Saturday Night Theologian
14 October 2007

2 Kings 5:1-3, 7-15c (first published 12 February 2006)

A teenaged boy is found seriously injured on an isolated planet which the Enterprise happens upon in an episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation. The doctor beams him aboard the ship and treats him, but the captain is not happy at the favorable treatment the patient is receiving. Why? The reason is that the patient is a Borg, a race of biological-technological hybrids whose mission is to "assimilate" every sentient species in the galaxy. Captain Picard has had a traumatic experience with the Borg in the past, and he sees this Borg as his enemy. He and other crew members concoct a plan to implant information in the Borg's mind that they hope will create confusion in the Borg collective, ultimately killing it. In the end, however, the captain, like some of his crewmates, comes to see this boy as an individual in need of their help rather than as merely a representative of an enemy race. In today's reading from 2 Kings, Israel and Aram were at war. An Aramean general, Naaman, had leprosy (or some other skin disease), and his servant girl, a captured Israelite, felt sorry for him and urged him to go to the prophet Elisha for healing. Naaman does go to Israel, and--after some confusion with the king--he visits Elisha and is healed. It is interesting to notice that although Israel and Aram are ostensibly at war, no one in the story considers a citizen of the other country his or her enemy. Naaman's servant is genuinely concerned for her master's health. Elisha doesn't care what the nationality of Naaman is. Naaman treats the Israelites he encounters with respect (although he does take some offense at being told to bathe in the Jordan River!). The respect and concern that the Israelites and Arameans in this story show for one another raises the question, why were the two nations fighting in the first place? Like most wars throughout history, this on-again, off-again conflict seems to have been based on the desire of one king for the territory and riches of the other king. The soldiers and citizens on opposite sides of the conflict had little or no animosity toward each other at all. If we look at all the conflicts over the past 200 years or so, most of them were started by government leaders who wanted war for one reason or another, often for territorial expansion. The German people didn't hate the Czechs or the Poles, but Hitler said that Germany needed Lebensraum, so they invaded. The French didn't dislike the Germans or the Russians, but Napoleon wanted to be an emperor, so they launched their assaults. Most U.S. citizens didn't hate Native Americans, but the government wanted Indian land, so they moved in and took it, often starting wars in the process. Today leaders start wars on flimsy pretenses and lead their nations into war, even though the people of their country have no real quarrel with the people in the "enemy" country. Saddam Hussein's wars on Iran and Kuwait are good examples, as are El Salvador's invasion of Honduras, India's frequent wars with Pakistan, and Uganda's wars with its neighbors under Idi Amin's dictatorship. The U.S. invasion of Iraq falls into this category, too, for it was a war that the U.S. government wanted so desperately that it was willing to use false evidence, exaggerate the threat that Iraq posed to its neighbors and the U.S., and ignore the advice of many of its closest allies in order to pursue a war against a country that few U.S. citizens were worried about. Christians who supported this war, or who support any of the other numerous conflicts in which the nations of the world are involved, have grown oblivious to the voice of Jesus, who urged his followers to love their enemies and to be peacemakers, but maybe they will be willing to listen to the voices of a young slave girl, an army general, and a prophet, who looked at an enemy and saw a person in need.

Psalm 111 (first published 17 August 2003)

The principal task of study is a perception into the reality of a given situation, encounter, or book, according to Richard Foster in his chapter on study in the modern spiritual classic A Celebration of Discipline. Foster talks about studying the Bible and other religious books, but he also notes the importance, even the necessity, of studying "non-verbal books," such as nature, interpersonal relationships, and current events. It is not enough to observe what goes on around us; we must also perceive. The psalmist says in verse 2, "Great are the works of the Lord, studied by all who have pleasure in them." In my seminary classes we spent a lot of time learning how to exegete the Bible, but we spent very little time learning how to exegete the world around us. Foster, on the contrary, recognizes the value of studying things others than books, because in creation, other people, institutions, cultures, other religions, and the events of our time we can learn about God. Of course, when we watch the TV news or read an article online, it won't always be immediately obvious what that information has to do with God. That's why it's important to reflect critically on the object of our study.

