Brevard Childs: champion of orthodoxy

This is a continuation of my previous post:  the second part of my response to Brevard Childs's critique of Walter Brueggemann's Theology of the Old Testament: Testimony, Dispute, Advocacy.¹

I began the previous post by saying that the article isn't very flattering to Childs. In this post, it will become clear why I see it that way.

The little texts and the Great Tradition:

First, allow me to juxtapose two of Childs's statements. The point is to demonstrate that Childs's criticism of Brueggemann is unjustified.

criticism; pp. 230-31

summary; p. 228

The biblical editors retained the radical scepticism of the book of Ecclesiastes largely in an unredactored [uncensored] form. But they added in an epilogue a rule for properly interpreting the book, namely, it is to be heard within the framework of Torah (Eccles. 12:13f.). When Brueggemann assigns an independent role to such traditions as counter- testimony, he is running in the very face of Israel's canonical witness.

[Brueggemann's approach] would seek to do justice to the radical unsettlement evoked by the new postmodern epistemological situation with its insistence on pluralism. … Accordingly, interpretation is defined by Brueggemann as an ongoing process of negotiating among the full range of conflictional testimonies which avoids any absolute claims — whether historical or ontological — beyond the court of appeal found in the biblical text itself.

The criticism of Brueggemann's method, on the left, has already been explored in the previous post. However, I now call your attention to the statement highlighted in yellow. As long as the book of Ecclesiastes is "heard within the framework of Torah", the biblical editors were content to allow the community of faith to study it.

Now consider Childs's summary of Brueggemann's method, on the right. The claims of the various testimonies are to be adjudicated by "the court of appeal found in the biblical text itself."

The biblical editors insisted that we must hear Ecclesiastes within the framework of Torah; Brueggemann is committed to precisely the same thing. Childs's objection appears to be unjustified.

Brueggemann falls into error, according to Childs, when he assigns an independent role to Ecclesiastes (and other such countertestimonial texts). But Brueggemann emphatically denies the charge:

Of course nothing could be further from the truth. I have consistently said that the different testimonies are endlessly in tension with and corrected by other testimony. None is freestanding, none is isolated, none is cut off. (p. 235)

The slight variation between [Professor Childs's] approach and mine I believe to be a more benign variation than his rhetoric suggests. What is at issue is the endlessly tricky relation between 'The Great Tradition' and the 'little texts.' … It is my concern that in future generations, the Church will be able to attend to the 'little texts,' even as it commits to the Great Tradition. (p. 237)

I think that's sage advice:  attend to the "little texts"; commit to the Great Tradition.

Childs, champion of orthodoxy:

Childs, on the other hand, approves of the subordination of some of the voices found within the biblical text. I am not putting words into his mouth. I quoted his statement to that effect in the previous post:  "the biblical editors subordinated [certain] voices", including the radical scepticism of Ecclesiastes (p. 230).

Childs approves of this work of subordination. Brueggemann errs because "he feels free to reconstruct voices on which Israel's authors had already rendered a judgment" (p. 230).

Indeed — and here's the point I have been building up to — Childs attempts to marginalize Brueggemann's voice. Childs makes himself the champion of orthodoxy:  he argues that Brueggemann's method tilts carelessly toward heresy.

It may be that one is philosophically justified in characterising Brueggemann's approach as postmodern. However, from a theological perspective the closest analogy is found in the Early Church's struggle with Gnosticism. …

One does not have to look far to discover the striking analogies between Brueggemann's postmodernism and ancient Gnosticism. Both operate within an overarching philosophical system in which [Brueggemann's] 'imaginative construal' closely parallels Gnostic 'speculation' as a means for correcting the received biblical tradition. Both approaches work with a sharply defined dualism between a God of creation who is known and predictable, and one who is hidden, unknown, and capricious.

By characterizing Brueggemann's method as analogous to Gnosticism, Childs sets out to consign Brueggemann's Theology of the Old Testament to a place outside the pale of orthodox Christian teaching.

