Authority... majority rule... just what is a Christian community?

Or, --maybe it's not about authority!

In the continued dialogue that is his book, Hauerwas states a couple of very interesting things.

First, he states: North American fundamentalism is a complex phenomenon that actually arose independent of the development of biblical criticism. The nineteenth-century form of fundamentalism, according to George Marsden, is distinct because fundamentalists of all stripes thought of themselves as representing the intellectual and scientific approach to Scripture. (p30)

Oh no, I think to myself --not that gorgon head of science vs. bible....

But, he continues --The claim that the meaning of Scripture is plain, of course, goes hand in hand with the North American distrust of all forms of authority. To make the Bible accessible to anyone is to declare that clergy status is secondary. The Bible becomes the possession not of the Church but now of the citizen, who has every right to determine its meaning. Ironically, by freeing the Bible from the Church and putting it in the possession of the individual conscience, the Bible becomes, in the process, the possession of nationalistic ideologies. (p31-32)

So --hmmmmmmm..... that line about making clergy status secondary leaped right off the page for me --because I do believe the church can sometimes be overly clerical, to the detriment of the people of God from which they were called....

But, given his line about science and the individual --what if science [substituting the word bible for science etc.] becomes not the possession of scientists, but of the citizen, who has every right to determine their own facts.... and you know --quite frankly, what comes to mind are those who reject the claims of scientists regarding global warming.... Or those who claim the bible as science and reject the idea that the earth could be more than 6,000 years old....

So, this is when where how Hauerwas puts the fundamentalist approach and biblical criticism on the same worthless coin --both separate the text as having independent meaning from the community of faith --and it can't. And, importantly --both fundamentalists and biblical critics "fail to acknowledge the political character of their account of the Bible, and they fail to do so for very similar reasons. They want to disguise how their "interpretations" underwrite the privileges of the constituency that they serve. (p35)

Ahhhhh --the truly gorgon head --bible > church > POLITICS!

Hauerwas states: The biblical critic and fundamentalist of course simply serve different constituencies within the North American polity. The fundamentalist serves the lower and middle class; the biblical critic feeds on the semiliterate class associated with the university. Both wish to make Christianity available to the person of common sense without moral transformation.

Frankly --while I think Hauerwas is quite wrong in assuming that fundamentalism is restricted to the lower and middle class (is he talking economics? political access? what?!) I think he is spot on in claiming that both want to make Christian scripture and hence Christianity available without moral transformation....

I think it is the most exciting thing in the era in which we live --that Christianity is losing its place as a state sponsored assumption of a presumed world view --that Christianity is losing it's place as the religion of the masses.

When we read scripture, together, we must be willing to be changed, and to give up our moral assumptions.... about anything and everything. We must be willing to hear Jesus when he says that we must hate father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, yes, and even life itself and explore what that really means in a life of faith.... in light of the example of the life of Jesus. (Luke 14:25)

Before he begins preaching at us, Hauerwas quotes Athanasius and says any attempt to make Scripture intelligible in and of itself can only be seen as an attempt to protect ourselves from the challenge of having our lives changed. (p38)

Right. On.

However, I do not stand with Hauerwas and say that fundamentalism and biblical criticism are two peas in the same pod... I see fundamentalism as an exercise in authoritarianism gone awry --a defined answer for every question. I see biblical criticism as a means to open the text to experience and exploration.... a deepening awareness of the text so that it may be writ large in our lives.

I do like Hauerwas's push to put scripture in the hands of the church and in lived experience. I do like the reckoning that scripture is political. I do agree whole-heartily that when we gather and read scripture, we must be willing to be changed.

But as one who has lived and spoken from the fringe more than once --I tremble with his easy go at authority... I have found too many default positions for the exercise and acceptance of authority.... and, yes, we do live in a day and an age and a place where authority is and should be constantly questioned.

Yes?

So --in reading this little book, I have been changed --new sources and ideas for approaching scripture have been introduced in to my toolbox --and I stand transfixed in a crossroads between understanding authority as an exercise between autonomy and discipleship, between individual and the economy of community, and being changed as a Christian while trying to muddle along in an economy based in capitalism rather than the common good and knowing wholeheartedly that my politics are indeed formed by my Christian faith. Somewhere between single-handed authority and majority rule is the ideal of Christian discernment and community....

And you?