A Vote for Conversation
(originally published as a Scholarly Musing Constant Contact email for NBSI)
Being a lover of etymology, I found myself having a major “aha!” moment on a recent trip to Greece. Since ancient Greece is the birthplace of so many of our modern sensibilities, it’s a great place for these types of epiphanies. While on the bus traveling from Corinth back to Athens, our local tour guide, Maria, asked me, “What does ‘democracy’ actually mean?” I gave her the textbook answer of “government by the people.” “Well, yes,” she replied, “but what does that really mean?” Sensing that I was not going to give her the answer she was looking for, I shrugged my shoulders.
“Democracy really just means discussion, a conversation, among a variety of voices. Those voices won’t always agree, of course, so then the need to negotiate and compromise comes into play, allowing the ongoing conversation to ultimately end up with conclusions and decisions that best serve the greatest number of people.”
Hm …
Maria continued by saying that the desire to have as wide a representation of voices as possible [albeit only free, land-owning males!] was really important. But it wasn’t always convenient or financially feasible for certain men to drop everything (i.e. their livelihood) to meet with the other representatives for these conversations. So, the government gave these people money to hire others to do their work while they were gone. That’s how essential their voices were to the integrity of the process.
Hm …
Then came the aha. “Some people weren’t interested in doing their part for the good of the whole. They were only concerned with looking out for ‘number one’ and their own private affairs. They expected everyone else to do the same, fending for themselves. Basically, they were self-serving, and their decision to refuse to participate in the governance of the city-state, to participate in the conversation of democracy itself, was considered shameful. We called those people idiotes.”
Wow … the origin of the word “idiot” wasn’t so much about being stupid (i.e. having a lack of knowledge) but about “stupidly” thinking that, at least in terms of governance, individuals were greater than the whole, that the needs/desires of a few were more important than those of the many, that narcissism trumped teamwork.
Hm …
But let’s get back to the idea of conversation/discussion and the role it can play. Years ago, I attended the wedding of a good friend and the only part of the homily I remember (actually, it’s one of the few things I remember from any homily/sermon I’ve heard!) is how this newly-married couple was now beginning a life-long conversation with each other. I loved that metaphor! That one word—conversation—implied give and take, equal footing, actually hearing each other, even a level of intimacy, all important characteristics of a healthy relationship.
Those same characteristics are also at the heart of what I’ve always appreciated most about the Methodist church, a denomination whose origin story (among other things, like the Wesley Quadrilateral, which I’ll get to in a minute) is rooted in small, intimate accountability groups called Classes and Bands. The first question asked of everyone at each weekly gathering was, “How goes it with your soul?” What a great conversation starter! While there were certainly rules and a hierarchy outside of these groups, within each cluster the reality was more one of egalitarian care and concern grounded in relationships fostered by true conversation. Beautiful.
A lot has changed in the ensuing two+ centuries. Last year at the quadrennial meeting of the global United Methodist Church — General Conference — realizing that the vote to allow the ordination and marriage of homosexuals was most likely to once again not pass, a resolution was proposed to sit down in small groups of mixed (pro and con) company and just have a conversation about these issues with each other before voting. The idea was to try to better understand why someone who thought differently than you did about these matters might be as passionate in their souls about their stance as you were in yours. Perhaps the resulting conversations could lead to deeper connections and unity, maybe even the repairing or at least improving of souls. Beautiful.
That resolution, to simply have a conversation (which in my mind anyway seemed very true to our Wesleyan roots) was voted down. The gathered assembly didn’t see the benefit of having a conversation with differing points of view that, yes, might require negotiation and compromise but might also lead to a decision that was best for the greatest number of people. I was dumbstruck … and deeply saddened. So I made the painful decision to leave the United Methodist Church. Not only did I not recognize the denomination anymore, but that decision to prevent the fostering of relationship through conversation smacked too much of idiocy to me, and I could no longer in good conscience align myself with the denomination as a member.
And speaking of denominations … here we are at the 500th anniversary of the Protestant Reformation. A lot could, and has, been said about this milestone, both in celebration for what it spawned as well as lamentation for what it also spawned. As a biblical storyteller, I think one of the biggest downsides of the Reformation is the way it killed biblical narrative and, as a result, conversation. Because the Reformation occurred roughly the same time as the development of the printing press, the DNA of Protestantism is rooted in the “experience” of the Bible being that of a book comprised of silent words printed in ink on pages of dead trees. And because the Enlightenment and Age of Reason, where the study of empirical data and provable scientific facts rose in dominance at approximately the same time as well, the experience of the Bible also transitioned into one of dissecting its various parts (much easier to do with a rising literate and educated class now able to study their own copy of the Bible in their own language) and often forgetting that those pieces were just that: pieces … pieces of a larger whole, a meta-narrative. (Remember the idiots of ancient Greece who failed to see the whole as greater than the sum of its parts?)
At its core, storytelling requires an audience because the audience co-creates the storytelling experience with the teller. It’s a communal effort, a conversation of sorts, with the storytellers communicating something and the audience responding—sometimes verbally and sometimes nonverbally—with the goal that good storytellers will themselves respond by adapting how they continue to communicate (and so on and so on) ultimately creating an experience that makes the most sense for that particular audience. Then, in an ideal situation, there’s opportunity for actual discussion and conversation afterward (like the talk-backs after the Epic Telling each year at the Festival Gathering) where people can not only ask questions but also share how the narrative experience resonated with them and hear how it resonated differently with others. Beautiful.
