The ‘blue parakeets’ of the title are those loud, squawking, irritating bits of scripture we prefer to gloss over or ignore – or, as McKnight puts it, tame and cage. They are the bits of scripture that don’t fit neatly into our own system, that challenge our preferred understanding and generally run the risk of putting holes in our favourite arguments.

The first half of the book sets out the various approaches typically taken by Bible readers and interpreters. It’s a necessarily condensed characterisation but the general thrust is that there are those (at least among those who still take scripture seriously) who stick with what the Bible says as valid for all time, those who read the Bible through the lens of their particular denominational or theological ‘creeds’ and those who seek to read scripture in a way that is sympathetic to their tradition but acknowledge the need for ‘contemporising’ their understanding. He offers further, narrower characterisations within, particularly, the first category – for example, those who read the Bible as a ‘rule book’ or those who see only a series of blessings or rewards.

It is into the last category (the contemporising one) I would place myself. And in particular, a preference for what might be described as a fairly post-modern approach. However, I don’t believe that that has to mean that the Bible can be interpreted in any way one chooses. I’ve written about this before and mentioned my appreciation for the literary approach of Stanley Fish and his ‘interpretive communities’. In essence, our interpretations of any literature will always be coloured and bounded by the community within which we find ourselves reading that work. In other words, our church upbringing is going to place the limits on our interpretation of the Bible – always allowing for a bit of pushing the boundaries of course.

Although McKnight doesn’t mention ‘interpretive communities’, that would be my understanding of what he is getting at. But the point McKnight makes takes it a stage further, into an area I hadn’t really appreciated but see as being a necessary and logical extension. Not only does our interpretive community provide the ‘boundary’ conditions, if we are honest in our intention of being part of that community, we must use that tradition actively in our engagement with scripture. But that active engagement is a two-way street. We must bring our faith tradition to bear on our Biblical interpretation, but also allow our reading of scripture to push the boundaries of that tradition. And the crucial thing is that that faith tradition is one which is also affected by and interacts with contemporary culture and society and cannot help but be shaped by it.

Sympathetic contemporising is done with regard to the faith tradition, but acknowledges its changing nature – changes that come about through its mission to remain relevant in a changing world. And the point that McKnight makes is that this ever-changing re-interpretation of God’s will is the story of the Bible. It is a book, or series of stories, which charts the continuing reinterpretation of God’s guidance and will in ever-changing circumstances. Of course there is the unchanging meta-narrative of creation, fall, exile, reconciliation but all else is contemporary re-interpretation.

The second half of the book uses the issue of women in ministry to show how some interpretations of scripture have failed to appreciate this changing interpretation and have made the Bible into a stagnant rule book. I won’t rehearse the arguments here, but I believe them to be fair.

But it leads me to the point I really wanted to make and the point which has struck me as I was reading the book.

If we accept that the Bible is the witness to a continuously-varying contextualisation and contemporising of God’s will (and I am persuaded that it is) then it places in interesting imperative on the church, its leadership and its theologians.

It seems to me that the purpose of the Bible then is not to be a source of blindly-applied rules, but rather a model for sacrilising the profane. In other words, in each and every age, we need to look at contemporary culture and work out where God is in that. The places we find God must then be celebrated, applauded and encouraged. And, of course, where we don’t find God, we seek to effect change.

But what are we looking for?

Once again I find myself in agreement with McKnight as he points out what God is ‘about’ – restoration to wholeness of individuals with themselves, with each other, with creation and, of course, with God.

And he makes one further challenging point – our model for wholeness is pre-fall (however we wish to read Genesis 1 & 2). Everything else up until Christ is a fallen model – so why are we using it? With Jesus, we are renewed, in a new community, enlivened and encouraged by the Spirit, who gifts us with discernment – discernment to see God at work in creation, in relationships, in communities. Again, why reduce that to following a set of rules from a fallen era?

