Ted Grimsrud—October 10, 2017

Prominent Jesus scholar John Dominic Crossan has written an interesting and helpful book addressing what I believe are some of the most important issues in Christian theology. In this book, How to Read the Bible & Still Be a Christian: Struggling with Divine Violence from Genesis Through Revelation (HarperOne, 2015), Crossan seeks to provide what is essentially a pacifist approach to the perennial question about how to understand the Bible’s notorious pro-violence teaching in light of Jesus’s message of nonviolent love.

Crossan’s antipathy toward Revelation

I greatly appreciate it any time a theologian argues in favor of nonviolence, so I am grateful for Crossan’s effort. However, I have some concerns as well that were triggered by the book’s first chapter. I became aware from reading an earlier Crossan book, God and Empire, that he is not a fan of the book of Revelation. Right away in How to Read the Bible, Crossan makes his antipathy toward Revelation apparent. Sadly, Crossan profoundly misreads Revelation—at least in my opinion. And his misreading weakens the overall argument of the book.

Crossan begins the book by describing how he was motivated to write it by questions he received from audiences on various speaking engagements. So he set out to respond to those questions and to make the case that the Bible can be read to support nonviolence—especially if we understand the message of the historical Jesus as the core.

One difficult set of questions concerns the book of Revelation. Crossan was continually asked: “What about that Apocalypse from John of Patmos, what about the book of Revelation, and what about the second coming of Jesus Christ? No matter what I said about the nonviolence of the first coming, questioners objected that the second coming was to be supremely violent, was to be a war to end all wars. Put bluntly, the nonviolent Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount seemed annulled and dismissed by the later Jesus in the book of Revelation” (p. 9).

Such questions about Revelation are indeed common for me, too, whenever I speak about the Bible and peace. Although Crossan and I share the same desired outcome—an embrace of the nonviolence of Jesus as the norm for all Christians—we see Revelation’s role in contributing to that outcome in drastically different ways. Continue reading “The Book of Revelation and the Problem of Violence: A Response to John Dominic Crossan” →

[This post is adapted from a sermon preached at Shalom Mennonite Congregation, the fifth in a series on salvation and human flourishing. Here’s a link to the fourth in the series, “A Positive Reading of the Old Testament.”

Ted Grimsrud—October 8, 2017 [Luke 7]

There are some standard assumptions that Christians tend to have about the Bible—the Old Testament is old, outdated, primitive, problematic, violent and judgmental. And the New Testament is new, fresh, merciful, useful, peaceable and about forgiveness.

Well, I have spent a lot of time over many years trying—in sermons, classes, discussions, and writings—to show that the Old Testament is actually pretty good, that it’s an asset for faith and a guide for our quest for peace and justice in our hurting world. I know I have not persuaded everyone of this, but I’ll keep trying, though not this morning.

The New Testament’s dark side

The other side of the coin, though, is that the New Testament itself also has a dark side. It’s much shorter and not nearly as detailed in its accounts of political struggles. It covers just a short bit of time, unlike the hundreds of years the Old Testament has to do with. So the dark elements are perhaps a bit more subtle.

But we have things such as Jesus’s sharp, dare I say, even violent, dressing down of the Pharisees: “You blind guides, you white-washed tombs, you children of hell, you brood of vipers!” And his threats about God sending people to hell: “You that are accursed, depart from me into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels.”

And then there are the writings of Paul and of the book of Revelation. It is kind of uncanny that three times, just in the past couple of weeks, I have kind of randomly gotten into fairly intense arguments with friends–good, pious Mennonites—about whether Paul is an asset or a liability for Christian faith. I defend Paul, but apparently not very persuasively for my friends. And those of you who sat through what probably seemed like interminable sermons that I preached on Revelation here several years ago know that I go against the stream and present Revelation as a book of peace, not a book of judgment and violence. But the New Testament does present challenges.

One other difficult New Testament text is the story in the book of Acts about the early Christian married couple, Ananias and Sapphira. They are struck dead when they are caught lying and not giving the church the full price of some property they sold. Continue reading “A Positive Reading of the New Testament” →

Ted Grimsrud—October 2, 2017

[The following short essay was my contribution to a recent discussion among several Mennonite scholars concerning the Bible and LGBTQ inclusion in Mennonite churches. Our assignment was to reflect on the significance of the biblical creation story for our discernment. We had to keep the papers quite short, so were unable to address many of the various ambiguities and complexities with these issues. The background for my piece is the argument in opposition to same-sex marriage and in favor of restricting the involvement of LGBTQ people in the churches (e.g., opposition to the ordination of LGBTQ pastors) that centers on the idea of the creation story establishing an irrevocable norm of opposite-sex marriage—without exception (here is a critique of one such argument based on “God’s design for marriage”). I give several reasons why I don’t think is argument works.]

