A Brief Introduction to the Interpretation of Scripture

Posted on September 21, 2023 by Rev. Mark E. Reynolds

There are two different ways of reading scripture, and both are important and mutually enriching. The first way is in-depth Bible Study, what scholars call exegesis. This way of reading seeks to understand the Bible in its original historical and cultural context. It asks questions like: Who is the author of this book? Who was the intended audience? When was it written, and what was going on culturally, politically, and socially? What is the genre of this passage of scripture, and what was the purpose of the writing? After considering these kinds of questions, theologians go on to ask, “What might this passage mean for the church today?” What is the divine message that needs to be preserved and applied in Christian faith and practice.

The second way of reading the Bible is devotionally or meditatively. Instead of focusing on what the Bible meant in its historical-cultural context, you read as a way of listening for God’s message directly to you. Instead of taking the words apart for detailed analysis, you bring them together in your innermost being, letting them penetrate the most hidden corners of your heart. Prayerfully reading scripture will allow you to hear the still small voice of God so that you can discern God’s next step for your life. This might come as a word of inspiration, healing, and comfort, or a word of conviction, correction, or judgment. It all depends on where you are and what you need to heal and grow. When reading the Bible this way, I recommend the ancient practice of lectio divina.

In what follows, I focus on the first way of reading, in depth Bible study.

Whenever we raise the question, “How do we interpret scripture,” we point to a need for wisdom. In contrast to bare intelligence, wisdom reflects on a wide range of experiences and then integrates the insights that emerge into an overall way of life that helps us navigate the challenges of human existence and deepens our sense of meaning, value, and purpose. The experiences on which we reflect include but are not limited to our own. Wisdom knows the value of listening to the experiences and insights of others, especially those who have proven to be wise themselves. Understood in this way, increasing in wisdom is a lifelong endeavor that requires us to join an open, ongoing, multigeneration conversation with many other people, both past and present, who are held together in community by a shared desire to live wisely.

If good interpretation of the Bible requires growth in wisdom, then we should not expect to become skilled interpreters by simply taking a class or reading a book. While these kinds of learning experiences can be helpful, good interpretation will require much more from you. Subsequently, the purpose of this article is not to answer all conceivable questions about biblical interpretation, or to magically make you an expert interpreter. Rather, my goal is threefold: (1) to begin casting a vision for interpretation that is faithful, fruitful, and wise; (2) to share some guiding principles for good interpretation; and (3) to offer reliable resources that will encourage you to keep learning and growing.

As I work toward this goal, I am going to complicate things, because one of the defining marks of bad interpretation is oversimplification, which we can see in the naïve statement, “God said it, I believe it, and that settles it.” We must always remember that there are no easy answers in the back of the book. So, while you may be reading this article in hopes of getting answers that will make interpretation easier, what you will find is that the answers you receive will lead to more (and hopefully better) questions, questions that will draw you forward on this lifelong pursuit of wisdom. This is one reason why the church is so important as an interpretive community, because as we learn to interpret well over the course of a lifetime, we need wise guides and teachers to fill the gaps in our knowledge and to lead us forward. Good interpretation always happens through open conversation in faithful communities with wise leaders, and this should be an important consideration when you are looking for a church.

Now to the specific question at hand: How do we faithfully and fruitfully interpret the Bible?

First, I highly recommend a good introduction to the Bible. Most people bring all kinds of unquestioned assumptions to the Bible before they ever start reading, and it’s important to examine these assumptions under the light of modern scholarship. A good introduction will ask a series of questions like: What is the Bible? How did it come to be? Who put it together and why? Is it a single book or a library of books? Does it contain more than one type of writing, and if so, what are the best practices for interpreting the different genres? Who wrote the various books of the Bible and why? Does it have an overarching message, and if so, what is it? Is it inspired? If we say yes, what does that mean? How do we distinguish between the humanity of the Bible and divine message that is mediated through that humanity? How does God speak to us through scripture? What’s the role of interpretation?

Whether you realize it or not, your answers (or lack of answers) to these kinds of questions influence how you interpret scripture. In other words, what you already think about the Bible will influence how you interpret the Bible. A good introduction will help you critically reflect on your assumptions and gain some foundational knowledge. One excellent resource is Adam Hamilton’s, Making Sense of the Bible (HarperOne 2014).

Once you gain some foundational knowledge about the Bible, then you can draw on other helpful tools to start reading and interpreting. As you begin, it’s critical that you get a good study Bible. There are two important things to consider when making your selection. First, you need to get a good translation. I recommend either the New Revised Standard Version (NRSV) or the New International Version (NIV). Second, make sure that the study Bible has introductions, notes, commentaries, and other helps that are informed by current scholarship in biblical studies. You do not want to get a Bible that uncritically parrots tradition and ignores the last fifty years of scholarly research. Although there are many good Bibles to choose from, my personal recommendation is The New Interpreters Study Bible (Nashville: Abingdon 2003). The Bible that you chose is important because not all study Bibles are equal, and if you purchase one that ignores contemporary scholarship then your learning will be fraught with misinformation.

As you get more serious about Bible study and run into more difficult passages, you can also consult a scholarly commentary that gives more detailed explanations of specific passages. As is the case with a good study Bible, it’s important to select commentaries written by genuine experts in the field. There are several reputable collections, including the New Interpreter’s Bible commentary. The best person to help you distinguish between good and bad commentaries is a pastor or teacher that has been trained at a reputable seminary or divinity school. Remember, that different denominations have different educational requirements to be a pastor, and not all pastors get a Master of Divinity. Some pastors don’t even have an undergraduate degree in religious studies, so be careful to whom you go for help.

Now that you have some important background information about the Bible, as well as a good study Bible, you are in a position to start asking important questions that will help you start to faithfully and fruitfully interpret the Bible within your community of faith. And the first set of questions are aimed at answering, what did this passage mean to its original audience? This is the big question that is answered by asking many other smaller questions. Again, drawing on the best of modern scholarship with the guidance of a well-trained teacher, we ask questions like: Who was the author or authors of this text? What’s the approximate date of the writing? What was going on historically, socially, and politically at this time? What was going on in the religious community to which the passage was written? Why did the author write this book or passage? What was the purpose? What type of writing is it? Is it a letter, a hymn, a wisdom saying, a prophecy, or a gospel? How does this passage fit into the whole book of the Bible under consideration, and how does the book fit into the overarching message of the whole Bible? What parts of this passage uncritically reflect the culture of the time and which parts reveal something timeless about the character and purposes of God, the human condition, and how we can be saved?

This last question is important and signals a shift in interpretation toward discerning what the passage might mean for us today. The way we make this distinction as Christians is by interpreting the passage in the light of God’s revelation in Jesus. We read in John 1:

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God . . . . The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.
John 1:1-2, 14

Jesus is also recorded as saying, “Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father” (John 14:9). So, when we talk about the Word of God, we are not referring to the Bible but Jesus. Jesus Christ is the true Word of God, and the only reason Christians refer to the Bible as the word of God is because it gives us access to God’s revelation in Jesus. For Christians, Jesus was God the Son incarnate, the second person of the Trinity. In him, God doesn’t just send us another prophet or teacher, but God comes to us in the flesh so that our soul may know it’s savior. In the language of the historical creeds, Jesus was fully human and fully divine. Therefore, Jesus shows us the truth nature of God and how God is at work in human history to save us. Jesus also reveals what it looks like to be fully human, to be the kind of person God created us to be.

In giving us the greatest commandment, Jesus tells us what his entire life and message is about, thereby revealing the heart of God:

“Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself. All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.”’
Matthew 22:37-40

This is the heart of Jesus’ teaching, and everything else that he is recorded as saying in the New Testament attempts to explain what this means and looks like in real life. As we develop a personal relationship with Christ through prayer, meditation on scripture, worship, serving the poor, and other spiritual disciplines, we learn his way of life and are transformed into his image. The closer we get to him and the more we mature in our faith, the better we interpret his message.

All of this leads to an important principle for Christians when interpreting scripture:

Anything we read in the Bible that contradicts the God we see revealed in Jesus—anything that violates the greatest commandment, the law of love—is part of the humanity of the Bible.

Rather than being part of the divine message, it’s an uncritical reflection of ancient culture that is no longer binding.