I submit that Childs's canonical approach has a natural tendency in that direction. If you accept that the biblical editors deliberately subordinated unsettling voices like that of Ecclesiastes, and you regard that subordinating activity as legitimate, inevitably you will be tempted to subordinate unsettling voices like Brueggemann's to your vision of orthodoxy.

The lived reality of the believing Church:

Childs speaks of "an established range of truthful witness". Brueggemann would not disagree with that way of expressing things.

But for Brueggemann, the radical scepticism of Ecclesiastes (and other countertestimonial texts) are within what is, by Childs's admission, a range of truthful witness. Here Brueggemann appeals to the lived reality of the believing Church:

What I have done is to give 'other voices' a serious hearing, for there is no doubt that in Scripture there are voices of witness in profound tension with each other. The issue turns on which witnesses are truthful, but it has been the lived reality of the Church that different witnesses in Scripture have been heard as truthful on different occasions. …

The silence and absence of God is indeed a lived reality that must be fully taken into account. I have not wanted to let any 'large' ecclesial claims censor the lived reality of the believing Church.

(pp. 235-36)

Update:  I wasn't quite satisfied with the ending of this post last night, but I couldn't think what to add. Here's the point I didn't quite get to.

One of the great insights which emerges from Brueggemann's approach is that "postmodern" experiences are not at all new or unprecedented. The silence and absence of God; anomie; alienation; fragmentation; meaninglessness; doubt and confusion — all these postmodern themes were known to the ancient Israelites and reported honestly in scripture.

Brueggemann's approach is explicitly pastoral. He recognizes the immense potential of the "little texts" of scripture to address the distinctive needs of a postmodern people. Hence his determined effort to reclaim these voices in the service of the Church.


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¹Scottish Journal of Theology vol. 53, no. 2, 2000, pp. 228-233, with a reply by Brueggemann at pp. 234-238.

Two heavyweight scholars slug it out

Phil Sumpter suggested that I read Brevard Childs's critique of Walter Brueggemann's Theology of the Old Testament: Testimony, Dispute, Advocacy. The critique, with a reply from Brueggemann, was published in the Scottish Journal of Theology seven years ago.¹

Readers of our respective blogs will know that Phil's theological sympathies lie with Childs, whereas mine lie with Brueggemann. I found the exchange between Childs and Brueggemann illuminating, but not very flattering to Childs.

The core disagreement:

Here's an excerpt from Childs's article which directs our attention to the key difference in the two scholars' approaches.

The present form of the biblical literature emerged during a long process of collecting, shaping and transmitting a wide variety of different traditions arranged in sections of Torah, Prophets, and Writings toward the end of serving communities of Israel as an authoritative guide of faith and practice.

In this process various editors exercised a critical function in registering from the received traditions that which they deemed truthful and authoritative. This shaping thus involved a Sachkritik [i.e., the editors passed judgement on the texts that had been handed down to them] which was not simply reflective of private, idiosyncratic agenda, but which arose from actual communal practice and belief. Accordingly, Moses not Korah, Jeremiah not Hananiah, were judged to be faithful tradents of divine revelation.

In a word, Israel shaped its literature confessionally to bear testimony to what it received as containing an established range of truthful witness. At the same time, the biblical editors subordinated other voices, either by placing them within a negative setting, or omitting them [from the canon] altogether as deleterious to Israel's faith.

(p. 230; both the emphasis and the paragraph breaks were added by me)

Here we have a concise description of Childs's "canonical approach" to Old Testament interpretation. The editors of the Bible did not pass on Israel's traditional texts uncritically. They shaped the texts during the process of transmission; they contextualized the texts by inserting editorial remarks; and they left other texts out of the canon altogether. Hence the canon functions as a control, subtly determining how the reader interprets any individual text.

There's nothing unique to Childs about the analysis so far. Critical scholars agree that this editorializing activity went on during the transmission of Israel's traditional texts. They also agree that the goal of that activity was to set boundaries on interpretation — i.e., to subordinate certain voices.