(1) Same-sex marriage is not the agenda of Genesis 1–2

The intent of the story in its own context was not to posit male/female marriage as the only valid marriage. It had other purposes. This is not to say that the gender distinction in the story is irrelevant, but that is not the story’s agenda—so it is making too big a deal of that distinction to use it as the central biblical teaching relevant to same-sex marriage.

It seems also that the male/female element is descriptive not exclusive. It is simply the case that procreation happens through male/female sex. But only a tiny fraction of such sex leads to procreation. Clearly sexual intimacy has other important purposes. Genesis 2 would indicate that one purpose is companionship or friendship—an intimate physical and emotional connection with one other person. And, again, this is not implying that every person is required to do this.

My point would not be to deny that it could be a valid interpretation that the creation story presents male/female marriage as the expected or normal arrangement for humanity and links such marriage with the bearing of children. However, it is not self-consciously trying to make an argument for male/female marriage with children for life is the only allowable arrangement. Continue reading “Why the creation story can’t carry the weight the restrictive view puts on it: The Bible and LGBTQ inclusion [Part 1]” →

Ted Grimsrud—September 1, 2017

I conclude my four-part series with this post that interacts closely with a second essay by Harold Miller. Previously, I commented at some length on Harold’s essay, “Romans 1:26-27 – Interpretations I have known.” He followed that essay with a shorter account of his interpretation of 1 Corinthians 6:9-11. After my close reading of that essay, I will finish with some more general reflections on the state of the conversation on LBGTQ inclusion.

The context for 1 Corinthians 6:9-11

In his discussion of this second text that those of a restrictive persuasion see as central to the New Testament message about “homosexuality,” Harold states that he is seeking a “strong understanding.” By “strong understanding,” Harold says he means “each text guiding us has strong exegetical certainty (though never ‘total certainty,’ for all texts have uncertainties).” So, he sets a pretty high standard for what he expects to achieve with his essay.

After two brief paragraphs about the “context” of 6:9-11, Harold zeroes in on verse 9 and the meanings of two words in that verse. In his “context” paragraphs, he does mention that the problem Paul addresses in this verse is that people in the Corinthian congregation are suing other people within the congregation. However, he does not explore how that problem might effect how we interpret the verse and the individual words he focuses on. In fact, he never again refers back to that “context.” He treats the meaning of the words in 6:9 as contained fully within the words themselves and not shaped by how they are used in the sentences that surround them.

Harold states that the two words he wants to focus on are “crucial.” But he does not explain why they are crucial. It could appear that he thinks they are crucial because he is looking for something that will support his views about “homosexuality.” But he does not explain why in a list of terms that serve Paul’s agenda of challenging the Christians in Corinth not to take their disputes to the secular courts, Paul would be giving us definitive teaching concerning “homosexuality.”

I understand the proper way to interpret biblical texts is not to focus on individual words as having what we could call autonomous or self-contained meaning, but we rather look carefully at the context that surrounds those words. The meaning of individual words is shaped a great deal by the sentences, paragraphs, and sections of which they are part. Especially with this text, the verse that Harold focuses on is simply a list without any elaboration within the list of what the words might be referring to. Just taken as individual words, the meaning of the terms is often unclear.

So, if we want accurately to discern the meaning of the particular terms, we would need always to keep Paul’s broader argument in mind. How does the specific word he uses in his list of characteristics of the “wrongdoers” support his argument that Christians should not take their disputes to the magistrates? Continue reading “The Mennonite Failure to Find Common Ground on LGBTQ Inclusion: Appendix on 1 Corinthians 6:9-11” →

Ted Grimsrud—August 28, 2017

The first two posts in this series on “The Mennonite Failure to Find Common Ground on LGBTQ Inclusion” tell the story of my thirty-year journey as an advocate for welcome and offer reflections on some of what I have learned from that journey. I told there how I was stimulated to write about these subjects again by an assertion by Mennonite pastor Harold Miller in a blog post discussion on the Mennonite World Review site that I had failed to “engage with the strongest biblical arguments” (“My Denomination Swings Left,” [July 19, 2017]). Challenged by that assertion, I initially set out to demonstrate that I did want to (continue to) engage such arguments. I figured I would do that with an extended engagement with Harold’s own articulation of those arguments.

