Read an Excerpt
Transforming Scripture
By FRANK WADE Church Publishing Incorporated
Copyright © 2008 Frank Wade
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-0-89869-594-6
Excerpt
CHAPTER 1
The Bible as Meeting Ground
In 1699 the Bishop of London dispatched the Reverend Thomas Bray to the wilds of Maryland to see how the Anglican Church was doing. His report, dated 1701, was pessimistic: "They are in very much want of instruction in the Christian religion, and in some of them utterly destitute of the same." To Bray's credit he addressed the problem by establishing the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel, which provided missionary support throughout the British Empire and continues to serve to this day, but success in biblical literacy continues to elude Episcopalians just as it does the rest of the population of the United States. Stephen Prothero, historian of religion and popular culture at Boston University, tells us in Religious Literacy that while Americans hold the most widespread belief in the supernatural of any developed country, we are the most religiously ignorant in the Western world. A recent Gallup poll contains the stark revelation that we remain "a nation of biblical illiterates," with half of our adult population unable to name even one of the four gospels. If this is the result of three centuries of teaching, it might be time for a different approach.
There is good news and bad news about the way Episcopalians approach Holy Scripture. The good news is that we who worship weekly and on the feast days of the church probably hear more scripture read and expounded upon—in prayers, sermons, and hymns—than many other mainline Protestants. The bad news is that our once-a-week (at best) liturgical engagement with scripture is all most Episcopalians get. This is something most of us know to be true. Indeed, our lack of disciplined scriptural engagement is one of the inside jokes most Episcopalians chuckle about in moments of self-deprecating honesty.
Most Episcopalians will readily admit to not knowing the scriptures. Some will even describe a personal reluctance to engage the Bible in disciplined study for reasons ranging from simple apathy to a complex and fearful aversion. Not surprisingly, the 1999 Zaccheus Report by the Episcopal Church Foundation affirmed that the scriptures are clearly less central to the faith life of the majority of Episcopalians than the Prayer Book, hymnal, and Holy Eucharist.
In this book I will consider some of the reasons why to this day Episcopalians are still "in very much want of instruction" in the Bible, as well as in some of the foundations upon which a new and transformative approach could be based. Beginning with past and current approaches to scripture in our church, I will suggest a new emphasis that may allow the Bible to bear more fruit in us now than it has in the past. I say "emphasis" rather than "technique" because I think this is more a matter of soul and heart than of method, even though the right tools are important. (We will look at some of these later on.) So recognizing that we are a people who like to "cut to the chase," I am going to summarize in the briefest possible terms just what that emphasis will be. That way you can have some idea of where we are going, and we can travel together harmoniously without worrying too much about the destination.
where we are going
Christianity is not basically a philosophy or a body of knowledge but a way of living in which we meet and experience the living God. Consequently its primary resource, the Bible, misses its potential when it is considered apart from living our lives in relationship with God. The Bible is a meeting ground where our spiritual ancestors have gone for the past several thousand years to encounter the Lord and see their lives deepened and directed in accordance with God's priorities. The "meeting" which takes place in these holy texts has consistently proven to contain infinite human value, even as our perceptions and understandings of the "meeting ground" have changed. The study of scripture provides us with a guidebook to this place of meeting, telling us of origins, interpretations, and nuances that help us to hear the Word the Lord is speaking. In the same way that a museum audio-tour helps us to observe a painting all the more closely, or a theater program helps us to understand a play, Bible study opens us to the fullest experience of God in scripture. It is possible to be so poorly prepared and biblically illiterate that we can hear almost nothing from God, while the clamor of our culture comes through loud and clear. And it is possible for the wrong kind of study to make the encounter so full of bits of information that we hear nothing but reverberations and echoes—think of a restaurant with so much rattle and clatter that conversation is reduced to lip reading.
The whole point of the religious enterprise is to be in a right relationship with God. William James wrote over a century ago in The Varieties of Religious Experience that religious belief, Christianity included, holds that "there is something wrong with us as we naturally stand" and that "we are saved from that wrongness by making proper connection with the higher powers." Our approach to the Bible must reach for that "proper connection" or there is no reason to approach it all.
