Words from God? (Part 2 of five)

In the first post I mentioned that I'm trying to create space for a discussion about what I referred to as the "negative shadow" that our beliefs cast "behind" us, on those who don't share our beliefs.  Theological discussion that is capable of fostering reconciliation must be self aware enough and interested enough in engaging with the other to think long and hard about how what we believe un-avoidably shapes the way in which we un-intentionally treat those who don't share our beliefs.  I promised that there would be 4 more posts.  I also promised that we'd discuss what happens when we refer to written (Scripture) and spoken words as coming from God, or being inspired by God.  And i rather darkly hinted that in the first three I'd address areas in which the negative shadow of our beliefs concerning inspiration can affect those who don't share those beliefs.  The last post will act as summary, but also as the beginnings of a description of ways in which we can cast less of a shadow. 



So, if you are still with me after that first paragraph, permit me, if you will, to gently layout how the next three posts will be organized.  We have before us at least three things we also end up saying when we say that words come from God.  We also have two forms of words: written and spoken.  So please expect each of the next three posts (this one included) to address one of the things we also end up saying.  Also please expect to view it from both the written and the spoken angles. 

Lastly, please carry with you at all times a deep respect for the humans that are involved in our theological belief -- both those that agree with you and the one's that don't.  If you can, please bear in your heart the reality that each of carry a burden.  We are (all of us, with no exception) full of our memories, hopes, fears, and dreams.  We all manage in different ways.  The ways in which we respond to belief is often indicative of how we remember our past and how we hope for our future, of how we fear what we don't know or can't risk losing, and of how we dream about both our past, our present, and our future.  As you read, you will both agree and disagree, and that is ok.  After all, our task is reconciliation -- a dreadful task indeed -- so I beg each of my dear readers to listen and speak in equal proportion, even as we all hold truth together with love. 



What else do we say when we say that words are from God?  When we "inspire" words, and declare them to be divine, what else comes along with that?  Well, for starters I expect at least some of you feel I got off here on quite the wrong foot.  After all, you may (and probably should) ask, "how dare you say that humans are the ones that declare words to be from God?  Don't you know that God is speaking?"   In short, you are asking, "how dare you, a mere human, say that words in scripture or spoken in worship aren't from God?" 



I am glad to have the chance to respond, if you'll let me.  Quite simply, I'm not.  I'm not saying that words aren't from God.  I'm not saying that God doesn't speak in human words.  What I am saying is that for every word that we have reason to think is from God (say, Scripture, or words spoken in prayer, or the like) there are quite literally hundreds of other words about those words. 

These other words go back and forth and consider whether and how and wherefore, and if and how it comes to pass and whether or not, about the words that are considered to be from God.  And so we humans talk and proclaim and declare and ponder amongst ourselves in endless dialogue about these words we say came from God. 

What I'm asking then, is when we say, "this word came from God" what else have we said, and how does that affect people? 

I think that the first thing we also say whenever we come to a consensus about the words as being from God is quite simple and very much in front of our face.  We say that it came directly from God, even when humans were actually involved.  How does saying this affect people?  What can we do about it?  Keep reading! 



Lets look first at spoken words in prayer or worship that we all agree come from God.  These words are closer to us in time and space, and so are less threatening than looking at Scripture (but don't worry, we'll get there next).  



I know for me at least, in the part of the Christian world in which I grew up, hearing the voice of God in prayer and then speaking that voice was an experience that was valued and desired.  Indeed, true worship was defined in some sense as stemming from this experience. 

We wrapped lots of classical language around it.  For example, one was said to have a relationship God, in which conversation would normatively take place.  If God didn't speak back, then we were urged to continue believing, to continue to have faith, and to continue knowing that God would respond in his own time.  Much of this language is central to the great mystical tradition of the church. 

I suspect that I am not alone in having these experiences.  In fact, I suspect that many of you who read this blog grew up in similar corners -- as was I, you were taught that our faith is not a religion, but a relationship.  For many of us, the roots of this relationship lay in speaking to God and desiring to hear his voice, and the branches of the relationship lay in speaking that voice when you heard it. 

Do you remember meeting together for prayer?  We'd all kneel or sit or lay or whatever, and, each of us, speaks silently or aloud to God.  At times we would share our burdens with each other.  We would express these burdens to God, seeking healing and relief and the desire to be whole again.  Do you remember the fervent and devout pitch of emotion in the room?  Do you remember the moments of silent listening?  I do.  I remember.



Do you remember singing the songs of praise/worship before the sermon on Sunday morning?   Do you remember the particular emphasis (not on the quality of the musicians, but on the quality of the listening to God and the pouring out to God of our burdens)?  Do you remember, as each phrase is repeated and each clause  sung again, using the repetition in our hearts even as we cried silently to God?  Do you remember nervously raising your hand when you felt something (or not!)?  Do you remember, after a particularly long silence once the singing was done, the voices that would speak with the voice of God over the assembly?  Do you remember their intricate use of Old Testament imagery "come my people and seek me" (or again, "hear what the Word of the Lord says,") and their dual emphasis on love and terrible judgment?  I do.  I remember. 



In these moments, we collectively (as a group) said that God had spoken.  We said that God had spoken even though we heard Bill or Sue do the actual speaking.  Of course, it was best practice to try to offset for human error.  So we'd say something like, "When I was praying, I go this image, or that word, and I'd like to share it with you to see if it resonates at all with you."  That way if it resonated it was from God, and if it didn't, it was just human error.  The hope was that the person receiving the word could measure out and discern what was God and what wasn't God. 



