This and That

 
It’s a confusing world out there if you’re attempting to discern what a supernatural, divine being is trying to do and say in this world. Between, on the one hand, the millions of Seventh Day Adventists meeting to argue over whether the Bible permits or disallows the ordination of women, and, on the other, the Archbishop of Canterbury trying to placate his riven bishops after a vote to allow priests to perform same-sex marriages was passed at the Episcopal General Convention in Salt Lake City, the deity’s message is mixed, to say the least. On any given day, thousands of rival decisions made by the myriad arms of the Christian church are reported on around the globe. Add all the other religions and their interpretations of what morality and ethics mean in the twenty-first century, and you’ve got a lot of deity decisions, many of them contradictory, being shared.

This is where we come in. Or, more precisely, where critical thinking comes in. As it should in most areas of our lives. Indeed, for a very long time, critical thinking has been part of the work of the Christian world, a familiar feature in the ivory tower if not in the pews.

In 2005, I was privileged to be among a gathered group of progressive network leaders in London, England. We had been brought from around the world by the visionary founder of The Center for Progressive Christianity in the United States, Jim Adams, who is since deceased. Opposite me sat Susan Adams who, with John Salmon, had published The Mouth of the Dragon: Theology for Postmodern Christians in 1996. It was The Mouth of the Dragon which, in a period of tectonic shift in my understanding of my vocation in the church, introduced me to the work of applying the tools of critical thinking to religion as a whole rather than using them solely for the exploration of the items of religious significance such as sacred texts or liturgical practices. Adams and Salmon demanded that the entire religious undertaking be the focus of our critical gaze. In the presence of this woman whose work had helped forge a new concept of how to lead within the church, needless to say, I was starstruck. Since the book had been published half a world away from me and almost a decade earlier, she was surprised I’d even learned of it.

In the scholarly fashion of the day, Salmon and Adams had deconstructed Christianity by asking relevant questions: Who says this? By whose authority is it said? What is it about? When was it written? Where was it written? What was going on in that place at that time? What cultural elements are evident? Who wrote it? Why did they write it? Who does it privilege? Whose rights are asserted or protected? Whose rights are limited or denied? Why are the power differentials written into place like this? Who is given voice? Who is silenced? Who is excluded altogether? I had long applied this thinking, as I had been taught, to the Bible and the weekly lectionary readings but I had not, until I met Salmon and Adams’ tight little text, applied it to religion as a whole. It was mind-opening and life-changing.

After Adams and Salmon had completely deconstructed Christianity, they put it back together again. Using the results of their critical inquiry to determine what bits and pieces should be included and what bits and pieces left on the cutting room floor, they arrived at what seemed, for me, a coherent, new model. It looked nothing like the original.

When we are confronted with authority, particularly when it is being presented as universally applicable, as religious authority does, it is crucial that we engage in this kind of process, the process of critical inquiry. Doing so will necessitate the asking of deep questions. It will also instigate a process of deconstruction that escalates the further we explore. And although there can be incredible excitement as you dig deeper and deeper, at the point when you finally look up from your work, it can be deeply disturbing that there is little left of what was once a strong edifice. In some cases, it leads to deconversion with all the inherent pain that comes with that process. As well as all the inherent freedom.

Thomas Troeger wrote a parable on the God-shaped hole made when a mosaic image of God falls from the dome of a beloved church. I think of it when I consider the deconstruction of prejudices that are religiously based. Troeger was searching for a metaphor that would help clergy speak to a postmodern world. Instead, it merely helped clergy cope with their own disenchantment with the old story and to find ways to continue to share it with those for whom they wished to provide succour, many of whom were asking their own questions. A God-shaped hole, however, does not speak to generations growing up beyond religion. They will need a new metaphor with which to explore their lives.

J. R. R. Tolkein changed our view of myths through his story of a the tower arguing that we miss its purpose if we merely examine its components, deconstruct it in the process, and miss the view of the sea we would have enjoyed had we merely climbed it. I get his point. Myths give our own stories back to us so that we can see ourselves and discern meaning in our fragile existence. Climbing the tower for the view, as Tolkein puts it, is the point of the myth. But I also think we need to deconstruct myths that continues to be widely understood as reality, as divine history, as truths greater than all other truths. Particularly those of us who have not only climbed Tolkein’s tower and appreciated the view but have also examined the stones used to build it. The mythic significance of the Bible is not lost on those who approach it with an eye to critically examining its origins and the privileges that those who protect its divine authority maintain.

All myths are humanly constructed. They are stories we have told ourselves in order to make sense of life, of our world, of our challenges and our joys and they have helped us do that for thousands of years. That does not place them, however, in a privileged place beyond the field of critical inquiry. Indeed, because of the status they are afforded, it is all the more important that we bring to them the questions asked by Salmon and Adams, “Who says this? By whose authority was it said?” When we do this, the confusing chatter surrounding what God is trying to do or say will be clarified into one important question, cleansed as it will be from its supernatural, divine authority, “What, in this situation, is the right thing to do?” A very human question and, in any situation, the only relevant one.

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