A good example of this is found in all the references to slavery in the Bible. A literal reading can lead one to believe that slavery was part of God’s social order, especially since some of these passages claim to be God’s rules for regulating slavery and even beating slaves. But this is not consistent with the God we see revealed in Jesus, and it is in direct contradiction to the law of love. So, we say that these references to slavery are not part of the enduring divine message of the Bible but an uncritical reflection of ancient culture in which slavery was widely accepted and practiced. We say the same about passages that portray women as inferior to men. And some even say that same about the handful of references in the Bible that condemn homosexual practice. Regardless, the interpretive principle is clear: we read the Bible backwards and forwards in the light of God’s revelation in Jesus, and if we read something that contradicts what we see in Jesus, if we read something that violates the law of love, we let it go as part of the humanity of the authors.

In summary, as we read passages of the Bible in their historical context with the help of scholars and wise teachers, we start to understand what they may have meant to their original audience. Then, we shift gears and start asking what they could mean for us today. The first move in this shift is to distinguish between what parts of the Bible are reflections of ancient culture and what parts mediate the divine message that we need to interpret and apply today. What reveals God’s heart? God’s character and purposes? God’s ways of working in the world to heal and save us? What are the values of the Kingdom of God, and how can these be preserved and applied to daily life? What does love require in this specific situation?

These are the kinds of questions we ask when trying to discern what a passage might mean for us today. These are kinds of questions that keep the multigenerational conversation about the meaning of the Bible going, a conversation with faithful Christians in the past and the present. In other words, when we are trying to interpret the Bible, we take tradition seriously.

We also take reason seriously. The greatest commandment includes the command to love God with our minds. As Christians, we believe that God is the author of all truth, no matter where we find it. It doesn’t matter if the truth comes to us in religion, history, science, psychology, sociology, philosophy, poetry, music, or art. If it’s true, it comes from God. And this means that when we try to answer the questions related to what a passage might mean today, we interpret it in the light of what we know to be true in these different disciplines. For example, we don’t pit science and religion against each other. Rather we see them as different disciplines articulating truth in different ways, ways that are not oppositional but complementary.

Finally, we take our own experience seriously too. Does this interpretation match what I’ve come to believe is true in my own experience? For example, racist groups have taken certain passages of scripture out of context and interpreted them to justify their belief that people of color are inferior. Now imagine if you grew up in a family that embraced some or all this ideology, but when you moved away to college you became best friends with someone who was African American. As you reflect on this experience of friendship it might call the racist interpretations into question and cause you to explore alternatives that are more consistent with your own experience. This is part of good interpretation.

We can put all this together by using the metaphor of a telescope.¹ When we read the Bible, we are trying to see God through its stories, and God has given us a tool to help us in this endeavor, an interpretive telescope so to speak. Remember that telescopes are made up of multiple lenses that allow us to see things far away. Reason and experience taken together form the lens closest to us. It’s made up of our own mind, our experience of the world, and all that we have learned about the world through various areas of study. Everything we interpret is filtered through reason and experience. The next lens is the wisdom of our ancestors and the way they interpreted Scripture and lived out its teachings. This is the great, multigenerational conversation through which we have access to the wisdom of the ages that is distilled, preserved, and handed on to us as Christian tradition. The third lens is our examination of the Bible in its historical, social, political, and cultural context. The final lens is God’s revelation in Jesus as recorded in the Gospels and succinctly captured in the greatest commandment, the law of love. While we believe that all scripture was somehow inspired by God, we believe that Jesus is God’s self-revelation. So, the passages that give us access to Jesus become the standard by which we interpret and understand everything else in the Bible.

Again, we do all of this in the community of faith, and when we start interpreting, we take a leap of faith knowing that sometimes we get it right and sometimes we get it wrong. And the way that we make this distinction is by checking the fruit.

A really good question to ask yourself is, what does this interpretation DO to me? Does it make me more like Jesus? Does it make me more loving, compassionate, humble, just, forgiving, grateful, flexible, generous, joyful, and content. Or does it make me more hateful, cruel, prideful, unjust, judgmental, entitled, rigid, stingy, grumpy, and discontent? Does it result in unity, inclusion, reconciliation, cooperation, and friendship, or does it lead to division, exclusion, alienation, competition, and tribalism? Jesus said:

Watch out for false prophets. They come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ferocious wolves. By their fruit you will recognize them. Do people pick grapes from thorn bushes, or figs from thistles? Likewise, every good tree bears good fruit, but a bad tree bears bad fruit. A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, and a bad tree cannot bear good fruit. Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. Thus, by their fruit you will recognize them.
Matthew 17:15-20

So, check the fruit and compare it to what the Bible calls good fruit, the fruit of the spirit.

But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.
Galatians 5:22-23

If your interpretation of the Bible makes you more like Jesus and produces the fruit of the spirit, then you are probably thinking in the right direction. If not, you are probably thinking in the wrong direction.

The final (and perhaps most important) point is that none of this matters unless the whole process of interpretation is illuminated and guided by the power of the Holy Spirit. We interpret scripture to know God and to be transformed into the image of Christ, and the Holy Spirit is the one that moves through our reading to make this possible. Without the Spirit, we are just reading interesting texts.

For a recent sermon on this topic, see “God Said It, I Believe It, and That Settles It!” on my YouTube channel and podcast (search “Pastor Mark Reynolds” on your preferred app).

See the excellent article in Earth & Alar written by Jordan Haynie Ware, “What Is the Bible?“

Our Moral Compass: You Are What You Believe

Posted on January 2, 2023 by Rev. Mark E. Reynolds

When Emma and I were returning from Jacksonville on Monday after Christmas, we made a wrong turn. The GPS on my phone instructed us to stay to the left on I-95, but we couldn’t get to the left because there was a barrier preventing us from merging. This forced us to take a wrong turn as the GPS rerouted. The new route instructed us to take the next exit and travel down a back street for a couple of miles. Emma looked at me and said with confidence, “I don’t believe this GPS, we should’ve just gone straight.” This was really funny because neither Emma nor I had any idea where we were, and her suspicion was completely irrational because the GSP always get us to where we need to go, even when we misread the map and make a wrong turn. Sure enough, we made it back to I-95 and safely home to Cocoa Beach.

I sometimes think, “I don’t know how I ever traveled without GPS on my phone.” Back in the day, I would print maps from MapQuest, and then later I had a Garmin GPS that hung from my windshield. Do you remember those? You could change the voice giving directions to Austin Powers or Snoop Dogg. Now this technology is on our phones and will even warn us of road hazards up ahead. GPS has become so integrated into our lives and the apps on our phones that we don’t realize how much we rely on it.

Pilots, archaeologists, moving companies, farmers, loggers, civil engineers, surveyors, geologists, mining companies, and even Navy SEALs all use sophisticated navigation equipment, and all this advanced technology is grounded in a simple device called the compass. Do you remember the hand-held compass? There was one in the Red Ryder BB gun I got for Christmas as a kid. They were typically round and had a little needle under a glass cover bouncing around on a pin that could point you north. This is a magnetic compass, which you can build with a needle and a cork in a bowl of water.

Another type is a gyrocompass. This compass does not use the Earth’s magnetism to show direction. Instead, a spinning gyroscope works in conjunction with the Earth’s axis of rotation to point to true north. This type of compass is often used on ships and aircraft. We also have the solar compass that uses the sun as a navigational tool.

And then there is perhaps the most important compass of all when we are trying to navigate life, the moral compass. It’s a compass that points to our True North and keeps our steps on a good and trustworthy path. As we know, a good compass helps us travel with confidence in the right direction, and if it doesn’t, we need to throw it out and get a new one.

Today we start a new year. Many of us are hopeful, maybe even optimistic, about getting a fresh start, about recalibrating our habits and routines to become better people and experience more joy in life. But if this going to happen, we need a reliable moral compass, and there is no better time to check our navigational tools than at the beginning of a new journey.

As we know, there are four cardinal principal points on a compass (north, east, south, and west), and I think it will be helpful to return to our scripture reading this morning, taken from Ephesians, chapter 1, to see how it can help us understand the four cardinal points of a good moral compass.

