Book Reviews

The Sound Faith Makes

An Eastertide Review of "Sound Mapping The New Testament" by Revival 2010 Keynote Lecturer Drs. Bernard Brandon Scott and Margaret Lee by Rev. Ron Robinson

One of the characteristics of the Unitarian Universalist Christian Fellowship throughout its 65 year history has been to create a communitywhich engages with and often embraces the best newest religious scholarship. Again with this coming Revival in Dallas Oct. 14-17 we will continue that tradition with the keynote talks by authorsBrandon Scott and John Buehrens.

Bernard Brandon Scott and Margaret Lee, authors of the new book "Sound Mapping The New Testament" (Polebridge Press)havedisplayed a new tool to use in understanding the lost sound behind the ancient Christian scriptures, and in doing so have added to the scholarly conversation on some key passages, among which are how to interpret the comment of the centurion at the cross in Mark, andwhere the focus of the resurrection is in John.

Their book begins: "In the Greco-Roman world, writing was heard not read silently."

This is the world in which the earliest scriptural manuscripts were produced, and yetsince we have lost the sounds of ancient Greek, sounds that affect how words were to be heard and understood,our ability to grasp them more fullyhas been thwarted by hundreds of yearof commentary based on silent reading, an analytical process that reinforces an individual experience instead of the communal collaborative experience created when they are heard. Sound mapping looks at clues to the sound being transferredin the texts--grammatical markers, repetitions, tenses, and more--and begins to approximate what the ancient hearers might have come close to encountering. It does not capture the lost sounds fully, and it is not meant to replace interpretive methods but to enhance them. The historical and rhetorical and cultural work helps the reader better understand life in the first century in the Roman Empire, and helps recreate the real life influences that guided the scripture creators, real contexts for the texts which are vastly different from modern contexts.

The first part of their book lays the scholarly groundwork for the second half, much as did Scott's ground-breaking work on the Parables in his book "Hear Then The Parable." Prime examples of how thisadds to the exegesis comes from Mark's story of Jesus' crucifixion and the comment of the centurion at the cross, Mark 15:39, and the Johanine story of Thomas not believing the resurrection appearance, chapter 20, both of which have puzzled interpreters.

Mark 15:39: "When the Roman officer standingopposite him saw that he had died like this, he said, "This man really was God's son!" How do we take the statement from Mark's point of view? Is it a statement of faith, a conversion for the centurion? It follows right after Mark's depiction of the Temple curtain being ripped in two; is the centurion responding, at least for Mark's purposes, to a faith in a new kind of power?Or is the statement meant to be heard ironically, mockingly, onefinal way the Empirethinks it has dismissed Jesus, unaware of the truth being spoken unknowingly? So thatfor Mark the real mocking is back on the centurion and all the power the centurion stands for, and in that very moment thetruth of Jesus as the Christ is revealed; the few who pick up their cross and follow Jesus, as Mark has emphasized,are the ones who "get it" while the Empire and its supposed wisdom continue even at that moment to be thetruly foolish ones?

Scott and Lee findsomething of a third way after a thorough analysis of the sound patterns throughout Mark, especially of the many taunts and comments by the bystanders at the cross. There isnothing in the patterns to indicate the centurion's declaration is merely a taunt, they conclude,but it is also not aconfession as would have been "sounded" by a Roman officer; instead, for Mark, the centurion's words focusthe hearer's attention on the death itself and in doing so redefine the community's christology or meaning found in Jesus.

They write: "Those who really see and understand are those who stand at the foot of the cross and witness Jesus' death...For Mark, both the centurion and the women witness the reality of what happened. Their "Christology" does not demand that Jesus can destroy the Temple, come down from the cross, or be a king. Nor do they mishear Jesus' last words. The centurion hears and states the fact. For Mark, this is the new Christology, and the women bear witness as those who have followed Jesus from the beginning until the very end."

Mark's gospel, a kind ofmanualfor disciples living in the post-apocalyptic world after the destruction of the Temple in 70 CE, is known to be full of mention of secrets and of Jesus' true identity not to be told. But here in that moment of death, of powerlessness and vulnerability, the secret is finallyout but onlyfor those nearest the cross; in fact, it's a truth uttered not by those who fled or those who would keep their distance by mocking, but by one who was directly opposite the cross, who in fact erected the cross. If the centurion can state such a fact at such a time, then this wisdom is available to anyone who will pick up the cross, not thesword,and follow as a disciplein the non-violent freedom and justice seeking way of Jesus. The real power of God's transformative presence is thenrevealed at the moment of God's greatest absence. It is a reversal of the Empire presence and power which at such a time seems to manyto be most visible in the world.

