Authority of the Word of God II (finally!)

[comment]  But what about the authority of Scripture? –or, How do you know Truth?

Your question on authority of Scripture is one I keep coming back to myself. I don't place any greater value on the Bible as the final arbiter of Truth than anything else--not because God couldn't assure that every version in every language said exactly what he wanted it to say, but because quite clearly He didn't since the various versions, translations, and manuscript copies disagree with each other and with themselves. The argument then usually comes back that only the original manuscripts (or the King James’ Version, which is scholastically absurd) were inerrant. That logic defeats the purpose, I think, of placing any authority in documents.  What is the point of having non-existent documents be inerrant when the documents we do have are full of errors (or at least questions and contradictions)? Ultimately, in practice, inerrancy lies then in picking the right interpretations of the Bible and whose interpretation do you choose and how?

Determining a “correct” interpretation comes down to a rational decision, made either personally or by assuming that your religious guru made the decision.  Since I don’t like to leave these sorts of things up to anyone else, I study the resources myself and determine what interpretations of Scripture to accept. Then, using the same logic that I apply to choosing a reasonable interpretation of the Bible, I realized that the authority to determine Truth must reside in myself—I have come to know the Divine beyond reason and logic and I hold that visceral knowing as my arbiter of Truth: a doctrine or interpretation of doctrine or Scripture must be for me both intellectually rational and congruent with what I know of God. Or actually the other way around congruent with my mystical knowledge of God and, secondarily, intellectually rational—because there are definitely things I am sure I know that I can't explain.

There are in German (and many other languages) two words that translate into English as "knowing": wissen and kennen. I wish that English had a similar differentiation between rational intellectual knowledge and experiential personal knowledge—the difference between book knowledge and knowing a person.

I kenn God through personal experience therefore I can weis (work out intellectually) doctrine and theology.

It is important to note, however, that kennen, experiential knowledge, is not just some touchy-feely emotional response. It is more like in physics class there are two ways to prove a theory—the least preferred method is to work out a conclusion logically, to derive it mathematically from a previously known law. The most preferred method is to demonstrate a conclusion through replicable experiment. To know experientially is the gold standard of scientific knowledge.

When I know God experientially, it's not a one-off feel-good warm fuzzy in a worship service or a touching sermon; it is a reliably replicable experience of the Divine—my experience replicates the knowledge and it is replicated over and over in the experiences of mystics in every religion from every era.

As a fundy evangelical, I was taught to doubt strenuously my own experience, my own knowledge in favor of "the Word of God", which in practice came down to the interpretations du jour of my dad and/or church. I had to walk away from Christianity entirely (for a very long time) and learn about seeking and weighing Truth from all kinds of secular and heathen sources before I could accept that the same rules applied to spiritual Truth as well. And that they applied universally whether I accepted it honestly or disguised it with doctrines of inerrancy that required the same work in practice.


(Part I of this two-part post can be found here)

Mourning the Loss of a Dream

Grief tightens my throat and tenses the back of my neck.  My belly aches; my eyes are hot with unshed tears.  Three times I have started the journey to become a doctor, moving my family across state lines to go to school, demanding sacrifices of my husband and children to my dream.  And three times, life has thrown me violently off that track.  I have wanted to be a doctor since I was five years old.  Twice I was in the process of pre-naturopathy prerequisites and, most recently, I was attending a homeopathic medical school with the intention of rolling into their doctoral program as it became available (it is still stuck in the planning stages, however).  Even after the homeopathy school fizzled, I looked into naturopathy again but was too sick to think about pursuing it. 

Today, I stopped by the Naturopathic Medical Center to pick up a remedy.  I haven’t been back there since before I even began to recognize the pattern that destiny was drawing in my life, since the last time I was applying there.  At least seven years.  The place has really grown up in the intervening years: a big new medical center to house the clinics and labs and the oh-so-pharmacy-looking medicinary.  I parked next to Physician Only parking spaces.  I walked past doctors and students in their white coats and intense expressions. 

In the medicinary, the clerk questioned my remedy request.  Their in-house policy (exceeding state and federal law) requires a prescription for high-potency remedies.  Since I lack their credential, I couldn’t buy the potency I wanted in my own name; they would only sell me a lower potency “suitable” for the uneducated layperson.

I bought the lower potency but walked back to my car with my mouth working hard and a harsh gnawing in my chest.  Why?  Why couldn’t I have completed this dream?  I could be one of those white-coated authorized people by now.  I could park in the best spots and order any damn thing in the pharmacy.  I could be someone my kids could brag about again the way they did when I was in school.  Best of all, I could be someone I would have been proud to be.  I fought long and hard with myself to believe I was even capable of medical school and I was so immensely gratified to find that I did very well in my classes. 

