That’s such a great way to begin this conversation: the sacred texts didn’t change, but the church/religious practice did… What’s up with that? Is that allowed? So, traditional Christianity looks at the text of the Bible as being inspired and directed by God but also the work of the men who wrote said texts, whereas Muslims look at the words of the Quran as being dictated by God and can only be properly understood in the original Arabic and Hindus approach their sacred texts as having no human author at all but are objects that come from outside of time and space. This goes way beyond arguments of Inerrancy (that there are no “errors” either historical or factual in the Bible). 

I remember as a young Christian, especially as I was first reading my Bible, that the whole point of the practice was to see beyond the words on the page to whatever it was that the Divine Being was communicating to my flawed human heart. And while I sought to understand the words of the texts by learning as much as I could about the culture and language(s) that these texts were written as, I recognized that some of my fellow Christians approached their understanding like it was a magical ouija board speaking to them taking whatever text their finger plopped onto and assuming that God was going to speak to them in that manner. That didn’t make any sense to me, but was it really any different than looking for spiritual insight into my own teenage struggles in 1970s Southern California by reading a letter from a converted Jewish Pharisee to a group of first century non-jews living in a Greek village wondering if it’s okay to eat meat that was sacrificed to the local Pagan god. I guess that works if I’m concerned that my Oscar Meyer Baloney was first sacrificed in the name of Capitalism… I probably should be more concerned with my love of bacon. 

The idea that one must pursue the search for Biblical author’s original intent and that somehow speaks to our world today in specific issues, can be problematic, in that we don’t live in the same world that the authors, like the Apostle Paul, were writing to. And I find it hard to believe that we should aspire to living with the same social constraints and dictates as those who lived in a pre-scientific/pre-industrial/pre-enlightenment world. It’s not like 27 C.E. in the Mediterranean was the height of human civilization, achievement or culture. Hell, I don’t want to go back to the way things were in the 1970s much less the literal 70s. 

At the same time, I believe that there is so much that we can learn from the struggles and insights of our predecessors without having to eliminate all that has been learned since then. It’s a little like a phenomenon I saw decades ago when I was a few years into my teaching career. This was especially true as the years went by, but I saw rookie teachers, who had used computer technology all through they college careers come to the public school setting and the smart ones would attach themselves to veteran teachers to learn the ropes of how to navigate their classrooms, students and curriculum. But because many of these veteran teachers had come up through the ranks using very little to almost no technology in their teaching, many of the rookies just cloned what the veterans did and also didn’t use technology as part of their practice. 

Even though things had changed in many ways since the veteran teachers had started teaching, those changes were not employed in the practices of many of the rookie teachers. I mean, it did work, but it could be improved if newer techniques and technologies were employed. I knew that I was an exception to this cycle, because I was older than most rookie teachers and I had just spent 15-years as a problem-solving technician, so I was used to leveraging technology whenever possible. So I looked at what my veteran mentors were doing and, just like everyone else, I copied what I could, but also altered it, if I could see another way that used technology that I had access to. I worked from the principles that I saw in their practice but adapted things when I saw that there was another way that could do the same thing but with less wear and tear and maybe also in a language or fashion that my students could appreciate. I “negotiated” the principles behind the old practice to find new ways to get the same job done. I didn’t think that there was anything really “wrong” with the way that the veterans were doing their job, I just looked for a way to do it in fewer steps. I appreciated their example but did not want to limit myself to being locked to it as a practice. 

I think the same should be true when it comes to religious practice, although, being a non-believer I recognize that I have no say in the matter. I just think that limiting who can and can’t teach in the church based on what genitalia one was born with is no longer a legitimate restriction. We no longer live in a culture where acceptable social roles are entirely binary based on gender. We’ve learned a few things in the past two-thousand years. It turns out that being a good scholar, teacher, leader, coach isn’t entirely based on gender. Yes, there are some women who do not belong in leadership roles, but that has nothing to do with their gender as much as their individual gifts, preferences and abilities. That’s an individual thing not a gender thing. And it should be just as obvious that some men who have no right to be leaders. Again, it’s an individual thing, not a gender thing. These are the kinds of things that we’ve learned since the Bible was written. Maybe we should respect the principles without be slaves to whatever cultural limitations they were operating under. It would be sad to think that we haven’t learned anything in the past 2,000 years. I like having all of the technology I have access to when trying to understand what the Biblical authors were trying to communicate. I certainly prefer that versus closing my eyes and treating the book like a giant ouija board. 

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Tags: Biblical scholarship, Biblical studies, Crash Course Religions, Religious studies, video Wednesdays

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