Tag Archives: Scripture

Unity or justice? Must we repeat history?

The two church leaders and longtime friends saw things differently. At the risk of their friendship, they openly opposed each other as they argued before the assembly.

One of them sensed that church unity was jeopardized, that the break from tradition that his friend proposed would splinter the church, that his friend’s radical views of justice and inclusivity were misguided. He was sure that his friend’s insistence upon full participation for those whose behavior insulted the norms of their religious tradition would offend and frighten the faithful core. It was not that his faction was unwelcoming–they merely asked that all obey the traditional understanding of God’s own law, affirmed by countless generations of God’s faithful. By refusing to conform, were not these radicals denying the very authority of God?

When his friend stubbornly insisted on full participation for those unwilling to follow the law, the fabric of the church was irreparably ripped apart. The hurtful words spoken by his once dear friend lingered long in the collective memory of his faction. Why, he dared to accuse them of hypocrisy and failing to act consistently with the truth of the gospel.

“How can you compel the Gentiles to live like Jews?”

His friend Paul spoke those words, but Peter and the faithful core persisted, remaining true to tradition and Torah. They would not break bread with unclean Gentiles. Peter was right about Paul’s inclusive agenda splintering the church. After this confrontation before the assembly–this incident in Antioch–the rift between the Torah-abiding traditionalists and the Torah-breaking, uncircumcised Gentiles became a gaping chasm.

Paul and Romans, chapter one

I often refer to Paul as enigma when I explain why I was drawn to write a novel about him. His writings about a gracious God and Christian egalitarianism–no longer Jew or Greek … slave or free … male and female—have informed and inspired theologian and laity alike over the centuries. But, charges of anti-Semitism, apologist for slavery, misogynist, and gay-bashing homophobe are also levied against his writings. The simple explanation, of course, is that Pauline views were shaped by the cultural context of his ancient world, the 1st century mix of Greco-Roman Hellenism and Hebrew religion.

A recent post on Christian Century blogs (my other blog, Spirit of a Liberal, is also part of the CC blog network) digs much deeper into the cultural influences at play in the oft cited clobber passages at the end of the first chapter of Paul’s letter to the Romans. Professor James F McGrath of the religion department at Butler University offers a succinct but salient commentary into the Romans verses in which “Paul talks about homosexuality not as a sin, but as a divine punishment for sin.”

In Paul’s time, the thinking about nature, gender and intercourse was that men are by nature active and women by nature passive. What would seemed [sic] shameful in this ancient honor-shame cultural context was the transgressing of such gender roles, with men demeaning themselves by taking the passive female role, and conversely women taking on the active role which is by nature male.

Note the link between a misogynist understanding of gender and 1st century homophobia—a relationship that remains present today. Fear of the feminine characterizes both misogynists and homophobes.

Another cultural influence, perhaps Stoic (Tarsus was home to a major Greek university of the Stoic school of philosophy), suggested that same gender sexual behavior was due to an excess of passion. Consistent with the Stoic ideal of all things in moderation, self control was preferred to impassioned emotionalism, and homosexual behavior was understood to be an unrestrained progression of passion beyond heterosexual promiscuity and well beyond cool and dispassionate Stoicism.

Of course, Paul the Pharisee would also have been well-educated in the abominations of Leviticus so his various cultural influences would have coalesced into the untested assumption that same gender sexual behavior was unnatural. The concepts of sexual orientation and mutually affirming and loving same-gender relationships would have been entirely alien to his now 2000-year-old cultural preconceptions.

It is appropriate to repeat the oft-stated assertion that it is unfair to ask 21st century questions of a 1st century man.

Anatomy of Lutheran CORE & NALC

Remember biology class in high school when we learned about the amoeba? These single celled, microscopic creatures would split and one would become two. It would seem that Lutheran CORE is also capable of binary fission, and it has just announced the spawning of a creature much like itself, but apparently separate, and they have crowned their progeny with the auspicious (audacious?) title of “The North American Lutheran Church” (one expects the emphasis to be placed on The, much like the pro football types who trumpet their alma mater). On February 18th (drum roll please), Lutheran CORE released its Vision and Plan for The North American Lutheran Church–NALC for short.