Where Childs stands apart from other critical scholars, including Brueggemann, is in maintaining that canon as an instrument of control is good. According to Childs, we must respect the boundaries that have been marked out for us. Evangelicals would likely agree with that statement, but it's unusual to hear it from a critical scholar.

Childs tests Brueggemann's book against this standard:

In contrast, when Brueggemann seeks to describe a category of countertestimony to the so-called core tradition, he feels free to reconstruct voices on which Israel's authors had already rendered a judgment. … [For example,] the biblical editors retained the radical scepticism of the book of Ecclesiastes largely in an unredactored [uncensored] form. But they added in an epilogue a rule for properly interpreting the book, namely, it is to be heard within the framework of Torah (Eccles. 12:13f.). When Brueggemann assigns an independent role to such traditions as countertestimony, he is running in the very face of Israel's canonical witness.

Yet it is also obvious that Israel's genuine complaints before God constitute a major positive witness within a large portion of the Bible. They are present in the Psalter, Prophets, and Wisdom literature as a truthful testimony to Israel's experience before God in order not to contradict, but rather to establish its core tradition of faith.

(pp. 230-31; emphasis added)

Ecclesiastes as a case study:

In the reference to Ecclesiastes, we have a case study of the differences between Childs and Brueggemann.

Ecclesiastes seems to be a very humanistic book. For example:

For what happens to the children of man and what happens to the beasts is the same; as one dies, so dies the other. They all have the same breath, and man has no advantage over the beasts, for all is vanity. All go to one place. All are from the dust, and to dust all return. Who knows whether the spirit of man goes upward and the spirit of the beast goes down into the earth? (3:19-21)²

Clearly this text stands in uneasy tension with other parts of the Bible.

In Brueggemann's view, it is a mistake to try to eliminate that tension. We must allow Qoheleth to testify to his experience. It is an authentic experience that many believers can identify with; it is a legitimate countertestimony to Israel's core tradition. We must not paper over the cracks in the biblical witness.

Childs, on the other hand, says that the editors of scripture have already passed judgement on the book of Ecclesiastes. He agrees that Ecclesiastes is a truthful testimony to Israel's experience. But he adds that the editors have carefully circumscribed (subordinated) Qoheleth's voice by appending a critical comment at the end of the book:

The end of the matter; all has been heard. Fear God and keep his commandments, for this is the whole duty of man. For God will bring every deed into judgment, with every secret thing, whether good or evil. (Eccl. 12:13-14)

According to Childs, the apparent problem now vanishes. Ecclesiastes doesn't contradict the rest of the Bible. Because of this editorial appendix to the book, Ecclesiastes establishes Israel's core tradition.

Conclusions:

I have more to say, but I will do so in a follow-up post. For now, let's draw some conclusions.

• The distinction between "liberal" and "conservative" is sometimes facile, and Childs illustrates one way in which it can break down. Childs is "liberal" insofar as he is a critical scholar. Evangelicals typically insist that the Pentateuch, for example, was written by Moses, under YHWH's inspiration. They would be reluctant to concede that editors have altered the text in the process of transmission.
  
  But Childs ultimately arrives at very conservative conclusions. He champions orthodoxy, insisting that voices like that of Qoheleth must be subordinated to the witness of the canon as a whole. For that reason, Childs is likely to appeal to evangelicals, who engage in a similar practice (the "harmonization" of scripture).
  
  So is Childs a liberal or a conservative? Answer: Yes.
  
  And Childs is not so exceptional. James Dunn, for example, is a New Testament scholar who works within liberal presuppositions but often arrives at conservative conclusions.


• One can see that there is considerable agreement between Childs and Brueggemann, because they both accept the findings of critical scholarship. They agree that considerable editorializing activity has taken place during the process of transmission of the biblical texts.


• In the end, the difference between them boils down to a value judgement. Childs considers the data and deems the editorializing activity good. Brueggemann considers the data and deems the editorializing activity suspect.
  
  We all know that the Church (and the synagogue, though it's not my place to say it) has a long, problematic history of suppressing dissenting voices. Leaders in the Church have a vested interest in retaining their position of privilege. To do so necessarily means that marginalized people must be kept on the margins.
  
