these desires can become more important than they should be, and cut us off from the love of God and neighbor.

Why I'm not worried about a demographic crisis

photo by Chandler David Poling

Among various Christian groups, there is an argument that goes something like this:

• "Christian Civilization" is threatened due to the decline of the population of Christians in traditionally Christian nations. 
• This decline is due to the encroachment of the ideas of modern secular humanism, which encourage women to delay marriage and childbearing by means of birth control and abortion, decreasing the Christian birth-rate.
• Moreover, the population of non-Christians is increasing in traditionally Christian countries due to immigration of non-Christians who still have large families.
• Christian women need to embrace their "highest calling" and have many babies and bring them up in the church to stop this demographic crisis.

This is admittedly a straw-man, but one hears various versions of this floating around from time to time. Here's why I'm not worried about a demographic crisis:

Jesus said "Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, to the close of the age." Matthew 28.19. This command, the "great commission" is far from finished. There are nearly 7 billion people on this planet. 7 billion! Probably 5 billion of the do not know Christ, and perhaps a bundle of the 2 billion or so Christians are Christians in name only. That's a lot of nations that have not had disciples made of them.

Trying to keep the demographics like they were in the good-old days means we don't minister to those on our doorstep who don't look or act like Christians. Let's bring in the harlots and the publicans and the Samaritans rather than be anxious about breeding more PLU's.

A simple Christian faith suggests trying to do what Christ says we should do rather than wringing our hands about this or that thing we perceive as problematic or evil. The Lord is in control of the world, not humans.  

By all means, have babies, have lots of them, and love them! Bring them into the church and raise them to be faithful Christians. Be fruitful and multiply! Don't give into the temptation seek consequence-free sex, or to indulge your every desire. At the same time, neither "Christian civilization" nor babies are the "one thing needful."

Reading after Fundamentalism I

 

Photo: Morgana Wilborn

In the last centuries of human life, the methods of natural sciences have produced great blessings for mankind: vaccines, abundant and secure food supplies, and Marshmallow Fluff, to name a few. The runaway success of the scientific method, which depends upon objectivity, experimentation, replication, and empirical observation, has convinced many of us that knowledge derived from scientific inquiry is the only real knowledge.

When we read, we tend to consider that we are reading in one of two ways. Non-fiction is objective, that is, it reveals some objective truth about the universe. Fiction is subjective, good for entertainment or creative self-expression. Non-fiction is important, fiction is fun.

When believers read the Christian scriptures, we tend to think of them as important non-fiction. We bring our more-or-less scientifically educated minds to the task. We have kind of a sieve through which we sort what we read. "This must be true." or "This cannot possibly be true." In short, we are concerned primarily to sort out our truth claims.

Unfortunately, well-intentioned zeal for truth may lead us to misunderstand what we read. When modern biblical criticism began to question the historical accuracy of the account of Genesis, some Christians totally freaked out, and begat one of the most well-intentioned bad ideas in the history of well-intentioned bad ideas: fundamentalism. Whereas until now the historical truth of scripture had been more or less assumed, (although some influential church fathers felt quite comfortable denying it) with fundamentalism, the literal truth and inerrancy of the bible became a litmus test of correct dogma, and a tool for hatred, in some cases. In any case, fundamentalists often miss the forest for the trees. Sometimes it seems that understanding what scripture says is less important to fundamentalists than defending biblical innerrancy as a doctrine.

However, perhaps so-called fundamentalism and so-called modernism are two sides of the same coin, products of the same presuppositions. Both value truth which has been denuded of the subjective. Objective truth is valued--the subjective is relegated to poetry or entertainment.

The search for objective truth, however, might be more elusive than previously thought. During the course of the 20th century, some men (who have a high probability of having a French last name, and an affinity for Gauloises) have debated whether objective truth can ever be realized, or if there is any chance of reaching anything like a universal truth (or any chance of correctly pronouncing Gauloises). Although the demise of so-called modernity is not as complete as some college philosophy students would have you believe, the consensus that truth equals objectivity is more difficult to maintain.

Some Christians have followed the so-called post-modern lead, and tried to get derive more meaning from scriptural stories by viewing the stories as myth, or useful fiction. Various terms are used for this view: "anti-realist," "post-modern," "fictionalist." When they read scripture, they think "This may not be literally true, but it comforts me to think of it as true." or "This is lovely poetry, the truth of it is irrelevant."

This approach to reading the scriptures is attractive in some ways. It help us not be distracted from the big picture of the story by being preoccupied with which bit of the story is literally true and which bit is not. The literary or mythical approach can focus on the way that stories can shape our minds and hearts, give us hope, and help us behave a little better.

Unfortunately, this approach also has a problem: truth. Perhaps the stories in scripture are entirely fictional and function only has useful parables on how to live better lives. Perhaps "God" is simply an idea that expresses the finiteness of humankind and the wonderment of the universe. But this is not what Christians have believed from the beginning and, I hasten to add, it is not what I believe. My faith in a creator demands that he be "real" somehow, that "God exists" even if in some transcendent way.

Moreover, the Church has believed for centuries, and I believe, that Jesus Christ really rose from the dead, and that his tomb was really found empty. The fundamentalist temptation is to get caught up in proving Christ's resurrection as an objective truth claim. The fictionalist temptation is to deny the objective truth in favor of the subjective "meaning" of the story, and thereby strip the story of its power. A story cannot save me from my sins. Jesus, I believe, and so the church teaches, can and will save me.

I said all that above so I can say this: most of us don't know how to read the scriptures. We are concerned to find some objective truth that may never be realized. Yet if we jettison the search for truth, we end up being followers of fables. Going to church becomes as meaningful as going to Medieval Times or watching Star Trek. What is a modern reader to do?

The following posts will suggest an alternative based on earlier precedents in Christian history. When I read scripture, I might fruitfully put aside the impulse to find objective truth, and instead look for a message applicable to me.  Perhaps it is less important to seek information about the history of Israel, the life of Jesus, or even the nature of God. It is more important (and more firmly grounded in the more noble traditions of the church) to read the stories of scripture in order to be transformed from the messed-up, anxious, and inconsistent humans we are to people who can receive the gifts of the Spirit: "love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control." (Galatians 5.22)