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I think when we visit the story we focus so much on the ‘Christian’ aspects (because that is, rightly so, the important part for believers) that we forget there is a very human story there. Can we really expect Joseph to just accept, unquestioningly, what he has been told in a dream, regardless of how devout he may be? Putting the human face on the story makes it, I would suggest, even more ‘believable’.

Of course, that assumes the historicity of events in the first instance and I was interested to discover that one of my former lecturers at new College was an historical advisor to the programme. Dr Helen Bond writes about her take on the adaptation here. She makes the wise observation that the historical accuracy is, in a sense, a secondary consideration, because it is the story in all its dimensions – the theological, the historical, the human – that is important. To separate out the parts may make for a more acceptable story to the more ‘rational’- or ‘secularly’-minded, but it is only as a whole that it makes sense, because it is a story which must, by virtue of it being a story of faith, contain all of those elements.

The Nativity helps, I would suggest, give that nudge back towards remembering the human story behind it all.

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I recently wrote about the BBC programme, ‘A Church in Crisis?’. In that article I picked up on the issue of secularism, even suggesting that a fellow blogger had mistakenly promulgated a misconception. Peter very kindly replied to my article but his comment was caught by an over-zealous spam filter and didn’t appear until he questioned me about it. He questioned my interpretation of secularism and suggested that in its promotion of egalitarianism it serves a very useful function; undermining power structures (especially religious ones) and promoting individual control.

Peter’s usage is, I would suggest, more true to the root understanding of secularism – the separation of church and state. This is a part of the definition of secularism found on the Secular Society‘s website:

Secularism supports the individual against the pressure of the group and the individual conscience against the dogma of the group.

I can’t help but think that these are words which the church could easily get behind and endorse. And yet, here is the problem with words. They accumulate baggage that ends up creating division which isn’t present in the core definition. Or perhaps, one might say that words are twisted to mean whatever we need them to mean in our own context.

Secularism is one such. From a Christian perspective, it is often used almost pejoratively – the implicit threat it contains to the religious establishment turns it into something tainted. Yet, one cannot deny that it is a word which has been seized by many as a banner or slogan around which to rally in opposition to religion.

What’s the answer then? At worst, one falls into the post-modern malaise of having define one’s terms every time. It is, undoubtedly, necessary to separate the ‘word’ from the inherited baggage at times. Yet it is often the ‘baggage’ which gives a word its richness of meaning. The problem with words is that they’re all we have to explain things by. Yet, on the other hand, they’re not all we have to show Christianity by. We may be followers of the Word, but we are known as such by our actions.

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Endings and new beginnings are, I suppose, the very marks of a Christian’s story. That grand meta-narrative of scripture is a cycle of endings and new beginnings; enslavement and redemption, death and resurrection.

As I look back over previous placements, they have often been dominated by a particular theme. The last one was, unmistakably, all about ‘grace’. I have generally only noticed this developing theme some time into the placement, and often only with hindsight. But at this transition point I have a deep sense that this one is going to be all about ‘hope’. Quite how it will play out though is an entirely different matter, but nevertheless, that is what I feel right this moment.

I think part of the root of this comes from the conference. It would be easy to feel jaded by training conferences, especially after three placements and five years of academic study. But, of course, there is always more to learn (and I’ll no doubt end up blogging on some of them as my brain catches up with itself). But perhaps, in this instance, it is more about there being always more to be challenged by.

Along with Howard, a probationer, I presented a short session on ‘getting the most out of your training’ to the new candidates (of which there are 24 – and a great bunch they are too). Like a stuck record I emphasised the need to ‘know yourself’ and, more importantly, know, and be secure in, your relationship with God.

I thought I knew myself fairly well but nevertheless found my reaction to a session on Priority Areas particularly overwhelming and in a most peculiar way. I’ll probably blog about it separately so I’ll not go into details here. But it was one of those moments when you realise that the challenges ahead can seem utterly overwhelming and yet the example set by others (which can be all too easy to overlook when feeling overwhelmed by what they are attempting to do), working in the knowledge and surety of God’s love, is where that spark of hope exists and can ignite a greater passion for the work to be done.

