Recovery and Adaptation.

When I lived in Boston I noticed a lot of energy in the classical music community around early music.  They even had what was practically a fad about reproducing the music of those times as faithfully as possible, right down to using antique instruments.  Presumably they also implemented well-researched tempi, tunings, ensemble sizes, and venues.  They sought to present early music “authentically,” so that the listener would hear in 1984 exactly what one would have heard in 1684.

But then one critic made what I thought was a dazzling and cogent observation about this, noting that in reality this whole movement did not actually reproduce the music of earlier centuries so much as present us with a different kind of contemporary music.  This was not really a look “back” at all; it was a statement about, and a response to, our situation at the end of the 20th century.   A lot of what we heard was good, beautiful, and interesting music… but in the end it was a genre of new music.

That comment was a revelation to me.  First of all, it exemplified a critical post-modern sensibility, that recognized the socially and historically conditioned nature of everything.  There is no uninterpreted experience.  We simply do not have direct access to the past; everything is filtered through our present consciousness and situation.  Secondly, it compelled me to rethink a lot of what was going on in my own field, that of Christian faith.

The Reformation of the 16th century thought of itself as a recovery of the faith of the early church.  It was all about getting back to the Church of the Apostles.  In reality it was an adaptation of Christianity suited to the needs and desires of some people of that time.  People found what they needed and wanted to find, using criteria designed for the task.  A “traditional” Protestant worship service reproduces the forms of the 16th century, not of the 1st.  

The Church has gone through many versions of this.  In the last few decades we had the drive to recover the “Celtic Christianity” of the 5th-12th centuries, which has excited me.  And there are the “quests for the historical Jesus,” which have erupted periodically in the last few centuries.  

All these movements say they want to recover and restore something beautiful and good that has been lost; but all of them are responses to contemporary conditions.  They produce not some connective passage to the past, but new forms of Christianity designed to meet the needs/desires of people today.  They are no more “authentic” than Colonial Williamsburg is an actual reproduction of 18th century Virginia.  At best such efforts are sincere and educational.  At worst, they are about selling books and merchandise, adaptations designed to appeal to the 21st century market.

For there is no going back.  There is no recovery or restoration of something that is past.  And we now know that to make such a claim is a lie.  I’m not saying don’t listen to voices from other eras, far from it.  We need to be informed by a deep historical sensibility.  Let’s just be honest that all recoveries, reforms, and restorations are actually adaptations.  In short, we don't have the past event; all we have is tradition, which is the ongoing history of adaptation.

Those adaptations can be very valuable, faithful, and powerful!  They can provide a lot of useful and beautiful practices to the Church today.  The study of Celtic Christianity, for example, has produced amazing resources in terms of books and music, prayers, liturgies, and missional strategies.  It has opened us to nearly forgotten theologians like Pelagius and Eriugena, and drawn connections with more recent figures like George MacDonald and Teilhard de Chardin.  It has shown us different ways of doing theology and organizing the Church.  For me, it even gives a certain legitimacy to new practices if it can be shown they were used effectively by saints in the past.

Which leads me to the opposite observation that some adaptations can be destructive and actually undermine authentic Christianity.  This is where I place the various quests for the “historical Jesus.”  It is one thing to be informed by movements and theologies of the early Church.  It is another to eviscerate the heart of the New Testament itself and gouge out of the text words Jesus, according to someone’s arbitrary criteria, “did not really say.” 

How do we make this determination, that some expressions are in tune with the gospel of Jesus, and some are contradictions of that gospel?  It is not, as Modernity wanted to say, by using historical science to identify what is “oldest.”  That would be to begin with the assumption that faith is about the past.  “God is not the God of the dead but of the living, for all live to God” (Luke 20:38), says Jesus. 

(Neither is it the uncritical reception and adoption of whatever is handed to us by the previous generation.  This conservative approach assumes an unadulterated process of transmission over the centuries.  But we know that contexts are always changing, and tradition is about continuity realized in adaptivity and adaptation.)  