Obviously, destiny has another plan for me.  Each time I attempt to pursue medicine, I come closer to dying with the ferocity that Life requires to derail me.  I’ve been sick for three and half years; I may never fully recover from this last attempt. 

In memory of a dream that will forever remain a fantasy, here is my excerpted admissions essay to the homeopathic college.  It is still as true for me today as it was when I wrote it five years ago.

When I was five years old, I decided to be a doctor.  After a deep gash on my knee, which I was left to attend alone with only a wet cloth and a bandage, I discovered beneath the flowing blood and assorted gore a hard gleaming white thing that I decided must be my knee bone.  This sight, an inner mystery of the body revealed, awoke in me a fascination with how the body works that has never left me, although it has deepened and broadened to include the mysteries of the whole of Being—body, mind, and soul.  I decided then and there, in the attic of my grandmother’s house, that I must study medicine and be a doctor; I must bring this fascination with healing mysteries to the world.

Thirty-five years later, I still have a scar across my knee and I still feel that breathless awe in the presence of the healing work.  My family culture, learning differences I had not yet accommodated, and just plain life intervened and I never made it to medical school, but I have never stopped being fascinated by the healing process, by health and wellness, and by the myriad ways to affect it. I have been studying this process informally although seriously since my early teens. 

I discovered nutrition as a way to affect health as a teenager and began a never-ending, always-something-new experiment with foods, eating habits, and supplementation.  I continue to learn the food/health connections today with my family and my healing clients.  How we nourish ourselves through food, physically and spiritually, is the foundation upon which we daily create ourselves. 

Also in high school, I was introduced to psychology—the inner mysteries of the mind—and learned to observe.  I continued formal study of psychology through a Bachelor’s Degree, to the offering of a place in a doctoral program at the University of Illinois at Chicago.  Although I didn’t continue the credentialing process, I have never stopped observing, analyzing the patterns of the workings of people’s inner selves.  The incredible drive for wellness and wholeness in all that is alive is astounding.

Not quite ten years later, after dabbling with a few alternative health ideas, I entered a struggle with fertility that finalized my break with conventional medicine. Doctors ignored my plight, my midwife was not trained in miscarriage prevention, and I was left to find my own cure.  For three years in the mid 1990’s, I researched reproductive endocrinology and alternative therapies, diagnosed my own problems and prescribed my own treatments.  My midwife was my connection to therapies to which I had no access.  Her trust in my work and willingness to learn as I learned was the first indication that I had something to offer the world through medicine.  Her suggestion that I become a doctor made me realize that I had forgotten my childhood dream.

First, though, we had the joy of homebirthing my first daughter.  Homebirth pushed me firmly into the alternative health world—as if I had that far to go! But it was during my pregnancy that I realized the power of homeopathy: Sepia 200C saved my marriage and my sanity during my second trimester. My midwife gave me some of her own personal supply, which worked the miracle.  I still have that little bottle of Sepia grains and for years turned to it in times of need.

Since then, I have devoted my life to mothering and the study and practice of holistic healing methods. I have raised my children exclusively with vibrational medicine. In addition to homeopathy, other modalities I use are kinesiology, flower remedies, aromatherapy, botanical medicine and direct resonance healing.

So why, now that I have the space in my family life to consider medical school, am I wanting to study homeopathy? I have become more fascinated with the facilitation of healing through working directly with vibrational energy.  Of all the modalities of vibrational healing, homeopathy seems the most inclusive of the body, mind, and soul in equal measure.

Homeopathy is a study of the whole human Being:  from the physics, to the psyche, to the soul, acknowledging that there is no body without soul, nor mind without body. Homeopathy is poetry and science, psychology and theatre, cosmology and philosophy, and all at once.

And, lastly, I choose the homeopathic path because the formal study and credential will allow me to be what I already am—teacher, mentor, healer, parent—in a deeper, more profound way.  As a Wholistic Kinesiologist, I am fairly certain to select a healing remedy if I have a sufficient pharmacy from which to choose but, without a thorough education in homeopathy, I don’t know why it will work or why it is the right remedy.  I want to understand the homeopathic paradigm of disease and healing.  Without that understanding, I am still only able to offer superficial knowledge to others and that is neither sufficient for me nor for those whom I seek to help.

Love in Fundamentalism VI: Can Love Equal Submission If Submission Is Owed to Authority?

[commenter] One of the critical pieces that has been missing in this discussion is the issue of authority. To whom does one submit? When is it appropriate to submit and when must one subvert? Jesus came not to be served but to serve, and yet what is he doing driving people out of the temple with whips ... serving them? Submitting to them? We explain this by saying he was the Son of God and so had the authority to do this. While there's truth in that, if we're to be serious about following his example then we need to seriously ask what he was doing.