At times when I think of the "invisibility" of the UUCF, hidden like leaven within both the UUA and the Christian spheres, it is easy to be seduced to the power of the visible; and yet, this Good Friday moment, shaped by the Scott and Lee book especially, reminds me that it is in how we stay close and witnesswith those in need, those vulnerable, those oppressed, that our faithfulness will be truly seen. Indeed, location, location, location is everything in this interpretation, and for us in the UUCF, or you in your community, being located where we are is important in itself---if we truly open our eyes and ears to see and hear and understand the crosses at hand.

The Easter moments in John 20, first with Mary of Magdala at the empty tomband then with Thomas who is absent from Jesus' appearance, emphasize alsofor Scottthat it is not necessarilyin what one sees outwardly that is meaningful butthat the power of resurrection itself is in the voice, the sound, in what we listen to and respond to. The sound mapping shows the role of how it is through voice and Jesus speaking that leads to his being seen. The pivotal moment for John's gospelis not Thomas' confession after having doubted, but is in Jesus' admonition--to Thomas and to all of us who have come after--that faithfulness does not demand or require visible and individualencounters. In fact Scott points out in the Thomas story, how Thomas doesn't have faith it is Jesus even after he sees Jesus appear and announce himself, andThomas doesn't have to actually touch his wounds to believe,but his turning point comes when he hears Jesus issue his invitation to do so.

Another important learning from Scott and Lee's interpretation of the resurrectionin Johnis that "all come to faith, yet in different ways." This has been one of the essences of the progressive Christianity manifest in our UUCF community. And the importance of ours, and all communities formed in the spirit of Jesus, is reflected inthe ending ofJohn 20 whichmentionsthe many more signs Jesus did but which are not contained in John's gospel. They are not as important anymore as the "book" now itself, as the community of the book which hears and formsthe book.In such hearing, Scott and Leewrite, "Jesus still stands in the midst of the community. Their hearing of the book enables them to say...we've seen the master."How the community conveys, orgives voice, to and for Jesus is nowwhat counts. Let that be a mandate for us all.

This reminds me of the importance of all our UUCF forms of community and calls us all to continue seeking to create these communities: in our churches, in our local or district areas, online.

Besides his Keynote Lecture at Revival looking at the radical ways of the early disciples Peter Paul and Mary, Scott will also present a workshop on "Reimagining the Resurrection" drawing much from his sound-mapping work.

He is the Darbeth Distinquished Professor of New Testament at Phillips Theological Seminary in Tulsa, a founding member of the Jesus Seminar, author of Jesus: The Symbol Maker, Hear Then The Parable, Re-Imagining The World, Hollywood Dreams and Biblical Stories,editor of Jesus Reconsidered, and other works. He is a frequentspeaker and commentator on the progressive Christian DVD curriculum series put out by www.livingthequestions.com.

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Here are some other Books of Note on my (Ron Robinson) shelves:

• Diana Butler Bass' latest book, A People's History of Christianity: the other side of the story, HarperOne 2009. It is a kind of background story to her other new book on Christianity For the Rest of Us, which is another in the long line of recent books by progressive Christians on their faith and why it is or should be still influential in society. A People's History is a more important book, I think, because it connects current movements to traditions and trends in Christianity ever since it started; it validates what Bass calls "generative Christianity" against those who think liberals have given away tradition in favor of cultural mores, and against those who dismiss Christianity all together. She contrasts generative Christianity, which is open to revelation beyond itself and within itself and corrects itself, with that "Big C" militant Christianity that creates us. vs. them polarities, and she says liberals can do that too.
  
  In fact, she opens up the book addressing those we might find among our churches in particular who admit they think Jesus was cool and relevant but don't want to have anything to do with "all that stuff after Jesus." Her book is devoted to setting the record straight by admitting the ways things go bad among Jesus followers but mostly by presenting people with a continuous thread of stories of people who followed after Jesus and carried his spirit forward into their own times and places, structuring the book into Early, Medieval, Reformation, and Modern times. Good class or sermon series material here. It doesn't lift up our own tradition's role in those stories as much as I might have liked, whereas Brock and Parker's "Saving Paradise" includes a good bit of Unitarian and Universalist history amidst Christian history, but the two books are a good combination together. Still, A People's History discusses briefly the influence of Thomas Jefferson, Emerson and Transcendentalists, British unitarian F.D. Maurice, Jane Addams and Hull House, and the World Parliament of Religions in Chicago in 1893 though not the Unitarian role in it.
  
