Memory, History, Scripture, and Preaching -- Reflections


As a teacher and as a preacher I struggle with how much "exegetical work" to display, especially in sermons. It's not that I don't trust the people with the historical stuff I've learned in seminary or in the study, but the question has to do with the degree to which it is helpful in encouraging the life of faith. For instance, I'm preaching on Ephesians Sunday. As I get into the pulpit, do I say that Paul wrote it (as tradition and opening verses suggest), do I spend time explaining that many scholars (perhaps most) think someone other than Paul wrote it? Or do I just say -- Ephesians says, the author says, etc? I've opted for the latter in this sermon.

I'm not as "conservative" as I used to be, but I'm also not a minimalist either. I probably accede more historicity to the text and its contents than some of my friends and colleagues. I like Marcus Borg and John Dominic Crossan, but I've never been enamored with the Jesus Seminar or its methodology.

The other day I posted a video piece by esteemed biblical scholar Walter Brueggemann that raises questions about the impact of historical criticism. It's not that Brueggemann rejects historical critical scholarship, he just wonders about whether it has served to damage our preaching. Or, to put it a different way, maybe it has undermined our confidence both in the text and in our calling. We no longer believe that the Word of God is either present or available to us in text or sermon.

Brueggemann again takes up this issue in a Theolog posting entitled "Remembering an Imagined Past." It's brief (as Theolog posts must be -- I know because I write them myself). It doesn't explain everything or suggest ways forward, it just raises the question and reminds us that the tendency of Modernism is to become reductionist and reduce faith to the bare minimum. I understand, but I'm not sure this is the best measure.

Brueggemann writes:

This kind of critical pursuit of historicity always flourishes in an attempt to resist authoritarianism, and it serves to relativize the claim of the text. But the confusion between modernist historicity and confessional memory needs to be sorted out afresh. While modernist criticism tends to be thin and one-dimensional, serious remembering—in a community of self-awareness, moral passion, knowing discipline and generous hope—is thick, elusive and multidimensional. The critics characteristically fail to understand this quality of remembering, instead reacting only to the thin ideologues whom they so vigorously oppose. But the practical theology of the serious rememberers is not open to this critical reductionism, because it lies beneath such categories.


In the end he calls on us to embrace memory over historicity -- because it is in memory that we will find hope. Believing that theology can be transformative for the church and for the world, I'm not content to leave these texts to disinterested scholars. I want to engage them of course, but not leave the end game to them. But, I welcome the responses of others.

Comments

Anonymous said…
Without the historical, the Bible becomes no different than the holy books of Mormonism which is a a-historical religion. Church people tend to want to hear the Bible, not about the Bible.

Have protestants reached the point where 'scholarship' reigns in a place in relationship to the Bible much like tradition did to the Bible in the days of Martin Luther? Me thinks a bit of intellectual/rational humility is called for.
Mike L. said…
I'm a huge Brueggemann fan. However, I have a bone to pick with him here. Although I agree with his basic premise, I think he misunderstands the outcome of the Jesus seminar.

He says they, "voted out much of the memory of the church". This is where he misses the point. By voting on the historicity, they made NO claim about the value of the texts. They didn't vote it out, they voted it in by moving it to a category that keeps them from being a modern laughing stock. For many of us, moving the stories from the category of history that cannot be believed, to myths that can be embraced, has been critical to maintaining our participation in Christian faith.

The biggest mistake of modernism is that it threw down the challenge and claimed these texts must be facts or else they are useless. The Jesus seminar voted, but it never made a any attempt to "throw out" the texts.
Mystical Seeker said…
I agree with Mike L., and I think that this jibes with what, for example, Marcus Borg would say on the subject. Borg would argue that the historicity of a biblical story can be disagreed over while the real importance lies in what the story means. It seems to me that Brueggemann is positing a dichotomy in this case that doesn't really exist.
John said…
Bob,

What is amazing is that the truths within the Scripture are preserved even when sifted through the screen of historical criticism! How wonderful that God was able to get word of his self-disclosure through to our times given such unreliable methods of recording, transmisssion, and translation!

Sometimes it is illuminating to investigate and walk through the technical details behind the Bible. The technical information is interesting and often helpful to keep the text in perspective, but unless the technical details contribute to a discussion of the core truth, they are best left to the Sunday school or Bible study lesson.

I think what a preacher needs to keep in mind is that through all of its checkered history, the Bible continues to speak essential truths about God and God's relationship with humanity. I don't think those essential truths can be effectively taught by getting bogged down in technical details. The details cause the attention of the listener to be distracted away from the core message.

Unless the identity of the author of Ephesians is important to understanding the intended message, it seems a pointless waste of valuable attention (not to mention time) to digress into such details or even to suggest such questions are up for immediate consideration.

I agree, it is enough to say: "the author of Ephesians wrote...." This allows the preacher to be honest and accurate without digressing off point.

I think that most people who come to hear a sermon come to hear the truth the preacher wishes to share. If people are concerned about issues of historicity, or if issues of historicity have undermined their confidence in the availability of the Word of God, then it is up to the preacher to restore that confidence by extracting that truth and preaching it with creative passion - not technical dispassion.

As Brueggemann suggests, the work of preachers is confessional in nature, not academic, and their messages should be messages of "serious remembering", placing inspirationally remembered Scriptural truths into the context of contemporary lives.

OK, its late and I am going to sleep.

John
Steve said…
One useful aspect of "who wrote Ephesians?" is the sub-category of pseudo-Pauline texts. Through critical analysis, these texts (1 & 2 Timothy, Titus, Ephesians, Colossians, 2 Thess.) are shown to be written after Paul's death. The service this renders is to explain that a radically inclusive Paul never become so conservative; his followers and later name-appropriators did. That’s why it’s important to make the authorial point in a sermon; it will be useful in helping a congregation understand why “Paul” seems so confusing. He really isn’t, after all.

One aspect not commented on in the responses to Brueggemann is the interesting phrase, remembering an imagined past. Why is it imagined? Because critical methods have shown it to be a product of hope, not history. In a battle between the two, bet on hope.
Mystical Seeker said…
This comment has been removed by the author.
Mystical Seeker said…
Sometimes the "imagined" past becomes a manufactured imagining of the past that serves the interests of a particular theological point of view. Brueggemann knows this as well as anyone. Did King Josiah play a role in co-opting disparate historic-religious texts from authors like P and E and J and integrating them with a view towards supporting his own Deuterononist theology? Was what we know as the Torah the result of a spontaneous outpouring of shared imagining, or was it at least in part the result of a conscious effort to promote a particular theology?

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