  One clear example of this is the subordination of women to male leaders. Consider the data. At one point, St. Paul says there is no male or female, for we are all one in Christ Jesus. But at other points, Paul says that women must not speak in the assembly; and they are not to teach or to exercise authority over men.
  

  As in all the churches of the saints, the women should keep silent in the churches. For they are not permitted to speak, but should be in submission, as the Law also says. If there is anything they desire to learn, let them ask their husbands at home. For it is shameful for a woman to speak in church. (1Co. 14:33b-35)

  What shall we make of this text? Is this Paul's voice? Or — as the evangelical scholar Gordon Fee argues — is this an interpolation by a later editor of Paul's letter to the Corinthians?
  
  If it is an interpolation, should we accept the opinion of the later editor? (That would seem to be the logical conclusion of Child's canonical approach.) Or should we insist that the editorial activity distorts Paul's voice, and allow Paul to have his say? In my view, we should follow Paul's egalitarian principle and open up church leadership to women.
  
  Thus I come down firmly on the side of Brueggemann. The editorializing activity really did take place, as Childs and Brueggemann agree. But this tendency of the orthodox to suppress voices that make them uncomfortable — I regard it as suspect, with Brueggemann, pace Childs.

More to come in the next post — probably 48 hours from now.

(update:  the follow-up post can be found here)


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¹SJT vol. 53, no. 2, 2000, pp. 228-233. Brueggemann's reply is at pp. 234-238.

²Unless otherwise indicated, scripture is quoted from The Holy Bible, English Standard Version.

A time to tear down, and a time to build up

Some years ago, I knew a woman who had taken a course in pastoral counselling at a local seminary. The course was a syncretistic blend of Roman Catholic theology and Jungian psychotherapy. She had to go undergo psychotherapy sessions as part of the program.

When I met her, she was a mess. Maybe she was emotionally fragile before she took the course — I don't know. But my impression was, her therapists had taken her psyche apart and failed to put it back together again.

Sometimes I think seminaries do the same thing to their students.

You apply to a seminary innocently expecting to be equipped for pastoral ministry. Instead, you are introduced to the modern "science" of critical scholarship, which takes scripture apart, piece by piece. (All science uses this process of breaking a thing apart into its constituent pieces to try to understand it.)

You enter seminary with a heart overflowing with faith and devotion; you exit seminary wondering if you can trust anything the Bible says on any topic. And voila! — here's your degree — you've graduated into pastoral ministry!

The experience isn't unique to seminarians, of course. University studies undermine the faith of many young Christians. Let me quote a post by Avdat, who shared this gem from Walter Brueggemann:

Walter Brueggemann would give a rather cheeky talk about how one's changing view of scripture parallels one's changing view of the family of origin:

1. "The Bible is the Word of God." This is what we say when we're young and our knowledge of the scriptures is limited to what we learned in Sunday School.
   
   This statement is not unlike saying, "I have a normal family." It's a statement of love, respect and great naivete.


2. "The Bible is a mess of contradictions, myths and legends." This is what we say after we take a religion class in college. Or, after we're put through the meat grinder of Biblical studies in a mainline seminary.
   
   It's not unlike saying, "My family is a dysfunctional mess, and I'm not coming home for Christmas!" The latter statement, like the former, is the product of some distance and new, third-party perspective, the therapist substituting for the professor. Oh yes, and there's anger in both statements.


3. "But they're still my family." After a while you own them again as your own. You don't pretend that you haven't learned that your father is an alcoholic and your mother is co-dependent, but they're yours, and you still love them, warts and all.
   
   And if we can say, "It's still the Word of God" (two creation stories and all), then we've made the parallel and necessary third move.

Brueggemann admitted that seminaries are a lot better at moving people from stage one to stage two than they are from stage two to stage three.

Brueggemann's other way of putting this is to speak of a cycle of (1) Orientation; (2) Disorientation; and (3) New Orientation.¹ In time, the "new" orientation will suffer disorientation in its turn.

