St Mary's

Gregory C. Jenks St Mary’s in Exile • 28/29 May 2011

Academic Dean, St Francis Theological College, Brisbane
Adjunct Lecturer, School of Theology, Charles Sturt University
gjenks@csu.edu.au
www.onceandfuturebible.com

This year—2011—marks the 400th anniversary of the publication of the Authorized
Version of the English Bible, better known as the “King James Bible.” In reflecting on that milestone we are separated from James by much more than the passing years.
We find ourselves in a faraway Antipodean land not even imagined by James and his Puritan advisors. Can the English Bible they produced in 1611 still speak to Australians in 2011? How do we take the Bible seriously without taking it literally?
The accession of James VI of Scotland to rule as James I of England marked the beginning of the Stuart dynasty, with its difficult relations between Puritans and the traditional establishment of church and court.
James himself was a Scottish prince and the son of “Mary, Queen of Scots.” He was made king at age of 12 months, then tutored and managed by Puritan clergy from Scotland. Coming into his adult life he was educated, opinionated and gay—the latter a little known fact about the ruler whose name is entrenched in the version most beloved of conservative Christians!
So here we are – 400 years after King James, and—more importantly—2000 years after
Jesus. The core question before us can be stated quite simply: How can we use the Bible with confidence (and within that term, I include the concept of “integrity”)—if indeed it is read at all—in the new world whose outlines are glimpsed in
the realities we already experience?

What kind of world?

As I drive through the road works on the Ipswich motorway there is a particular sign that catches my attention. In large yellow electronic letters it screams: IGNORE GPS! Why?
Because the road conditions have changed, and what might once have been a reliable guide to travelling that route is no longer fit for the purpose.
Our “road conditions” as travellers-on-the-way have also changed:
A new cosmology is one of the principal hallmarks of the new era into which we have already moved. We have a new sense of the vast size of the universe and of the immense time scale for its coming to be and its projected end.
Related to the new cosmology is a new anthropology. We find ourselves deeply embedded in a web of life that extends from humans to microbes. We have some appreciation of the forces that shape us as people and of the limited constraints within which our treasured autonomy functions. We look to the stars, but not for gods to protect us; rather we gaze in awe at the immense reality in which we participate.
As the implications of the new cosmology and its related new anthropology take hold on the human imagination, a new society is taking shape. Lloyd Geering has even argued that the post-Christian secular age into which we are moving is both the legacy and the fulfillment of Christianity.1 That is a challenging prospect for Christians to contemplate and naturally has implications for the future of the Bible in western culture.

New technologies are a feature of the new society, and their impact is already very evident as technological innovation seems to proceed at a speed that makes all but the “digital natives”2 feel uncomfortable. As we have seen so recently in the “Arab spring,” these technologies also shape the new society that is emerging and threaten to destabilize authoritarian societies that now struggle to block citizens’ access to tools that allow them to share information, advocate for change and organize for direct action.
A new apocalypse is coming into view as the new society takes shape. We no longer live in fear of judgment day, when the good will be ushered into heaven and the damned consigned to the fires of hell. The threat that hangs over our society, at least as reflected in the dystopia films of the post-apocalypse genre, is either a massive environmental crisis or a collapse of the technological infrastructure on which our lives increasingly rely. In the recent disasters that hit Christchurch and then Japan we have glimpsed exactly those kinds of apocalyptic events.
A new spirituality is taking hold of the human imagination as people find traditional religions of little value in the face of these profound changes in the way we experience life. The new spirituality is less about guilt, and more about affirming the value of life.
While deeply personal, it is less concerned about the salvation of an individual soul and more interested in the web of life. Tree-hugging replaces genuflexion.

What about the reader?

There is a further matter that needs to be considered as we think about all this. What about the reader?
The literacy and educational levels of western readers are now very different from London in 1611, let alone the ancient world. This changes the relationship between the text and the audience, not least because the need for someone else to perform the text for us is diminished.
We read it for ourselves—and it is for ourselves (to address our questions) that we read. Part of what has changed is how we understand how texts work. We now appreciate that the meaning generated as a text is read derives to a large extent from the reader, rather than from the text. Traditionally, we sought the intention of the author or at least tried to understand the world of the text. But now we are discovering that who we are and what questions we bring to the text has an immense impact on what the text means to us.
This does not mean that the Bible can mean anything at all, changing its meaning according to the perspective and agenda of the reader. Not all readings of Scripture are valid, and some are toxic. Equally, some of the plain meanings of Scripture can no longer be allowed to shape the way we see the world and determine how best to act as people of faith.
As text the Bible necessarily operates within these dynamics. It seems to me, therefore, that the Bible cannot be expected to function in many of the ways the churches have used it in the past. Without a reader the Bible is mute, with a reader it can become a ventriloquist doll.