The answer here is Presence.  Authenticity does not mean faithfulness to the past no matter how we represent it or claim access to it; it means faithfulness to God’s living Presence here and now.  

In his ministry, the Lord Jesus Christ does not seek to recover and restore the Israelite faith of the past; he comes to fulfill it.  He realizes it in himself and becomes the Way for us to experience and know the ever-present, living Spirit that animates the tradition of his own people, and indeed all of human spirituality.  Authenticity has to do with the Spirit.  The Spirit is always present.  The Spirit is always all-inclusive and non-dual.  The Spirit is always revealing fulfilled time, thus giving meaning and direction to our journey through time.  

The question of authenticity then is not about what is older.  It is about what is real.  Thus it always brings us up to “Jesus Christ, as he is attested for us in Holy Scripture,” who “is the One Word of God which we have to hear and which we are to trust and obey in life and in death.”  Authenticity has to do with what is in accordance with Christ, as discerned by the gospel community that lives in trust and obedience of him.       

Voting With Jesus.

I saw on Facebook someone purporting to be a Christian saying she would vote this year based on candidates’ policies (as opposed to personality and character, I suppose, or political expediency).  Specifically, she said she would vote for candidates that advocated for low taxes, less regulation, a stronger military, freedom of religion, and support for Israel, and against abortion, “open borders,” and a “Living Constitution.”

It seems to me that the criteria for determining the “Christian" character of public policy have to be the life and teachings of Jesus Christ, as we have them in the New Testament.  How do this person’s views on policies stack up with what Jesus himself actually says and does?  Let’s see.