Although there are many points on the Ephesian compass, the cardinal points help us understand our place in the world and our relationship with God. More precisely, they help us know who we are and who is directing our steps. The apostle Paul starts by providing the north and south points on our compass by saying that we are (1) chosen by God, and (2) we are children of God. Remember that the Earth’s axis is formed by the north and south poles. The planet rotates on this axis. So, metaphorically speaking, being chosen by God and being a child of God are pivotal points on our moral compass. If we get this wrong, the compass will not faithfully guide us.

First, we are chosen, and not just chosen but chosen “in Christ before the foundation of the world” (v. 4). This means that before you were ever born, God destined you for good things like love, peace, and joy. God also destine you to be part of His great rescue plan for the world. This is part of your God-given purpose and identity, and if you don’t understand and claim this truth, then you will not be able to make good decisions that help you live into this destiny.

You have heard me say that the biggest problem with human beings these days is not that they think to highly of themselves but that they think too lowly of themselves. Indeed, modern psychology has taught us that most people who are full of pride are really overcompensating for insecurity. They worry that they are not good enough or smart enough, and that if people see this they will devalue, abandon, or reject them. So, they pretend that they are better than everyone else or smarter than everyone else to hide the fact that deep down inside they feel inferior. This deep-seated fear masked by projection has a way of breaking a person’s moral compass, and when they unwittingly follow this broken compass is leads them astray into thoughts and behaviors that hurt other people and keep them from experiencing true happiness. So, it is crucial that we get the north cardinal point right from the very beginning, that we know who we are and what destiny God has prepared for us.

As we start a new year and face an unknown future, we must remember that from the foundations of the world we were chosen by God, that it is God’s will that we live a good life and experience good things as we are trying to make the world a better place. And when we doubt our value or place in the world and start getting down on ourselves, we need to return to this constant north point—God has chosen me for good things.

More specially, God has chosen you “to be holy and blameless before him in love” (v. 4). Now don’t freak out at the sound of these words because they don’t mean what we often think they mean. Holy does not mean better than everyone else and blameless do not mean morally perfect. Holy means to be set apart to serve God’s purposes in the world. Before the planets were formed, God chose you to do your part in making the world more like He intends it to be, and to be holy means to accept this call, to allow God to set you apart for your specific role, and to serve this role as faithfully as you can. The role might be as simple as sharing the loving presence of God with your family or sharing the story of what God has done for you with a friend in crisis. Or it might be as challenging as becoming a foreign missionary or accepting a call to run for public office. But the important point here is that God has destined you to be part of his great rescue plan for this world, and to be holy means to be set apart in ways that will empower you to serve your unique role.

The word blameless points to the importance of leading a moral life. More specially, it’s a judicial term that stresses the importance of living a life committed to justice and fairness for all people. So being blameless means acting in ways that make the world more just and fair. But even followers of Jesus sometimes fall short, and the only way we can be restored to blamelessness is by asking God for forgiveness. So, we are blameless not in every action but insofar as we live under the cover of God’s grace in Jesus and seek forgiveness.

When we put all of this together regarding the north cardinal point, we start to get a clear idea of our identity in Christ: we are destined by God to be set apart so we can live moral lives that make the world more loving and justice, and when we mess-up, we are the kind of people that own our mistakes, ask for forgiveness and, with God’s help, get back on track. This identity is our true north as Christians.

Second, we are not only chosen by God, but we are also children of God, which is a little more personal. As it says in scripture, we are not children by nature, but by adoption, which dovetails nicely with the concept of being chosen. All children are special, but an adopted child is even more special because they are freely chosen. Knowing that we are a child of God is the south point of our moral compass, an axiomatic belief that is require for our compass to work.

Now think about what this means. Do children with loving parents worry about their future? Do they wonder how they will survive? Do they even bother themselves with these types of adult concerns? No! Unless they have been seriously abused, they have confidence that their parents will provide for their needs. Jesus says in the Sermon on the Mount: “ . . . do not worry, saying, ‘What will we eat?’ or ‘What will we drink?’ or ‘What will we wear?’ … indeed your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things” (Matthew 6:31-32). Our faith that God is real, that he is closer to us than our own breathing, that he is for us and not against us, that he is working in and through all things to accomplish our good, and that we can trust his protection and provision, all of this is crucial as we seek direction in life. Together, these faith claims, claims that we must come back to over and over again, are the south point of our compass and together with our north point form the moral axis on which everything turns.

The east point on our moral compass is the rock-solid conviction that we are redeemed. Although we sell ourselves into various kinds of slavery that rob us of our God-given destiny and put us on the path to destruction, God does not abandon us. Rather, God find us on the auctioning block and buys back our freedom. In Jesus, God pays our debt, sets us free, and brings us home so we can reclaim our destiny and get back to a joyful existence in which we are serving God’s loving purposes in the world. Knowing and believing that we have been redeemed and that God can make us useful again is an essential element in our identity and the east point on our moral compass.

Finally, the west point of our compass is the certainty that in Jesus we are forgiven. Everything ugly, shameful, dark, and destructive has been blotted out. We don’t need to carry it around anymore like a noose around our neck. We can let it go, give it God, and walk in newness of life. Many people are suspicious Sigmund Freud, but he got at least one thing right, that most of our bad behavior is driven by guilt and shame. So, if you do not truly believe that you have been forgiven then your moral compass will be broken, and all that guilt will destroy you behind your back. You’ve got to let it go and claim your identity as someone who has been forgiven.

When we put the east and west cardinal points together, that we are redeemed and forgiven, it helps us to understand the famous verse of scripture in Psalm 103:12: “ . . . as far as the east is from the west, so far has he removed our transgressions from us.”

To review, the four cardinal points of the Ephesian compass are the north-south vectors of being chosen by God and claimed as children of God, and the east-west vectors that we are redeemed by God and forgiven by God. Taken together, all four establish our identity in Christ; all four guide our steps so we can be joyful and useful; all four are axiomatic faith claims from which everything good proceeds.

I want to end this morning by posing a couple of questions.

First, do you have a good compass? Do you possess the rock-solid belief that you have been chosen by God for good things? That you are a child of God and therefore a person of worth? That you don’t have to be or do anything different for God to love you, because God’s love is unconditional and nothing you could ever do would make God stop loving you or stop pursing you? Do you know in your heart of hearts that you are redeemed and forgiven? Do these convictions shape how you think about yourself and make decisions in your everyday life? If all four of these things are not in place, you don’t have a good compass. But the good news is that God can give you one that works great, and the only thing you have to do to receive this gift is to sincerely confession your sins and ask God to give you a fresh start. Before we move on, I want to give everyone here a chance to do that by offering a prayer . . . . .

______________________________

If you prayed this prayer with me and meant it in your heart, then you can claim a new identity in Christ: that you are a chosen child of God that has been forgiven and redeemed.

Now that you have this new compass, the second question is, will you trust it? Will you trust this moral compass. Trusting the compass means coming back to the four axiomatic faith claims over and over again so you can remember who you are and who directs your steps. This is especially important when the world tells you different, when the world says that your life is meaningless and without purpose, that you can’t trust anyone, that you are irredeemable and unforgiven, that you are beyond repair and will never be free from your guilt. When these things are spoken over you or crop-up in your thinking, trusting you compass means counteracting these lies with the truth of the four cardinal points. Trusting your compass also means that when you are making decisions you ask yourself what would a person do who truly believes that he is chosen, redeemed, and forgiven by God, a person who is destined for good things and has the protection and provision of God? And then letting your faith guide your steps. If God has given you a good compass, then you can always trust it, even when your instincts, fears, or preferences tempt you to another path. So, trust your compass and consult it frequently.

Remember Who You Are: The Beatitudes, Identity, and Vision

Posted on August 5, 2018 by Rev. Mark E. Reynolds

The movie, Wonder, is an inspirational story about a 10-year-old boy, Auggie Pullman, who suffers with Treacher Collins syndrome. After being taught at home most of his life, he started public school for the first time upon entering fifth grade. This required him to leave behind the astronaut helmet that he wore to hide his facial deformities. Sadly, he was ostracized by nearly the entire student body, but quickly became best friends with a boy named Jack Will. On Halloween, while everyone was dressed-up at school, he overheard Jack make fun of his deformities and tell the other boys that he was only pretending to be Auggie’s friend. Feeling betrayed, Auggie had a breakdown after arriving home.

