by Kim Thoday

Some reflections I have made upon a talk given recently by Dr Greg Elsdon, minister of the Blackwood Church of Christ, South Australia (and past Principal of the Churches of Christ Theological College).

We are in an era where we have largely forgotten how to tell stories and we have largely forgotten our primal stories. We need to recast our primal stories of being for our era, yet how can we do this if we don’t know them and have let the art of story-telling die?

In forgetting the great stories of the Bible we have gagged God. But this gagging is not just a forgetting. Gagging by definition is intentional. Gagging does not happen accidentally. It is an intentional act of disempowerment.

Part of the ministerial task, a prophetic and pastoral part of ministry, is the task of ungagging God. The roots of Christianity are concerned with the ungagging of God. Much of Jesus proclamation and lifestyle was about ungagging God who had been gagged by the political and religious elite. The roots of Protestantism are protest! Protest against the Bible held captive (gagged) politically, socially, economically and theologically. To be involved in ungagging we need to understand the reality of the gagging.

How have we gagged God? Some responses:

* By ideological readings of the Bible. Doctrinal and pragmatic interpretations and schema that suit particular interest groups. Rather like the way our corporate media filters news so as to construct a particular view of the world that favours powerful interest groups – a MacMedia. * By selective readings of the Bible. Selecting those texts to fit particular doctrinal constructs or that prop up and justify our particular constructions of society, church and self. Much of this process is unconscious. Yet that is no excuse, but highlights a lack of self-critique and theological and spiritual formation. * By fundamentalist readings of the Bible. Always a perenial problem of human existence and is not necessarily the monopoly of either the Left or the Right, the Conservative or the Liberal. It is a result of the human impulse for self-justification and manifests in a variety of ways: ethno-centricism, struggle for power, struggle for survival, reactions to threat and perceptions of threat, and so on. * By naïve readings of the Bible. A persistent view particularly within Protestantism, that says that when reading the Bible there is no need, or perhaps more strongly, no possibility, for interpretation. This is a popular response with deep roots in the Western modernist logo-centric ideal. * By not reading the Bible at all. The problem here of religiosity and pretence. Biblical illiteracy is rampant in the Western Church let alone in Western society generally. A monumental irony when one considers that never before has the Church or Western society had such encyclopaedic and technologically enhanced Biblical resources. Biblical resources on the internet, the time and money spent on Bible translations, the scholarly resources and so on, is simply breath-taking. * By making high claims about an unread Bible. Psycho-analysts would have a ‘field-day.” “The Bible says….” “Somewhere in the Bible its says …” * By reading the Bible without regard for historical context or literary genre. The result either of naivety or in leadership, the result of pragmatic, controlling and even abusive uses of the Bible. * By taming the “untameable” texts. The inherent impulse to sanitise Jesus or Paul and other Biblical figures or writers for a variety of self-interested reasons.

How can we be involved in a process of “ungagging” God, as it were:

* By re-discovering the Bible as narrative, that is, the story of God’s dealing/s with creation. Marcus Borg has written a very useful book called: “Reading the Bible again for the first time.” Elizabeth Barnes has said: Scripture’s authority resides in its power to interlace creatively and redemptively with all our stories.” She also says: “Scripture’s liveliness inheres in its interlacing genius.” The Bible only has power and value if our story, that is our individual and communal story at this moment, becomes part of the story of the Bible and vice versa. * By learning to ask the right questions. It is one thing to ask: “What does the Bible say?” It is quite something different and ultimately transformative to ask: “What does the Bible mean?” * By becoming aware of the way we tend to read. For instance, our Western heritage, culture and education tends to influence the way we read. We tend to read informatively. Yet the Bible has about it a performative character. The Bible is meant to be performed (lived out), not just for us to be informed (believed in). * By becoming aware of our feelings during the reading process. What we think is important, but so too is how we feel. What offends us about the Bible? And why? What challenges us about the Bible? And Why? Can we hear God addressing us through allowing our story/ stories to connect with the Biblical narrative. * By Recognising and acknowledging the Western problem of individualism and the process of reading. Nicholas Lash says: “… the fundamental form of the Christian interpretation of Scripture is in the life, activity and organisation of the believing community.” * By reading with discernment. Are all readings valid? If not, how do we determine the valid readings from invalid ones? The answer, and there is likely not THE answer, must take into account the insight behind the above quote by Nicholas Lash. Can the Bible speak other than the word of God? Is the word of God confined to the Biblical canon? But what is the canon really, if the Bible only has power and authority when connected (interlaced) with the stories of the believing community and this present world? * By an engaged, ethical reading. Ethics is another important litmus test as to validity. Does the performance of a text or an understanding of the nature of the Bible heal or hurt? Does it liberate or incarcerate? Does it gag or ungag. * By a Christ-centred reading of the Bible. A reading that constantly involves a dynmaic process of reading the Bible that is interlacing a particluar text with what we can know about Jesus and how we experience him …. for the validating or invalidating criteria of any Christian interpretation or reading must be the Lord Jesus Christ. For it was, is and always will be, Jesus of Nazareth, who ultimately ungags.

Kim Thoday, Hewett Community Church of Christ, South Australia

http://www.hewett.org.au

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