Please Don’t Apologize (2/19/12 – 2/25/12)

 When Nicky and I go to the store for groceries we always approach this “shopping experience” rather differently. I want to get the few things I know I want and get the hell out. When Nicky leads the “shopping experience” she wants to systematically meander up and down the aisles looking at every product available, and taking the most time to make sure she gets everything we need (at least this is how I interpret it). The way we approach shopping is different, what we need from shopping is different, and what we expect from shopping is different.   

Often when I read one of my grandparents bibles I verbally say “duh, I knew that!” “Really, is that all you want to say about this very important text?” Sometimes when I talk with an older relative about a specific memory of someone in the family studying the scriptures I fight to not roll my eyes and ponder on why I am not “getting anywhere” with how my grandparents studied the scriptures. Frustrations quickly lead to thoughts of intellectual superiority and general snobbery. Just the other week I was talking to my parents about some families in their church who left because the church refused to only teach the literal 7 24 hour days of creation from Genesis 1. The questions and answers these families arrived at sometime in their past refused to let them see another viewpoint different from their own. It is not because these families and my grandparents were wrong or bad, reading a different bible, or interpreting it incorrectly, but because the way they approached the bible was different, what they needed from the bible was different, and what they expected from the bible was different. Let me explain…

Every generation brings new questions to the bible. In the past 40 years the single discipline of “biblical studies” has become a much more diverse and in some ways, a much more fragmented discipline. The one “historical-critical” method which dominated biblical studies for over 300 hundred years (roughly 1600-1900, the Enlightenment to the end of the Renaissance period), soon gave way to a many methods. Today we have feminist, black, Majority World, liberation, social-scientific, narrative, textual, form, psychological, and postmodern criticisms/approaches, just to name a few. Each method brings different questions to the text, which uncovers different answers.

Knowing this was true I tried to ask the same question about my grandparents, namely, what methods and questions did they bring to the text? What was their driving motivational force?

In one word: Apologetics. Apologetics (from Greek ἀπολογία, "speaking in defense") is the discipline of defending a position (often religious) through the systematic use of information. Remembering back to the common ground shared by both families (12/26/11 – 12/30/11), it was an evangelical faith dominated by fundamentalism. “The founders of Fundamentalism reacted against liberal theology and militantly stood on 2 pillars or foundations of doctrine, the inerrancy of the Bible and Jesus Christ as the only means to salvation/atonement.” Being raised in this culture, Leona, Homer, and Jeanette defended the inerrancy of the Bible (it is without error), and Jesus being the only way to God (John 14:6 is underlined in all 4 bibles I have). With those being “The Fundamentals,” and defending them with all their heart, mind, soul, and strength, my grandparents could now spend their energy on how the bible meets their needs. Those universal human conditions such as loneliness, depression, happiness, joy, and anxiety could be given a prescription through the Word of God. While this method has the tendency to manipulate the scriptures into a magic genie in the bottle, it can also produce a Christian characterized by simplicity, one whose surety cannot be shaken easily. So for example when approaching Genesis 1 and the creation account my grandparents would ask questions like, how does this disprove evolution? How does this show the mighty strength of God the creator? And can this same God who created the world and who sustains the word with his word alone keep me safe in his arms? To me this last question is the more important one and probably the most honest one since the first two insist the asking of the third one. This is why I was and I am so frustrated when talking with my parents/grandparents about the Bible, we are asking it different questions! Of course the questions we ask it can be bad questions, and the answers we get from it can mistakenly be from ourselves. This is why frustration is always met with joy, why younger and older generations don’t understand each other, and this is why we must diligently search the scriptures and our ancestors. We must find the questions they were asking and ask why those questions were important to them, and why or why not they should still be important for us today.

Almost every evening Nicky and I say our evening prayers. At the end of them it reads:

See that ye be at peace among yourselves, my children,

and love one another.

follow the example of good men of old

and God will comfort you and help you,

both in this world

and in the world which is to come.

In the name of the Father,

and of the Son,

and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

I will “follow the example of good men (and women) of old, and I believe that God will comfort me and help me because of this. In this regard I do not apologize for my family, as long as my future family won’t apologize for me.