To use another biology metaphor, the ganglia of disaffected ELCA Lutheran organizations (affiliations?, associations?, denominations?, church bodies?, collaborative ministries?, community of confessing Lutherans?, partners?) is becoming diffuse and confusing to track the connective tissue. Lutheran CORE apparently sees itself as the central nervous system connecting Lutheran Congregations in Mission (LCMC), the WordAlone Network, and the newly created NALC, while retaining its tentacles into the ELCA (but withholding its financial support, of course).

So, what exactly will this new NALC organization look like? How will it function? What services will it provide? Of course, we know they hope to be a “reconfiguration of North American Lutheranism”, crossing borders into Canada to the north and Mexico and the Caribbean to the south. Whew! Impressive. While NALC will be “a new denominational body for confessing Lutherans,” it will also “work in close partnership and cooperation with the community of Lutheran CORE” and “will look to Lutheran CORE … for many resources.” While NALC will have its own organizational structure headed by a bishop, will the Lutheran CORE hierarchy remain the real power behind the throne?

NALC proposes to be a “big tent” that accepts differing views of ministry policies regarding the status of those eligible for the ordained clergy.

The NALC and Lutheran CORE will recognize both women and men in the office of ordained clergy, while acknowledging the diversity of opinion that exists within the Christian community on this subject.

Wait a minute. Isn’t the whole raison d’être for Lutheran CORE wrapped up in their unwillingness to accept the ELCA decision to recognize both gay and straight in the office of ordained clergy, while acknowledging the diversity of opinion that exists within the Christian community on this subject? Do they not see the irony, if not the inconsistency, in their position? There’s room for differing views on women clergy in the NACL tent but not for differing views on gay clergy.

The document allows, nay encourages, dual membership in NALC and the ELCA.

Lutheran CORE recognizes and affirms those congregations and individuals who feel called to remain within the ELCA and who wish to continue to work for the reform of the ELCA and to witness to Biblical and confessional teachings and practices, as well as to support others remaining in the ELCA. Some of these congregations and individuals may choose dual membership in the ELCA and the NALC. Others may be members of Lutheran CORE on an individual, congregational or partnership basis.

While these individuals and congregations may remain within the ELCA only in a formal sense, they may look to the Lutheran CORE community as their church beyond the congregation … often re-designating their benevolence outside the mission support system of the ELCA.

Hmmm. How will other ELCA members and congregations view that posture? Retain influence but not allegiance. Receive ELCA benefits without obligation.

How will ELCA leadership respond? From the ELCA’s inception, its governing documents have precluded dual membership in another denomination for either pastors or congregations, according to a January 19th memo distributed by ELCA secretary David Swartling. While there have been instances in the past where such dual memberships have been overlooked (interestingly, the practice ended at the insistence of the LCMS, not the ELCA), one wonders whether and how the ECLA will enforce these policies in the future. Already, the January 19th memo produced a hew and cry about the heavy handed policies of the ELCA.

One final note for today; the document includes this statement:

We affirm the authority of the canonical Holy Scriptures as the only source and norm of our faith and life.

“Only”. That’s a significant statement. No room for reason. No room for conscience. No room for experience. No room for scientific, historical, or empirical evidence. It would seem that CORE is boxing itself into a corner with the infallible and inerrant fundamentalists with a far more restrictive attitude than any mainstream Christian denomination, including Roman Catholicism.

Are ELCA Lutherans heretical? One scholar thinks not.

We all understand that the holier-than-thou-trinity of Lutheran CORE, WordAlone, and LCMC (Lutheran Congregations in Mission for Christ) believes that the Bible condemns all same gender sexual intimacy even for couples in a lifelong, monogamous relationship. Many of us (including the majority of voting members at the 2009 Churchwide Assembly) disagree, but what we find particularly odious about the rhetoric emanating from the schismatics are their self-righteous pronouncements that are sprinkled with judgmental terms such as “heresy”, “unchurched”, and “unbiblical”. There is the persistent implication that the ELCA has abandoned Biblical teaching and authority. “The ELCA is the one that has departed from the teaching of the Bible,” sounds the refrain. And this is no mere exegetical or theological debate, for the ELCA is now so polluted that the schismatics must leave for fear of contamination. One must be wary of the purity of the minister who offers the bread and wine, after all.