As it turned out, I ended up writing something quite a bit different. However, as a two-part appendix to those first two articles, I want to go ahead an offer my response to Harold’s version of the biblical arguments. What follows may seem dry and overly detailed to many people, so I offer a “reader beware.” Unless you are particularly interested in close-grained debates about the meaning of a few verses in the New Testament, what follows might not really be worth your time. That warning given, I do think there is quite a bit at stake in this part of the discussion. A lot hinges on the restrictive reading of these particular verses, since these are two of the main biblical bases for their views. The soundness of “the strongest biblical arguments” would seem closely connected, then, to the soundness of the restrictive perspective in general.

In this first post, I will respond to Harold’s essay, “Romans 1:18-32 – Interpretations I Have Met” from his Interacting with Jesus blog (July 8, 2016), and in the second post, I will respond to a somewhat shorter post on the same blog, “1 Corinthians 6:9-11 – A Strong Interpretation” (July 12, 2016). My main interest with my two additional posts is to illustrate the kinds of arguments I have been using in exploring the meaning of the biblical passages. I have and do understand myself to be responding to “the best biblical arguments” that support the restrictive approach—and here I will do so in some detail with regard to those arguments as presented by Harold. I am open to further discussion concerning the interpretation of these texts, of course. But that is not my main intent here. It’s merely to show the kind of thing I have been doing the past 30 years as I have sought to have a conversation around the Bible with other Mennonites about issues many of us disagree about. My website, Peace Theology, contains many other examples. Continue reading “The Mennonite Failure to Find Common Ground on LGBTQ Inclusion: Appendix on Romans 1:26-27” →

Ted Grimsrud—August 22, 2017

[This is the second of a four-part series of posts. The first part sketched a thirty-year history of my involvement in trying to be part of Bible-centered conversations about LGBTQ inclusion with other Mennonites. I discussed how surprisingly (to me, at least) difficult it has been to find conversation partners—especially with those on the restrictive side who would actually interact with my interpretive arguments. In this post I will suggest some possible explanations for that difficulty.]

A long time conversation partner

There has been one Mennonite on the restrictive side who has been willing to respond to my thoughts many times over the years, Mennonite pastor Harold Miller (I recently uncovered an interchange we had from as far back as 1997). While I appreciate Harold’s perseverance and general congeniality, I also doubt that these interchanges have actually been cases of the Mennonite practice of examining the Bible together.

One reason I think this is that Harold himself has continually stated in public forums that progressives avoid engagement on the key texts. Quite recently he repeated that assertion in a conversation about his blog post on the Mennonite World Review site, “My denomination continues to swing left” (July 19, 2017). He wrote: “We worry that those making inclusivist arguments are mainly echoing our culture. We who are conservatives don’t see them carefully grappling with the strongest biblical arguments that support the church’s historic stance against same-sex relations.” When he was challenged in the comments about this characterization of those making “inclusivist arguments,” he doubled down:

“I have witnessed great love of Scripture among inclusivist pastors and much “scriptural engagement.” I have eagerly read their biblical arguments for full LGBTQ inclusion in the church, genuinely open to beginning to sympathize with those holding our culture’s rather than our church’s stance…. But as I read them, I don’t see them interacting with the strongest biblical arguments that support the church’s historic stance.”

I found these comments troubling. I would be an inclusivist (or “progressive”) who has indeed published dozens of pages “interacting with the strongest biblical arguments” used by restrictivists—including a co-authored, 317-page book published by the Mennonite Church’s own publisher that featured such interaction. Not to mention a large number of blog posts that have done likewise, many on which Harold himself commented.