  Each section also has a metaphor attached to its historical section that helps to pull together the focus of that era and its issues. For the early church it is "The Way." For Medieval times it is "The Cathedral." For Reformation it is "Word". For Modern it is "Quest." And for the current postmodern era it is "The River." In the river there are streams both liberal and conservative, a growing stream for Christianity in the southern hemisphere, and for the increasing hyphenations of communities and traditions within Christianity in an ecumenical and inter-religious way, and the focuses on spiritual practices which often cut across the streams.
• The First Paul - reclaiming the radical visionary behind the church's conservative icon, by Marcus Borg and John Dominic Crossan, 2009 HarperCollins. These two popular scholars combine to walk the general reader through the often complicated and historically misunderstood life and letters of Paul, focusing on Paul's central concerns and concepts, and putting Paul, as they have Jesus, into the context of the Roman Empire and Hellenistic values and the Temple System of his time. This book grows out of their collaboration conducting tours in the Middle East to look at many of the biblically and culturally important archaeological sites, and www.livingthequestions.com sells those DVDs on their ideas on Paul in a program called "Eclipsing Empire" which is also available at the UUCF lending library by contacting our office. If you haven't already encountered the ground-breaking new scholarship of the New Paul Perspective, this is a good introduction (as is the series of lectures by Crossan at our UUCF Revival in Cleveland which can still be purchased through our website).
• The Blue Parakeet - rethinking how you read the bible by Scot McKnight. Christian author and professor, McKnight is a proponent of the "third way" of treating the bible and theological differences, navigating between liberal and conservative Christian interpretations. Liberalism itself, as McLennan's book and others have pointed out, considers itself a "third way" mediating between secularism and orthodoxy, but McKnight's audience is clearly within the Christian sphere, and somewhat more evangelical and emergent camp within it. Which makes for the book's strength as well as some of its frustrations, but overall it is a refreshing look at how to approach the Bible as Story, with the various and different stories within the Story. It is particularly helpful too if you are in a place where you are likely to have conversation with people who hold conservative interpretations of the bible. He spends way too much time, for my taste, on such issues dated for us such as women and the church, but he includes a few good and interesting surveys as conversation starters at the back of the book, and it is a delight sometimes to immerse in a book on the bible that doesn't have to begin in apology, one that, as he puts it, reads the bible with tradition but not just through tradition.
• From Stone to Living Word - letting the bible live again by Rev. Debbie Blue, author of Sensual Orthodoxy and pastor, Brazos Press 2008. Blue's approach is to sink deeper into the texts themselves, to not let the Bible as Bible become idol that kills the spirit of the stories. Her writing is lively, and personal, and has the feel of a good online blog; for example, she simply writes "The Bible is a very weird book" and then goes on to show how that weirdness is a good and powerful thing and not something to be explained away. Some of her work has appeared in The Christian Century magazine and the book is loosely structured along liturgical year reflections and the common lectionary like the reflections found weekly in that periodical. This book would be easy to use in a small group. Like McKnight she is coming from, and out of, a conservative evangelical community and learning the joys and life-affirming power of encountering the biblical stories from a more generous imaginative approach. She reminds us that "the bible doesn't supply us with a neat package of timeless wisdom and moral certitude. It witnesses to what it is like to be living beings in a relationship to the living God, what it's like to encounter the Word of a God who speaks rather than statically exists, a God who continually creates life and resurrects it, who seems interested in growing shoots from stumps, not cutting them off, making possibility where there was impossibility, loving more than fixing...What a crazy, beautiful thing." So is her book. I look forward to checking out her House of Mercy new emerging congregation in Minneapolis during our upcoming General Assembly there in June.
• Listening to the Parables of Jesus - a Jesus Seminar guide anthology edited by Edward F. Beutner 2007. Some of the best contemporary parables scholars present their latest thinking about some of Jesus' parables which have been so crucial to a 21st century understanding of Jesus and of Christian faith. One of them, by the scholar Brandon Scott, is set in a UU church during one of the Jesus Seminar on the Road conversations and he talks about how the event there, and particularly the contributions of one of the people attending the event, helped him to come to a newer fuller understanding of the violence in some of Jesus' parables in the Gospel of Thomas. This is a slender book designed to be read and studied together in a small group.
