Ironic isn't exactly the right term, but it is kind of funny when a Christian denomination decides to have a special "emphasis" on the Bible.
See the ELCA Book of Faith Initiative.
I'm supportive of the initiative. We're hoping to have a special emphasis kind of like it in our congregation next year. Nevertheless, I wish I could identify the "word" that labels the sense of the program that is humorous in some way.
The "word" would be "American". See Stephen Prothero's latest book Religious Literacy.
ReplyDeleteAn example from Martin Marty:
BACK WHEN 19th-century Methodists were debating whether to sponsor seminaries and promote a "learned ministry," one bishop, it was said, opposed the idea. He connected vital faith and piety with ignorance. Challenged by a critic who asked the bishop whether he was thankful for his own ignorance, he proudly answered yes. Whereupon the critic moved that the convention sing a Te Deum since the good bishop had so much for which to be thankful.
It's not that we consider the Bible to be "less important" - the problem is that we simply don't seem to want to be bothered with actually *reading* it.
The word I come up with is "corporate," not of course related to "corporate worship," but it sounds like a corporate strategy of "promoting" or "marketing" the Bible.
ReplyDeleteOf course, this is also about promoting and marketing a proper hermeneutical understanding of the Bible, which could lead in several directions. I personally think we do need to have a shared general hermeneutic, and I wish that we could do that ecumenically across Catholic-Protestant lines. They keep advertising that N.T. Wright book The Last Word on my Amazon suggestion list. Maybe I'll have to get it. How does he have time to write all these books? I think he must be employing ghostwriters. Maybe they'll come up with "The Disputed Books of N.T. Wright" sometime.
I think it's odd that the ELCA take up -- or should I say "re-take up" -- reading the Bible NOW after they have dismantled our church with their 60s-era liberal social policy. Might Book of Faith make it in time to keep the ELCA from shooting itself with its human sexuality social statement? And may have ELCA membership been reading all along and ELCA leadership not? Now there's a thinker....
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