It's a rather cynical analysis, I suppose, but how else would one grow? You can't make progress while keeping everything the same. It is to have one's cake and eat it, too. Thus remaining innocent (ignorant?) isn't an option. God has a way of shaking us out of our complacency, however disturbing we may find the process.

Not so long ago, I left a comment on a blog in which I applied this paradigm to evangelicals and liberals.

I have had some experience in both liberal and evangelical churches. The evangelicals have a blinkered perspective; they duck the hard questions. But the liberal pastors are very, very confused, which of course filters down to their parishioners!

I am fond of Brueggemann's notion that believers pass through a cycle of orientation / disorientation / new orientation. Evangelicals seem to me to be stuck at the "orientation" stage — they need to go on a voyage of discovery, have their world rocked a bit. But many liberals are stuck at the disorientation stage.

They're stuck there because that's where liberal seminaries leave their pastors.

I submit that all seminaries should attend to Ecclesiastes 3:3. Evangelicals need to understand that there is a time to tear down, in good scientific fashion. A time for analysis ("the abstract separation of a whole into its constituent parts for study").

But all scholars and professors need to understand that there is also a time to build up. A time for synthesis ("the combination of ideas into a complex whole").

Indeed, the building up is the most important part — the goal of the whole undertaking. If our seminaries tear the Bible apart and fail to put it back together again, they do pastors — and the Church — a grave disservice.

I've been through this process of disorientation myself. In some ways, I feel as if I'm only now entering the "new orientation" phase. Hence the title of this blog:  Emerging From Babel.



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¹This is the outline Brueggemann utilizes in his survey of the Psalms.

Defilement, part 2

Let me briefly recapitulate part 1:

• Defilement and sin are discrete, albeit overlapping, constructs.


• Christians ought to learn what the references to defilement mean, because such references permeate the Bible (including the New Testament).


• We took the following quote from Paul Ricoeur as a summary statement:  "The repertory of defilement appears to us sometimes too broad, sometimes too narrow, or unbalanced."¹


• It is too broad (from our perspective) insofar as it contains some matters that seem perfectly innocent.


• Second, it is too narrow insofar as it gives short shrift to misdeeds that we regard as serious offences.


• Third, it is unbalanced —

but that is where we pick up the argument in this post.

3. Unbalanced:

The purity / defilement system is "unbalanced", Ricoeur tells us. By this he means that relatively inconsequential matters (from our perspective) are regarded as grave.

We have already seen this in the saying attributed to Jesus in Mt. 23 (quoted in part one). Jesus mocked the Pharisees for scrupulously observing the tithe (tithing even their herbs and spices) while neglecting the "weightier" matters of the law.

But Ricoeur doesn't discuss tithing. He focuses on a different characteristic of the "repertory" of defilement:  one that has long puzzled me.

One is struck by the importance and the gravity attached to the violation of interdictions of a sexual character in the economy of defilement. The prohibitions against incest, sodomy, abortion, relations at forbidden times — and sometimes places — are so fundamental that the inflation of the sexual is characteristic of the whole system of defilement, so that an indissoluble complicity between sexuality and defilement seems to have been formed from time immemorial. (p. 28)

To illustrate Ricoeur's observation, I would call attention to 1Co. 6:9-10 —

Or do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived:  neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor men who practice homosexuality, nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God.²

It seems to me that the Church devotes a disproportionate amount of attention — and emotional voltage — to the sexual sins on Paul's list. For example, I have never heard of a believer being confronted with this text because s/he is greedy. In an acquisitive, capitalist society, am I to suppose there are no greedy people in our churches?

I submit that we do not really believe what Paul says here:  that the greedy will not inherit the kingdom of God. On the other hand, we are prepared to believe it with respect to fornicators, adulterers, and homosexuals. Those people are storing up wrath for themselves on the day of God's judgement — we know it in our very bones.