In response to the bluster of the schismatics, Rev Dr. Brian Peterson, Professor of New Testament, Lutheran Theological Southern Seminary, has penned a temperate and reasoned article.

“[W]e need to avoid, as much as possible, confusing the authority of the Bible with the authority of poor translations, incorrect assumptions, partial knowledge, or contested interpretations,” he begins, and “I do not believe that doing so constitutes the abandoning of the Bible’s authority. Honesty and the commandment not to bear false witness against others requires that we not confuse our disagreements about the meaning of these texts with faithlessness, heresy, or the denial of Scripture’s authority,” he concludes (emphasis mine).

Along the way, Dr. Peterson offers his scholarly interpretation of the so-called clobber passages, suggesting that they are difficult and uncertain, based on questionable “assumptions from first century culture, medicine, and science”. Of course, the Levitical lists of abominations derive from a worldview at least half a millennium earlier than the New Testament texts.

It is not my goal here to argue that my way of reading these texts is certainly the one right way. It has been my goal, however, to show how someone can read these texts with a high regard for their authority over the life of the church, and still speak in favor of the proposals adopted by the ELCA regarding homosexuality.

But serious questions remain about how these texts address the issues we are facing and the people involved. There are legitimate questions about how well the concerns addressed in these biblical texts correspond to the committed, exclusive, faithful, lifelong relationships that are the focus of the ELCA’s action. There are genuine difficulties in understanding some of these verses, and we ought to wonder whether, and why, we are trying to place too much weight on a few uncertain verses. Proper interpretation always involves listening to each text within the context of the whole witness of Scripture. There we hear with absolute clarity God’s desire and call for mercy, compassion, faithfulness, and love of our neighbors. We hear that God’s saving, sufficient grace has been poured out through Jesus Christ crucified and raised. We hear the promise that the Spirit will lead the church into God’s truth.

I believe that the ELCA Assembly’s actions have been shaped by, and are in agreement with, this authoritative biblical word.

Disagree if you will, but please don’t call us unchurched heretics.

Hat tip to blogger Ted Sitz for finding this article.

Bible too liberal? Then rewrite it.

Several months ago, I offered a blog post on the plan of conservative theologians to revisit and revise the New International Version of the Bible (NIV), the version published by Zondervan that is the favorite Bible for evangelicals. Apparently, the most recent edition of the NIV, known as the Today’s New International Version (TNIV), offended many conservatives because it attempted gender neutral language. Thus, the scholars behind the NIV are going to try again to come up with a current edition that does not offend its base of supporters. Here is a portion of my earlier post:

What is ironic in the current debate over the revisions to the NIV is that this is a fight amongst conservatives and not a liberal/conservative split. The NIV editors are an independent group of conservative scholars and translators formed in 1965 to create and revise the NIV, and the publisher is Zondervan, an Evangelical publishing house and a Rupert Murdoch company.

While the Zondervan/NIV revision is a serious effort by bona fide scholars, the latest news about a wiki like online project to purge the Bible of certain liberal leanings is laughable. According to the AP,

The conservative online encyclopedia [conservapedia.com] is hosting a project of amateur conservative readers that are putting together their own interpretation of the Bible, to counter what they say is liberal bias by scholars.

The project’s authors argue that contemporary scholars have inserted liberal views and ahistorical passages into the Bible, turning Jesus into little more than a well-meaning social worker with a store of watered-down platitudes.

“Professors are the most liberal group of people in the world, and it’s professors who are doing the popular modern translations of the Bible,” said Andy Schlafly, founder of Conservapedia.com, the project’s online home.

A prime example of the cutting and pasting proposed by conservapedia is the statement attributed to Jesus on the cross, speaking about his persecutors, “Father forgive them; for they do not know what they are doing.” Luke 23:34 (NRSV & NIV) Apparently, such a forgiving attitude is too liberal for conservapedia.