A progressive reclaiming of the Bible

It is too easy to recite the problems posed by the Bible, but we can also appreciate the Bible as a sacramental encounter with the Sacred. I want to reclaim the Bible as a sacred text for religious progressives; and especially for progressive Christians.
I have colleagues and friends who think this project is quixotic. In their view the Bible is beyond redemption, and the effort spend seeking to retrieve it for progressive Christianity is better directed to finding more accessible and relevant texts.
Their skepticism over any attempt to reclaim the Bible is cogent, but I remain optimistic about the resilience of these texts to function as sacred texts in a constructive and progressive context.
Despite the clear and multiple complications that are part and parcel of a sacred text whose origins lie in the distant past, this is the text that tells us the story of who are and from where we have come. As a map for the new world in which we now find ourselves it may be out of date; like a GPS on a highway that is being rebuilt. But perhaps the Bible is neither a rule book nor a map, but rather well from which to drink as we travel.
So how might a progressive approach to the Bible be described?
In the first place, a progressive approach to the Bible will be an “eyes-wide-open” process. The Bible will be accepted in its historical reality, with no attempt to disguise its human foibles or its complex textual history. These Scriptures are surely as “red in tooth and claw” as the proverb would have us imagine the natural order to be, with sacred violence and systemic prejudice embedded deep within its literary world.
Yet these same writings imagine a world where violence will cease and in which love
prevails. With no personal need to defend the Bible as the inerrant product of an infallible God, the religious progressive can accept the Bible—warts and all—as a mixture of diverse traditions, with varying degrees of relevance to our contemporary situation.

The kind of reading of the Bible that I find helpful is sensitive to the complex worlds behind the Bible. Without elevating the biblical past to timeless stereotypes that later generations should emulate, the Scriptures can serve as a treasury of spiritual wisdom from which the scribe trained for God’s empire will draw as the circumstances of the time seem to require.
Some knowledge of the past may assist in our reading of the Bible, but our reading of the Bible does not commit us to act as they did in the past. We are not simply adopting biblical values, but fashioning contemporary values as we engage intentionally with text, context, and the Spirit.
Perhaps more than any other category of reader, the religious progressive reads the Bible with one eye on the questions that arise from her own experience of life. This kind of reader is seeking practical wisdom for life in the here and now, not reassurance about life in the hereafter. This may require reading against the grain of the biblical text, and posing questions never in the mind of the ancient authors. Rather than immersing herself in the literary world of the Bible, the progressive reader will demand that the Bible speaks to her world.
A progressive reading of the Bible will be profoundly connected to contemporary Christian praxis.
One of its hallmarks will be an openness to the sacred, including insights from other religious traditions. Scripture will be valued as one of the ways in which spiritual wisdom can be accessed, but the wisdom gained through an engagement with the Bible will not discount the wisdom derived from other traditions. The Bible has a unique role to play as the distinctive and canonical text for Christians, but the progressive reader of the Bible will also be alert to wisdom from other texts. In the process new symbols and fresh rituals may emerge, sometimes drawing on biblical sources and sometimes drawing on other religious traditions.

Matching this openness to the Sacred will be a world-affirming outlook. Religious progressives have a distinctive interest in the welfare of the world in which we live and of which we are an integral part. Rather than delighting in prognostications about the end of the world, progressive readers of the Bible look for wisdom that assists us to live gracefully in the world. The integrity of creation is a core value for religious progressives, and life before death is to be lived as fully as possible— not seen as a prelude to life after death. The greatest of all mysteries is that our universe exists rather than nothing being here at all. As self-conscious beings within the web of life, we draw on Scripture to help us serve creation better; not simply to secure our destiny after death.
Progressive readers of the Bible will seek to form and sustain inclusive communities that model the biblical themes of alternative society and covenant. A profound sense of covenantal obligation will be nurtured by our engagement with Scripture. We belong to one another. Together we are the body of Christ. God’s call on our best instincts makes us a chosen people, a light to the nations. At the heart of our covenantal community is the ancient dream of an empire in which the least are first, the mighty are cast down, the hungry are fed and the captives are released. That vision finds classic expression in the life and death of Jesus, but it is also to be found throughout the Bible.
With this openness to the sacred, this affirmation of the physical world and this base in inclusive communities, religious progressives will find that our reading of the Bible calls us to be agents of commonwealth; activists for justice and reconciliation. Inspired by the prayer attributed to Jesus (“your kingdom come …”), we will abandon attempts to convert others to share our beliefs and conform with our practices. Instead we shal willingly spend our lives in service to others, in the cause of peace, and for the integrity of creation.
Much of what I have just been describing is already happening here in this community, and I always find myself thinking of this place when I talk about the future of the church or fresh ways of engaging with Scripture.

1 Lloyd Geering, The World to Come: From Christian Past to Global Future (Santa Rosa, CA: Polebridge,
1999).

2 The term was coined by Marc Prensky, “Digital Natives, Digital Immigrants,” On the Horizon 9, no. 5
(2001). Prensky has continued to research and write on the educational implications of digital technologies,
see: http://www.marcprensky.com/writing/. See also the interdisciplinary “Digital Natives” project of the
Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University and the Research Center for Information Law
at the University of St. Gallen: http://www.digitalnative.org. John Palfrey and Urs Gasser, Born Digital:
Understanding the First Generation of Digital Natives (New York, NY: Basic Books, 2008) is also essential
reading for anyone wanting to understand these issues.