So I wrote in a comment that I found Harold’s assertion that we on the inclusive side avoided “the strongest biblical arguments” disrespectful. And he still wouldn’t back down: “I wish I didn’t feel the need to see you engage those arguments, that I could just quickly say ‘The differences are because of honest disagreements, not a willful failure to engage the argument.’ But I’m not there yet.” In other words, Harold seems to say, I do believe that you are willfully failing to engage the “strongest biblical arguments.” Continue reading “The Mennonite failure to find common ground on LGBTQ inclusion: Part II—Learning from the journey” →

[This post is adapted from a sermon preached at Shalom Mennonite Congregation, the third in a series on salvation and human flourishing. Here’s a link to the second in the series, “What is justice? Love with claws”]

Ted Grimsrud—June 11, 2017

Now that I am not teaching anymore, I am more grateful than ever to have the chance to speak from time to time here at Shalom. As I read and think and write and talk with a few people, but don’t have any bigger public outlet for “thinking aloud” I look forward to having this opportunity to share.

Thinking about “sin”

One of the big things that I been thinking about that I’ve wanted to talk about is “sin.” Not mine, or any of yours, but the general theological theme of “sin.” A lot of my energy these days is going into reading and writing about a huge new book, 1,400 pages, written by megachurch pastor, new Anabaptist, preaching theologian Greg Boyd, called Crucifixion of the Warrior God: Interpreting the Old Testament’s Violent Portraits of God in Light of the Cross. Boyd, who is a strongly committed pacifist, makes a lot of controversial points in this book.I have wondered about the wisdom of trying to take it on because if feels a bit like a black hole—once one starts reading it and gets hooked, it’s hard to get out.

But there is so much that is refreshing and helpful in this book that I find worthy of attention. Boyd, as I said, is a pacifist, and that conviction governs his approach to what he calls the “Old Testament’s violent portraits of God.” That is, he wants to provide Christians with resources for understanding those difficult Old Testament texts as being fully compatible with the message of Jesus. I’m not sure he succeeds fully, but I find it so refreshing to read someone who takes these issues head on.

There is one big theme, though, that troubles me. Actually more than one, but one I want to talk about now. Boyd has a pretty thick view of sin. He shares the common Christian sense that humanity as a whole is under the power of sin. That sin defines the human condition. That the Bible is basically an account for how God deals with the sin problem—that sin matters more than anything else when we think about humanity.

I don’t agree with that view—though it would take me several more sermons to explain fully why and what my alternative view is. Right now, I’ll just say that I think we should have a more positive view of our human condition. Before I get into that more, though, I want to illustrate how the Bible itself gives us mixed messages. Let me read two passages. As I read, please think of a word or a few that strike you about the human condition—words from the passages or words the passages trigger for you. Then we’ll talk a bit. I will first read from Psalm 8 and then from Romans 3:9-18. Continue reading “Positive theology” →

[This post is adapted from a sermon preached at Shalom Mennonite Congregation, the second in a series on salvation and human flourishing. Here’s a link to the first in the series, “Are we in debt to God?”]

Ted Grimsrud—February 19, 2017

I want to start this morning with a question. Do  you consider yourself a Johnny Cash fan? I certainly am. Back in the 1960s and 1970s, he was about the only country singer that I would admit listening to. And he was a pretty remarkable performer. He sang songs advocating for Native Americans. He respected young people during the years when even Merle Haggard was singing songs bashing “longhairs.”

Johnny Cash’s popularity peaked with two live albums recorded in Folsom and San Quentin prisons. In San Quentin, he did a song he wrote called San Quentin, where he sang, to loud cheers, “San Quentin, I hate every inch of you. May all the world regret you did no good.” I am moved by the respect he showed the people in those prisons.

“Love with claws”

There was another live record that he recorded at about the same time—Live at Madison Square Garden in New York, December 1969. The height of the Vietnam War. Cash talked about that war—in itself a kind of gutsy thing for a country singer. And what he said was striking.

He talked about how he was often asked what he thought about the war. He had visited Vietnam about a year earlier and performed for the troops. His interviewer asked, “So that makes you a hawk?” And the crowd cheered. But Cash said, “No, that don’t make me a hawk.” But “when you watch the helicopter bring in the wounded and sing to them and try to encourage them so they can be healed enough to go home, it might make you a dove with claws.” Then he launched into a popular anti-war folksong, “Last Night I Had the Strangest Dream,” about putting an end to war.