His mother, Isabel, offered comfort by saying, “You are not ugly, Auggie,” who replied, “You just have to say that because you’re my mom.” She responded, “Because I am your mom, it counts the most, because I know you the most.” Since Isabel knew her son better than anyone else, she could see the truth about Auggie, even when he couldn’t see it himself. When the other kids were cruel, it was important for her to remind him that he was a good, kind-hearted, smart boy with a great sense of humor. When Auggie felt ugly and rejected, he needed her to speak truth into his life. Despite continued bullying at school, the words of truth spoken by his mother gave Auggie the strength to be his authentic self. As a result, other kids were also enabled to see below the surface of his deformities and accept him as a friend.

The truth that Auggie’s mother spoke reminded him of his true identity and encouraged him to live into that reality. According to the Gospel of Matthew, Jesus does something similar for us in giving the beatitudes (5:1-12).

Remember that the Gospel of Matthew was written to a group of Jewish Christians who believed that Jesus was the Messiah. This was truly a paradigm shift in their thinking that resulted in big changes to their religious beliefs and way of life. It launched them on a new journey that took them into the heart of an emerging reality that Jesus called the kingdom of God. The decision to live in this new kingdom inaugurated by the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus, meant to live under the reign of God in accordance with God’s values. However, these early Christians soon discovered that these values were diametrically opposed to the upside-down values of the world. In their very efforts to align their lives with God’s ways of life, they came face-to-face with fierce resistance, and instead of feeling blessed many felt cursed.

As the author of Matthew drew on the words of the historical Jesus to compose his gospel, the beatitudes became an occasion to remind these early Christians of their true identity in Christ and to encourage to them to keep the faith during times of difficulty. It’s like we can hear Jesus saying: While you might feel cursed when evaluating your circumstances according to the value system of the world, when seen according to the values of the kingdom you are truly blessed by God because you are living in the truth. Therefore, remember who you are and remain faithful. God looks upon you with favor and will vindicate and reward you in the end.

In this way, Jesus’ words gave encouragement and hope to a group of Christians who were struggling to find meaning in difficult circumstances, which were caused by their commitment to God’s way of life. In addition, the beatitudes revealed the marks of authentic discipleship, which not only confirmed that they were on the right path but also provided ongoing direction for their spiritual journey. With each pronouncement of blessing, Jesus says, “I declare by the power of my word that this is who you really are in the eyes of God, so remember who you are, be encouraged, and live into this reality.”

As we meditate on these pronouncements of blessing, Jesus can do the same for us. So, let’s turn to the beatitudes themselves to remember who we are and see more clearly who God is calling us to be.

The Beatitudes in the Gospel of Matthew[1]

“Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven” (5:3). The poor in spirit are those with no spiritual qualifications, charisma, or influence. No one would think to ask their opinion on religious matters or call on them to pray or teach a Bible study. According to the religious elites, these people were spiritually bankrupt and excluded from salvation without their rituals, teachings, and intercessions. Then Jesus comes along and says: God’s kingdom is open to you. Far from being excluded, God eagerly awaits your entry. While the “holier-than-thou” may look down on you, God sees your value and uses your spiritual poverty to reveal an important mark of authentic discipleship: humility. Those who are poor in spirit know that they cannot be saved by religion. Rather, they are entirely dependent upon God and find their identity, security, and hope in God’s saving action. Consequently, they are truly blessed, “for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.”

“Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth” (5:5). Like Jesus, the meek are “gentle and humble in heart” (11:29). The world says, “Assert your will and leverage your power to take what you want,” but the meek renounce the coercive, domineering, and violent ways of the world. In so doing, they expose the dark side of power and the damage it does to human beings. While the meek look foolish and weak in the eyes of the world, Jesus says, “these are the ones who demonstrate real strength and who are truly blessed.” When God finishes the new creation, the meek—not the domineering, forceful, manipulative, or violent—will inherit the earth. You can mock them all you want as impotent and impractical, but God will vindicate and reward them in the end.

“Blessed are the merciful, for they will receive mercy” (5:7). Like meekness, mercy is often seen as a sign of weakness. The world says, “If you are merciful, people will take advantage of you. If you don’t want to become a doormat, show strength not mercy.” But according to the value system of the kingdom, the merciful reflect the compassionate heart of God. By making the truth of God’s love and forgiveness real in this broken world, they show themselves to be true disciples. While the world may crush them for their kindness, Jesus says they are truly blessed because they reap what they sow—divine mercy.

“Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled” (5:6). In this pronouncement, Jesus blesses people who sincerely pray, “Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth at it is in heaven” (6:10). They long for God to right-wise this fallen world with love, justice, and peace. They ache for the time when God will vindicate His people, especially those who are marginalized and oppressed. Based on this hope, they actively seek to extend the reign of God’s righteousness in the world around them, even at great cost to themselves. Since God is faithful, their hope is not in vain—their hunger for justice will be satisfied when God’s redemptive work in creation is complete.

“Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted” (5:4). In this pronouncement, Jesus is not saying that mourning, in and of itself, is a virtue. Rather, like those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, he is blessing people who lament the present condition of God’s people in a world subject to sin, evil, and death. According to Jesus, the truly blessed refuse to resign themselves the present condition of the world but mourn the fact that God’s will has not yet been done “on earth as it is in heaven.” They are blessed because they will be comforted by God’s ultimate victory.

“Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God” (5:9). Note that Jesus does not say, “Blessed are the peacekeepers,” those who fear conflict and sweep it under the rug. Nor does he endorse the kind of peacemaking done by the Romans at the tip of a sword. Rather, he pronounces blessing on those who are courageous enough to engage the incredibly difficult work of reconciliation. Peacemakers work to eliminate hostilities between enemies in hopes that they may be restored to friendship. While the bullies and conflict avoiders of the of the world try to sideline the peacemakers, Jesus says, “In the last judgement, they will be claimed as God’s children.”

“Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God” (5:8). Purity of heart is not about avoiding what some consider impure thoughts, but about single-minded devotion to God. Rather than dividing ourselves among several different loyalties, which will inevitably require us to compromise our values, our ultimate loyalty to God subordinates all others. This means that when the value system of the kingdom comes into conflict with the value system of the world, the kingdom always wins. Instead of serving two masters (6:24), we learn to love God with all our heart, soul, and mind (22:37). We how to live with “undivided heart” (Ps. 86:11). While the world may see the pure in heart as naïve, Jesus says that they are blessed because they will see God in the feast of the new creation.

“Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are you when people revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you” (5:10-12).

As we have already seen, the value system of the kingdom of God is diametrically opposed to the value system of this present world. As disciples of Jesus try to imitate his life by being humble, meek, and merciful; as they hunger and thirst for justice and lay their lives on the line for reconciliation; as they act out of a single-minded devotion to God, they meet fierce resistance. In their imitation of Christ, their very life shines light in dark places, exposing the violence and injustice of the wicked, who, in turn, try to extinguish their light. One strategy for this is persecution: using power to silence, smear, discredit, dominate, oppress, imprison, punish, torture, and even kill. People who experience these sufferings may appear to be cursed by God when seen through the eyes of the world, but according to the values of the kingdom they are blessed because they suffer for the truth. While the powerful may make their lives a living hell on earth, Jesus says, “their reward will be great . . . for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.”

Summary and Challenge

These words of Jesus, reminding us of who we are and encouraging us along the way, are important as we navigate change on the journey to transformation. When all the evidence suggests that we are cursed for embracing a cruciform way of life, we need to evaluate our circumstances in light of the value system of the kingdom. This is no easy task, because challenge, discomfort, and pain cause us to lose perspective, especially since the value system of the world seems to be our native language. But if we see ourselves through its distorted lenses, we are easily discouraged and tempted to give-up and turn back.

In order to cultivate the courage, strength, and hope to keep moving forward with Jesus, we must find ways to stay focused on the value system of the kingdom. We do this by developing a daily discipline of prayer and meditation on scripture (especially the teachings of Jesus). We do this by sharing life with the friends of Jesus who are marginalized and oppressed. We do this by declaring the reign of God’s righteousness in worship and allowing every aspect of our lives to be an expression of God’s glory. We do this by learning and practicing the teachings of Jesus in ways that create communities of love.

Focusing on the value system of the kingdom of God sharpens our ability to see the world and ourselves as God does, which is encouraging when all hell breaks loose. By meditating on the beatitudes we are reminded who we are, given direction for our journey, and empowered by renewed vision and hope.

