Until last year, I’d probably cracked open a Bible five or six times in my entire life. In my family, we only went to church every third Christmas and Easter or so, and when we did, we went to the Main Line Unitarian Universalist Church in Devon, PA. If you know much about contemporary expressions of Unitarian Universalism, it will not surprise you that these occasional visits did not lead me to many encounters with the book of Christian Scriptures.
Five years ago, I got way more into the UU church when I moved to Washington, DC. One of the ways I decided to volunteer my time with my home congregation was by leading Sunday morning chapel services for children. I won’t go into the intricacies of UU religious education and its philosophy here (though I would love to at some point) – but suffice it to say the year I volunteered was the year we read Bible stories in chapel. Here I was, reading the stories of Cain and Abel, Ruth and Naomi, King David, and the Sermon on the Mount for the very first time as I prepared to make them emotionally engaging and spiritually relevant for seven year-olds. I learned two things:
1. It’s not hard to make Bible stories emotionally engaging and spiritually relevant for seven year-olds. The many storytellers who passed down these tales in the oral tradition over thousands and thousands of years were pretty well-practiced at making them interesting, it turns out. It wasn’t up to me to work out the kinks for them. Whew.
2. In telling these tales to tiny UUs, I got very good at a particular skill: walking the very fine line between narrating stories and sharing the good news of Scripture. I called the Old Testament the “Hebrew Scriptures” (a complicated and perhaps problematic term, I’ve since learned, as it refers only to selected portions of the Jewish canon) and the New Testament the “Christian Bible.” At no point did I assume everyone in the room – including the adult teachers and parent helpers for each class – would take these tales as Scripture, but I also wanted to make sure I didn’t pretend that they weren’t. If I speak of these tales as nothing more than “old stories,” I feel I am being a bit disingenuous. After all, they’re more than that. Aren’t they?
As a first-year student at Harvard Divinity School, I’ve seen the issue of how to define Scripture with a capital “S” come up a few times already. At HDS, some students are preparing for Christian ministry, but others are seeking positions in academia, social service work, government, or leadership in the many other religious traditions represented on campus, including my own. In this environment, a clash between one person’s belief in Scripture and the experience of real-world pluralism is inevitable. I find myself walking the same fine line here at HDS.
For me, the Bible is a collection of just a few examples – just one portion – of all of the stories humanity has told for centuries in its attempt to answer the unanswerable questions of existence. (You’ve heard them before: “Why are we here? What happens after we die?”, etc.) As a UU, I believe we can all learn from the stories of the Bible, but also from the stories of other religious traditions, as well as secular sources like poetry and literature. But for a Christian preparing to serve her tradition as a minister, who may in fact be sitting in class right next to me, these Bible tales are not stories – they are Scripture. Three months into my formation, at a school I chose specifically for its theologically diverse student body, I find that my way of expressing and embracing our pluralism is called deeply into question when it comes to the issue of Scripture. For those who see the tales of the Bible as Scripture, there is more at stake in the reading and telling than simply learning from an interesting story. Specific teachings point to a distinctive way of life, a highest goal, a path to ultimate salvation. These teachings require the reader to proclaim truth – and for some, to understand the particular truth of their tradition as mutually exclusive of other religious proclamations, even as these other religions may be represented by students in the very same classroom.
While I view religious texts as marvels of human creativity – watching in awe as common themes make their way into great narratives from the Babylonian creation epic all the way to the testimony of the Mormon prophet Joseph Smith – I am also aware of the ways in which I don’t feel at home with any of these stories. Scripture comes from a particular point of view. It is not interested in dialogue with other books. It claims and directly affirms certain things as true. Within a pluralist faith like Unitarian Universalism, or even within my own personal practice, can there ever be a Scripture?
Many UU clergy designate our very lives as the text of Scripture – our experiences are holy truth, God’s continuing revelation. Until now that’s sounded pretty good to me. It implies that there is room for a rich multiplicity of voices and perspectives. That we each maintain our sense of personal authority in order to resist external oppression, and that the resources of the whole community of human souls must be brought to bear if we are ever to discover the ends of our existence. But is this reading really faithful to the idea of Scripture, or are more resources required to actually discern wisdom – good from bad, right from wrong, just from unjust? Could it be that a responsibly pluralist understanding of Scripture, with that cumbersome, claim-affirming, capital “S” included, is just plain impossible?