1. Taxes.  The Lord expresses frustration over the crushing tax burden laid in his time on poor people and workers.  They were financing not only their own oppression by the Romans, but the expensive lifestyle and monumental projects of local leaders.  But Jesus also proclaims “the acceptable year of the Lord,” a reference to the Jubilee laid out in Leviticus 25, which is about a radical downward redistribution of wealth.  His attitude towards the rich is consistently and highly critical.  He lives according to the motto that everything belongs to God (Psalm 24:1).  Can we infer from all this that Jesus would have accepted higher taxes on the wealthy if it meant more aid for the needy?  That would be completely within character for him.     
2. Regulation.  In our time, people complain about regulation because they favor letting the market do as it pleases.  But when Jesus is advised to rely on the market to feed over 5000 hungry people, he rejects that option.  When the establishment turned the holy Temple into a marketplace, he is incensed.  Jesus understands that markets are modes of economic oppression and inequality because they inherently privilege the rich.  His ministry, on the contrary, indicates a preference for policies that create wholeness and equality.  He also sees God’s creation as a theater of God’s glory, full of living signs of God’s Presence.  He does not tolerate the kind of depredations wrought by an economic system based on greed and inequality.  Would he advocate for regulation?  Much of the Torah is a regulatory regime designed to prevent the Israelites from falling into an authoritarian, oligarchical polity like they one of which they experienced the business end in Egypt as slaves.  Jesus would have people’s behavior regulated by God’s Word and will.  He would curb the capricious liberties taken by the powerful against the weak.  If regulation means protecting workers, the poor, women, strangers, and creation, Jesus is all for it.      
3. A stronger military.  The Lord Jesus rejects the kind of coercive State power exerted by the military when the devil offered it to him.  He and his people knew the military mainly as its victims.  In his Sermon on the Mount he gives advice about how to deal with oppressive occupation soldiers.  It was Jewish Temple police who arrested him, and Roman militarized police who killed him.  Bearing in mind that the U.S. military is by far the strongest in history, with spending far, far greater than any other nation, more indeed than the next 10 or so combined, it is frankly and obviously impossible to imagine Jesus advocating for an even stronger U.S. military.
4. Freedom of religion.  Jesus lived in a context where Judaism was the official religion of his country and non-Jews were looked down on.  At the same time, the Roman Empire recognized a wide variety of religions, as long as they all worshiped the Emperor.  Jesus makes a point of ministering to and lifting up Samaritans, who were considered heretics.  He also heals several non-Jews.  He complains, sometimes bitterly, about religious rules being given the force of civil law; so he would certainly not have wanted his teachings enforced that way.  Jesus would have no part of any supposed “freedom” of some to impose their religion on others.  Would the One who heals all use his religion to deny health care (or even a cake) to someone?  Hardly.  
5. Support for Israel.  Jesus endures a situation of colonialism, ministering to its victims.  He certainly does not advocate violence in any case.  But it is far easier to see Jesus sympathizing and siding with indigenous people like the Palestinians than with the settlers and soldiers who are using violence to take away their land and lives.  It was Jesus’ opponents who were so apoplectic about preserving the Jewish State of his own time.  They saw him undermining their nation and religion.  It’s why they killed him.  So, no, I don’t see Jesus supporting any regime oppressing its neighbors.  And he, like the prophets, would be particularly critical if Jews, who supposedly know better because they have the words of the Torah and prophets, fall into these behaviors. It is impossible to believe he would have supported a colonialist, oppressive State, even (or especially) were it technically “Jewish” in character.
6. Abortion.  Jesus says exactly nothing about abortion.  It is safe to assume he would have been against it as an act of violence.  However, he also receives women as equals and empathizes with and heals their pain.  Since he doesn’t generally advocate inflicting coercive, heartless, and punitive laws on suffering people, it is hard to believe he would call for criminalization here.  Jewish belief is that human life begins with breath.  As with everything, the Lord is about humility, forgiveness, gentleness, wisdom, compassion, and life.
7. Open borders.  Jesus does not advocate for stronger national borders, or borders at all.  He himself wanders across local borders all the time.  He lived in the larger context of the Roman Empire, of course.  Implied by the fear of “open borders” is a racist hatred of “illegal” foreigners and immigrants.  Yet Jesus’ birth is welcomed by an entourage of enemy, “heathen,” foreigners.  And he understands the demands of Scripture that strangers be welcomed and cared for.  So it is hard not to believe that open borders would be fine with him.  
8. A “Living Constitution”.  The closest thing to the Constitution that Jesus knows is the Torah which guides Jewish life.  Neither he nor the early Church understand the Torah in a rigid, legalistic, literal way.  Indeed, his enemies thought he was dangerously lax in his Torah observance.  He repeatedly says in his Sermon on the Mount that his teaching overrides the literal sense of the Torah.  In reality, he makes the Torah more strict and more spiritual at the same time.  This is how he enacts a “living Torah.”  He wants Torah observance to express its Spirit, which is deeper than its mere letter.  Translating this to how we approach the U.S. Constitution is a stretch.  On the one hand, we have always talked about equality, liberty, and community as the spirit of the Constitution.  It our best, we have seen these characteristics emerge in our polity in broadening and creative ways.  On the other hand, it could be argued that the document was carefully designed to privilege white, male property owners and weights the system in favor of them and the States that practiced slavery.  So-called “originalist” interpretations of the Constitution focus on the letter of the law, which continues the implementation of these dictates, which frankly contradict the accepted spirit of the document.  Jesus most certainly does not approve of a polity that privileges people with money and power, which is what Constitutional originalism does.  If a “Living Constitution” approach is about applying the deeper spirit of the Constitution to contemporary issues and problems, then it is hard to see Jesus having a problem with it.

We may vote according to our consciences.  But we should be very careful about calling our advocacy of certain policies “Christian.”  Only Jesus gets to determine that.  And Jesus doesn’t necessarily see things the way we do.

It seems obvious, but I think Christians should base their political and economic views on the life and teachings of Jesus.

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Originalism.

As I write this, the Judiciary Committee of the U.S. Senate is examining a nominee to the Supreme Court.  She is known to hold to the legal philosophy called “originalism.” Briefly put, this approach interprets the Constitution based on the original meaning intended by the authors.