Starting probation is maybe in a similar sort of category. Years of preparation lead to this point of putting it all to use. And that can seem overwhelming. Exciting too, without a doubt, but anyone who claims to have no anxieties about it, I suspect, is not being entirely honest with their self.

Yet, without that sense of hope, of the assurance and reality of rebirth, such anxieties would be a downward spiral. Instead, there is the realisation that we have an utter dependency on God; for grace, for love and for hope. And over and over again we have, through scripture and our own experience, the evidence of the reality of that hope.

What more could you need to carry carry forward into a new beginning?

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There was the “What’s the Kirk ever done for us?” bit; a reminder of the legacy of that early push for education and literacy which established Scotland as a leader in educational achievement. The Kirk’s social conscience was highlighted and its impact on today’s social care noted. Although that place is now filled more and more by local authority groups, the Kirk still has a significant presence in this area. It begs the question though, as a friend recently discussed with me, that perhaps the Kirk has achieved what it set out to do in this area -  show how social care ought to be done – and now it is time to invest the resources in other work of social inclusion and justice.

However, the outlining of the current state of the Kirk jangled a few nerves. It rightly highlighted falling membership, financial pressures and ministerial resources as areas causing concern. But it phrased them in a slightly disingenuous way I thought. Falling mambership cannot be disputed, but little was made of the changing social culture where ‘membership’, of anything, is increasingly becoming out-of-date. Loose affiliations and fluid loyalties are the characteristics of our present society. Any sort of ‘commitment’ has people running a mile. I’m not suggesting that the numbers attending church are in any way much rosier than they are, but membership numbers alone do not tell the whole story.

The financial situation was also misrepresented. A running deficit of just over £5m is not the same as being “nearly £6m in the red” as was reported. Again, I’m not suggesting this is an acceptable situation, but it ought tohave been reported accurately. Furthermore, little was made of the proposals to address that deficit.

Associated with that was the throwaway comment of “only four trainees have entered Scotland’s leading divinity school.” Now, while I would happily agree with that assessment of New College’s place in the ordering of things, to ignore the intake at the other institutions is irresponsible and misleading. New College has fallen foul of entrance quota restrictions in its associated University College. Those who have been unable to gain a place have deferred or have gone to one of the other institutions. A fairer report would have been to cite overall numbers in training.

But I want to highlight one final thing in the programme which went entirely unchallenged and has an insidious effect on how we, the Church, approach things. Peter fell into the same trap in his assessment as well. It is stated, without any qualification or justification, that we live in a secular society. I’m not convinced that this is true. I would, perhaps, have agreed ten or twenty years ago, but not today. Secularism is also fighting a losing battle as many more people begin to see the society of ten, twenty, thirty years ago as heading towards moral bankruptcy. In a similar way to post-war theologians, there is a reaction against the ‘me-centred’ doctrines of, in today’s case, the consumerist state. More people are now looking for ‘something else’ to help order their life. There has been, in recent years, an increase in ‘spirituality’ in our cultural mindset. The unfortunate thing is that the years of secularism have left many without the vocabulary or grounding of a Christian spirituality. Pic’n'mix religion has become the order of the day. This, I would suggest, is a very different challenge to the church. It’s one thing dealing with a society which is entirely indifferent to religion, quite another to deal with people who see all religions as their personal spiritual supermarket to pick and choose from as it suits them.

Without a doubt the Kirk has some hard times ahead but I would tend to agree with Ron Ferguson’s thoughts towards the end of the programme that a beleaguered church is not necessarily a bad thing.

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Unity does not mean uniformity; diversity does not mean division.

It seems to me that one of the main challenges the churches and denominations face, perhaps moreso in this time than any other, is to work with greater integrity and grace with one another. As the Christian faith suffers at the hands of an increasingly secularised society (and, indeed, an increasingly more apathetic society – perhaps the greater danger), the public perception of division and disagreement within the Church (upper-case ‘C’, no one denomination) can only hasten its marginalisation.

