Let’s say the author and editors of the Pentateuch (Genesis-Deuteronomy) were living in a largely mythic culture, with a mythic view of God as well as a mythic reality and world around them. We might legitimately ask the question, does a skin legion, per the book of Leviticus, actually render you unclean to attend “church?’ I mean literally, does that mean you can’t worship God and he no longer connects to you? Does contact with a corpse disqualify you from being able to worship? All the laws of Leviticus, for instance, come “from God” yes, but within a very particular sort of mythic culture, meaning they are coming from a very particular view of God that THEY had. Does inspiration make this view of God, and these laws “correct” because it is canonized in the inspired text?
In a mythic world there are scripts to master, rules to follow, (G.I. Joes for boys, Barbie dolls for girls) there is a way the world works into which you need to fit. This is certainly the situation with Leviticus and the Pentateuch. This was one particular community’s understanding of what they thought God wanted from them based upon their particular social/cultural location. That particular location is totally enmeshed by its geography, time period and social view of the world. We have given numerous examples from geocentrism and child sacrifice (ordered by God in the inspired text) to genocide, concubinage, slavery, and female subordination.
When an author enmeshed in their cultural/time/social surroundings write, they obviously write from that location. Inspiration does not mute that specificity. We have no evidence (in fact lots to the contrary) that the inspired text somehow magically became a-cultural, a-temporal, and somehow transcendent from it’s local moorings.
My journey down this path has been hard but helpful, challenging but with resolution. I admit then to you, this is a journey that isn’t always easy, but it is incredibly rewarding.
So if we nix the owner’s manual for life approach, if we quite trying to mimic whatever the New Testament says – and I am not sure where that idea came from – then what is our approach to scripture? If we want to let the magic/mythic sky god of Abraham’s understanding grow and develop into the God that Jesus seems to be in contact with and a mirror of… then we will need new metaphors. And notice I didn’t say God changed I said Abraham’s understanding…that is key to this journey.
If we are going to be the Acts 2 church (language popularized by Hybels in the 80’s) then it can’t be by devoting ourselves to the apostles teaching, prayer, fellowship and the breaking of bread, a la Acts 2:42-47. As if mimicking the Acts 2 passage will make us an Acts 2 church. Because all we have done is pick and choose and reverted to the two bucket theory. Because the rest of that very same passage in Acts 2 says they met daily, they held all things in common, and people joined their ranks daily. Little question here for you mimic Acts 2 fans, how in the world can you be an Acts 2 church by building your small group ministry around the first four listed above and not the last three just mentioned? I will tell you why, we are blinded to the two bucket theory that has co-opted the imagination of the people of God and it has to stop.
It is one of the reasons I wrote this ttTribe-Manifesto and have created a Transformational Trek Tribe
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I am reluctant to agree about the influence of one’s culture because I had an experience of writing under the influence of the Holy Spirit back in the early ’70s. And there was no cultural influence. I remember having to go back and read what was written and change some of the words that i had written phonetically ( no for know, etc.) . I didn’t understand what I was writing until it was all written.
Lori,
Without challenging your interpretation of your “writing in the Holy Spirit”, can I ask how you came to that conclusions about it being some kind of acutural piece of writing? Have you considered that the cultural aspects that might embed your “Holy Spirit” writing are blind to you? Such as the concepts and metaphors used were shaped by the culture you were educated in, learn to speak and write in (you wrote in English correct?) and even the Idea of “writing in the Holy Spirit” is bound to a type of culture within Christianity. I mean to say that your interpretation of that experience and reflection back on would not be meaningful in say a Hindu culture that has no understanding of the “Holy Spirit” that you are using to interpret your writing.
Is it possible that the cultural boundaries that all of us swim in are largely blind to us? We are the fish in the water sounding it’s life asking “what does it mean to be wet?”, that seems to be how, right before our eyes, yet hidden entirely at most times, our cultural boundaries shape us.
Could you provide an example of this writing? I think that may helpful to identify if there are cultural elements that might exist within it and that shaped its writing and content.
Lori interesting post but a little surprising. Do I read you right that after all the biblical illustrations in these posts that you are appealing to one experience in the 70′s to say that inspiration (assuming your inspiration was the same as the biblical authors which raises it’s own interesting set of questions) mutes all culture?
I am explaining my reluctance to accept your view of Holy Spirit inspired writing. What changes are the interpretations – not the writing itself. Just as a person’s view of the world changes as they grow. If you kept any drawings you did as you grew up, you recognized that what you thought was perfect at 6 years of age was far from that. Your view, based on brain function, changed over time. You are assuming that the writer would allow himself to be influenced by culture. You have no proof of that. I am going by experience. I know that I was not except perhaps what the Holy Spirit gave me was limited to what I knew of the English language. Yes, it was English. So, not influenced by culture, but limited by language.
Lori,
How do you know it is not limited by culture? You say “except limited by the English language” but that is a HUGE cultural limitation in itself. You may not see that or agree with that but how could a man in the fields of China read your Holy Spirit words? He couldn’t because he was formed in another culture…..
You also said that the “write would allow himself to be influenced by culture” and you say there is no proof. To that I have to go back to the earlier posts on Ron’s blog that are full of examples in the scripture s that are influenced by culture. Just to give one quick example, Paul’s writing in Titus about slaves obeying their masters?
Do you honestly think that Paul’s words about slaves were not example of him being influenced by the accepted (and God ordained as they understood) slavery of his culture? If you think his words were “pure” from the “Holy Spirit” without cultural location and influence then why do we not affirm slavery today? Or do you?
I am as “on the fence” about what the implications of the authors cultural location(and level of consciousness) as anyone but I am not making much sense of your arguments against “trying on” that assumption when we approach the scriptures. To totally rule it out as a pssible truth we must consider based on one personal experience seems concerning to me. As concerning as if I were to say that because of a vision I once had where Jesus told me that He was not divine but just a fully enlightened human being, as my only argument against Jesus’ divinity…..
I believe the Holy Spirit addresses cultural issues. If it is truly inspired by God, God deals with the issues of the culture. So yes, we do have to consider what the cultural issues were at the time of the writing because God was dealing with that specific culture.
Someone asked for an example of the 70′s writing. I remember very little. I did pass it all on to the church I was at then. What I do remember was something like the following:
Mercy and Justice are sisters, created to walk together. We have put Mercy on a pedestal and worshipped her and forgotten Justice. Some day Justice will come without Mercy.
I will be going to Brazil Monday and might not have a means of communication outside Porto Velho so please don’t be offended if I drop out for two weeks – I still have some preparations to make.
Have a GREAT trip to Brazil and we can continue to chat on this and other topics when you return, since we vie outside of time….
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