Tyrannical texts

A friend of mine, a Moravian minister, sent me a book that I’m just finishing now. It’s about those texts that get to us, that bother us and make us mad. They are also the ones some people use to put other people in their place. The ones that don’t make sense and require a lot of research and contextualizing. The ones that Christians fight over and and take sides over and stop fellowshipping over. The book calls these the tyrannical texts.  I mentioned the one that made my friend Kathy mad. Under the Old Testament, if a woman gave birth to a boy, she was unclean for seven days, but if she gave birth to a girl, she was unclean for two weeks. She needed 33 days to be purified after her son’s birth and double that to be purified after her daughter’s. What’s with that? The Law is full of such discrimination against women.

slavery memorial: Tanzania

Yes. I know. The Old Testament does not have the weight of the New because Jesus fulfilled the Law. We aren’t under the Law now. We read the Old Testament through the lens of Jesus and disregard those adamant requirements for animal sacrifices and feast days and untrimmed beards. That is good Anabaptist thinking—the rejection of a flat cannon. But even a hundred and fifty years ago, the Old Testament and New were still read with equal weight. And then there are those troubling  New Testament commands like “Slaves, obey your masters.” Today we know that although Paul may have had a point then, to use this as justification for slavery today would be unthinkable. (Why didn’t he say this?) Yet this verse was used by Christian pastors all across the South to justify slavery from the pulpit. Here is how one Southern newspaper summarized the Christian position on slavery in 1820:

“The Bible, comprehending the old and new Testaments, contains the unerring decisions of the word of God…These decisions are of equal authority in both testaments…God is infinitely just and wise in all his decisions…so it is culpably audacious in us to question…Whoever believes the word of God…must believe in the absolute rectitude of slave-holding.”

Preacher who pushed for Georgia to be a slave state

 If you were a white minister in the south, this is what you preached. It’s horrible. But look at the language. Does some of it sound familiar? It’s what the abuse of spiritual power sounds like. I know you’re wondering where I’m going with this. Am I gunning for people to interpret Scripture however they want? Is there no solid ground? (Short answer: No. Yes.)

 

Here’s the tyrranical text I am researching now: 1 Corinthians 14:34. Look it up if you wish. I’m not going to write about it. But I can assure you that whatever interpretation I choose, someone will disagree. Someone might even question my integrity or my commitment to the authority of Scripture, and that would be unfair. And dangerous. You see, it’s because no one could talk to those southern ministers about their fierce, public defense of slavery that this demonic institution could thrive in the South. No one could question it or disagree, because then you’d be disagreeing with Scripture, and even with God, Himself. And this is not what we want to do. But we do want to question human beings, human leaders, even pastors, who are not God, and who can get things wrong. I think as many of them have gotten things wrong about women as got things wrong about slaves a century ago. On my last trip to Mexico a friend told me that her church forbids her husband from holding their baby: it would be demeaning to him because holding babies was the wife’s job. It made my blood boil.

Durer

Do you know the first thing Jesus ever did in the Temple of God? He asked questions for three days. Do you know why Jacob was given a new name and a blessing? He wrestled with God.

Moses was inspired when he said all those things that today make women look like inferior beings, and Paul was inspired when he wrote, “Women should be silent,” and “Slaves, obey your masters.” For some reason God wanted those words in our Scripture. It’s taken us thousands of years to learn that those words aren’t meant to justify slavery or sideline women in our churches today. What else have we been preaching for thousands of years that isn’t right today? Do we think that we are the first ones in history to get the Bible 100% correct? Are we perfect in knowledge, like God, Himself? Or is there room to pull out those tyrannical texts and argue, and pray, and study, and listen, and wrestle with one another and with God?