But what of the scholarly merits of the suggestion that this passage is false, an insertion by liberal professors? Silly, at best.

While it is true that certain ancient Greek texts do not include this passage (and so noted in the footnotes of both the NRSV and NIV), it is not modern liberal scholars who chose to include this statement of Jesus. This verse appears in the Codex Sinaiticus, a fourth century manuscript and one of the oldest extant full versions of the Bible; it appears in the Latin Vulgate, translated by that flaming liberal, St. Jerome, circa 400 CE, which became the Roman Catholic bible for the next fifteen hundred years; and it appears in the King James version translated in 1611, the primary English version of the Bible until the twentieth century.

But don’t let honest scholarship stand in your way, Mr. Schlafly and the rest of the conservapedia know-nothings.

One eyed fundamentalists #CWA09 #LMCACORE #ELCA

“If your eye causes you to stumble, tear it out.” Mark 9:47

Years ago, I listened as Professor William Cahoy (now Dean) of St John’s School of Theology in Collegeville referred to this passage during his Christology class, suggesting that true Biblical literalists could be known by their eye patch. Have you seen any? Jesus fed 5,000, it is said. Would you accept 4,999? How far are you willing to contextualize the feeding narrative, yet accepting its authority?

If you are a pastor, are you preaching on the lectionary text from Mark this Sunday? What will you say about these verses?

“Whoever divorces his wife and marries another commits adultery against her; and if she divorces her husband and marries another, she commits adultery.”

“The ELCA rejected 2,000 years of Biblical teaching and interpretation.” So say the opponents of the recent ELCA action approving gay clergy and moving toward marriage equality.

In the nineteenth century, abolitionists battled against the institution of slavery, but their opponents in the church cited Scripture and argued against rejecting nearly 2,000 years of Biblical teaching and interpretation. “Slaves, accept the authority of your masters with all deference, not only those who are kind and gentle but also those who are harsh,” they said, quoting 1st Peter 2:18.

In the second half of the twentieth century, many churches, including the ELCA, began to accept women for ordination. Opponents argued (some Lutheran denominations such as the Missouri Synod (LCMS) persist even today) that female ordination is contrary to 2,000 years of Biblical teaching and interpretation. “I permit no woman to teach or to have authority over a man; she is to keep silent,” said the opponents of female clergy, quoting 1st Timothy 2:12.

In many pulpits on Sunday, divorced and remarried clergy will speak to divorced and remarried persons in the pews. Is this not contrary to 2,000 years of Biblical teaching and interpretation?

“Whoever divorces his wife and marries another commits adultery against her; and if she divorces her husband and marries another, she commits adultery.”

This is not an anonymous speaker as in the case of the 1st Peter teaching. This is not merely a Pauline disciple or even Paul himself as in the 1st Timothy teaching. No, these are the words of Jesus, according to Mark, the same Jesus who said nothing about homosexuality but condemned as adulterers those who divorced and remarried.

Are any Lutheran Core or WordAlone pastors who will preach this Sunday divorced and remarried? Adulterers persisting in their sin in the pulpit? If so, how do they justify going against 2,000 years of Biblical teaching and interpretation?

How can Lutheran Core or WordAlone permit such clergy within their ranks? More to the point, how do they justify the ordination of divorced and remarried persons even while denying the same to LGBT persons?

Perhaps we all contextualize, as indeed we should, and none of us are one eyed fundamentalists.

Lutherans are a’talkin’ #CWA09 #LMCACORE #ELCA

It has been six weeks since the 2009 ELCA Churchwide Assembly in Minneapolis. Although there are scattered reports of individuals and congregations that have withdrawn from the ELCA, to this point Lutherans are mostly talking. Congregations are holding forums. Synod clergy are gathering for discussions. Lutheran Core, the organized opposition to the new ELCA policies (to “recognize and support” persons in a “lifelong, monogamous, same-gender relationship” and to allow such persons be become ordained clergy), has held a national convocation and decided to continue talking for a year before acting. The most precipitous action to this point is the financial boycott of the ELCA Churchwide.

