Perspicuity

This summer, I have the immense privilege of co-teaching with Dr. Philip Bustrum and Stephen Lewis at the Mekong Bible Institute in Thailand.

After four years of undergraduate Bible training and Two years of master’s work on the Old Testament, I really thought lesson preparation would be easier.  

I am used to teaching in contexts where expectations are so low that as long as I give a devotional thought or reaffirm someone’s theological presuppositions I am “successful”. In Thailand, I will be ministering to pastors who have very little prior training, virtually no printed academic resources, and an unquenchable thirst for God’s Word. 

I will admit that it is terribly frightening to think that I may offer the most ‘authoritative’ commentary on Amos (for example) that they have ever heard.  They will take what they have learned in our classes and share that with their congregations from which will rise the future leaders of the Thai church.  gulp. 

In such a context, academic study of scripture becomes a bane and blessing.  Lacking age and experience, my academic training is the sole basis for my ‘authority’ to teach (and partially my status as a Westerner).  In college and seminary, I was trained to conduct historical and grammatical analysis of the biblical text.  Hermeneutics 101, to know the Bible, you’d better know the historical context and the biblical language.  Thailand 101, there are no Thai grammars for Hebrew or Greek and I think the Anchor Bible Dictionaries will be available in Thai in about never (for better or worse).  

Fortunately, both college and seminary taught me the importance of literary analysis of Biblical text (and to a lesser degree, canonical readings of biblical text).  For practical purposes, literary analysis requires less attention to historical contexts and can be conducted (less effectively) without access original languages.  I have been urged by elder saints to preach/teach the Bible “clear and straight”.  On the banks of the Mekong river, with naught but a Bible in hand, teaching the Bible “clear and straight” requires great attention to the text as text and a greater appreciation for the perspicuity of Scripture.  Seminarians are taught to confess, but never practice such a concept.  

Perhaps a concluding metaphor would be instructive.  (This just came to me)  When bowling, there is always the possibility of rolling the ball into the gutter.  Once in the gutter, you will miss your target (except, I should note, that one time when a lucky [dare I say, providential] bounce gave me a strike on a gutter ball).  Ideally though, you will roll it straight (unless you’re fancy) and hit the pins without going into the gutter.  Historical and grammatical analysis of Biblical texts play an important role in keeping interpreters on the straight and narrow.  They’re like bumpers, keeping you from getting off target, but they’re not the main point and not always necessary.  

So… that said, I’m expecting a letter from Cornerstone revoking my degree.  But who needs a degree in Bible anyway? 

Reader Response

At some point, you must simply encounter the art.  You must experience it.  You can describe the lighting, the brush-stroke, the timbre, the allusion to Homer, the difference between Ionic and Corinthian columns, the soundtrack, the lens, the social context of ’70′s protest songs.  You can outline the inclusios, the chiasms, the parallelism.  

But there is an instant, a punctiliar confrontation, between the text and its reader when signification happens, when meaning is created.  No author. None. Never. Ever. (except sometimes) Is concerned with the pen on their page.  The moment of composition is unrepeatable and inconsequential.  

This becomes quite murky in that instance.  When I look at The Return of the Prodigal Son, what is the agent of that event?  Have I any effect upon the image?  Has the artist any interest in my awareness of his context or methods?  I am the locuted.  I am the moved.

If a voice cries in the wilderness and no one hears it, worse, if a voice cries in the city, and no one listens.  

http://cusocietyforphilosophy.wordpress.com/2012/04/15/tcpt-2012-conference-schedule/

I will be presenting Saturday, 3:30 in Faber 114.

In preparation for my presentation, I have reviewed some Thiselton and engaged Grant Osborne at a cursory level.  Considering the schedule of plenary speakers, I also figured it would be a quintessential academic faux pas to present a paper on hermeneutics without being familiar with professor Smith’s work on the subject.

