If the two bucket theory is well past workability, the question becomes what then do we do with the text? I have already alluded to the fact our questions determine the possible range of answers we can engage. So when we ask “what is eternal and still relevant and what is cultural and therefore no longer applicable” we are creating a way of getting at the textual issue.
And this “way” we have created is a dual, binary, polar approach, and it is the way our brain is wired. We think in dualities. Black/white, right/wrong, in/out, tall/short, good/bad, with/against, democrat/republican, soccer/American football (ok had to say that for my SA friends rubbing in possession of soccer tickets that I was invited to partake of but am having to settle for living streaming on Espn3.com), we love binary operating systems. This sort of binary approach is easier, requires no nuance, and let’s everything settle.
But what if the meta-question informing our approach to the bible is all wrong? What if we ask different questions? What if we come to really look at the current questions we are asking and conclude they lead to a view of God that isn’t helpful or accurate?
Let me start with this last question. What view of God do we have when we read the book he gave us as a manual for behavior modulation and ethical boundary marking? David Kelsey in a very interesting book with a non-sequitur title argues our view of God and scripture co-arise. Meaning I come to understand who I think God is and what the bible is for at the same time. That “time” is when I am being enculturated into the community of faith. That might be in “Sunday School” as a kid, it might be when I start attending a church a friend invites me to as an adult or it might be through the characterizations of God and the bible I have picked up in culture. Kelsey’s powerful point is how we view God and how we view the bible is symbiotic, they co-arise and are mutually reinforcing.
What does this mean for us? The two bucket theory most of us in the conservative evangelical church have been initiated into is in part necessary to support a view of God important to the evangelical world and life view. God in this worldview is a rule maker and rule keeper and wants to make sure you play by the rule book…called the bible. Think I am kidding?
I surveyed attenders over the course of 2 years at each conference and learning conversation I was a part of. When asked if the knee jerk, default setting in their minds of who God was to them was… a person who unconditionally loved them, had their best interests in mind and was all about their wholeness, or if God was a referee, keeping track of the score and whether or not they were playing inside the chalk marks on the field of life, you know what I found out? The knee jerk reaction by staff and pastors by over 3/4 of everyone surveyed was God was a referee. Not a scientific survey…but thousands of leaders later…I have enough evidence.
So how can we read the bible any other way than a rule book (what’s eternal and binding on us) when that is our view of God and those two things co-arise according to Kelsey?
We need some new meta-question possibilities.
{ 4 comments… read them below or add one }
Thought provoking series here, Ron. This issue brings to the forefront the importance of initiation/conversion. How we treat this issue in turns dictates how the newly converted then view God and the Bible. If this is true, then it seems vital for us to take seriously what it means to recite the creeds and renounce the devil.
Little bit of a tangent to your main point. Looking forward discussing new possibilities.
I think that when I was a new Christian I did believe this way. I needed the rules then. Although I did have a hard time cause I couldn’t keep the rules. Had a case of the shoulds. But as I read more and more of the Bible I grew to see Gods love thru reading the Bible. But I must admit, I usually always read in larger chunks, more as reading a story and not too big on memorizing. Back to the I needed the rules, Isnt the Rules, (law) needed so that we recognize and know our sin?
As someone who didn’t grow up in the church and came to the culture of Christianity later in life (mid 20′s) I completely identify with the idea of our view of God co-arising with our view of the Bible. How it seemed to happen for me was that people who were community experts on the Bible(Pastors or Teachers) used the Bible as a tool to show me who God was through classes, sermons etc. I don’t remember putting as much thought into my view of the Bible although, because of several deeply unsettling passages in the OT, I was forced to work harder on my view of God. I was in a grace-filled and healthy community that was not trying to manipulate or guilt me into life change, however, I can see that I made an implicit assumption that the Bible was to be USED but I never thought too much about HOW it was being used.
I agree with Nancy above, at that time in my life, I needed something hard and God filled to “press-in” on my life and redirect the destructive patterns that I had chosen. I needed the Bible to offer me a different way. I never dug into the rules of the OT to find that way because, frankly, most of them were clearly in the irrelevant bucket. However the “rules” or “Laws” that did redirect my life were not so much about things I needed to do and things I shouldn’t do but were deeper. They were the directions, rules and even a “Law” of Jesus that pointed me towards LOVE. If I was going to take seriously the Law or Love then it meant a bigger life change than just stopping doing drugs or drinking gin till I fell down, it meant I had to get outside myself and learn to turn my life towards service and love for others. I needed the strong words of Jesus saying, not just, “do not judge” but “Do not judge or you will be judged” That kind of redirection, at the time although only understood on a shallow church-culture serving way, was the catalyst for transformation for me at the time.
I have more thoughts that I will unpack later during the ttTribe journey but I am not so sure that using the bible as a rule book is entirely a bad thing. If it stays as purely a rule book then, yes, it is clearly a false god but if the intention of following the Law of Love is decided in one’s heart and followed as a “rule” (one that Jesus says we will all be judged by one day…) then I think it will lead a person out into deeper waters where the idea of ethics and morals collapse into the flow of Love that God is blowing through our world like the wind in John 3 that Jesus says that spirit people should be following. (Ethics and morals are mostly only an obsession of our mythic/half-way rational/modernist church culture anyway) The kind of obedience that Jesus is asking for is an interactive and relational obedience. But the tragedy is that if you stay in the “two bucket” world, most people report that they don’t have moment by moment experiences of God or worse have never felt His presence…
I think we pas through some identifiable stages as we transform (or go through sanctification for those who need evangelical language to hold onto) I am hoping this interaction in ttTribe will help me see these stages more clearly and I am hoping people will push back and correct me when I am floating off into my own head-space (which I warn you can happen a lot) =)
Wow, yea, I like what you said. It really is stages for me anyway. The early stages it really was all about me. I really couldn’t or should say didn’t know how to love others or serve others until I understood the love that God had for me. I envied those who could reach out to others and serve, but at the early stages I was the needy one. When one doesn’t have boundaries I think the Bible really helps with this and then later one finds that the boundaries are really freedom. Acts of Gods love for us. So Ron, Tell us, what do we do, what questions should we be asking?