Talking is good. Talking about sexuality. Talking about relationships. Talking about what it means to be Lutheran. Talking about Scripture and how we use and understand our holy books.

Here’s one example of a son (Pastor) talking to his mother.

When we talked earlier this week, I asked my mom what her church was doing in response to the Churchwide decisions. I think highly of her pastors, so I wanted to be sure I’m keeping up. She said they’ve sent out pastoral letters. Each of them wrote their own letter. But there weren’t any educational programming planned yet. I explained what we were doing these next five weeks. Then we got to talking more. I explained what happened at Churchwide. Some of it she knew and some of it she didn’t. In fact, some of the old ministry policies were new to her. Then we spoke personally. She described and sort of marveled at the change that she has seen between my grandparents and my generation, how attitudes and understandings have changed just in the short span her lifetime. She talked about how she tries to be open to people, and I listened. I told her how I was personally glad for my colleagues who now no longer have to chose between a call to ministry and a lifelong relationship of unconditional love, which has been so vital for me as a person and a pastor. We talked for a while, and we both learned from each other. And that gives me great hope that we can do the same. And yes, she’s my mom, and yes, I’m her son. But, I will tell you, there isn’t anything more awkward for a guy than to talk about sex with your mom. I said the word sex and sexuality more times in that conversation with my mother than I even had in my entire life. I spent 35 years running from that conversation, and there I was asking her to have it. There was actually a moment in the conversation – when I sort of looked down on us from above, each of us on our phones, thinking – this is really happening, and I don’t feel awkward, and did I just say sexuality, and this is a new place in our relationship. And I am so grateful.

In the Kansas hinterlands, Cindy Kulp, a new entrant into the blogosphere, issues an invitation: “Calling all ELCA Lutherans…Educate Yourself.”

This is new ground for all of us in so many ways. I will start by sharing my story in hopes that it may help you to share yours & contribute to this gathering place.
I became a member of the ELCA church approximately 6 years ago. We, like so many other 30 something couples, moved back to my husband’s family farm and rejoined the rural church he grew up in. Since then, my husband and I have both served on call committees and on the church board. I share that because we thought for the past 7 years we understood the church and aligned with its teachings. Lutherans are all the same right! We had never taken the time to really look into the ELCA and what it really believes until this past July. Boy, were we in for a big surprise.
Lutherans….educate yourselves and don’t go the easy route. This is worth the journey. Study, discover and pray. What is God calling you to do?

Cindy’s journey may take her to a different place than my journey takes me or your journey takes you, but we don’t need to agree on all things to be fellow pilgrims. Cindy encourages us to “study, discover and pray.” And talk. Talk is good.

Are the Holy Ones leaving? Or, holier than thou? #CWA09 & #Goodsoil09

A group of ELCA pastors huddles over coffee for their weekly text study, but sermon ideas are not the center of discussion this week. “What’s happening in your congregation?” is the question for each in turn. “Just talk, so far,” reports one. “My congregational president has resigned,” says another, “but that prompted two families who didn’t like his heavy handed leadership to return!”

It seems that there is a trickle of disaffected parishioners who are leaving or threatening to leave the ELCA over the new LGBT policies but not a trend–much less a torrent–at least not among this coffee shop gathering.

Word Alone and Lutheran Core, the voices of the opposition, are counseling patience and due deliberation:

We will want to give ourselves time for patient and careful reflection. Now is not the time to make rash, hasty decisions. Most people make serious mistakes when they make decisions under pressure. We do not want to make this mistake now. Our relationship with the ELCA is a serious matter for us. I ask that we all take time to reflect patiently with ourselves and with others and not to make rash decisions now. We all have the time for God to disclose his will for us. Lutheran CORE and our supporters have consistently urged us to maintain at least a formal relationship with the ELCA. The question now before us is the level of our participation within the ELCA.