Prayer

Gracious God, when I’m blinded by the value system of the world and begin to think that I’m cursed, remind me of who I am in Christ and help me see the world in the light of your coming kingdom.

(This post is the fifth in a series of thirty-seven in conversation with the book Heart and Mind by Alexander John Shaia. Each post is a revised version of a sermon, which can be accessed on YouTube and iTunes.)

[1] My understand of the beatitudes is informed by E. Eugene Boring, “The Gospel of Matthew,” New Interpreter’s Bible: A Commentary in Twelve Volumes [NIBC], 178-180.

For Christ’s Sake: A Pastor’s Response to the Parkland School Shooting

Posted on February 22, 2018 by Rev. Mark E. Reynolds

(Below is a revised manuscript of a message Pastor Mark delivered at First United Methodist Church Cocoa Beach on February 18, 2018.)

Introduction

I want to begin by apologizing for not mentioning the Parkland school shooting during our Ash Wednesday service. As a parent of four kids, I just didn’t want to admit to myself that this had happened again. But as I read the names and ages of the victims this week, grief and anger washed over me, and I would be derelict in my duties as a pastor if I failed to say something about it.

Honestly, I’m a little anxious. While pastors are called by God to teach people how to apply the values of Jesus Christ to every aspect of life, many of us are reluctant to speak out when shootings happen because the surrounding issues are so politicized. Nevertheless, being a leader entails a willingness to speak from the heart, letting the chips fall where they may. This is especially true for pastors who follow a Jewish rabbi that was crucified by religious and political leaders for speaking truth to power.

I want to begin by honestly acknowledging that I don’t have all the answers. Although I have extensive training in interpreting the gospel and applying it to Christian life, I’m not infallible. I can only speak the truth as I understand it, humbly acknowledging that my perspective has limits and blind spots, just like yours. Second, I must admit that I sometimes fail to practice what I preach. I’ve encountered people with different opinions and reacted in ways that fall short of the ideals I long to espouse. However, if the precondition for casting moral vision is moral perfection, we are all in serious trouble!

The Problem: Everything is Politicized and Polarized

From my perspective, the biggest problem we face today is the inability to talk to each other and collaborate to solve our most urgent problems. Everything has been politicized and polarized.

Some of our most influential leaders are professional politicians, and their jobs largely depend on two things: pleasing their financial donors and maintaining the support of their political base. To protect these things, some sacrifice their own personal identity for their tribe. Both political parties develop their platform, which is the framework for thinking, speaking, and problem solving. Staying within this framework is a sign of loyalty, and loyalty to the tribe promises funding and political protection.

The boundaries of this framework are clearly delineated by professional speech writers, who carefully craft talking points on every issue that could potentially alienate the political base or financial donors. When engaged in public discourse, politicians often protect themselves by parroting these talking points over, and over, and over again. It’s rare when a politician finds the courage to deviate from the party line and speak from their heart, and when they do it often results in marginalization and political attack. In this way, heart to heart conversations and collaborative problem solving are actively discouraged.

Unfortunately, our politicians are not the only ones who have this problem. The Bible says that human beings are fallen creatures, and one implication is our penchant for tribalism. Instead of embracing God’s vision of unity, peace, love, cooperation, and community, we try to secure ourselves by forming exclusive associations with people who look, think, believe, and act like us. Instead of crossing dividing lines to unify people around a common vision of compassion (which is what Jesus did), we fearfully double-down on those dividing lines to protect ourselves from people who are different. In this context, we tend to gravitate toward black and white thinking in which the world is divided-up into insiders and outsiders, allies and enemies, which gives us a sense of belonging, clarity, and purpose.

Knowing that we all have a penchant toward tribalism, politicians on both sides leverage this to their political advantage. They welcome us into their tribe and, working through their spokespersons on cable news networks, train us how to properly respond to any given issue. Again, being a valued member of the tribe means staying within the boundaries of the party platform and repeating the approved talking points. Arming ourselves with memorized soundbites and treating those who disagree as enemies to be defeated plays right into our sinful nature.

All of this comes together to create a hostile environment in which everything is politicized and polarized. The name of the game is divide and conquer, and winner takes all. Conceding anything to the other side, even the smallest point in an argument, is a cardinal sin punishable by exclusion.

Tragically, when we can’t talk to each other, we start thinking that there are no solutions to our problems, which tempts us to capitulate to the status quo—even when the status quo involves repetitive and increasing violence. Since the horrific event at Sandy Hook Elementary school in 2012, when Adam Lanza murder 20 first-graders and 6 adults, there have been 239 school shootings in the US, which resulted in 438 wounded and 138 killed. So, the most recent school shooting at Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, which resulted in 17 deaths, is simply one of many school shootings. In fact, studies show that going back to January 2014 there have been an average of five school shootings per month. (Jugal K. Patel, “After Sandy Hook, More Than 400 People Have Been Shot in Over 200 School Shootings,” The New York Times, February 15, 2018)

Working Toward Solutions

As complicated as this issue might be, we cannot accept this as the new normal, and the very suggestion that there is nothing we can do about it should make us all mad as hell. There are things we can do, and to throw our hands in the air as helpless victims is nothing short of sin. We can and must act. As an American, as a Christian, as a parent, as a human being with a conscience, I believe that we should do everything in our power to curtail this madness. And while we cannot place all responsibility on the shoulders of our elected officials, they do have an important role to play as law makers. Everyone agrees, even Libertarians, that the most important job of government is to protect its citizens, and if our elected officials are not willing or able to set aside tribal politics to better protect our kids from gun violence, then we should throw them out of office and elect principled leaders who will.

Many argue that passing more restrictive gun laws will not eradicate school shootings. Pivoting away from the public policy debate, they say that gun violence is a “heart problem.” Since parents have the primary responsibility of teaching their children good morals, the solution is for parents to raise healthy and responsible kids.

There is some truth in this argument. Christians believe that children are a gift from God, and part of our responsibility as parents is to teach our kids about love, compassion, and respect for all people, including those who are rejected, outcast, or ostracized. We should teach them how to identify and process painful emotions like rejection, loneliness, grief, and disappointment. We should have ongoing conversations with our kids about bullying and conflict resolution and cultivate trust in the family so kids feel safe asking questions and sharing what’s on their mind. We should be attentive to red flags in their mood and behavior, which means limiting their privacy. We need to know their friends and the parents of their friends. We need to know what they’re doing on their electronic devices: what apps they are using; what they’re texting, snapchatting, and instant messaging; what they are posting on social media sites; what videos they are watching, songs they are listening to, and video games they are playing. Do any of these things normalize, encourage, or glorify violence and killing? Do any of these things violate our Christian values? If so, we have a responsibility to restrict their access and talk to them about our values. Parents also need to recognize signs of abuse, mental illness, and emotional trauma, getting their kids professional help when needed. And parents are wise to surround their kids with other spiritually and emotionally healthy adults who can have a positive influence.

However, simply focusing on better parenting will not solve the problem. We also need to make changes in our education system. Those who spend the most time with kids other than their parents are teachers. Since many school shootings are perpetrated by disturbed students (or former students), part of the solution will involve shifting our priorities in public education and better resourcing our teachers and schools. Many educators will tell us that the state has become so focused on standardized testing that they have little if any time to teach the kids anything other than what’s anticipated on the next test. But teachers need time for other important things.

They need time to share best practices on how to recognize signs of isolation, bullying, grief, anger, and mental illness in their students. They need smaller class-sizes, so they can get to know their students on a more personal level and better spot red flags. All schools need an efficient referral system and enough school psychologists on staff to triage and assess troubled students. Schools need resources and opportunities for effective bullying prevention programs, diversity training, conflict resolution, and character development. I also think that every middle-school and high school should have a resource officer on campus to deal with more serious problems.

But even this is not enough. Whether we like it or not, there are important public policy concerns regarding mass shootings.

Take for example mental health. Everyone agrees that when we see something we should say something. When someone notices a child exhibiting strange behavior or signs of abuse, trauma, or mental illness, they should try to get that child help. But counseling and therapy are not free. So, if we are going to talk about treating mentally ill or troubled children, then we must also talk about healthcare. It makes no sense to say, “Mental illness is a big part of the problem,” if mentally ill people don’t have access to treatment. It makes no sense for parents, teachers, coaches, and other adults to look for red flags, unless the family of the child can afford to get them help. So part of the solution is to make sure that every child in our country has access to behavioral health services (which means talking about health insurance). No child in this country who is struggling mentally or emotionally should be excluded from treatment because of money.