While our "want of instruction" is still daunting, this book will show that we are perfectly poised to alter our course and make the desired connection. I will take a candid look at the issues that seem to confuse our church, and then consider the theological foundations that have been provided for us by our forebears—as well as what our contemporaries have built upon them with renewed Bible study methods and systems. I want to show how our best traditions can be extended into the twenty-first century, allowing us to be sufficiently informed and enriched by scripture to let the soul of Thomas Bray rest more easily.
Now that you have some idea of where we are going, let's consider what is involved in getting there.
challenges from the culture
I grew up in West Virginia just after World War II. An annual feature of public school life was a Christmas pageant: shepherds in potato sacks, citizens in bathrobes, kings swathed in bolts of cloth, angels in white, and serious competition over the roles of Gabriel and Mary. During the year, those who chose to were allowed to leave school early and walk across town to the Methodist Church for classes titled "Religious Education." This was, of course, more an education by the dominant culture than true public education. My hometown was overwhelmingly Christian and, at that time, had little concern for the fine points of the separation of church and state.
Without considering whether these programs were good or bad, we need to acknowledge that they are things of the past. While there are some attempts in the academy to honor the literary heritage of the Bible with courses like "The Bible as Literature," our schools, for reasons well beyond the scope of this book, have pretty well gone out of the Bible story business. Of course the school was not always diligent in its faithfulness to the fullness of the biblical narrative. What was offered was clumsy, selective, and shallow, but by acting out the Christmas story and allotting time in the curriculum for what was essentially Bible school, the school system and the community it served bore witness to the value of knowing the Bible. Our diverse culture is wisely silent on the faith story of any one group. Nevertheless, in that silence the Christian community must increase its efforts and effectiveness in making the Bible an option for those who would know the Lord. The Episcopal Church, which has historically been so identified with the surrounding culture and has never developed a zeal for personal witness, is faced with particular challenges in sharing the importance of the Bible with its own members and beyond.
We live in times that are far from reflective and quiet, and there are many more voices laying claim to our attention than in days gone by. We live in what is often called "The Information Age," which affords us many benefits as well as widening and deepening our sense of confusion. The information we receive from television and the internet, news and advertising media, church and state, principalities and powers is constant and virtually unfiltered. The Information Age has no method, and apparently little interest, in distinguishing between good information and bad, rumor and fact, urban legend and formative myth. We need something to help us sort the miraculous from the ridiculous, revelations from aberrations, mystery from mayhem, the ordinary from the extraordinary. The Episcopal Church, by virtue of education, income, and interest, tends to be well in touch with this undisciplined media flow and so is particularly in need of the kind of grounding the Bible has traditionally provided.
Episcopalians do need some way to be reminded of who we are and of knowing what we are supposed to do. In fact we need our church to be the "family" we often describe it to be. Families, clans, and tribes have historically provided their members with two essential formative gifts. One is identity, and the second is training in the kinds of behavior that characterize that identity. It is through our family that we are told who we are—what our roots are, whether we be European or Asian, first-generation or tenth-generation, white-collar or blue-collar. And we are taught what it means to express that identity in our daily lives. We learn about forks or chopsticks, manners and skills, lore and heritage. In a similar way, the church family needs to impart more clearly the identity that is rooted in our baptism, the behaviors required by its covenant and the rich lore that has sustained our "family" for centuries. For many generations the Bible provided that identity and guide but it is increasingly difficult to hear its message amid the cacophony of voices that fill our screens, radios, newspapers, and iPods. The Bible still speaks and the church still interprets its message, but only those who really work at listening can hear what is being said.
Our ancestors generally had the opposite problem: too little data. And for many centuries the information they had was drawn from the Bible, for the Word of the Lord was almost the only word they had. That "word" can certainly be found in the contemporary mix of blogs, bluster, blasphemy, and solid reporting, but it is very difficult for the average person to recognize. Jesus once said that his sheep would know his voice. That is a comforting thought, but I doubt that we can assume that we ourselves will recognize his voice as a natural byproduct of baptism. If we are going to recognize the Lord's voice, it will be the way sheep and other creatures do—by listening. We must listen to it, become familiar with it, and then and only then we will be able to recognize it.
