Some of the names that are confirmed so far are...

Shane Claiborne
Andy Crouch
Len Sweet
Peter Rollins
Wendy Gritter
Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove
Jason Hildebrand
Makoto Fujimura

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by Jonathan Turtle.

I’ve learned something over the past few years that I had not always realized but it’s of vital importance and it’s totally unavoidable because we all do it. Everyday. Intentionally or not. What I’m talking about here is interpretation. We can’t escape it. For our purposes here I’m particularly interested in the interpretation of scripture. “The Bible says so!” Perhaps you’ve heard someone say this (or perhaps you’ve said it yourself, I know I have). Nowadays when I hear Christians say this I kind of chuckle to myself, partly because I know what it’s like to be there and partly because I think it would be more accurate to say “my interpretation of the Bible says so!” Because, I mean, if we’re honest with ourselves nobody just reads the scriptures (or any text for that matter). We all interpret. In fact, it could be said that reading is interpreting and the two cannot be separated.

As a result there’s really no limit to the sorts of interpretations we can come up with. One of the things that we’ve learned from post/modern philosophers and psychologists is that there are no autonomous people. Rather, we are all shaped. Therefore, the ways in which one is shaped can/will influence the ways in which we hear and understand a particular text. Now in saying that there are a plethora of possible interpretations of a given text I’m not saying that all interpretations are of equal value. In fact, plain and simple, some interpretations are better interpretations. Again, I’m primarily concerned here with how we interpret the scriptures so perhaps looking at the scriptures will help us see this in a fresh light.

It’s no secret that Jesus subverted much Roman and Jewish thought. Here’s an example from the gospel of Matthew:

“At that time Jesus went through the cornfields on the sabbath; his disciples were hungry, and they began to pluck heads of grain and to eat. When the Pharisees saw it, they said to him, ‘Look, your disciples are doing what is not lawful to do on the sabbath.’ He said to them, ‘Have you not read what David did when he and his companions were hungry? He entered the house of God and ate the bread of the Presence, which it was not lawful for him or his companions to eat, but only for the priests. Or have you not read in the law that on the sabbath the priests in the temple break the sabbath and yet are guiltless? I tell you, something greater than the temple is here. But if you had known what this means, “I desire mercy and not sacrifice”, you would not have condemned the guiltless. For the Son of Man is lord of the sabbath.’

 He left that place and entered their synagogue; a man was there with a withered hand, and they asked him, ‘Is it lawful to cure on the sabbath?’ so that they might accuse him. He said to them, ‘Suppose one of you has only one sheep and it falls into a pit on the sabbath; will you not lay hold of it and lift it out? How much more valuable is a human being than a sheep! So it is lawful to do good on the sabbath.’ Then he said to the man, ‘Stretch out your hand.’ He stretched it out, and it was restored, as sound as the other. But the Pharisees went out and conspired against him, how to destroy him,” (Matthew 12:1-14, NRSV).

I don’t think there’s much debate as to what Jesus was doing here. It’s clear that he broke the law by working on the Sabbath (Ex. 20:10; Deut. 5:14). But did Jesus sin by breaking the law? I don’t think anyone reading this will agree to that. This being the case how is it that Jesus could have broken the law without sinning? Better yet, is it possible that by breaking the law Jesus actually fulfilled the law? I think it’s an issue of interpretation. The Pharisees were the law keepers. They interpreted the law one way, literally. Therefore, when the scriptures say that we are forbidden to do any work on the Sabbath (Ex. 20:10; Deut. 5:14) God literally means that we should not work on the Sabbath and for the Pharisees this included any acts of healing. Then Jesus comes along and heals on the Sabbath. The Pharisees, because of their interpretation of the law, considered Jesus to be a law breaker and the scriptures say that they “went out and conspired against him, how to destroy him.” Yet Jesus was without sin (2 Cor. 5:21). The only way then that Jesus could have broken the law and been without sin is if he interpreted the law differently than the Pharisees did.

In the scriptures Jesus proclaims that he came to fulfill the law (Matt. 5:17). How do we then understand this in light of Jesus’ antics in Matthew 12? I think it must be said that Jesus fulfilled the law by breaking it. Again, this comes back to how Jesus interprets the law. If the Pharisees interpret the law by the book then how does Jesus interpret differently? A man once approached Jesus and asked him a tricky question, “Teacher, which commandment in the law is the greatest?” Jesus responded, “‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ This is the greatest and first commandment. And a second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbour as yourself.’ On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets,” (Matt. 22:37-40). According to Jesus all of the law hangs on love. Love. Do this and you’ve fulfilled the entire law. At least according to Jesus. Oh, and Paul also: “The entire law is summed up in a single command: ‘Love your neighbour as yourself,’” (Gal. 5:14; see also Rom. 13:8). 

And so the story goes, Jesus enters the synagogue where there is a crippled man. Now the law says that work is forbidden on the Sabbath. So what does Jesus do? He goes to work. According to Jesus the law is to love. Did Jesus break the law? Yes. But in breaking it he perfectly fulfilled it because love was the correct interpretation.

As Christians there are many ways we interpret the scriptures. Sometimes we do a terrible job while other times we get a glimpse of what it looks like to fulfill the law. Sadly, we often are guilty of interpreting the scriptures in a manner that allows us to treat ‘others’ as less-than-human, as less worthy of dignity and respect. In other words, sometimes we are so adamant that we keep the law that we lose sight of love. In seeking to keep the law we actually end up breaking the law. In these cases may we break the law in order to fulfill it. May we go out into the world as lawbreakers because sometimes that is the only way we can keep the law and thus remain faithful to Jesus. Perhaps it is only then that we will find ourselves close to the kingdom (Mark 12:34).

