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Primitive Christianity Revived, Again
Bible Revisited...
We've had some talk recently about distinctively "Quaker" ways of interpreting the Bible.
So far as I understand it, this suggests the following model of the situation: 1) Early Friends were inspired by the Spirit to read the Christian Bible as a source of insights for furthering their quests to find and keep personal salvation. Among the doctrines they found it supporting was this: that the natural condition and faculties of human beings were innately corrupt -- a state of affairs which could only be remedied by Christ -- conceived-of as being entirely outside and alien-to their personal minds and inclinations.
People who favor this view naturally feel that 1) Early Friends must have been right in their approach to Biblical interpretation and 2) their model of human nature must therefore be correct.
I say instead that early Friends' interpretations of the Bible were appropriate to their time and place, an advance on how most people had understood it previously -- but that the associated view of the Divine/human connection is a half-truth at best: a view that describes much human conduct all too well, but is wrong about people's actual spritual configuration.
The fact that most of humanity has not spontaneously embraced Quakerism, and the fact that many of our traditions have been (apparently) languishing even among ourselves (if we're willing to include all of us as being (somehow) "real" Quakers) -- These things suggest that either:
a) Human beings are very, very corrupt, or
b) We really haven't gotten it right yet!
Assuming the Bible's description of the world as God's Creation -- and the Bible itself as an element of that Creation, intended for our good, then
How else might we be reading the Bible? What else is in there for us?
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Keith Saylor on
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Hello David,
Just so I am certain. I believe I understand what you mean. What is the "this" we all do?
You wrote:
Of course we all do this to a certain extent.
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Permalink Reply by David McKay on
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For the longest time Western philosophy and consequently Western culture has assumed that language was primarily about talking about things and consequently truth was about "correspondence". In other words language referred to things. When language referred to things that did not exist we had problems. These problems generally speaking getting labelled "fiction" or "myth" or just plain "lies".
Language actually performs a much broader set of functions than simply referring to things that are real. It has a social and anthropological function. Consequently when we become participants in certain groups or activities over the longer term we tend to appropriate the ways of speaking of those groups. For example, there are ways of speaking that are unique to Quakers in general or even specific Quaker meetings in particular. Tax accountants when they get together to discuss taxation issues have developed ways of referring to things that would be largely meaningless outside of their particular set of concerns.
What the discussion about "anti-language" relates to is how groups that feel pressured by the larger society to conform often develop ways of speaking that reinforce the boundaries between them and the wider culture as a way of insuring survival of the group but also conformity within the group.
A trivial example of this might be how I use the word "construe" an unusually large number of times in an academic paper I once wrote. I had picked up in my reading of a particular author his pointed and in some ways idiosyncratic use of that term and worked it into my discourse. We see this more generally in the way youth culture often generates new words or takes old words and adds meaning to them.
The commentary that I recommended to Forrest is a commentary on the Gospel of John. The book notes this phenomena within the Gospel. There are these expressions which crop up periodically which from a strictly logical — language as pure communication — standpoint seem guilty of circular reference. The language play in the Gospel, for example the discourse between Jesus and Nicodemus, in at least one sense is a conversation about the boundaries of their two social groups. Nicodemus, like any good academic today, is asking: help me to understand so I can believe. And Jesus is pretty much responding as and some would centuries later, but you need to believe in order to understand.
That these kinds of odd uses of language occur is intrinsic to the very possibility of human communication and relationship. But they can get us into trouble.
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Thank you, David. When you say these odd uses of language can get us into trouble, are you suggesting the problem is a lack of communication and possible resulting conflict?
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Lack of communication. Lack of connection.
If I'm so busy trying to build solidarity with "my people" by strengthening the boundaries between you and me, then I start to define myself by the ways I'm not you. That makes relationship-building difficult.
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So are you further suggesting that defining myself by the ways of others makes relationship-building easy?
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Permalink Reply by Howard Brod on
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David,
This point about "anti-language" is one reason many in my liberal Quaker meeting are attempting to discontinue using the "anti-language" established by Quakers long ago. Once it outlived its usefulness, Quakers have been reluctant to join the rest of the human family in linguistic terminology (at least within our own Quaker associations). It has slowly undergone slow abandonment over the decades and centuries, but many liberal Friends are now attempting to purposely use more common terminology in writing and speaking - even with our own minutes and communications inside the meeting community.
In doing this, we have found that more new ones are willing to check us out - resulting in them listening to our spiritual message (which is full of Light) instead of our peculiar terminology (which is often a first-impression turn-off).
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Permalink Reply by Forrest Curo on
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That 'us vs them' flavor of antilanguage in 'John' would naturally work to make anyone who doesn't feel included in it edgy...
It isn't that more secular subgroups of Friends don't have shibboleths of their own, just that they take these for granted and therefore don't realize that they're pushing anybody out.
So, how much of the alienation between 'Christian' and 'other' Friends is based on real differences in outlook, how much on how their beliefs have been packaged? I'm sure there are real, significant differences -- but these aren't quite what people tend to think they are.
(?)
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Permalink Reply by William F Rushby on
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Hello, Howard! I think you are on the right track! Using unnecessarily obscure language, especially in attempts to communicate with newcomers, doesn't make sense to me. At best, it highlights the unimportant. At worst, it creates an aura of cultishness.
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So true Bill!
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I would not be comfortable if you leapt to that particular conclusion.
Keith Saylor said:So are you further suggesting that defining myself by the ways of others makes relationship-building easy?
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David, thank you. So, when you write:
If I'm so busy trying to build solidarity with "my people" by strengthening the boundaries between you and me, then I start to define myself by the ways I'm not you. That makes relationship-building difficult.
Are you suggesting that distinguishing one's experience from others makes relationship-building difficult? For example, when I write that the conscious and conscience of many of us is not formed and informed by outward language, sensual objects, and ideological constructs, are you suggesting that doing so makes relationship-building difficult? I am specifically asking you these question so as to not jump to conclusions.
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I can't speak for David.
It seems to me, though, that seeking a better way to put something -- than whichever way seemed utterly perfect to me at first -- usually improves relations. Doing that reminds me to invite God to help translate, & thereby makes disagreements less disagreeable for everyone than they often used to be.
Private languages can convey intellectual content much more precisely... but such precision doesn't seem to deliver that content _to_ anyone else.
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