I originally intended this blog for my musings about the New Testament. Mostly because it is the only area that I feel confident to write about. I've spent a lot of time studying the greek and hebrew texts. I am a biblical scholar/historian, and not a theologian. But I have been thinking about the sacred lately and have something I want to get off my chest. Hopefully I'll have something useful, and ironically logocentric to post in the next week.
So I was driving home from Ikea last weekend and listening to CBC radio, as I always do because I hate almost all popular music that they play on the radio. As it was almost St. Patricks day there was a special about folk religions of Ireland. One scholar was arguing that the main reason many traditional people could never relate to western religion is the logocentricity of the sacred. It really got me thinking, that this is one, among many, of my major problems with christianity.
I know it seems ironic for a person who once spent over 60 hours on one word in the New Testament to criticize others for being overly logocentric, but there is a difference between a scholarly pursuit of knowledge and the religious pursuit of the sacred. As a biblical scholar, I never approach a particular biblical text in pursuit of an experience with the sacred or with god. Yet modern christians have almost deified the words of the bible (this applies to Jewish views of the Torah and Muslim views of the Quran even moreso but I don't want to criticize them too harshly because I was never one of them). In my 20 or so years in christianity this is one of the things i had the hardest time relating to. It never made sense to me that someone would search for a creator god in a book created by men. To me it always made more sense to search for the creator/s of the world in his/her/its/their creation. I don't ever remember feeling a sense of the sacred in church or when reading the bible, but I'll be damned if I haven't felt a powerful experience of something sacred everytime I see the ocean, or every time i've stood on top of a mountain. To me the world itself and all creatures within it are what is sacred and where sacredity is to be found.
That isn't to say that I am a panentheist, I'm not even sure there is a god. I don't think we should worship mountains or oceans, and I don't think they are gods. But I do think christians get way too caught up in the exact words of the bible and believe God can only be this or that because the bible uses this one word to describe god. It's very limiting on a supposedly supreme being. I have been told this idea is "silly" by christians. Oh well they are allowed to believe what they want. But I do find a certain absurdity in worshiping a god who created everything and searching for truths about that god in something created by men. If there is a god or gods, I feel confident I will find more truths about him/her/it/them in mountains and forests and oceans than anyone ever will learn from reading a book, even a book considered to be sacred.
But these are just my completely non-scholary thoughts about god and the sacred.
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6 comments:
well said!
Maybe when you and Paul start your own religion, you should have your 'church' up a tree or in a cave or something.
I always love your posts, Dana-- probably because they're so transparent. One thing I've been curious about is how much of your experiences of Christianity have been outside of fundamentalist groups. The biblicism I think you are lamenting is rooted in the positivist philosophy of modernism. The more historic theological traditions as well as more contemporary developments are not so biblicist (being rooted in an ancient and a postmodern outlook, respectively), and I wonder if you personally would find more life in either of these alternate expressions. Some people I've known with experiences/criticisms such as yours have chosen to reject both modern and postmodern developments in philosophy and return to the epistemology of ancient Christianity; for these people, it reintroduced a mystery/mysticism to their thought/spirituality which they tell me is like a breath of fresh air. Others I know have embraced postmodernism and found contemporary theologies rooted in nonfoundationalism or postfoundationalism to be a similar breath of fresh air (although perhaps a little more philosophically challenging). Anyway, just thought I'd throw that out there. By the way, are you still going on to doctoral work, or have you found something better?
Hi Chris,
I will not be doing doctoral work, at least not anytime soon. I have decided to get a Masters of Library and Information Studies instead. It was a tough decision but I feel confident that a PhD in Biblical studies isn't what I want out of life right now.
I can be honest and admit that I've had very little experience with christianity outside of evangelicalism. I am aware of other theologies. But as I said in my post this is only one problem. To my knowledge no theistic theology has ever really answered theodicy. Plus even if I did decided that I believed in a god, I certainly wouldn't believe in christianity. I've studied the biblical text too much to actually believe in it. It would create a situation that I already tried to live in and couldn't, wherein i would be such a liberal christian i would have to do serious hermeneutics to every creed, song, and belief statement that defines one as a christian. It is difficult going to find a sense of community in christianity when you don't believe in the virgin birth, the ressurection, or that Jesus actually claimed divinity at all, or that Jesus actually did/said most of the things attributed to him in the gospels. I can't believe those things and those are kind of foundational to christianity. Even if I did believe in a God and in christian spirituality, I'd be so ostracized (as i have already experienced) by christians for my beliefs it would ruin any sense of community which to me is foundational for any religion.
But I've gotten off topic. But yes I am aware of other theological traditions, but still can't subscribe to any "christian" theology for a variety of logical reasons.
Hi Dana,
I can appreciate your reticence. Certainly, the "heresy radar" of most evangelicals have driven a lot of critical thinkers out of the church. Real community is impossible when you feel judged at every turn. However, I still want to encourage you to check out a more liberal congregation sometime; I think you would be surprised at how welcome you would feel. You also expressed a concern with how far removed you are from the "foundations" of Christianity, but I think you should research non-/postfoundationalist theology before disbelieving that such a thing could be a logical option. I won't bug you about it anymore though.
Glad to hear you're continuing studies; you have obvious intellectual gifts. Don't let a rejected article make you think otherwise (John Kloppenborg always says at our publishing seminars to expect to get rejected a few times before getting an article accepted).
Blessings,
Chris
waddup duder. I look forward to reading your blog. You will probably hate mine because I am a christian and not very smart, hahahah.
http://joshmickelson.wordpress.com/
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