Around the country, there is anecdotal evidence that the Lutherans are not jumping ship, at least not yet and not in great numbers, over the ELCA 2009 convention actions approving gay clergy and gay marriage. Many congregations are promoting discussion, and folks are seriously wrestling with the question, “what is the Bible and how do we use it?”

Those who leave echo a common refrain, “But there’s this line in the sand. It’s about the Bible and whether we believe what it says.” The Lutheran Core talking points include the statement: “Lutheran CORE is continuing in the Christian faith as it has been passed down to us by generations of Christians. The ELCA is the one that has departed from the teaching of the Bible as understood by Christians for 2,000 years.”

It pains me when some suggest that the ELCA decision was unbiblical, that those of us who agree with the inclusive actions of the assembly don’t “believe what the Bible says.” While we may disagree over interpretation of Scripture, it is self-righteous and judgmental to dismiss contrary opinions as unbiblical or even unchristian.

To the contrary, we believe in the heart of the matter, the “canon within the canon” (Luther’s terminology), the “core testimony” (Walter Brueggeman’s terminology) that compels us to open our arms, our hearts, and our pulpits as we did forty years ago to our sisters despite apparent Biblical admonitions. Luther suggested that all Scripture is not equal, that all passages do not carry the same weight, that some verses must surrender to the greater authority of the core testimony. We agree with Luther, but that does not mean that we reject the authority of the Bible, as charged by some in Lutheran Core and WordAlone.

The Bible says, “Slaves, accept the authority of your masters with all deference, not only those who are kind and gentle but also those who are harsh” 1st Peter 2:18 and “I permit no woman to teach or to have authority over a man; she is to keep silent” 1st Timothy 2:12. Yet, despite nearly two millennia of teaching and tradition, the church now rejects slavery and sexism, by finding deeper streams of meaning in the core testimony of the good news of Jesus of Nazareth, the one who included those that society rejected, those who failed according to the purity rules of the church of his day, those deemed unclean by the Levitical holiness code–the same wellspring that spills out the harsh texts that “clobber” our gay fellows.

The gospel text for yesterday that most Lutheran pastors preached on around the country was Mark’s narrative of the foreign woman who pushed against the traditional Jewish walls of exclusion. For the early church, the question was not “gay” but “Gentile”. Should the Jewish Jesus movement include non-Jews, the Gentiles? Despite their uncleanness? Despite their failure to follow the Jewish law? Despite centuries of tradition and teaching that these did not belong to the family of God?

Halfway through his sermon, my pastor interrupted himself. “There he goes again, some of you are thinking, he’s promoting the gay agenda. It’s not an agenda,” he said. “It’s the gospel.”

There it is. The heart of the matter. The canon within the canon. The core testimony. It’s not unbiblical. It’s not unchristian. It’s the gospel.

Where’s the Biblical support for the ELCA action? #CWA09 & #Goodsoil09

I hosted a discussion at my local Lutheran congregation a few nights ago about the recent ELCA Churchwide Assembly 2009, which approved gay clergy and possibly gay marriage. When I was asked the question, “What’s the Biblical basis for the ELCA action?”, I’m afraid I didn’t provide an adequate response. That’s partly my fault and partly because the answer is complicated and nuanced and not a black and white, unambiguous, simple “proof text”, which is what many conservatives on this issue demand.

Does the Bible speak to nuclear disarmament? Universal health care? Teaching evolution in biology class? The flat earth society? Does the Bible speak to twenty-first century issues that are far beyond the purview and understanding of the ancients who authored the words of the Biblical texts? (Ok, if you’re of a mind that God wrote the Bible, you may as well stop reading now).

Does the Bible speak to “publicly accountable, monogamous, life-long same gender relationships?”

Yes, but we must use modern lenses to filter the pre-scientific, culturally conditioned worldview of ancient authors. We must view the issue in light of a twenty-first century understanding and apply broad Biblical principles and not isolated proof texts.

The sixteenth century monk and priest Martin Luther, the greatest sexual revolutionary in history, not only confronted the church’s insistence upon a celibate priesthood when he gleefully married his love, the nun Katy von Bora, but he also reversed a millennium of sexual angst by rejecting the hangups over human sexuality dating to the fifth century, the time of Augustine and Jerome and others who saw sex–even within marriage–as the spreading of the sinful seed of Adam. The joy of sex: the author of the modern book by that title can thank old Father Martin.