We should "submit" to appropriate authority (I think we all agree on that). But what about when that authority is wrong? What about when we disagree? What about when what the authority teaches is harmful? When should we simply swallow our pride and carry out our "orders" even if we think doing so is going to be counter-productive and when do we refuse to follow? These are not simply abstract questions. Anyone who's ever held a job has had to deal with this at some level. The boss, whether or not he's a selfish jerk, has the authority to tell the employee what to do. The employee has three options: submit to the boss, try to change the boss (good luck), or quit.

In the church, however, authority is given in the context of community and the community is responsible for helping to ensure that authority is not abused. When an authority figure (whether a pastor, husband, parent, whatever) acts inappropriately the one without the authority has (or should have) access to the larger community to find protection and justice. If that community protection isn’t working, what do we do?

I think you are again making my point.  You are conflating "love=working for the highest good of the other" with "love=submission".  You are working from the definition of "submission=coming under the authority of, owing obedience to", which I think only makes perfect sense.  It is when we try to say that "love=obedience" (in the if a=b and b=c, then a=c logical progression), that the problems start. Working from the idea that love and obedience are not always, or even often, or maybe never, the same thing and the Temple story makes much more sense.

I do think Jesus in the Temple was a perfect example of service to the highest good of the other.  To my thinking, the event has nothing to do with Jesus=Deity=Authority to be harsh, aggressive, non-submissive.  Think about it, what was the point of clearing the temple? To declare in no uncertain terms to every single participant, observer and hearer of the story that exploiting a business deal is bad karma.  

The moneychangers were providing a useful service to the worshippers but in a condition that had nothing to do with "working for the highest good" of either the moneychangers (yeah, made them a lot of profit but good for their souls?) or the worshippers.  Would anyone have paid attention if Jesus had simply stood in the corner of the Temple yard and TALKED about the problem? No.  Most certainly the problem had been talked about before.  But the malignant practice was too entrenched in the establishment--it's even possible that Temple authorities were being paid off (such is the scholarly historical opinion).  Obviously nothing was being done to stop things.  

Who would be the Voice of Moral Reason?  Jesus, who really had nothing to lose: he was already a homeless nutjob preaching on street corners.  He was the perfect person to stand up and call the spade a spade in the only way to assure that everyone paid attention and that action would have to be taken.  By disrupting the exploitive practice, Jesus was "working for the highest good" of everyone involved: the worshippers, the moneychangers themselves, the Temple administrators who hadn't stopped the practices, and everyone who heard the story who could then say "if that nutter can stand up for justice and my fellow-man, so can I".  

Everyone connected to the event was empowered by the actions of Jesus to become better people.  How is that not service?  How is that not love? And it completely agrees with the point that I keep yammering about that love does not equal submission.

On the separate issue of authority, by conflating "love=submit" with "submit=coming under authority", the Church is setting up a relationship among believers that has nothing to do with "love=working for the highest good of the other". My thesis is that when we are called to "love one another", there is nothing inherent in that about authority of one person or class of people over another.  Therefore, let's quit adding that bit into the equation. 

The foundation of all Protestantism is that every person can directly interact with God, no priest necessary.  Our big break with the established church, just like Christianity itself was a break from Judaism, was that there is no longer a need for mediation between God and Man--no sacrifices, no Jewish Law, no Catholic priest--why have we added evangelical, fundamentalist hierarchy? Why do we now say that between a woman and the Still Small Voice must come her husband, her pastor, and however many other teachers crawl into that line-up?  Why do we insist that if a woman loves God, she must therefore ignore her own capacity to think, to hear God directly, to be responsible for her own actions, and be obedient to the whims of her father/husband/pastor.  

Yeah, yeah, there's supposed to be "mutual submission" which I have already suggested is a complete oxymoron.  But even if we suppose that in the best of all possible relationships, the husband/father/teacher will humbly only make pronouncements that are truly in the highest good of the woman, why set it up that way to begin with? Why is every husband supposed to have a more direct line to God's wisdom than any wife?  It just doesn't make any sense.  It's a setup that all too easily leads to the excesses obvious in the more extreme fundies--wherein a woman is reduced to a holy fertility agent and household drudge.  How can you really say that the excess is wrong but still agree with the premise that allows that absurdity?

According to you, the checks on the system are supposed to come from within the community itself but I propose that such a setup looks a lot like the moneychangers and Temple administrators.  If the power-mongers in the community collude, how do the disenfranchised have recourse?  I do agree that people should submit to proper authority.  I take exception to who is a proper authority.  As an American and a Protestant, I vehemently oppose that I as an individual am under any spiritual authority except God, whether I am a woman, child, or man. This is 21st Century America--women have no civil obligation to submit to the authority of husband or church!  Why would God want us to reinstitute a chain of spiritual authority so prone to abuse and exploitation that worldwide, people struggle long and hard to liberate themselves from it?

