Bible Reading: Exercise or Encounter?

The discussion on Bible reading continues at Christians in Context. A reader shares that he thinks of Bible reading in terms of exercise, particularly jogging. His point, I think, is that Bible reading may involve delayed satisfaction, but it's genuine satisfaction, nonetheless.

Totally valid. I was struck, though by the reader's metaphor of jogging, since it's it’s essentially a solitary activity.

I’m not faulting the reader, since most of us feel the same way about reading the Bible, but maybe it’s problematic that we often think of Bible reading as a solitary activity.

I’m reminded of Andrew’s earlier comments about prevailing acquisitive, consumerist attitudes. It’s not only that we want instant gratification, it’s also that we approach the Bible as yet another source of information for our consumption, like Wikipedia or US Magazine.

It would be better, I think, if our metaphors for reading were more relational. For example, maybe Bible reading should be more akin to catching up with one’s spouse after work, rather than jogging.

We can’t change metaphors or thinking patterns by fiat. Our attitudes need to change for our metaphors to change. But I think attempts to rethink Bible reading in relation terms, as an “encounter” rather than an “activity” or “exercise”, would be fruitful.

Reading vs. Hearing

Andrew Faris has a great post about the aridity he feels in reading the Bible:

... most times I don't feel anything when I read my Bible. Nothing seems to change. I still fight my same old battles with lust, pride, selfishness, a foul mouth, and so on. "This is the Word of God," I tell myself, "so why don't I notice it doing its work in my life?" Why doesn't anything really happen when I read my Bible?

Honest stuff. Andrew goes on to consider the social pressures that shape our expectations, and briefly mentions the value of reading with 'godly' friends.

I think there's a lot to be said for and about reading the Bible with friends.

One of the curious scenes in Augustine's Confessions involves Ambrose reading in silence; Augustine mentions that he'd never seen that before. You and I, of course, wouldn't think anything of it, but in the 4th century, silent reading was a big deal. Books were ordinarily read aloud, often by servants.

I think listening to somebody else read a book can help preserve the 'otherness' of a text.

"And how can they hear without someone preaching to them?" Can't "they" just read it for themselves? Apparently, not.

For those of us firmly in the digital age, I think small, online Bible-study groups can play a similar role in simulating the preaching-hearing experience Paul describes above in passage from Romans 10.

It's not just that reading with other people increases our chances of discovering a new idea; I really think it alters our overall experience of texts, preserving their 'otherness', readying them to be encountered -- to be 'heard'.

Self-Consciousness and the 'Liturgical Turn'

Over at the church and postmodern culture, Eric Speece asked me to elaborate on what I meant by the ‘self-consciousness’ engendered by attempts to introduce liturgy:

I'll give an example. I grew up in a thoroughly Catholic milieu. My week was built around mass, as were important milestones in the lives of family and friends (baptisms, weddings, funerals, etc.).

For me, one of the great things about formal Catholic liturgy was that it functioned much like etiquette – once you’ve internalized the rules, you’re able to interact with others (whether it’s your mother-in-law or God) without thinking too hard about it. You’re able to focus on the persons at hand, without dwelling on details, e.g., correctly identifying the salad fork, or knowing when to kneel. Also, the “rules” were pretty universal, whether in Boston or Chicago or Rome. That’s a powerful experience of catholicity.

When I’ve visited churches that experiment with liturgy (Catholic and Protestant), I find myself acutely self-conscious, the way a working-class kid might feel if he were thrown into a black-tie affair. Some of these churches clearly operate according to “house-rules”, where everybody but outsiders knows what’s going on. Others, however, are so experimental that the congregation doesn’t even know what to do but watch the liturgical “performance”.

Prolepsis: 'Once and Future' Events

This is how Robert Jenson characterizes Pannenberg’s use of prolepsis:

A prolepsis … is simply a claim staked out in history, which, when and if history is fulfilled, will be verified or falsified, and which is of such a nature that those who in the meantime have accepted it will all along have been living appropriately to the truth that will at the end be discovered.

What’s missing? I think Jenson is calling our attention to the properly dynamic character of proleptic events. They don’t stand alone like milestones along a road. Proleptic events are the future, even as they’re creating that very future.

Rosa Park’s famous bus ride is a helpful example. By sitting in the front of the bus, Parks was a living image of the very future that she was creating. (It’s also illuminating to consider similar proleptic events, like the Stonewall riots.)

Theologically, this suggests that we shouldn’t see proleptic events as simply snapshots of life at the Eschaton. They're at work historically, as well as post-historically. We need to be attuned to how those events -- right now -- might be creating the future.

Is the Resurrection at work in biotechnology? Is the New Testament's anti-temple rhetoric at work in Web-based virtual communities?

These are some very exciting lines of thought!

Liturgy and Community

As a former Catholic, with a theological aversion to liturgy, I’ve found my journey into Protestantism complicated by the ‘liturgical turn’. It seems like every serious Protestant church, at least in the Boston area, has lost anything resembling a ‘low church’ mentality.

For different (but related) reasons, then, I was pleased to read Eric Speece’s recent post on the ‘liturgical turn’ as an opportunity to rethink ‘the theory and practice of Christian worship’, which Eric promises to do in subsequent posts. I look forward to the discussion.

Some quick thoughts on liturgy and community.

I've found that the liturgical turn isn't so much a product of a renewed sense of community, as it is an attempt to create that sense of community in the first place. There's a difference.

Sociologically, I'm skeptical about introducing liturgical elements because, in my experience, liturgy works precisely because there's no choice about it, much like growing up with a native tongue. The lack of consciousness is what creates a strong sense of community within the group.

Self-made liturgies always seem futile to me; rather than community, they usually engender an acute sense of self-consciousness.

Theologically, I question the value of trying to create a sense of community within a church, apart from small groups prayerfully discussing the Bible. I don't say that as a fundamentalist; I'm inspired in this by Kanzo Uchimura and his Non-Church movement.

I agree (philosophically and theologically) that we receive our subjectivity from and that we're defined by others. For those reasons, I can't think of a better way for Christians to encounter God together than wrestling with the Scriptures.

In reading the Scriptures with other believers, we're compelled to grapple with first-hand testimonies to the facts of revelation, as well as with the present-day testimonies of Spirit-filled friends. You may not feel like you're sitting in Fenway Park when the Sox are playing the Yankees, but the sense of community is real.

Our model for creating community should be more like an Oprah book group and less like Red Sox Nation.