I’m not sure what Cash meant by “dove with claws.” Since he sang an antiwar song, I want to say that he believed tenaciously in peace. That phrase has stayed with me, though, “a dove with claws.” I’ve adapted it for my sermon today—titled “Love with Claws.” I use that phrase, “love with claws,” as a kind of definition for “justice.” Justice, I want to say, can be understood as “love with claws.” Or, as Martin Luther King said, quoted on the front of our bulletin today: “Justice is love correcting that which revolts against love.” I will be interested if you think this makes sense when I am done…. Continue reading “What is justice? Love with claws” →

Ted Grimsrud—December 12, 2016

My approach to gathering news and information about the world is pretty haphazard. I have not put much time into self-consciously seeking out the best sources. More, I notice some sources that I find helpful and connect with them. In this post, I will simply list what I find helpful. I invite anyone who has additional ideas to share them in the comments.

I don’t offer this out of any sense of expertise on my part. But it is possible there are some sources here that might be new to a few people. In these times, we need to share our thoughts and resources and not worry too much about whether we are profound enough. What I offer here is simply a response to my wife Kathleen’s question: How do you stay informed?

I’m far from being a news junkie. I have pretty much eliminated television and radio from my life. Partly, I find those media to be more conducive to manipulating the watcher/listener.

I used to read corporate media regularly—Time or Newsweek, New York Times, Washington Post. And longer ago I listened to NPR. But I increasingly felt like I was being shaped by them in ways I didn’t like, even if I partook of them critically. I was reminded of this during the primaries this year when I read the Post a lot. I found the pro-Clinton bias quite subtle but relentless—and off-putting.

Now, I try to stay aware with a wide mix of written sources, mostly accessed randomly.For starters, though, to help my convictional framework, I read as much as I can from a core group of thinkers who I trust. This is partly for their information, but maybe even more to reinforce a sense of critical awareness. Some of the key people for me are Noam Chomsky, Naomi Klein, and Cornel West. I greatly respect their values, their knowledge and intelligence, and the breadth of their visions for human wellbeing.

I get emails from numerous sources that I scan over quickly. And I do mean “scan.” I never spend more than a few seconds on an email except when, occasionally, I seem something I want to read more thoroughly. Not very sophisticated, but I find this approach useful.

As I put this list together, I realized that I don’t know of any sites from an overt faith perspective other than Tikkun. I would love to learn of more….

Twenty-five informative sites: Continue reading “On being informed: Faithful living in the Trump era, part 5” →

Ted Grimsrud—December 10, 2016

Perhaps in our tumultuous times following Donald Trump’s election as the 45th president of the United States, the book of Revelation may come into its own. If it does as a resource for faithfulness to the way of Jesus, it will be because we read it as a prophetic book in the line of Amos and Jeremiah, not as a book of predictions about the future.

I find Revelation to be a comfort and an inspiration in these troubling days. It comforts with its reminder that the terrible plagues of human history do not negate the reality of God’s love as the most powerful force in the universe. And it inspires with its reminder that the pattern of Jesus (faithful witness, firstborn of the dead, and ruler of the kings of the earth; Rev 1:5) still provides a blueprint for authentic resistance and healing presence for us today.

So, it will be worth taking some time to try to understand the message of Revelation and to reflect on how that message remains relevant (here’s more on my views of Revelation). We are not living in the 1st-century Roman Empire. But perhaps by living in the 21st-century American Empire we still have a point of connection with Revelation’s visions.

Christians seem to be taking several approaches to the election of Trump and the likely upheaval that the US will experience. I want to suggest that Revelation’s teaching might lead us to suspect that each one of these approaches might be problematic.

(1) “We can count on a happy ending”

“We can take comfort that no matter how bad things might be in the present, everything will work out well in the end.” This idea gets support, for some, from the promises in Revelation of the coming of New Jerusalem, the defeat of the Dragon and his people, and the victory of God’s people over God’s enemies. In this view, Revelation is seen as predicting a happy and certain outcome to human history.

In response, I do think that taking Revelation seriously might offer us comfort during our times of distress. However, it is a difficult comfort, not linked with certain happy endings. I understand Revelation to be teaching about how a happy ending might be achieved—by staying true to core convictions such as the centrality of love, even in face of seemingly overwhelming centralized state (and in our time corporate) domination. However, it cannot provide a guarantee that “things will work out.”  That’s up to us—not that we wrest control of history from God and exercise our own domination, but that we must follow the Lamb wherever he goes. Only as we do so can we hope in New Jerusalem.

Continue reading “The book of Revelation and America’s election: Christian faith in the Trump era, part 3” →