I am blogging my way through Neighbors and Wisemen for Lent.
We are on chpt. 6 – today we talk about views of the Bible and how our faith creates our experiences.
First of all, I just want to acknowledge how good of a writer Tony is. I enjoyed reading the roller coaster of this chapter so much. I also grinned several times at little Balkan details he tucked in that I wondered if anyone else caught. 
I was fascinated by how every character in this chapter had two sides.
The Islamic preachers at first seem to be propaganda-esque caricatures, but later we see them be gracious, insightful and hospitable.
Tony starts out as a peddle-to-the-metal zealous apologist ready to take on all comers, but later we see him as a confused and fragile young apprentice.
The pastor we see is both a wise, insightful, patient and comforting presence … who also has picked up and odd fascination with a niche subject that is both troubling and upsetting.
Characters Wanted
I love real characters. The reality is that we each have multiple sides. We have sides that face out and that the world can see. We also have shadow sides.
One of the arts of discipleship and developing christian character is acknowledge and addressing the shadow side.
That is part of what Lent is about for me. By taking something away or by adding a new variable, something is often exposed by my change of routine or my change in desire.
The Bible
There were two interesting aspects of the translation issue raised in this chapter.
The first has do with where our confidence is rooted. I am a big fan of the Bible. But one thing I have seen over the last 20 years of reading the Bible is that when people put that much faith in something … then they find out new information about it, it can often rock the whole house right down to its foundation.
I have said before that we live in an era where everyone can own and read a Bible (thank God). But – and this can not be overstated – the Bible was not written to individuals to read alone. It is meant to be read A) out loud B) in community.
Reading the Bible silently and alone is where a lot of bad things start.
It is a sad state of affairs that after the divides of the 20th century that we have the opposite of a bell curve- we have a trough. 
Those who believe the most in the Bible often know the least about the Bible. Those who the most behind the Bible often put the least amount of stock in the BIble.
It is an uncomfortable situation for all involved.
Experience
I am a big fan of John Wesley. Wesleyans have something called a Quadrilateral. It takes Scripture and partners it with reason, tradition and experience. This provides a real positive for me and sets up and odd negative.
The positive is that your knowledge of the Bible and the behind the scenes can be changed or adjusted without you losing your bearings. Scripture is not the sole location of our faith.
The negative comes up because I have bought into a school of thought that says “Our words & ideas not only help us interpret our experiences – they also help create the experiences.”
You can see this is Tony’s vocabulary about ‘the giants’ in our lives. Because he has this biblical story in his mind, it actually creates his experience with the preachers at the university. He is not only interpreting his experience through that lens – that lens is creating how he experiences the other.
If he had a different story in mind, he would have experienced them very differently. Our words shape our world at some level.
I would love to hear your thoughts on
- the shadow side of character
- the Bible situation
- spiritual experience and interpretation
It was a blast! [
Lets not be too hard on Pat Robertson
As you may have heard, Pat Robertson topped even himself in the category of ‘insulting-inflammatory- stupid comments while the tape is running’ this morning. That may seem difficult with all of the previous entries that have earned him elite status in the gaff olympics.
His newest entry was in response to a question from a man who apparently wanted to know what to do with his non-submissive wife. Robertson started with suggesting that the man could convert to Islam … and as tough as it might be to top that one, he did. After conceding that the Bible does not allow for him to divorce her, Robertson gave him the option to move to Saudi Arabia – thereby indicting not only an entire religion but an entire nation.
I know that many will want to jump on Robertson with disdain and scorn but … maybe we should not be so quick to jump to judgement. As often happens in cases like this, there is a good possibility that there is something we don’t know behind the scenes. There might be more to the story that at first meets the eye.
Now, before you dismiss this outright – just keep in mind that many preachers and politicians who rail against homosexuality later turn out to have been involved in illicit same-sex affairs at the very time they were railing. This pattern can be seen in leaders of many self-righteous and sanctimonious movements.
With public figures, we just don’t know. So I am suggesting that we might want to hold off judgement. Sure, right now it looks like crazy Uncle Pat has come unglued and betrayed the very gospel that he is supposed to be a minister of and a spokesman for. But … let’s just give it time.
That is plan A.
If you can’t wait for that, there is a plan B. As I proposed a few weeks ago, it is possible that words for fundamentalist christians are like dialogue in porn movies. They play an important role in allowing us to suspend our suspicion and get down to the real business at hand.
I said that the real activities were nationalism, capitalism and militarism. One of our deaconesses added patriarchy. This accusation would stick to Robertson’s many gaffs like a field of burrs on a cheap pair of cotton dockers.
Here is the thing: I want to be a generous and gracious purveyor irenic ecumenism. But there are times when you hear something like this and realize how many people are genuinely injured by this stuff. Like it or not – he is a spokesman for our religion, my tradition and Jesus’ name. This is why I go so far out of my way to say that we need to stop waiting for Superman and start sticking up for causes that don’t directly impact us.
Here is a conversation that I have had repeatedly in the past 20 years.
People don’t like when I am critical, negative, dismissive or adversarial. Neither do I. All I am saying is that I am very nervous about what gets broadcast on christian radio and TV these days and the impact that it has on thousands and thousands of people.
So here is the question: If, and I am only asking ‘if’, there was a machine that was fueled by a different vision of the world and different priority structure than that fleeting Galilean vision – but it was covered with a thin veneer of Jesus talk as a mask for the true agenda … should’t we say something at some point?
If the Jesus-paint was only a mask on a monster, or a series of brushstrokes on a Hollywood set facade … we should say something right?
That probably is why plan B in this case is not so popular.
THE most important thing in all of this is that we are very clear about people who have simply bought into a bad brand of christianity and those who are up to something with it. It is one thing to have merely inherited a flawed-limited-unaware religious product and those who openly promote a product that injures people and harms those who need what Christ provides the most. We have to be careful. This stuff is wicked, acidic, and cancerous. We can’t paint with a broad brush or be dismissive of folks who are just walking the same road we are all walking together – trying to figure it out.
May God give us grace in the journey. We need it. Lots of it.