Thanks, Lee, for this thought provoking post. I especially like your statement, “the resources of the whole community of human souls must be brought to bear if we are ever to discover the ends of our existence.” Speaking as a Christian with deep faith in Scripture with a capital S, as you put it, who is deeply moved by Hindu Scriptures as well as the Hebrew and Greek canon that you mentioned – I also struggle with many of the same issues. I want to believe that a “responsibly pluralist understanding of Scripture” is possible – but I share your doubts and concerns. Regarding the lives of others as texts of Scripture is, I think, a brilliant way to start and seems to me like a move in the right direction… again thanks!
Hi Brad, thanks for the affirmation on some of these points. Your comment on “regarding the lives of others as texts of Scripture” has got me thinking… was all Scripture once nothing more than “the lives of others” – that is, is Scripture not the retelling of experiences lived in a life? I suppose the transcendant moments expressed in Scripture (and here I am most famliar with Christian Scripture, but I believe such moments are part of most scriptures) reach outside of human experience in some way, as do the windows we get in the Bible into God’s world. But it is all always translated through the human mind… and the human life… as I said, it got me thinking. 🙂 Thanks!
I agree with Brad that the questions you identify provoke reasonable concerns. I appriciate your dilemma – it is one I also face in my work and one I have thought about consistently I have a question for you and some comments:
Are you asking if a Pluralist Scripture is possible or if it is possible to believe in, or be devoted to, scripture and be a Pluralist? . It seems as though, if a scripture promotes pluralism, it is possible to have a scripture that is pluralistic – but that is obvious.
As you point out, Christian scriptures, at least for the most part, do not have much space for pluralism. But while this is true, I think the “idea” of scripture is constantly changing, and one can still be devoted to the scripture within their faith tradition and be a pluralist. For me, that means putting certain parts of scripture into their proper context. I feel as though this answer is not really getting at your question, however, and am interested in hearing your response.
Also, (and this is minor) in reply to your statement, “I called the Old Testament the “Hebrew Scriptures” (a complicated and perhaps problematic term” – is not there entire “Old Testament” in Hebrew and not therefore the Hebrew Scriptures? I think it is then important to clarify that there are Jewish Hebrew Scriptures (aka the Torah) and then Hebrew Scriptures that are considered holy within the Christian canon.
I think I’m asking whether or not a person who identifies as pluralist, or as part of a pluralist tradition, can really use the concept of Scripture. After all, if a scripture promotes pluralism, then does it not deny exclusivist religion? I guess this may be more of a debate about the nature of pluralism though, than it is specifically about scripture. And just to be clear, I’m trying to work within the parameters of the top two bullets on this list when I use the word “pluralism,” though I know it gets slippery: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religious_pluralism.
With respect to your second question – yes, you’re absolutely right that the Old Testament is in Hebrew, so as an adjective describing the language of the text, it’s a perfectly appropriate word to use. It was pointed out to me in a class that the term “Hebrew Scriptures” is interpreted by some as reflecting Scripture for some group of “Hebrews” or “Hebrew people” and therefore is improperly conflated with the Jewish canon by some… precision of language is a bitch.
Well-stated….and trust me, there are many of us who claim sacred texts as “scripture” for our lives who only discover the stories when we are adults teaching children in some form!
I have been very interested in Mark Heim’s theory of “multiple ends”–the premise that each religious tradition can be fully valid and true, providing a different path and different outcomes for the individual who claims it. I’m not doing his thinking justice here, but it’s an interesting premise–that perhaps we don’t need various texts, practices, or beliefs to accommodate “the other,” as those others are happily accommodated by their own sacred beliefs. It’s an interesting blend of fully particularistic and fully pluralistic.
Jennifer, I’m going to try to read more about that theory. Thanks!
Some of my most rewarding experiences with scripture has been when researching the particular emphasis of Jewish, Christological, and Islamic themes. From a history of religions standpoint, one can find connections with the semetic triad two other favorites of mine – Egyptian and Sumerian mythos. Early Quranic exegetes left no stones unturned making these associations, but sadly, those days are a thing of the past.