While I respect this attempt, it finally fails in the end, and here's why.  It is roughly similar to a senior manager saying to a new hire, "I have a word that may or may not be from my boss for you.  I'm going to tell it to you and see if it resonates."  Do you see the problem?  The person on the listening end either takes it as a missive from God or they don't.  But even if they don't, always and for years, in the back of their mind there is this voice, "what if this word was from the boss?  What if I'm not listening to God?"

The possibility that God, the creator of the universe, may actually be speaking is much, much to large to ignore or smooth over with a caveat that this may be human error. 



And so at least one of the "negative shadow" effects of speaking to others words we hear from God is the creation of an increasing cacophony of words and images spoken to us by well meaning spiritual people.  We carry with us these voices, wondering in our still moments if we are ignoring God.  Or we carry these voices with us and act on them, believing ourselves to be following the expressed will of God.  And our actions off of these voices are different.

Have you seen people act badly to other people as a result of a "word" they received?  

By claiming that words are only from God even though they came through the emotion, intellect, and spirit of another human -- can you see the double blind involved here?  Can you hear the cacophony of voices given to you by others in your own life?  Do all of these voices help you with your burden?  Do some harm?  Probably both are true for each of us.  Was there ever a "word" or a "image" that was received by you as being from God and later it turned out to be harmful?  



There is a second "negative shadow" here as well; a second cacophony of voices.  Can you hear the people that don't hear from God?  They pray, they worship, they seek, they want to hear from God but they don't and they never have?  Do you hear as well their self-doubt?  Can you hear their own internal voice filled with doubts?  Can you imagine what it is to have one's Christian life be all about hearing the one thing (the voice of God) that you never personally and directly hear?  Can you feel their internal tension and turmoil?  Can you sense their eagerness when someone says, "I have a word that may or may not be from God for you?"  Are you aware of the immeasurable personal hope you invoke in their spirit -- how they want you to be right, to have actually spoken from God?  Do you know that you hold their soul in your hand?  



I want you to ask if the risk is worth the pay off.  My question is simple.  I also want us to critically evaluate our Christian culture that seeks always to proclaim words from God as the branches that prove the roots of a relationship (not a religion) with God.  

Please sit with the fact that while your personal relationship with God may be very life giving for you, and while you may think you are healing others by speaking words that may be from God to them, you add to several cacophonies of voices that we all carry with us for years.  Ponder if you dare the cost you may make someone else pay, because you buy into the narrative you have been told about your faith that requires you to speak when you feel that God is speaking to you. 



We do the same thing though with Scripture.  We say that the words are directly from God.  Even though we know that real humans wrote these words in a different language, culture, and time.  We know that these words were translated and copied by hand in learned communities for thousands and thousands of years.  We know that the grammar in them is sometimes wrong, we know that the details don't always cross check with each other, we know that different books have different styles, we know that different books come from very different cultural settings.  Yet we say that these words are "holy words, words preserved, words come down from God."  

What else are we saying when we say this?  How do these other things we say affect real humans?  What can we do about it?  Keep reading! 



At least one "negative shadow" is this: we teach our parishioners to pre-judge how other people approach scripture by whether they think it is inspired.  The assumption that we have been taught is that those who believe Scripture is inspired (or infallible) respect Scripture and God, and those who don't, don't.  Of course, if I believe that Scripture is inspired, and you don't, we may get along, but sooner or later you will figure out that I think your salvation is at stake.  Sooner or later a chasm of sorts will open up between us, you may very well perceive my love as judgment.  



This pre-judgment we have been taught to impose on people is filled with tragedy.  Can you imagine the grief on both sides?  Can you hear both voices?  One crying out to God that God would change the other so that they can appreciate and learn from the Word?  Can you hear their fear and sorrow -- fear that their loved one does not, in fact hear or read the words of God because they are closed off -- and sorrow that they cannot share in the richness of Scripture?  Can you hear the other?  Can you listen to their experience of reading Scripture and seeing in it (if not the voice of God) then certainly the witness to the works of God in human history?  Can you (my reader) feel their sense of being affronted by the certain knowledge of their friend?  But most of all, can you feel the distance between these two?  Can you step into that chasm between them and appreciate that their communion (if it exists) and their community (if they dwell in the same one) is fractured?  



Perhaps another "negative shadow" is a certain loss of context.  If the words are indeed only from God (and did not involve the human agent) than the culture to which they are written is relatively meaningless because the words should be (so the argument goes) as timeless as their author, God.  And so all study that involves critically appraising the text as a historically situated document preserved over many millennia in different circumstances is frowned upon.  And when this is done conclusions are able to be drawn from texts that are utterly different than the context in which that text was first authored.  And people's real lives are changed and commanded and urged to be different in very real and lasting ways based off of insisting that Words from God don't include human involvement.  



This last "negative shadow" is deeply compounded when a person says something like the following, "I received from God a word (or an image) based off of this text for your life."  

Can you hear the cacophony of voices, the hope, the fear, the human and communal cost of this statement?   



I hope that my writing this has caused you to view this last statement in a similar way to how you view a photograph the first time you see its negative.  I hope you can see at least some of the other views and ways of looking at that statement that those who don't share your certainty that words are from God feel.  



Of course, there is a very deep irony here.  Regardless of what we believe concerning the words we say are from God (both written and spoken) I think we can agree that, collectively and separately, they urge us to deeply love without regard to social boundaries.  They teach us to find the alien in our midst, the widow, the orphan, the single mother, the outcast amongst us, and embrace them.  They teach us to seek out those without hope in this world -- those who are deemed by all as "lost" and give them a glass of water, visit them in prison, and feed the hungry.  



So this is what it comes down to -- when we insist on saying, "this (or these) words are from God" is that insistence worth it?  I don't want to answer that question right now.  I do want you to tune in for part 3 of 5, because I'll go into the second category of negative shadows that are associated with what happens when we declare words to be from God.  As always, feel free to comment!