I propose that "love God and love your neighbor", wherein "Love=work for the highest good of the other", is the Be All and End All of Christian Doctrine and everything else is an add-on.  If we all took "love God and neighbor" seriously, all those other rules that cause hate and discontent in all directions would be moot because if something creates hate and discontent, it is a priori not in the highest good.  It is not always sin nature that keeps people from submitting to authority but it is always sin nature that keeps pushing people "in their place".  

When do we submit and when do we subvert? We submit to human policy when all the people are being respected: every individual is honored as an equal Child of God, every man, woman, child, black, gay, Muslim, or patriocentrist is respected as fully loved by God as everyone else (regardless of whether you agree with their beliefs, lifestyles, behaviors, are you respecting their full equality in God?).  You subvert when policy holds that some people (women, children, blacks, gays) are less equal in God than others: when some people are deemed in need of extra mediation or extra justification or just plain not at all worthy of belonging in the community of believers.

Protection from abuse and justice in community will only be possible if we step away from this hierarchical authority thinking and start preaching again about love without confusing the issue with submission and obedience.

Love in Fundamentalism I: Love Equals Submission

 [author] I was identifying with [walkaways from extreme fundamentalism]—that their quest for spiritual communion with God would lead them to participate in these stifling, degrading, anti-gracious communities and then breaking free of the legalism.  The more I read about Christian fundamentalism, the more appalled I became.  The extreme practices Christians have taken up seemed so absurd yet so oddly familiar. 

I realized that most of these ideas [of extreme fundamentalism]…had floated through most of the churches we attended and probably were much stronger an influence than I noticed as a child. 

[commenter] Wow, that's a powerful statement. I never thought of equating the churches we grew up in with the kind of super-fundy stuff you read about from cults, but I can see some of the parallels you are drawing. It makes me so sad that people who claim to have received the love of Jesus show so much disdain for others who are supposed to be their brothers and sisters in Christ (not to mention the rest of the world for whom Christ died.) Power and control seem to always trump grace. 

[commenter] People have one heck of a time loving others, and I think it is because they see this love as a duty rather than as an opportunity to allow the indwelling Christ to live out through them. 

This may actually be the crux of the whole matter.  So much of fundamentalism (in any religious or social setting) is about following rules to win approval from the powerful. Whoever can demonstrate having followed the most rules, the most closely, scores the most points... except the powerful who determine the rules can change them whenever it seems someone else might actually be winning.

In Christianity (at least the evangelical and fundamentalist versions I grew up with), the biggest and most important rule is that Love is best demonstrated by Submitting.  Usually in some kind of service or obedience to those in authority over you, or alternately by demanding that those beneath you on the hierarchy are taught to submit appropriately.  So if Love=submission and the ones on the bottom of the heap are the ones who HAVE to submit the most… Well, who the hell would really want to love anybody else?

I stayed up late recently listening to podcasts about the ballyhoo in the Southern Baptist Convention about this new theology of the Trinity that's come out (been around for at least 30 yrs and underlies the dominionist movement but has recently been shown to be articulated by some Big Whigs of SBC and Trinity Evangelical Divinity School) wherein God, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit have three separate wills and are covenanted to work together to manifest God's will.  God is the Top Dog, Jesus submits to God (and actually has no power to answer prayer, can only take them to God) and reigns over the Holy Spirit.  Therefore Father/Husband has all authority in domestic and civil venues, Woman/Wife/Daughter must follow the Father in everything and cannot have her own calling/work/agenda except as it supports the Father and Wife/Mother/Older Daughter rules over the (younger) children to make them obedient to the Father.

I got to thinking that the whole thing is just so silly.  If churches and Christian literature spent half as much time preaching biblical leadership—being a true public servant working for the betterment of the whole group—as they do demanding that everyone submit, submit, submit, we might actually never have to care about who's submitting to whom and how well.

Why is Christianity about judgment and only ever so rarely about actual grace (not the "oh I'm such a worm and God is gracious that he hasn't just stomped on me" kind)?  Why did I spend twenty-one years among the self-proclaimed God's People and never have a clue about grace until I read a non-Christian source?

Why did I at age 12 have to ask the pastor how to "love God and love your neighbor as yourself" if I didn't love myself?  Basically the answer I got was that not loving myself was a demonstration of proper humility and an appropriate understanding of my essential worthlessness so I actually should love my neighbor better than myself.  What kind of bullshit answer is that to give a kid?  Hmm, the Bible doesn't support the way we've taught this child to believe so instead of changing our teaching when she calls us on it, let's just REWRITE scripture.

And now huge movements within the SBC, the largest denomination in the US, are doing this exact thing.  Really, this shouldn't surprise me, I'm sure it has been going on for millenia.  The powerful always get to rewrite the history (and all our scripture is historical right? More hmmm…).

So I don't think I've really missed anything by staying out of the church scene for nearly two decades.  Same song, second verse, a little bit louder, a little bit worse.