I think though that the traditional role of the “scribe” in scriptural syncretism is often overlooked, as are the contemporary roles of screen writers, historical fiction writers, etc., that came about with the secularizing of knowledge with the invention of the printing press.
Garfield,
Yes! In many ways what can we expect from the “scribe” other than a written word that reflects his/her own cultural narratives and concepts… scriptural syncretism is in some ways unavoidable. Karen Armstrong really lifts this up in her history of Islam, talking about the ways in which the Qur’an sought to draw in new believers from Christianity and Judaism by incoporating certain stories into new scripture… certainly the Old Testament of the Bible is engaged in much the same project when it comes to Jews. In my own tradition, Unitarian Universalism, the scholar Michael Servetus was burned at the stake in Spain way back when for publishing work that denied the Christian trinity (this theological claim is the historical basis for Unitarianism). There’s evidence that he did so in an attempt to encourage Muslims to find space for their conviction and belief in “no God but God” within the Christian church… but the church at the time did not see a positive form of evangelism in his efforts…
On the topic of syncretism and narratives of the scribe, check out this post by my boyfriend on our “mashup” culture… I’ve been stealing his concepts around this for a while now 😉 http://www.overthinkingit.com/2010/04/29/hitlers-xbox-copyright-mashup/
This is a really wonderful reflection, Lee, and a topic I myself have been wrestling with a bit in the past year or two. My experience has been somewhat the opposite of yours–I grew up evangelical Protestant, and left Christianity entirely a few years back–but the question of pluralism and Scripture remains.
As a Humanist and Atheist, I have no issues with wrestling with a scriptural text apart from its long-standing place within a religious community. I don’t see religious texts as reflecting anything more than the human creative exercise. So I preach and discuss from Islamic, Christian, and other religions’ texts without any personal hang-ups.
Is that how the religious texts see themselves? No. Is that how religious communities view their own texts? No. But if I’m upfront with my own understanding and my goal in using scriptural texts–the inspiration and enrichment of human beings, here and now–I feel that I’m acting with integrity.
Hi Joshua,
I think being up-front is key. That is probably, in many ways, all that we can do to preserve our integrity, I agree. But I wonder, have you ever encountered resistance from individuals within a particular tradition over mis-appropriation, or even just mis-understanding as a result of approaching scriptural texts in this way? I ask because I have encountered such resistance (as have many others in the UU church), and I have a hard time shaking those criticisms off… curious to hear more!
Thanks for your post, Lee. It seems that my most recent one is a sort of inadvertent response to it; check it out:
https://stateofformation.org/2010/11/more-nations-than-one-mormonism-and-inter-religious-dialogue/
Great post, Lee! Figuring out what (in)exactly “we” mean when speaking of “Scripture(s)” is definitely worth pursuing. Some time ago W.C. Smith argued that whatever Scripture is, it is not a text–at least not just a text. Instead, he suggested “Scripture” be viewed as some sort of adverb, a name for a communal human activity, or a way to speak about a relationship between a text (broadly considered) and a distinct community of people. I really like the idea of viewing Scripture as this sort of binary (ternary if you count God!) relationship. It means it is never possible to think simply “Scripture” but rather necessary always to think “Scripture for X-community” where Scripture and X are thought of as the two foci of an ellipse. It may also mean, it’s going to be tough speaking of “Scripture” pluralistically unless “pluralism” is used to name not a community of communities but rather one more distinct community alongside the rest.
Very interesting explanation, Lee. I think your idea on Pluralist Scripture can be “a new hope” for the multicultural life in my country, Indonesia. My country had suffered a number of religion based conflicts when the Pancasila (as official philosophical foundation of the Indonesian state) couldn’t be viewed as the most important philosophy by the citizens.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pancasila_(politics)
I think the religion followers, like Christian or Moslem, in my country still just learn the “wrong way” on understanding their holy scriptures. I mean the school, church, or mosque in Indonesia have taught the followers that their religion was better and truer than other religion so that the potential of beating other religion was strongly cultivated in the mind of each people.
Thank you.