Finally, we must find ways to put aside our tribal politics so we can have rational discussions about improving our gun laws to curtail gun violence. I hesitate to even say “gun control” because most people assume they know exactly what the phrase means and compulsively start parroting the prescribed talking points of their political party. But when we resist this knee jerk reaction and create space for genuine dialogue, we see a broad range of agreement in our country about specific policy changes that would help reduce mass shootings. Recent studies show that almost 90% of both Republicans and Democrats agree that mentally ill people should not be able to buy guns. Over 80% of both parties agree that people who are on no-fly lists or terrorist watchlists should not be able to buy guns. Almost 80% of Republicans and 90% of Democrats agree on universal background checks (which would include closing the loopholes in personal and gun show sales), and a large majority of Americans agree on banning assault rifles and outlawing bump stocks. Still others agree we should limit the size of magazines and clips. (Ryan Struyk, “Here Are the Gun Control Policies That Majorities in Both Parties Support,” CNN, Updated November 6, 2017.) With these broad agreements between a clear majority of Americans, we should be able to revise our gun laws to make it more difficult for bad people to get guns and commit mass murder.

Are gun laws a panacea? No. Will stricter gun control prevent all gun violence? No. But this is no reason to throw our hands in the air and say, “Well, then, there’s nothing law makers can do about it!” That’s like saying, “If I can’t lose 50 pounds on my diet by tomorrow then what’s the point in trying to lose weight?” There are things our lawmakers can do to help to help reduce the death toll and they have a moral responsibility to do so.

As you can see, people on both sides have part of the solution, but these parts by themselves are not adequate for lasting change. We need people on both sides of the political aisle to bring their part of the solution so we can put all the pieces together for comprehensive reform. However, this will not be possible if money and tribalism render us morally bankrupt and destroy the possibility of collaboration.

What About God?

While all the things mentioned above are important for addressing gun violence in America, there will be no lasting solutions with God. Human beings are not only physical and mental creatures, we are also spiritual beings. We are created in the image of God, and God desires an intimate relationship with each of us. It’s through this personal relationship with the divine that we find forgiveness and the overcoming of guilt; reconciliation and the overcoming of estrangement; joy and the overcoming of despair; peace and the overcoming of anxiety; unity and the overcoming of tribalism. It’s where we find healing and gain our true purpose in life beyond politics. It is where we learn how to love ourselves and others the way that God loves us. It is where we learn the true meaning of community and how to talk to each other and resolve conflict in healthy ways. It’s where the sacraments of baptism and communion erase all dividing lines and unite us under the lordship of Jesus Christ.

The church has an important role to play by creating communities of belonging, love, compassion, justice, and peace. Many people who perpetrate acts of violence feel misunderstood, isolated, and outcast. They don’t believe that anyone cares about them or that their voice really matters. If the church will create communities of love where people feel genuinely accepted and heard, a place where they can honestly share what’s on the hearts and minds, without judgment or ridicule, then it can play a unique role in healing some of the pain that drives people to kill. When considering school shootings, this is particularly true for our children and youth programs.

Going even further in this regard, the church could help by refocusing on the teachings of Jesus regarding compassion for the lonely, outcast, and rejected. Jesus calls his disciples to reach out in love to these people and offer good news of forgiveness, healing, love, and friendship.

Finally, as United Methodist Bishop, Ken Carter, suggests, we can repent from our participation in a culture of death, grieve with those who are suffering, and pray for the families of the victims. But as important as it is to repent, grieve, and pray, we must not neglect to act. For Christ’s sake, for the sake of the gospel, we must act.

Call to Action

Bishop Carter is inviting all United Methodists to write letters to our government officials, state and national, to insist that they prioritize the safety of our children amidst repetitive and escalating violence. You can find their names and contact information online by doing a Google search for “Florida Elected Officials.” If members will write letters and place them in addressed envelopes, our churches will cover the cost of postage and put them in the mail. The Bishop’s vision is for United Methodist Churches across the state of Florida to collect and send 5000 letters.

(Access the sermon on YouTube and iTunes)

Further Reading:

Bishop Ken Carter’s statement on Florida school shootings.

United Methodist Book of Resolutions, “Our Call the End Gun Violence.”

Pastor Mark Reynolds, “Take Up Your Glock and Follow Me: Whatever Happened to Martyrdom?”

The Power of No: Freedom and Self-Will

Posted on July 25, 2017 by Rev. Mark E. Reynolds

When we assume that freedom means doing whatever we want, whenever we want, we become slaves. By allowing ourselves to go with the flow of internal and external promptings, we find ourselves driven by the capriciousness of self-will, the blind dictates of emotion, the tyranny of compulsions, and the despotism of mere routine. A life unrestrained by critical reflection and the ability to tell ourselves “No” quickly becomes a life of hardship and anguish.

As unchecked selfishness and pride lead to misery and darkness, some eventually reach a point of surrender. A desire to renounce willfulness is born out of pain as we long for a transcendent power to liberate us from ourselves. This is the first and most important step in spiritual transformation, which is accompanied by a life-giving insight: there is a difference between self-will and genuine freedom. True liberty is the power to say “Yes” to the good, the true, and the beautiful, but it is also the power to say “No” to the seductions of the selfish, the counterfeit, and the destructive. If you cannot say “No” to yourself, you are not free. Unrestrained freedom is simply another form of slavery.

Challenge: Meditate on Romans 6:15-23.

[This reflection emerged from lectio divina on Thomas Merton, New Seeds of Contemplation, Chapter 26: “Freedom Under Obedience.”]

Abandoning Inerrancy: Authoritarianism and the Journey to Freedom

Posted on July 6, 2017 by Rev. Mark E. Reynolds

Like many in the south, I grew up in a church that placed high value on the Bible. As the the inspired Word of God, it was considered factually inerrant and demanded a strict literal reading. It was as if God had dictated the contents of the Bible to passive secretaries who wrote in a way that precluded errors of any kind, including scientific or historical inaccuracies. Devoid of all humanity, this book was God breathed and perfect.

Armed with this view, Christians could simply quote a specific chapter and verse and then claim with confidence, “God said it, I believe it, and that’s the end of it!” There was no need to wrestle with counter-arguments or to give reasons why your interpretation was better than another. There was no need to identify the type of literature you were reading or to learn anything about the life and times of the original audience. There was no need to prayerfully discern which parts of the Bible communicated God’s enduring message and which parts were reflective of evolving human culture. In fact, many would deny they were interpreting the Bible at all, but simply quoting God’s Word, the meaning of which should be obvious to anyone with real faith.

This way of understanding the nature of scripture created problems for me as I got older. For example, when my 9^th grade biology teacher introduced the idea of evolution, I remember people saying things like, “Don’t believe that garbage. We didn’t come from monkeys. The Bible says that God created Adam on the sixth day of creation and any claims to the contrary are wrong. You have to accept God’s Word over man’s word.” The challenges only grew as I moved through high school and college.

I eventually started to feel like I had to choose between being a real Christian and accepting what I was learning in class. Being a real Christian meant reading the Bible as the factually inerrant Word of God, and this interpretation necessarily conflicted with modern science and history. Since faith required me to choose God’s Word over human words, I felt pressured to reject–out of hand–the Big Bang, the theory of evolution, carbon dating, and the historical method of inquiry. I was also expected to affiliate with a specific political party and ideologically submit to their talking points.

But these authoritarian claims did not ring true to my experience, and I got this scary feeling that the religion of my youth was wrong about many things. However, because I knew no other way to interpret the Bible, I tried to deny my internal conflicts for a long time, pretending that the teachings of the church worked fine in real life. This created what psychologists call “cognitive dissonance.” Instead of an integrated life characterized by peace, I was riddled with internal conflicts and anxiety.

Looking back, I was not living an authentic life. By denying important questions that sprang from rational reflection on my experience, I was denying my true self. But things began to change when I started taking religion and philosophy classes at Florida Southern College.

