Leap Day 2.29.2024

    Leap day and leap year are not really a surprise. We know that they are coming. They can, however, sneak up on you when you are concentrating on other things. And so, I have a rare month with five blog essays. This one is a “free swim” because whilst planning I clearly failed to look at the calendar. 

    We have been talking about History. We have examined Historiography as an advantage for the Church because, unlike some religious traditions our story contends that it actually occurred. We also considered how to best tell that story in light of the fact that past, present, and future each inform one another, that there is no direct line-of-sight to the past, and that our story, when strategically told has, can, and is the best of all possible stories. What is left to say about the importance of historiographical storytelling for the Church in the twenty-first century? Perhaps the key is to be reminded of internal threats to a healthy understanding of History which impede our ability to learn from History and create an imbalance in our conception of how to incorporate other historical data into our ongoing telling of the Biblical story. 

Hyper-Literalism

    Everything we know and understand about the world requires interpretation; that is, hermeneutics. There are no uninterpreted realities. The gravest threat to understanding historical processes is the same threat to understanding the Bible. Literalism is a hermeneutic of flattening. Language is robbed of nuance and depth with every thought or concept reduced to a data point. Literalism in Biblical studies turns parables into history. In Historiography it tends to turn fact into fable. 

    Whether interpreting a historiographical text or scripture, the goal is the same, to discover the intent of the author, to understand her motivations, and to comprehend the story she tells in contextually appropriate terms that inform the present.

    Hyper-literalism substitutes the subjective categories of the interpreter for the objectively discernible categories of the author. There are some instances when this is less problematic. Parables and other clear analogical forms are easy to spot. What of other issues that require close reading of the text prior to determining the author’s assumptions, categories, and goals?  These decisions impact the interpreter’s understanding of the text. If one pre-decides that everything is literal until proved otherwise the burden of proof is moved from an inspired text to the mind of the interpreter. Bad for history. Worse for the Bible.  

Covenantal Category-Mistakes

    In the NT the Kingdom promises made to Israel are realized in the Church. Christian or Biblical Nationalism is not a Biblical category because Jesus intended the Church to be the saving institution through which the Gospel would be proclaimed in this fallen creation—not a literal (see above) nation-state. 

    This should free the Church of national, racial, and linguistic biases. Rather, one of the central tasks of the Christian faith since the fourth century has been to free itself of recurring imprisonments to the dominant cultural and political forces. The tensions we experience today are nothing new. What is often forgotten is that various stains of “Christian Nationalism” have been tried throughout the last two millennia and they share the same salient fact that whenever and wherever it has reared its ugly head Christian nationalism has:

1. Betrayed the Lordship of Christ. 

2. Failed. 

    This common mistake can be easily and thoroughly documented. From the “conversion” of Constantine through “City on a Hill” New England, through current misguided attempts to forge an unholy union between Church and state this approach has failed repeatedly. Why? Because Jesus didn’t intend for His Kingdom to work that way. Historical departures from the Biblical pattern appear to work temporarily but they always fail. 

    Here is an instance where we must be sound interpreters of both the Bible and the historiographical record. History shows that every attempt to turn the faith of the NT into an ethnic, national, or social creed fails. I often put the equation like this: “Kingdom+Empire=Empire.” Always. Without fail.  Ask Dietrich Bonhoeffer. Ask Mary Dyer. If you do not know who Mary Dyer was…shame on you! That is part of the problem. We simply don’t know how historical processes work. Not because we can’t but because we prefer to perpetrate the failed fictions of past attempts to do what we’ve already decided we want to do. In this, History is both a reminder and a warning. 

     Beyond that, the Bible makes it clear that forms of ethnocentric Christianity, nationalistic Christianity, socio-linguistic Christianity—whatever you might want to attempt—are unbiblical. No further adjectival modification is needed to clarify our relationship to Jesus. He is Lord. That is all. Nothing more. 

“Meme-ification”

    Not to be confused with the somewhat but not quite entirely different concept of mummification. Mummification is when all historiographical and Biblical knowledge is wrapped in gauze bandages and immobilized at the stage it was in the “good old days.” Mummification always looks to the past as a positive model for how to move forward into the future. Advocates of Mummification ignore uncomfortable facts and rely upon storytellers who share their romantic views. This process turns historical and Biblical studies into rigid, categorical antiquities drained of the capacity to inform, much less transform the present.  

    No, I’m not talking about mummified views which are admired without being rethought for decades, I’m talking about Memes, which tend to be created without any thought whatsoever—antique or otherwise. These risks to understanding both history and the Bible are not insurmountable. They do take work. Hard, diligent, disciplined work. 

    Memes and other short-form storytelling methods rob even the truest of truths of enough appropriate context for either judgment or application. The internet is a wonderful place to explore. It provides a gateway to a world of information. Once you get past the inaccurate summaries, advertisements, and the memes. One must drill down, beyond the facade of the Web, with some kind of an idea of how to weigh various sources of information before it can be a bountiful, and beneficial resource. 

    Let me use the idea of a Library as a corollary analogy. Memes, even when they are true, are like an adult trying to find all their necessary information in the Children’s section of the Library. Accuracy isn’t the problem; depth is the problem. 

    Historical and Biblical information, the stories that form us if they are dead and dried out as a mummy, or as shallow as a meme can hardly help us to develop a healthy understanding of the story of Jesus, the central concern of our mutual faith. 

Conclusion

    Understanding requires work. Comparison. Evaluation. Contemplation. Work. There is no shortcut to understanding. Literalism is the refuge of the lazy. Categorical errors, the lair of the knave. Mummies are the delight of curiosity seekers. Memes, a toy for fools. 

    The tools of hermeneutics, in the hands of a dedicated student, help us to understand the intent and motivations of the authors by whom our Father inspired scripture. These same tools help us to make sense of the other stories that define our culture and the intellectual climate of our broader society. It’s time to graduate from the children’s section of the Library.