But I digress …

It was Martin Luther who suggested that we view, interpret, and understand Scripture through the lens of “the canon within the canon.” Not all scripture is equal. Not all verses carry the same weight. Had it been up to Luther, he would have excluded the “epistle of straw”, the book of James, altogether. He also had serious doubts about the book of Revelation. With deep devotion toward the Holy Writ, he was nevertheless willing to challenge that which should be challenged.

And what is the heart of the matter, Luther’s “canon within the canon”, or the Scripture’s “core testimony”, to use the terminology of theologian Walter Brueggemann? I think most Christians would agree that it has to do with the gospel, the good news of Jesus of Nazareth, the one who accepted and included those rejected by society.

And what of the law, the rules and regulations, the moral precepts that guide and instruct? Here too, there is a heart of the matter, a canon within the canon, and core testimony attributed to the words of Jesus himself. Love God and love your neighbor, “On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.” Or, as John the evangelist records the words of Jesus, “I give you a new commandment, that you love one another.”

Christian ethics is less a set of rules than a principle: a measuring stick, a gauge, or a scale. What is the loving thing to do? The evidence must be weighed–and that includes the best evidence available—scientific, cultural, academic, historical, medical and psychological. Faith and reason. If the weight of the evidence tilts the scale one way—despite the ancient words of the Levitical priests or Paul the apostle—our way forward as faithful Christians is clear. The heart of the matter, the canon within the canon, the core testimony compels us.

While others may disagree, it is unfair to judge this view as unbiblical or unchristian. With Jacob at the ford of the Jabbok, we have wrestled with our wonderings. We believe we have plumbed deeper streams that wash away the passages that some would use to clobber their fellow.

Is the conservative’s Bible about to become more liberal?

What is the Bible and how do we use it?

This is a recurring thread in this blog. See prior discussions here and here. The question comes up again in light of the announcement that the editors and publishers of the most popular version of the Bible (NIV) plan to issue a new revision that has conservatives stirring.

The world’s most-popular Bible will undergo its first revision in 25 years, modernizing the language in some sections and promising to reopen a contentious debate about changing gender terms in the sacred text.

The New International Version, the Bible of choice for conservative evangelicals, will be revised to reflect changes in English usage and advances in Biblical scholarship, it was announced Tuesday. The revision is scheduled to be completed late next year and published in 2011. MSNBC.com

The history of manuscript transmission and interpretation is fascinating and far beyond the scope of a blog post. For a brief introduction, I suggest the Wikipedia article on Bible Translations. Equally fascinating are the differing attitudes toward the Bible as blogger Cathy Lynn Grossman notes in her Faith and Reason blog on USAtoday.com:

How much this matters to you may well depend on how you see the Bible.

The number of people who say they believe the Bible is "the actual word of God and is to be taken literally word for word" has bumped downward from four in ten adults in 1984 to fewer than three in 10 (27%) in 2008, according to Gallup surveys of 1,000 U.S. adults.

Half of Americans say the Bible as "the inspired word of God but not everything in it should be taken literally." And one in five call the Bible "an ancient book of fables, legends, history and moral precepts recorded by man."

In the recent debates at the ELCA convention over LGBT issues, the fundamental disagreements stemmed from differing attitudes toward scripture. Questioning negative gay Bible passages is a rejection of the authority of scripture argued some conservatives. No, there are “deeper streams” of interpretation that are more instructive than the “clobber” passages countered the progressives. Both sides claimed Biblical warrant for their positions.

What is ironic in the current debate over the revisions to the NIV is that this is a fight amongst conservatives and not a liberal/conservative split. The NIV editors are an independent group of conservative scholars and translators formed in 1965 to create and revise the NIV, and the publisher is Zondervan, an Evangelical publishing house and a Rupert Murdoch company.

It seems that honest scholarship that reveals nuanced shades of gray makes many evangelicals squirm even when the scholars are their own.