That calls for a renewed investment in Bible reading on the part of Episcopalians. Where else can we learn the sound of God's "voice" apart from scripture? How would we know our identity as children of God apart from the struggles and triumphs of those who have gone before us? How will we know what to do in a noisy, shifting, morphing world unless we know the priorities, interests, and instincts of God? Where will we learn those things apart from what generations have come to call the Word of the Lord? It is true that we hear lessons read every Sunday and usually hear them interpreted from the pulpit, but few of us have the kind of immersion in scripture that will bring us to the meeting ground and allow us to hear the Lord's voice. We know we are Christians, but that is not enough. Without God's voice we are like sheep without a shepherd, seeds thrown on hard ground, or fools before dumb idols. The unhappy lot of all of these is well described in scripture, as are the virtues of a mustard seed, the widow's mite, and those who soar on eagle's wings. Hearing God's Word in a world of too much information is not easy—but it is essential.
Besides the competing racket all around us, Episcopalians (like everyone else) are questioning the frameworks and measuring rods that provided a source of clarity for previous generations. Those who keep track of the world's trends tell us that we are living in a "postmodern" age. The significant thing about that description is that it says nothing about what is going on—except that it is not like it was before. We have emerged from a way of understanding that was called "modern" and find ourselves in a nameless wilderness that is so new and vague that it is called literally "that-which-comes-after-modern." There are few if any norms or basic assumptions upon which we universally rely. Individuals have their certainties, to be sure. You have some and so do I. But as a whole, as a culture, we do not. Our world is like a shattered mirror, a Humpty Dumpty that is not going to come back together the way that it was before. Globalization and multiculturalism are only two forces among the many new influences on society at large.
The Episcopal Church's call to greater and wider diversity is requiring not only a second look, but also a reexamination and reordering of longstanding norms and practices. The fact that the current disputes in the Episcopal Church are focused on core issues such as the interpretation of scripture, the authority of bishops, and the meaning of morality indicates new examinations of old assumptions, a very postmodern sort of thing. Suffice it to say that "the times, they are a-changing," and nobody is quite sure what they are changing into. The old norms, standards, and reliable resources seem inadequate to the tasks of the age and are being set aside without an obvious new set of trusted guides at hand. One of the casualties of this newness is the Bible, which previously had to be reckoned with by anyone who wanted to be taken seriously about business, politics, family life, or foreign relations. Now it is often ignored even by those who write about ethics and morality. Faithful people who take the Bible seriously must do so in a world that no longer does.
The questioning of most norms and basic assumptions is important for many reasons that are beyond the scope of this book, but there is one basic assumption that we should pause and take note of. Our God is the Creator who has never stopped building a "new thing" on ancient foundations. This was one of the remarkable revelations received by our ancestors. The ancient world could see the cyclical patterns of nature and assumed that history worked the same way. The human story, they reasoned, simply repeated itself over and over the way the moon, the Nile, and the seasons did. The first words of the Bible, however, challenge that assumption and set us off in what was then an entirely new direction: "In the beginning" is a stunning blow to the idea that life goes in circles because circles do not have beginnings. Our spiritual ancestors declared with God's own authority that life's story has a beginning and thus a middle and an end. We now accept such a notion as commonplace, but it certainly was not in its day. Among other things it introduced us to the concept of the future, of newness, of God's plan for creation, and of God's creatures as continuously "unfolding." That revelation allows us to be called followers of Jesus—because Jesus is going somewhere and we can never quite be certain of the direction. Our faith is a rich combination of old and new, with the clear admonition to avoid putting new wine in old wineskins. Christianity is alive and bubbling with the creative energy of God.
To join in that creative enterprise, we need to have solid foundations, such as a thorough knowledge of scripture, because the difference between creativity and chaos is the presence of a standard, a norm. Creativity is a departure from the baseline of routine and common assumptions. Where these are missing we have not creativity but chaos—where even the best minds can only wander from one novelty to another like crows picking up shiny objects with no value other than their glitter. Consider that the Sunday liturgy has a basic pattern that still allows us to do different things that inform, enrich, and delight (as well as occasionally irritate) us. If the liturgy were different every Sunday, we would end up deeply unsatisfied.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from Transforming Scripture by FRANK WADE. Copyright © 2008 by Frank Wade. Excerpted by permission of Church Publishing Incorporated.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
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