The answer, of course, does not lie in creating uniformity and stifling diversity. I can’t think of anything more dire than an army of Christian clones who all act the same and think the same. And indeed, does creation itself not argue against such an approach? How easy would it have been for God to create each person in His own likeness, in exactly the same way, over and over again? Yet that is not what we have. Instead, there is an enormous variety of gifts and talents, of creativity and uniqueness.

Our trip included a visit to the World Council of Churches and it was fascinating getting a first-hand account of what their aims were and the challenges they face. Here, perhaps more than anywhere, the reality of unity without uniformity and diversity without division ought to have been clearly seen. And yet, we still heard stories of disagreements, but also some interesting little hints of change, of long-standing barriers gradually being broken down and challenged.

Of course such changes take time and there will always be voices who oppose such cross-denomination activities. But we were reminded one evening that the Reformed church’s cry of ‘semper reformanda’ is so often mistranslated as ‘always reforming’. Rather its more correct understanding of ‘always in need of reform’ seems to be something that we need to grab hold of as relationships with others develops. It says that we don’t have all the answers or the correct way of doing things. And this, of course, is another cause of Christian ‘clones’ – a sense of having the correct answers and the right way of ‘doing’ church means that one never questions, but simply adopts.

Isaiah 53:6 tells us that we have all wandered off the path, like sheep. We may well all behave like sheep, but with the exception of Dolly, even sheep aren’t clones. Time to stop behaving as though we need to be.

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The first is an article by Richard B Hays which is an adaptation of a lengthier book section. It is a pretty comprehensive statement of the conservative position on homosexuality. I recall reading the full book section in 2nd year New Testament studies and found it to be useful then. That was not long before General Assembly discussed the issue of human sexuality. The Mission and Discipleship report (.doc file, via OneKirk) and the congregation discussion resource document (1.5M pdf file, via OneKirk) they produced drew heavily on this work for the conservative perspective. It was also at the heart of a ‘refutation‘ at the time by Paul Middleton, but that work never fully engaged with Hays and so I was left feeling that it was a somewhat selective and not entirely convincing counter-argument.

The second referenced article is by Kim Fabricius (on Ben Myers blog) is a useful ‘in a nutshell’ view from the other side of the debate. The comments are extensive and worth a skim through. It is not a point-by-point argument and assumes a degree of ‘honest’ scholarship which recognises the ambiguity in many of the scriptural references to homosexual activity. If that’s not your ‘place’ then I would recommend doing some wider reading before decrying what Kim says. An ‘honest’ approach will/should leave Romans 1 as one of the few ‘unambiguous’ texts which need to be dealt with. Thereafter you may engage with his propositions and reach your own conclusion.

Finally, the third article referenced is not a theology one, but rather a media comment on a recent sex scandal in Australia. It makes some very valid moral/ethical observations which, I think, are quite pertinent to the whole discussion.

*Updated 18/7/11 to fix dead links

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The title, ‘Why the Scots don’t vote Tory’, caught my eye and I watched it on catchup. It wasn’t terribly informative and only hinted at some of the answers. Nevertheless, one comment caught my attention. One lady, a mother of seven (iirc), living in one of the wealthier areas of Glasgow, admitted that her family would probably be better off under Tory government, but felt that voters also had a moral obligation to consider the effect of their vote on others. The implication, of course, being that a Tory government would have the interests of only a small(er) part of society in mind. Sally Magnusson, the presenter, did venture the opinion that the apparent Tory focus on individual achievement and advancement grated on the Scots’ sense of community and fairness. I suspect this would have been a particularly fruitful line of enquiry, but it wasn’t really followed up.

Now, I’m in no particular position to argue the merits of one party over another in terms of their community focus or their social responsibility. Labour’s track record on this hasn’t exactly been exemplary either. Nor would I care to argue that this is a uniquely Scottish phenomenon. I’m sure our English, Welsh and Irish neighbours can be every bit as community-minded, just as Scots can be just as self-centred as anyone else. But it did get me thinking about something else I read recently about Emerging Church and its criticism of the established (or inherited) church.