While some of that may have occurred in certain religious situations over the past 500 years, the predominant modus operandi, particularly in many Protestant circles, was to study the Bible in pieces and then use those pieces to establish and prove theological doctrine and dogma … and then to beat people over the head with it! There often wasn’t much (or any) conversation, especially in terms of the experience of the story and how it resonated with individuals. Experience is key to storytelling, and biblical storytelling in particular since these stories aren’t shared simply as entertainment but as foundational for how we live our lives and how we understand those lived lives in relationship to God and others.
But with printed Bibles, and the advent of seminaries to study the various components of the Bible, there also came the doctrine of sola scriptura, giving the Bible sole authority in matters of faith and the Church. Well whenever anyone, or anything, has sole authority, it’s not likely that much conversation will take place! (Another appreciation I’ve always had for the Methodist denomination is its quadrilateral approach to faith’s and practice’s authority: scripture, reason, tradition, and experience! Potentially much more conducive to conversation.)
For years, I worshiped in a sanctuary where the pulpit was front and center, over and above an altar that was built into the wall (so was not functional for a communion encounter that allowed the pastor to face the congregation). What message does that send as to what’s most important, or carries more “authority”? Certainly not communion (a word that shares a root with words like “common,” “communal,” and “community” … concepts that, at their core, are inseparable from the ideals of democracy I mentioned above). No, it’s the “printed” word that comes down, with authority you don’t question, from “on high” … literally (even in sanctuaries where the pulpit isn’t in the center of the chancel, it’s usually raised and often even higher than the lectern, which is interesting because that actually gives greater authority to the interpretation of the Bible than to the Bible itself, since scripture reading usually comes from the lecturn). When the source of sole religious authority is a book, or interpretation of a book, understood by its pieces rather than its whole, then some misinterpretation is bound to occur.
Hans Frei refers to this unfortunate turn of events by the title of his book The Eclipse of Biblical Narrative. Let me illustrate with a story (natch!). I’ve got a picture of my mom and dad with their first three grandchildren, one of whom is screaming bloody murder, another of whom is picking her nose, and the third one simply looking distracted with his gaze averted. Meanwhile, Grandma and Grandpa are posing with smiles for the camera, seeming oblivious to the issues of their various grandchildren and, as a result, disconnected (i.e. not in relationship) from them. What does that one snapshot tell you about my family? Not a damn thing! What “authority” does it wield to speak for who my family is? Not much. It was literally a freeze frame of a split-second in time where three children, who hadn’t yet learned the “proper” etiquette for getting their picture taken, weren’t at their best and two adults who, for that moment only, did enact the “proper” etiquette (but who immediately after the camera shutter snapped attended to the kids—but you have no way of knowing that from this one photo, of course). That one picture, viewed as an authoritative voice for my family, would have actually eclipsed the actual, fuller, more accurate narrative of my family.
What’s my point? That a dissected, piecemeal approach to the various “snapshots” the Bible provides us isn’t all that different of a scenario. If you looked at ALL the pictures ever taken of my family (a “library” of photos, say, or a “bible”), you might notice some patterns. For instance, it turns out that the grandchild who seemed distracted actually has Aspergers so it was common for him to avert his gaze and look distracted in pictures. Therefore, dissecting why he might have been doing that in the one picture could have resulted in a conclusion that he had some form of autism, and that would have been correct. But I’m not aware that any other picture was ever taken of the nose picker “in action” and it certainly doesn’t represent anything significant or telling about her as a person (in fact, she’d probably be mortified if she even knew I was writing about it!).
The problem is that too often the Bible hasn’t been looked at or understood as a long extended story, one that can’t fully (or accurately!) be comprehended from tiny pieces alone. And when those portions have been pulled out of context and given sole authority and preached or taught with no chance for conversation or various voices weighing in, resulting in a “the parts are greater than the whole” mentality, dangerous — and ungodly — things can, and have, happened.
Clearly, I’ve painted with very broad strokes here. There are many exceptions to what I’ve said, of course. And … there’s a reason that our founder, Tom Boomershine, wasn’t taken seriously in academic circles for decades and why there are still many in biblical scholarship circles, as well as average laity in the pews, who don’t see the benefit of a narrative approach to the Bible where an experiential, democratic conversation can occur as to its meaning. Maybe they’ve never been taught anything different so don’t know that there’s another way. But it still smacks of idiocy to me.
Thankfully, being 500 years after the Reformation means that the Church once again finds itself in a “rummage sale,” as Phyllis Tickle mentioned in her 2012 FG keynotes. Christianity is experiencing another reformation of sorts, one with an unclear outcome at this time. It’s exciting … and scary and confusing and frustrating and liberating and …. Often during chaotic times, human nature (and organizations made up of humans) tends to circle the wagons for comfort in supposed safety. But that brand of “safety” usually means a kind of navel gazing that not only doesn’t promote engagement with other voices, but actively discourages it. “Who needs conversations with a representation of varied voices working toward a common good when I (and my very small circle) can take care of ourselves without help from anyone, thank you very much!”
Well, yeah … you could choose that route. But you’d be an idiote.
I’d rather we cast a vote for conversation.