We don’t call it by this name, but a kind of originalism is an important aspect of biblical interpretation as well.  We too seek to understand and apply, as far as we are able, the original intention and meaning of the authors of the Bible.  This is important in biblical studies because the authors are the prophets and saints who founded and defined the Hebrew and Christian traditions.  They have authority based on their sanctity, their unique witness to God’s work, and the acceptance of their writings by the Church over time.  With regard to the New Testament, they come from the first or second generation of people who knew Jesus of Nazareth, directly or indirectly.  Through them and their writings we see the revelation of God, which is to say ultimate Truth, Goodness, and Beauty.

While we recognize that the authors of biblical texts were human and therefore historically conditioned, what they witness to, however imperfectly, is the emergence of the Eternal in our world.  So there is a sense in which a kind of  originalism has to be a central component of any interpretation of the Bible.  But it can’t be the end, as if articulating what the authors may have meant in their own time is all we have to say.  Interpretation necessarily includes the further step of applying what we have learned to our own lives and situation.  The Bible, because it is the unique and authoritative witness to God’s Word, is indeed a living text, not a dead letter.  God is life. 

But the U.S. Constitution is different.  The framers of that document were not concerned with or relying on divine revelation.  They hammered out the Constitution by means of compromise, power, personality, and political necessity and expediency.  They were not concerned with the communication of God’s will on God’s terms; they were forging a workable, sustainable State.  The Constitution was not intended as a witness to God’s saving work in the world.  Indeed, God does not come up at all.  Neither is Scripture referred to.  The framers wanted to create a political system that reflected the philosophies of the so-called Enlightenment.  These are what they themselves reference.  

In biblical interpretation, an originalist approach reminds us that the Bible was written by the descendants of liberated Israelite slaves explicitly to prevent any degradation back into a system like the one they escaped, which was dominated by Pharaoh and an oppressive ruling class.  The writers of the Bible are consistent in their lifting up of the poor and marginalized, and their political system is initially decentralized, egalitarian, and theocratic.  It is designed to mitigate and reduce the power of the strong and wealthy, even applying a periodic redistribution of wealth downward.  Biblical originalism means realizing that the text is a thorough critique and rejection of Empire.

Originalism in interpreting the U.S. Constitution, on the other hand, means attachment to the values and beliefs of a group of white, propertied, 18th century men, many of whom owned slaves.  In other words, it was heavily influenced by people who had more in common with Pharaoh than with the Israelites.  They showed scant interest in the concerns of the poor or marginalized, or of women, indigenous people, or slaves.  The fact that they designed a system which preserved the privilege and power of people like them should not be surprising.  In the ostensive interest of unity, they included features intended to skew legal and political processes in favor of States that allowed slavery.  It was biased toward white, male, property owners.  Indeed, in many States these were the only people allowed to vote.

So the first reason why Christians cannot abide constitutional originalism is that it intentionally privileges the perspective of the exact opposite class of people to those lifted up in the Bible, and expresses therefore the exact opposite policies and practices. 

Legal originalism is presented as an alternative against the understanding called the “Living Constitution.”  Indeed, Living Constitution theory holds that the meaning of the text shifts according to the contemporary interpretive context.    

In biblical interpretation, we do not believe we have to, or even can, choose only one of these two alternatives: faithfulness to the original authors or the view that the Bible is a living text.  Rather we understand both to be essential.  The original words, intentions, and contexts of the authors are important, and they pertain to every age.  This universal relevance is rooted in the subject matter of the Bible, which is God, who, as the Creator, Redeemer, and Sustainer of everything, is never irrelevant.  By the Spirit, God is always speaking in and through God’s Word and Spirit.  The word for this work of interaction and balance between original text and contemporary situation is hermeneutics.

The whole point of biblical interpretation is to see the continued life and relevance of the Bible in today’s world.  But the point of legal originalism is to impose on people today the vision, values, mentality, and habits of a few propertied white men from 1789.  This is a form of idolatry.  It leads to legal decisions that privilege property over people, and one class over others.      

Originalist legal philosophy therefore militates against the life and teachings of Jesus Christ which reveal a continual expansion of blessing and goodness to include more and more people in God’s family.      

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