As I will note in my preface to the paper, I am stunned by the amount of agreement I share with professor Smith’s conclusions.  Not that I expected to disagree with him, but I honestly had not read more than a few pages of The Fall of Interpretation before writing that paper, and did not even consult it during my research.  Yet my thesis reads, “This paper will assert that readers have an ethical responsibility in the hermeneutical process… The reader must love God in order to properly interpret any text.”  Compare Smith, “…the question of limits on interpretation is an ethical rather than simply an epistemological matter.” (175) “In fact, [Augustine] continues by saying that so long as our interpretations build up this love of God and neighbor, the question of authorial intent is secondary.” (177) Finally he writes, “The ethics of interpretation, for Augustine, is a hermeneutics of love.”  (178)

Clearly there are only three possible explanations:

A) Dr. Smith has a time machine that he used to read my paper eleven years before I wrote it.

B) Great minds think alike.

C) Having read Smith’s Who’s Afraid of Postmodernism, and been taught philosophy by his friend Dr.  J. Matt Bonzo, and been in countless debates with friends who have read The Fall of Interpretation, in addition to being casually familiar with some of Smith’s bibliography (esp. Augustine), I was subconsciously nudged  in the same direction.

You decide.

TCPT 2012 Conference Schedule

Reblogged from Cornerstone University Society for Philosophy:

The schedule is finally here! As you can see from our list of papers, it will prove to be an excellent discussion. Indeed, with presenters from California to Ohio, we have received a much greater response than we had expected for an inaugural conference. We look forward to seeing you there! This is a map of campus–all sessions will take place in the same building (Bolthouse/Faber).

Read more… 455 more words

You should all come.

That awkward moment

That awkward moment when someone who drives an SUV, lives in upper-middle suburbia, places their kids in the top school in the state, drinks bottled water, has full health care, and assumes the right to vote accuses you of preaching a false ‘social gospel’ when you want other people to enjoy access to those things.

P.S.  This isn’t a single, discrete event, but an amalgamation of experiences and impressions.

Pizza and Racism (Part 1)

I am going to begin an ongoing discussion of how my experiences as a pizza delivery driver have further opened my eyes to cultural differences between races and the great difficulty various races have understanding each other. Obviously this will be a sensitive issue, and I’m not claiming to be free of prejudices or stereotyping, but I want to have an open conversation about the danger of assuming people either are, or are not, just like us.

A couple weeks ago, as I approached a front porch, a black customer said, “I hear you don’t like delivering to black people.” Internally hesitating, but externally displaying confidence, I replied cordially, “Sir, that is not true.” “Good answer!” he replied. During the exchange, which included an inquiry of how I would respond if he pointed a pistol at me, it was quite clear that this man was 100% cognizant of the stereotypes borne by black customers. He amiably gave me a hard time.  He gave me a modest tip, thanked me, and then yelled (in jest), “I better not have this much trouble next time!”

In retrospect, I’m not sure how truthfully I responded to his original question. It partially depends on what he meant by “you”. If he meant pizza drivers in generally, I probably lied. Drivers do assume they will get a poor tip, or none at all, in communities that are predominantly black. They also assume if they go far enough east, they’re going to get a good tip from a rich, white customer. What often surprises me is how comfortable we are talking about this discrimination as if it is just part of the job.

Yet none of us have done any statistical analysis for tipping habits across racial demographics. I have received many good tips from African American customers, and gotten stiffed by plenty of white people in gated subdivisions. Yet we allow our prejudices to remember the only the good tips from people who look like us, and all the bad tips from people who don’t.

How should a member of a Kingdom –where there are no distinctions between Jews and Greeks, Slaves and Free, Whites and Blacks, Poor and Rich– live and serve and work? I have a suspicion that when Jesus fed the five thousand, he didn’t feed people in the order of how much they would contribute to his ministry.

Hunger Games

A prayer for the hungry (From http://www.tearfund.org/en/news/extra/hunger_games/ )

Lord God, we pray for everyone who is hungry today – whether they live thousands of miles away or in our local communities.

We pray urgently for food prices around the world to stabilise and fall, so that more countries do not fall into extreme hunger.

God we ask for wisdom for leaders and experts working to tackle hunger, and that they would be willing and able to make progress in identifying ways to combat food security and help communities adapt to changing weather patterns.

In Jesus’ name, Amen.