One of the key criticisms of the established church (by EC) is that it is locked into, and colludes with, a ‘modern’ worldview. (As an aside, it can be argued that EC is just as guilty of this with respect to a postmodern worldview.) But, for the established church, what this means is that it is locked into a way of thinking that it sees as the correct way, yet is no longer how many people think – especially those in the younger generations. In particular, as it relates to this blog entry, established church is seen to be too individualistic – too much emphasis on a ‘personal faith’ in a ‘personal saviour’. (And, as another aside, in my opinion, this is a crucial area where EC falls into the very same trap – it risks ‘over-contextualising’ to the point where, although it may not be individuals, it can be a very small and exclusive clique.)

It’s an interesting question to ask though whether this has been the natural drift of the church or whether it has been pushed into this corner by the changing mindset of society. But therein lies the problem, as I see it, for the church. I think that the criticism that the established church has, generally speaking, colluded with society is a fair one. It’s almost as though, in its humility, the church hasn’t wanted to rock the boat and upset people by being too ‘in their face’ or too outspoken. It has listened to and agreed with the secular voices which have told it that religion and faith is a personal thing and not for the public arena.

This year there are celebrations marking the 450th anniversary of the Scottish Reformation – an event steeped in social change, especially education (ironically individual). The Church of Scotland has had, and continues to have, a strong tradition of supporting social projects, both at home and overseas. That ‘community’ ethic, strong moral responsibility and social justice, still runs deep within the Scottish psyche, I believe. But it risks being subsumed and diluted as our society expands to include those from other parts who have chosen to make Scotland their home. Don’t misunderstand me though. I’m not saying that welcoming others into Scottish society is a bad thing, rather that it places a greater responsibility on the church in Scotland to be the voice of social concern and community focus.

At the moment I think it still listens too much to the voices which tell us that religion is a private matter. I think a parallel can be drawn with the side-lining of the Tories in Scotland (assuming the ‘individualist’ criticism is valid) and the increasing irrelevance of the church in Scotland. I also think it’s one of the dangers of jumping on the EC bandwagon – we risk becoming even more focussed on pleasing individuals rather than growing in relevance to society as a whole. I think that if the church were to find its prophetic voice again (and some have) then it would become more relevant. And that doesn’t simply mean being critical, but rather, showing the way forward (it’s not like we don’t have a good example to follow). And I also believe that if the church does that then there will also be pressure on the political parties to be more serious about social justice and community support and be less about selfish gain. Maybe even the Tories would be popular again.

Politics and religion can make for an awkward mix, but churches cannot disconnect from political life, for that would be a disconnection from public life. I don’t generally blog about politics, but maybe when I blog about faith and church and theology the politics is in there anyway.

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Labels can be useful. They are convenient at times and without them our discussions would be laborious and time-consuming. But when the label becomes the person then what we have done is dehumanised them. We have decided that they are just a… As a friend reminded me recently in conversation, the gospel is not about dehumanising, but rehumanising. We find our full self-understanding and self-identity in our relationship with God and the gospel is that God is willing, even dying, to get us to understand that.

My devotional reading this morning was from the flood narrative in Genesis. Regardless of whether you view it as historical or a rewriting of another culture’s mythology, it contains a pretty brutal assessment of humanity and, more importantly, God’s response. “I will never again curse the ground because of the human race, even though everything they think or imagine is bent towards evil from childhood.” (Genesis 8:21, NLT) We have been labelled, yet God looks past the label. We are all, every one, imperfect. No one is more ‘good’ than another in God’s eyes for everything we do is tainted. Yet God’s grace looks beyond the label and says, “I love and choose you anyway.”

Last year, at GA, there was an invitation to join in conversation over coffee; an opportunity to get to understand the person, not the label – gay, straight, fundie, liberal, whatever. I wonder how many coffee conversations have taken place? It’s kind of difficult to have a conversation with a label. It’s kind of difficult to even accept an invitation from a label; we can only accept an invitation from a person.

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