• Cross Examinations - Readings on the meaning of the cross today edited by Marit Trelstrad 2006 Augsburg Press. This is a book often used in seminary theological classrooms and contains new understandings on the oldest of theological struggles in Christianity from writers such as Rita Nakashima Brock to Douglas John Hall, Jay McDaniel, Jurgen Moltmann, Delores Williams and other contemporary theologians. Its strength is that once you finish it you might quit trying to pigeonhole one meaning to the cross and resurrection and begin to revel in the many ways the meanings made from those events are being applied today to a host of current life issues. The cross itself as a controversial symbol is itself part of the conversation. UU Christians have a particular history of exploring Christology and of defining ourselves as we define our Christology, or our view of the role and person of Jesus the Christ. This book will present a lens to many other views that can inform our own as well as being an introduction to the work of contemporary theologians who we might want to explore in more depth on their own. This is an admittedly progressive Christian slant and so you won't find too many reflecting orthodox traditional understandings. The major areas covered by the essays are grouped into The Cross in racial and gender oppression; The Cross and the suffering world; and The Cross: imperialism, violence, and peace.
• A Cross-Shattered Church - reclaiming the heart of theological preaching by Stanley Hauerwas 2009 Brazos Press. The acclaimed theologian presents a series of recent sermons here, which reflect his rich theological work found in his longer books but which are grounded in the life of the church year and as part of sacraments such as baptism and marriage also in his own life. His concerns that we be concerned with the communities of faith, and of the traditions of those faith, and how these shape us and through us can shape the world which is so bent out of shape and bent on shaping us to it---all of that comes through in ways he interprets scripture and the current issues of our day. A small wonderful gem that even if you argue with Hauerwas theologically you will find his sermons moving and wise.
• Reading the Bible with the Damned by Bob Ekblad. Westminster John Knox 2005 - What is it like to read the bible with those on the margins of society, the immigrant farmers, gang members, prisoners, especially for a "mainliner" Christian who finds that usually those leading bible study for these groups come from more fundamentalist Christian or Mormon or sectarian evangelical leaders? Ekblad says many of the people he reads the Bible with have no belief that God loves them, have no belief in themselves, and feel they have been given up on by others as well as God. He has much to teach those of us who live and build community with those not often found in mainline or liberal churches, and how to help emerge their authentic voices and not just the voices they think the facilitator wants to hear. He doesn't introduce them to historical critical biblical reading, but lets a newer fresher loving image of God than they are used to guide his guiding them through the texts. The conversational style of the book puts the reader right into the circles of those exploring the Bible with him and helps bring a new lens on many biblical passages.
• The Politics of Spirituality by William Stringfellow Wipf and Stock Publishers 2006, series introduction by Daniel Berrigan, originally published by Westminster John Knox in 1984. I was introduced in seminary to the amazing writings and radical Christian living and thought of lawyer, Episcopalian, gay man who was a leading activist for civil and human rights for the poor and those who were struggling for peace. At the time, in the late 90s, many of his works were hard to find; now they are being reprinted and he is being re-introduced to a wider public. These are slim volumes but full of depth with writing packed tersely as Stringfellow lays out his arguments for applying a real biblical spirituality to the issues of the day. This particular book seems a good corrective for all of us who too often identify spirituality and the spiritual life with the inner life of mystical practice, instead of following the radical biblical imperatives of supporting all in resisting the forces of oppression and materialism and consumerism even in the guise of a psuedo-spirituality.
• Free of Charge: Giving and Forgiving in a Culture Stripped of Grace by Miroslav Volf  Zondervan 2005 with foreward by Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams who picked this book as his recommended Lenten book for all Anglican churches. I recently participated in a workshop with Yale theologian Volf based on this book divided half into a discussion of creating more generosity in our culture, and half a discussion of the related topic of living in a habit of forgiveness in a culture that heralds vengeance and keeping us vs. them relationships instead of we are all God's children and have all been forgiven ourselves relationships. Volf's personal and family background in eastern Europe with its divided towns, its life under oppression first from fascists and the communists have grounded and the suffering that ensued has grounded his theological and ethical reflections here. These issues are treated here with familiarity and complexity and not in any quick self-help way, and are guided by his faith (pentecostal in Europe and Episcopalian in his years in America). His atonement theology guides his passion and approach to forgiveness, and it is not mine, but the "inclusive substitionary" approach is presented well and will be new to most readers I think who are more familiar with "vicarious atonement" approach where Jesus is seen as a third party between God and Humanity. Volf's deeply trinitarian image of God allows him a theological stance that is more personally and communally transformational and rooted in forgiveness and grace and praxis than common understandings that call for little more than a statement of belief. One of the most interesting parts of the book is the epilogue where Volf carries on a created conversation with a skeptic who tries to bust Volf's bubble with realism about human nature that never rises above self-interest. This part should be particularly of interest to Unitarian Universalist Christians. For more on Volf and his work in these areas at Yale, especially regarding recent Muslim-Christian dialogues, see www.yale.edu/faith