The transformation didn’t happen all at once. In fact, I entered FSC as a combative fundamentalist, ready to argue against the onslaught of heresy being propagated by my liberal professors. It took time to build trust and drop my defenses, something that happened as my theology professor, Dr. Waite Willis, counseled me through some painful personal problems. I experienced his genuine care as an expression of God’s love and acceptance, which left me thinking, “My professors are not trying to hurt me, they are encouraging me to build a more authentic faith that matches my reason and experience.” Finding a safe place to wrestle with difficult questions opened my mind to new ways of understanding the Bible. This was a humbling and freeing experience.

And once the damn broke, it gushed for years. I became passionate about biblical and theological studies, reading one book after another as if trying to make-up for lost time. I wrote more papers than I can remember, trying to articulate a faith that integrated what I was learning in religion, philosophy, science, history, psychology, and sociology. Although it was a long and sometimes scary process, I was progressively set free from the authoritarianism of the church (along with its fear of going to hell). I came to believe that God is the source of all truth—sacred and secular—and that I didn’t have to be afraid to learn new things that challenged old ideas.

Looking back, these experiences probably saved my faith. If I had not learned a new way of reading the Bible that helped me deal with my doubts and internal conflicts, I may have walked away from Christianity altogether.

After experiencing this transformation, I was flabbergasted when I realized how few of my colleagues were teaching these ideas in their churches. Candidates in ministry would get a world-class education, learn sophisticated ways of interpreting scripture, get ordained, take a church, and then preach and teach as if they had never been to seminary! Why were they assuming a pre-critical, literalistic reading of the Bible and propagating a 4^th grade Sunday school class theology? Why weren’t they sharing with their churches the gifts that set them free and deepened their faith?

The answer was simple: fear.

These pastors knew from experience the difficulty of traveling the path of change. They understood that most people upon hearing new religious ideas—especially new ideas about the Bible—would initially have a defensive reaction. Why? Because when everything we have always believed is called into question, it’s disruptive and destabilizing. When new ideas emerge to challenge old ways of thinking, most people feel threatened, which triggers a fight or flight response. You either fight for the old ideas by ferociously rejecting the possibility of something new, or you run away from the new ideas and bury your head in the sand.

As pastors try to share new ideas that lead to deeper spiritual insights, they face many challenges. It takes time and energy (in an already busy schedule) to do your research, think through the issues, and make good arguments supported by evidence. It is difficult, and sometimes painful, to endure defensiveness and stay in conversation with people who lash out in fear and anger. It hurts when people reject you as a heretic and break fellowship. Change is hard, and even though it promises a more authentic existence, the process of getting there is messy, anxious, and painful.

It is this in-between time that pastors fear the most, the time between the presentation of new ideas and a potential spiritual awakening. As people experience the birth pangs of anxiety, pastors fear that people will leave their church.

(This fear is exacerbated by the capitulation of many pastors to the worldly standards of success. See my articles “How the Devil Directs a Pastor’s Prayer: Careerism and the Corruption of Our Calling” and “Compelled to Control: Is the Success Culture Destroying Christianity?“)

Pastors, you should not live-out your calling to ministry in fear, nor should you treat members of your congregation as children when it comes to the Bible and matters of faith. While we know that the path to transformation is scary, we have been privileged to make the journey ourselves, and God calls us back to the church to proclaim that the struggle is worth it.

It’s worth wrestling with the fear that you might be wrong. It’s worth the grief that comes from letting go of old ideas that don’t work anymore. It’s worth time spent in the spiritual desert when old religious ideas have vanished and no new beliefs have yet to take root.

People in the church need to know that being a Christian is not about blindly assenting to authoritarian preachers that require you to deny your experience, repress your questions, and check your brain at the door. They need to know that following Jesus is not about embracing an inerrant view of scripture, denying science, or excluding LGBTQ persons. (It is this view of Christianity that has led to a mass exodus of Millennials from our churches.)

Rather, we are called to teach them that true faith is about a life-long journey that includes work, study, conversation, and ongoing struggle, a challenging journey that leads (through the mystery of grace) to a deep spiritual transformation characterized by love, peace, joy, and inclusion.

My prayer is that pastors will find the courage, strength, and hope to share the gifts of their own experience in ways that open the path of transformation to the people who are looking to them for spiritual leadership.

Helpful Resources:

Mark Reynolds, “A Course in Understanding the Bible.”
Adam Hamilton, Making Sense of the Bible: Rediscovering the Power of Scripture Today (HarperOne 2014).
Peter Enns, “The Bible for Normal People,” Podcast.
James M. Efird, How to Interpret the Bible (Wipf & Stock 2000).

Fundamentalism and Mainline Christianity

Posted on April 27, 2017 by Rev. Mark E. Reynolds

I’ve recently been telling different groups of people that the United Methodist Church is a mainline, not fundamentalist, denomination (although some of our pastors prove to be unfortunate exceptions). I assumed that people knew what I meant, but they didn’t understand the terms I was using. I tried to remedy this problem in an email to a friend, and my wife suggested that others might be interested in my response. What is written below is the beginning of a sketch outlining some main ideas. I know it is limited, but I’m also hoping that it will be helpful.

Fundamentalism is grounded in a specific view of scripture. Adherents typically embrace (usually unwittingly) a theory of divine inspiration developed by a Presbyterian Princeton professor named Charles Hodge in the 1800s. The technical name of the theory is Plenary Verbal Inspiration, and it basically teaches that every word of the Bible is historically, scientifically, and factually infallible or inerrant. In the imaginations of some, it’s as if God dictated the Bible and human beings served merely as passive secretaries. This view erases the humanity of the biblical authors and focuses almost exclusively on God giving us a perfect and divine book. Furthermore, according to fundamentalists, a strict literal reading is the only correct way to interpret the Bible (and some would say that they are not even interpreting but simply reciting the Word of God). In this way, the Bible is pitted against modern science and historiography, and being a “real” Christian means rejecting what science teaches about cosmology, evolutionary biology, archaeology, etc.

The final step is to say, “Our way of understanding inspiration and how to interpret the Bible is the truth, and, therefore, the only legitimate way of thinking.” Do you see the subtle shift? They slip from biblical infallibility into assuming that their theory about infallibility is infallible! Furthermore, these truths are to be protected at all costs from any competing theories or interpretations, which are invariably seen as corruptions or heresies. People who hold different views (and there are many) are to be corrected, converted, or excluded. Fear of false teaching leads fundamentalists to study apologetics from other fundamentalists so they can mount what they believe to be incontrovertible arguments, and the only proper response to these arguments is, “I have seen the light and you are right!” Any push back leads to more forceful arguments, sometimes buttressed by the threat of eternal hell, in a last attempt at conversion. If the person with a different view does not convert, then they are excluded from the community of true Christians (if not physically then theologically and/or socially). So the key elements are:

1. We have the only true understanding of the inspiration of scripture and the only proper way of interpreting the Bible. All other views are necessarily wrong.

2. If you don’t agree then you must be corrected with arguments, converted with threats of hell, or excluded as a corruptor of the true faith.

In stark contrast, mainline Christians believe that God inspired human beings to record the words of scripture, but didn’t erase or bypass their humanity in the process. God worked in, through, and with their humanity to communicate what is necessary for our salvation. This means that the divine message of the Bible is communicated through the human words of the authors, and these words emerged from their own personal and corporate experiences of God. In short, God does not need a perfect, inerrant, infallible book to effectively communicate with us.

Mainline Christians often point out that the Bible is not the Word of God—Jesus is the Word of God (John 1), and the reason the Bible is important is because through its words (in the power of the Holy Spirit) we encounter the risen Christ. Given the ways that fundamentalists erase the humanity of the Bible, some mainline and liberal Christians accuse fundamentalists of “bibliolatry” (turning the Bible into an idol).

Once you acknowledge the humanity of the biblical authors and the Bible itself, you can also see that it is not a single author book. It is a library of books written by many people, living in different cultures, who spoke different languages, and wrote in different genres over the course of 100s of years. Instead of insisting that every letter of every word of the Bible is literal and factual (in terms of history and science), we can begin to discern different genres, and different genres warrant different interpretive methods. So we read the historical parts differently than the poetic parts (e.g. the Psalms), and we read the poetic parts differently than the gospels, and we read gospels differently than letters, and we read letters differently than apocalyptic, etc. In all of this, we realize that the Bible is a religious text, not a modern historiography or science book. A fortunate consequence is that Christianity does not have to be an enemy of the natural and social sciences, but can engage them as conversation partners from whom we have much to learn.