How ought we interpret then? Love. Sometimes it really is that simple.

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You can view both of their bios here.

Unfortunately Mary Ruth Wilkinson is unable to make it but we have no doubt that Valerie will do a tremendous job with the same sort of topic.  As well, in case you missed it, Brennan Manning is under doctor's orders not to travel so we've arranged to do a LIVE interview with him on Aprill 10th instead.

Everywhere you go today, at least in most theological circles, the cry is raised against capitalism as an evil, oppressive system that must be smashed violently or at least overcome and abolished by peaceful, democratic means.  The means by which we resist it may be debated, but the evil of capitalism itself is seldom questioned.  The recent recession and global debt crisis have given the anti-capitalist crusaders more ammunition and motivation to renew the attacks on market based economic systems as harmful to the environment, unjust to the poor and full of systemic violence.  

This ideological conviction is often found to be closely associated with a number of other verities of the left, such as a deep suspicion of and harshly judgmental attitude toward Western civilization, a sympathy for Marxist or neo-Marxist ideas, feminist attitudes toward patriarchy, and the belief that equality is a higher value than freedom.   

Capitalism is a modern ideology that arose at the time of the European Enlightenment on the basis of a Deistic worldview and a naïve faith in the power of human reason to penetrate the nature of reality unaided either by revelation, which was dismissed as superstition, or by tradition, which was patronized as the attitudes of the human race in its relative infancy.  Capitalism was developed as a totalizing system of thought in which vices like greed no longer had to be overcome because they could be managed in such a way that even a race of devils could preside over a just society providing that they used reason to discover and implement a capitalist system of economics.   

It all sounds too good to be true and, of course, it is too good to be true on several counts.  First, human reason was never regarded as having such a high degree of autonomy by classical Augustinian-Thomist Christianity and it is no longer regarded in this way even by the postmodernist heirs of the Enlightenment.  If St. Augustine would regard Adam Smith as a Pelagian, Foucault would unmask him as the ideological spokesman for the rich and powerful.  Secondly, when the undoubtedly valid insights of capitalism into methods of economic organization are generalized or elevated to a level of a total world view, they fail because they are not grounded in a metaphysics that is capable of supporting a world view that accounts sufficiently for human nature.  The Christian understanding of humans as being created for love cannot be contained within capitalism as a total world view or system. Thirdly, both classical Christians and modern Christian socialists are aware of the fact that human nature is in need of change and that any just and humane economic system requires a new kind of human person.  St. Augustine, of course, would speak of the problem of original sin and St. Aquinas would advocate the necessity of virtue, while even the ideologues of the old USSR spoke often of the “new Soviet man.” Christian democratic socialists believe that it is Christian love, working through politics that is the needed inspiration for a democratic socialist society and for overcoming capitalism.  

But to criticize capitalism as inadequate is not the same as throwing out every aspect of capitalism as if it were safe and reasonable to swing over to capitalism’s opposite – namely socialism.  In many ways, socialism is capitalism’s evil twin and shares a lot of its DNA with its sibling rival.  Socialism is also a modern ideology that is totalizing in its intentions, utopian in its aspirations and Pelagian in its anthropology.  Socialism suffers from the same defect as Nineteenth century robber baron capitalism in that it places too much power in the hands of a small elite.  Applied to the modern state, socialism takes the form of a bureaucratic rationality which stifles individuality and human dignity in the name of an equality of outcome imposed arbitrarily from above.  In my opinion, the main problem with socialism is not that it is inefficient (although it is that), but rather that it undermines the dignity of the individual and the responsibility of the individual to choose to obey the natural law and the moral law.  If reason and conscience make us uniquely human, our very humanness is at stake in modern, bureaucratic, state socialism. My argument is not that we must retain elements of capitalism (as the Communist Party of China does) because capitalism is efficient in stimulating production of needed goods and services.  (A socialist government must have goodies to dole out or it collapses.  This is the lesson China learned from the events of 1989.)  My argument is rather the more counter intuitive one that capitalism contains within itself certain ideals that are necessary to a just and humane society – all questions of economic efficiency aside.  

If we are seeking for a model of economics that may point the way forward for us, I believe we have to work our way free of modernist, Enlightenment assumptions about human nature, reason and the nature of God.  The question I want to highlight here is “What pre-modern assumptions are embodied in at least some versions of capitalism that are worth keeping precisely because they representative alternatives to the modern ideologies that many of us regard as failures today?”  I would make a list as follows:    

1. Individual liberty
2. Religious freedom
3. Free enterprise
4. Personal responsibility
5. Limited government
6. The division of powers
7. The rule of law
8. Natural law

I could go on about each one of these points in detail but space does not permit.  My point in mentioning these ideas is that each one of them is pre-modern, each one is a necessary good for a just and humane society in a fallen world, and each one is threatened by socialism.   

What I am suggesting is that any just and humane economic system that Christians could approve of in this fallen world would need to include these ideas in it and that, therefore, simply to reject capitalism and to embrace socialism is not an adequate response in the contemporary situation.  We should not throw out the babies of liberty, religious freedom, free enterprise, personal responsibility, limited government, the division of powers, the rule of law and recognition of natural law in throwing out the capitalist (and modernist) bathwater because, if we do, we will likely end up with something that looks more like Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World, or Alexander Solzhenitsyn’s Gulag Archipelago, than the kingdom of shalom described by the ancient Hebrew prophets.