Some good things to read...elsewhere

I haven't time to write something just now, but here are three other things worth having a peep.

First, the estimable Kim Fabricius weighs in on Faith and Theology with Ten Thoughts on the Literal and the Literary. I am beginning to think that 'literal' has become one of those hopelessly muddled terms, co-opted into whatever polemic is at hand, to designate 'those people' with whom one disagrees, or to describe a supposed exegetical principle which 'those people' use, along with requisite connotations of the target being ill-educated, etc. I suspect that it is just about time to call a moratorium on the word and try to find more apt, less ideological expressions. I'm not entirely sure that Kim gets us around the obstacle, or closer to my goal, but there is much in his post worth reading and marking. (More about literalism and how it's not a particularly useful term later...perhaps.)

Next, check out Aaron Ghiloni and his posting on the Blasphemy Challenge on YouTube. I find this sort of thing -- the blasphemy challenge, not Aaron's post -- quite tiresome. You know the drill: set up a rickety straw figure that can easily be knocked down, and when you push it over (or it falls down under its own weight), you can pat yourself on the back that Christianity has been, once and for all (finally!) dispensed with. Some people make quite a career out of this. One of the few things I find more tiresome than this is when we in the church give them reasons -- usually inadvertantly -- for thinking that this sort of wan, pale imitation of Christianity is the real thing. It's as if we are providing vaccinations to people: by giving them a weaker, inferior form of it, they are then immune to the real thing.

And Aaron also calls our attention to Ronster, over at Musings of a Monster, who writes an Advent reflection about why God came to earth, based on a reading of 1John 1: 1-4. Quite good, I think, although possibly limited in the way that I indicate in the comments. Go have a look.

Re-keying Locke

Stephen C. Carlson provides, via Seth Sanders, Larry Lessig, and David Dungan a very helpful look at how John Locke (yes, that John Locke) was a precursor to the modern practice of literalist Biblical exegesis.

Hypotyposeis: "Literalist" Exegesis

I thought a couple of further remarks might be made - the reader keeping in mind that I am entering this particular conversation midstream.

First, as the entry points out only in passing, literalism is the order of the day for modernity, not only fundamentalism. Modern historical critics are very much literalists in the sense that Locke specifies: "(The Bible must) be understood in the plain direct meaning of the words and phrases, such as they may be supposed to have had in the mouths of the speakers, who used them according to the language of that time and country wherein they lived..." The difference between fundamentalists and historical critics (I don't like this distinction, but it will do for now) is not that one is literalist and the other not - much less that one is "critical" and the other not - but the emphasis that they place on the criteria they use and the ways in which they then employ those criteria. In other words, this fundementalist-historical critical debate is one of modernity's in-house discussions.

Further, Carlson quotes Dungan, who says "In America, fundamentalists belong to private, voluntary, democratic associations having minimal hierarchy. In these groups, the aversion to all creeds, the aversion to lateral or hierarchical authority so that congregations are joined with other congregations only in the loosest of coalitions, the universal suspicion of educational standards for their clergy--all spring from one and the same core value: the need to remain politically and religiously equal." One might well read "all people" for "fundamentalists" in the first quoted sentence. With only the possible exception of suspicion of educational standards, this is broadly true of nearly all American Christians. As I have been aching to say for some time now, if you scratch an American, you will find a baptist underneath.

Third, the terms "literal" and "literalist" are not usually used as technically as they are in Locke and Dungan, or Carlson. Generally, they are used to mean an interpretation which is simplisitic, and more generally to speak of someone who is ignorant. In fact, these terms are usually used simply as a pejorative dismissal of someone who thinks differently than the speaker; it is a good way to avoid any engagement with someone else, and any searching self-examination of our own beliefs. It is very much of the moment in our society now. (For my money, I think they are such problematic terms I have banished them from my vocabulary for the time being. I would heartily encourage any readers consider taking the same measure.) But Carlson and those he quotes do not use the terms in these ways.

Fourth, one would do well to keep in mind that a literal reading of a text -- preserving the way the words run, with an eye towards what the author intended -- is not an innovation of the Enlightenment at all. Locke's contribution was not saying that the Bible ought to be understood this way (Augustine in De Doctrina Christiana says this, too). His contribution, and the Enlightenment's generally, was saying that this was the only way that it may be understood (or better: the only thing that counts for understanding). Locke stipulated: [the Bible must be understood]..."without such learned, artificial, and forced senses of them as are sought out and put upon them in most systems of divinity (theological systems)."

Finally, it strikes me that there might be an imprecision here. The literalist interpretation that Locke speaks about (interpretation 'according to the letter') is careful to take into account historical considerations, authorial intent, genres. Conservative Biblical interpreters are (as mentioned above) just as much literalists in this sense as liberal historical-critical interpreters, and are careful to attend to just these concerns. But I suspect that these conservative Biblical interpreters are better characterized as evangelicals than fundamentalists. Also, ironically enough, some (soi-disant) fundamentalists might not be sufficiently literalist in the sense that Locke (and Carlson) uses, if they ignore such considerations as history or genre. This sort of fundamentalist would use more of a divinitory (and pre-modern) technique than an evangelical, pulling meaning out of words without regard for authorial intent. (They are otherwise quite modern in that they are thoroughly voluntarist and individualist.)