Finally, another significant difference between fundamentalists and mainline Christians is that mainline Christians uphold intellectual humility as a virtue. We insist that we are not saved by our interpretation of scripture or by having the right theory of inspiration. We are saved because God loves us and offers the gift of reconciliation through forgiveness. This means that we are not required to have all the answers, that we can hold our theories and interpretations loosely, acknowledging that we could be wrong. At the end of the day, God is greater than anyone can conceive and we are all rendered speechless before the divine mystery. Part of faith is learning to be comfortable with the fact that we don’t have all the answers, which allows us to trust God and relax into God’s mysterious and active presence.

Consequently, we don’t feel compelled to proselytize and convert people. Only God converts people, and this usually happens over a long period of time. All that Christians are called to do is live like Jesus and share their stories, allowing people to draw their own conclusions as the Spirit leads. All of this happens in the awareness that creation is floating in a sea of grace and that God is working with us on God’s own timeline.

For an accessible introduction to a United Methodist view of scripture, see Adam Hamilton’s book, Making Sense of the Bible. For a more academic read, see the articles on my website under the heading, “Course in Understanding the Bible.”

Recovering from Bad Religion: Rollins Summary 1

Posted on February 2, 2017 by Rev. Mark E. Reynolds

I recently started a new community discussion group, “Recovering from Bad Religion.” Here’s the Facebook event description:

Mahatma Gandhi once said, “I like your Christ, I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ.” Have you experienced toxic or abusive religion? Many in America grow-up in churches that preach “fire and brimstone.” They tell us that a wrathful God watches our every move, and if we fail to live according to a strict moral code then God will punish us with eternal torment. The church derives this moral code, along with a list of required doctrines, from a literal reading of the Bible that is often anti-intellectual, anti-science, and anti-gay. This leaves many feeling like they must disavow everything they learned in college to be a Christian. Many cannot stomach this authoritarianism, so they leave the church and become agnostic, atheist, or “spiritual but not religious.” However, there is a different way of being Christian. This discussion group will provide a safe space to explore more loving and thoughtful alternatives.

After our meet and greet on 1/17, we held our first discussion this past Tuesday on the Introduction and Chapter One of The Idolatry of God by Peter Rollins. In order to help those in the discussion group, I will be posting chapter summaries. By doing this on my blog, I hope to extend the conversation beyond Cocoa Beach. Feel free to jump in with comments, but please keep them thoughtful, polite, and kind. If you feel a compulsive need to correct perceived heresy or save the souls of participants with whom you don’t agree, this is probably not the right place for you. Comments that are not respectful, kind, and genuinely open to dialogue will be deleted.

Without further adieu, here is the first summary.

The Thesis of the Book

The main argument in The Idolatry of God is that most mainstream Christianity has turned God into an idol. Instead of admitting the truth of our human condition—that life is difficult and that satisfaction and certainty will always elude us—we turn God into a product that promises to satisfy all our longing, render us complete, remove our suffering, and give us the answers to all life’s problems. Like all idolatry, this leads to slavery and misery. In contrast, if we can get honest about what it means to be a human being in this world and let go of idols that promise certainty and satisfaction, then we can develop an authentic faith that empowers us to “joyfully embrace our brokenness, resolutely face our unknowing, and courageously accept the difficulties of existence.” Only then, can we enter the fullness of life and be a more loving, active manifestation of Christ’s love in this world. In other words, we don’t seek salvation from uncertainty and satisfaction, we find it amid these things.

Introduction: The Apocalypse Isn’t Coming, It Has Already Arrived

In the Introduction, Rollins argues that mainstream Christianity has become another false (idolatrous) promise: if you accept Jesus as your personal savior then he will remove all doubt and replace it with certainty, and he will remove all brokenness and replace it with wholeness. Salvation is construed as an escape from uncertainty and dissatisfaction and the promise to fulfill our deepest longings. While this logic is most clearly seen in the so-called “prosperity gospel,” which overtly promises believers health, wealth, and worldly success, Rollins argues that it’s much more widespread, but in subtler forms.

According to Rollins, this is a false form of religion, what Karl Marx called “the opiate of the masses,” that functions as a carrot on a stick (a promise perpetually deferred) and drives us through life without ever really changing anything. In contrast, he asks, what if salvation is not about fulfilling the desires that we take for granted, but changing what we desire and how we desire? Instead of fulfilling our hopes and dreams, what if Jesus is trying to change what we hope for and what we dream about? Rollins says:

For what if we cannot grasp the manner in which Christ is the solution to the problem of our darkness and dissatisfaction precisely because he isn’t the solution? What if, instead of being the solution (i.e., the one who offers a way for us to gain certainty and satisfaction), he actually confronts us as a problem, a problem that places every attempt to find a solution for these ailments into question . . . . what is Christ does not fill the empty cup we bring to him but rather smashes it to pieces, bringing freedom, not from our darkness and dissatisfaction, but freedom from our felt need to escape them? (4)

So instead of saving us from uncertainty and dissatisfaction, maybe we are saved within our ongoing experience of these things. In a way reminiscent of Paul Tillich, Rollins envisions salvation as the cultivation of a courageous faith capable of confronting, embracing, and saying ‘amen’ to uncertainty and dissatisfaction (5). Instead of finding salvation by escaping our humanity, we find salvation amid our humanity.

Chapter 1: The Church Shouldn’t Do Worship Music, the Charts Have It Covered

The main purpose of this chapter is to describe “a lack” (emptiness, discontent, unfulfilled longing, sense of loss or separation) at the heart of human existence, which originates in the process of coming to self-awareness. It also describes the feeling that there is something just beyond our reach that might help fill this void.

We tend to think that our discontent is the result of something that we don’t currently have, but if we had “it” then the void would be filled and we would finally be happy. The “it” could be just about anything: money, possessions, power, fame, admiration, a better job, a thinner body, a whiter smile, a more passionate sex life, etc.

The problem, however, is that we know people who have what we think we need to be happy, and they still experience the lack. Even more troubling, when we actually get what we hope will remove our discontent, we soon discover that it’s still there! This leads us to imagine that while our newest acquisition didn’t fill the void, there is still something else just beyond our grasp that will. More grasping results in more disappointment, which results in more grasping. A self-perpetuating vicious cycle ensues that renders even the most well-meaning person a slave. As we feed our appetite for satisfaction, it gets stronger and more destructive. (Think of the dynamics of addiction.)

At the end of the day, “this belief in something that would finally bring satisfaction is nothing more than a fantasy we create, a fantasy that fuels the obsessive drive . . .” to acquire and consume more objects and experiences that we think will fix us. But it’s like playing a rigged casino game—it never really works, and the more we try to make it work the more attached, enslaved, and miserable we become.

Rollins goes on to make the radical claim that almost the entire existing church has been co-opted and corrupted by the same logic: (1) You are separated from God by sin. (2) This is the cause of a deep sense of dissatisfaction and uncertainty, (3) If you accept Jesus as your personal Lord and Savior and lead a life of spiritual discipline, then God will permanently remove the void, utterly satisfy your deepest desires, and give you absolute certainty.

According to Rollins, this is how God is transformed into another product to be sold that promises to take away all your pain and make you whole. This is how God is turned into an idol and sold in a flourishing Christian industry of books, worship music, conferences, church services, etc. What we desire stays the same, how we desire stays the same, the promise of satisfaction and certainty stays the same, we just switch-out the terms. So instead of trusting more money, a better looking spouse, or a more attractive body to remove the void and give us a sense of total satisfaction, preachers hold out the same promise with more faithful church attendance, increased tithing, and a more disciplined devotional life (which, of course, requires the newest book or latest worship album).

In contrast, what is needed is not another recapitulation of the same old story, which reinforces a false (idolatrous) narrative and keeps us stuck in self-destructive consumption. Rather, we need a genuine alternative to this way of seeing the world, a more authentic way of developing a life of meaning and value. We need a radically different way of understanding Christianity that will enable us to be a more loving, active manifestation of Christ’s love in this world. As we will see, this alternative vision can be found in the New Testament, if we have eyes to see.

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