To reflect, to ruminate, on the events of our time leads us to the inner reality of those events. Reflection brings us to see things from God's perspective. In reflection we come to understand not only our subject matter, but ourselves [Foster, p. 66].
Americans have grown lazy over the past two or three decades in regard to reflecting on current events. Too much TV "news" is really fluff, entertainment or marketing packaged to resemble news. Other "news," both on TV and in the newspaper, is sensationalized tragedy. It is all too easy to accept the pre-packaged "analysis" that we're offered, especially by TV personalities, rather than engage in critical analysis ourselves, but it is our obligation as prophetic Christians to think for ourselves. We have a perspective that comes from our understanding of God, and we must learn how to see beyond, or beneath, the presentation to the crux of the matter. For example, when we watch coverage of the electricity blackout in the Northeast (or perhaps, as we experience it directly), will we focus, with the majority of talking heads, on the fact that terrorism was not the cause (neither was the meltdown of a nuclear power plant or a riot, though for some reason the news people haven't mentioned these other non-causes), or will we begin to ask what was the cause? Does deregulation of the energy industry over the past ten or fifteen years have anything to do with the problems in New York, Michigan, and Ontario (and earlier, California)? If so, does it make sense to revisit the idea of deregulating an industry that modern people depend upon for living? Corporations eager to make big bucks in the newly deregulated market promised big savings and better service for consumers; have these things come about? Has the Enronization of the energy market been a good thing or a bad thing overall for those who depend upon electricity (i.e., almost all of us)? Most importantly, what theological principles are relevant in considering these issues (e.g., concern for the poor, ownership of community resources, the problem of greed, truthfulness)? We need to learn how to read the world around us, reflect on the theological implications, and take action based on our analysis.

2 Timothy 2:8-15

"If there are so many different ways of reading the Bible," one of my students recently asked me, "how do you know which one is right?" The answer, of course, is that you can't really know for sure. I can be very confident, reasonably confident, or not at all confident in my own interpretation of a passage of scripture, but my level of confidence in no way guarantees that I'm right in my understanding. I might just be confidently wrong. If I can't be sure that my beliefs on any particular topic are right, does that mean that I should not waste time trying to figure out what I think the right reading is? To put it another way, does it really matter which interpretation is right? Is there even a correct interpretation of every passage of scripture? To answer the last question first, I think the answer is not always. I think there are passages of scripture that can have more than one perfectly valid (i.e., "correct") interpretation. In other cases, however, I think there probably is only one correct interpretation (as opposed to correct applications, of which there are undoubtedly many). Trying to determine correct doctrine is important, not because we have to pass an exam to get into heaven or because we get a gold star from God for understanding the Bible or theology, but because correct doctrine leads to correct practice. In other words, orthodoxy leads to orthopraxy. Or at least it should. "Rightly explaining the word of truth" is a worthy goal, but living in accordance with the word of truth is even more important. The warning in this passage against wrangling over words is well taken. Too often Christians waste their breath arguing over doctrine, focusing on points of disagreement, rather than finding that on which they agree and acting on it. The reason the ecumenical movement is so important is not that it holds the potential of arriving at a consensus regarding every Christian doctrine. That just won't happen. The ecumenical is important because it allows Christians to see that people who disagree with them, sometimes on fundamental points of doctrine, can be committed Christians, just like themselves. Equally important is the fact that Christians who learn to accept other Christians who hold to different opinions can also learn to work together with them to achieve common goals: caring for the poor, ministering to the weak, and sharing God's love in real, tangible ways to all who inhabit this planet.

Luke 17:11-19 (first published 10 October 2004)

In his book When Religion Becomes Evil, Charles Kimball concludes by discussing three different Christian approaches to dealing with people of other faiths. The first approach is exclusivism, the belief that "Jesus Christ provides the only valid way to salvation." The second is inclusivism, which "affirms both the saving presence and activity of God in all religious traditions and the full, definitive revelation of God in Jesus Christ." The third position is pluralism, whose adherents "see Christianity neither as the only means to salvation nor as the fulfillment of other religious traditions . , . [but affirm] the viability of various paths." Even within the traditional, exclusivist position, Kimball notes different attitudes toward other religions, ranging from the "hard" position of absolute certainty regarding the exclusion of people of other faiths from God's family to a softer position that acknowledges a lack of full knowledge concerning the extent of the family of God. Luke tells the story of ten lepers who met Jesus on his way to Jerusalem. Jesus told them to go present themselves to the priests, but one, when he saw that he had indeed been healed, returned, fell at Jesus' feet, and thanked him profusely. The kicker to the story is that the man who returned was a Samaritan. Modern interpreters often point out the attitude of Jews toward Samaritans on account of their supposedly "mixed" ancestry, but what is not as often discussed is the fact that Samaritan religious beliefs were quite different from those of the Jews in some respects, and Samaritanism could be considered a different religion from Judaism. For example, Samaritans accepted only the Pentateuch as scripture, and their version of the Pentateuch differed in details (some fairly significant) from that of the Jews. Samaritans didn't accept the idea of a Davidic messiah (though they did look for a messiah-like deliverer called the Taeb, who would be a prophet like Moses). Jesus acknowledged the Samaritan's faith and praised him for it. It is clear that Jesus valued faith in God and action above membership in a particular group. (In Matthew and Mark, Jesus praises the faith of the Syrophoenician or Canaanite woman, a Gentile.) Contemporary Christians who contemplate the proper attitude to take with regard to people of other faiths should consider Jesus' attitude toward non-Jews who exhibit faith. Although there is certainly room for difference of opinion among Christians of a progressive stripe on this issue, we must certainly agree that Jesus' example rules out the strictest form of exclusivism from consideration.