Why are we preoccupied by sexual sins? Because the fear of defilement still determines our responses at a deep, unconscious level. We acknowledge that greed is a sin; but homosexual activity elicits a greater emotional response from us because unconsciously we regard it as a defiling sin.³

Conservative Christians may dispute what I have just said. It is clear in their minds — indeed, it is a core part of their identity — that society is wrong when it winks at fornication, adultery, and homosexuality. But even conservatives must recognize the validity of Ricoeur's point when we shift our attention to other biblical texts:

When you are encamped against your enemies, then you shall keep yourself from every evil thing.

If any man among you becomes unclean because of a nocturnal emission, then he shall go outside the camp. He shall not come inside the camp, but when evening comes, he shall bathe himself in water, and as the sun sets, he may come inside the camp. (Deut. 23:9-11)

Like the law concerning menstrual uncleanness, this law refers to a matter that is entirely involuntary (since the man is asleep at the time). Moreover, we must surely be struck by the fact that an innocuous sexual matter is regarded as a gravely serious source of defilement.

Behind the text is an unstated fear that Israel will lose a battle because of one soldier's defilement. Better to have a mighty man of valour sit out the battle than have him fight in a state of uncleanness due to a nocturnal emission!

Conclusions:

1. Broader, narrower, unbalanced
   The purpose of this post was to demonstrate that defilement and sin are discrete constructs. By comparison to the offences that we usually mean when we speak of "sin", the repertory of defilement is broader at some points, narrower at other points, and unbalanced. In particular, it gives disproportionate significance to sexual matters.
   
   
2. Quasi-material
   Ricoeur suggests that sexual matters receive disproportionate emphasis because of their physicality — the bodily fluids associated with sex. Sexual impurity
   

   is connected with the presence of a material "something" that transmits itself by contact and contagion. … By many of its traits sexuality supports the ambiguity of a quasi-materiality of defilement. (p. 28)

   Thus the puzzling preoccupation with sexual matters gives us an insight into the nature of defilement:  it is "quasi-material".
   
   Defilement blurs the distinction between physical contamination and ethical contamination. It is this ambiguity that enables defilement to function as a symbol. Biblical texts can use the language of (physical) defilement to symbolize the stain (on one's soul) which results from sin.
   
   Likewise, we can take biblical references to defilement and "translate" them, treating them as if they were references to sin. But we should always be conscious of this process when we engage in it. We may be reading something into the text that is actually one step removed from its original scope.
   
   
3. Utility as a symbol for sin
   Finally, I return to Isaiah 6, the text quoted at the beginning of part one. Isaiah cries out (1) "I am a man of unclean lips," and (2) "I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips." Note the second statement. Here we are unmistakably in the realm of defilement (as opposed to sin). Isaiah implies that uncleanness is a kind of contagion, communicated from one contaminated person to the next via physical contact.
   
   Isaiah is seized with dread, for a defiled person must die when he enters the presence of a God who is rightly described as "Holy, Holy, Holy". But perhaps the text ought to say, "Pure, Pure, Pure"? Here the language is already subtly shifting away from defilement/purity toward sin/holiness.
   
   One of the seraphim flies to Isaiah. He touches Isaiah's mouth with a burning coal, taken from the altar. And he says, "Behold, … your guilt is taken away, and your sin atoned for." Here we see the same juxtaposition yet again. The altar exists for the express purpose of removing defilement (through rites carried out by priests). Thus, when the seraph touches a coal from the altar to Isaiah's lips, he is performing a rite of purification.
   
   But the seraph then speaks of guilt and sin, effectively changing the topic from the physical (defilement) to the ethical (sin).

I hope that this (long!) post has clarified the distinction between defilement and sin, and shed light on at least one biblical text.

But it is only an introduction to a topic that warrants a series of posts. More to come in due course!


This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Licence.
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¹The Symbolism of Evil, transl. Emerson Buchanan, Beacon Press, 1967, p. 26.

²Unless otherwise indicated, scripture is quoted from The Holy Bible, English Standard Version.

³Cf. Walter Brueggemann's remarks on this topic. It is Brueggemann's impression "that the enormous hostility to homosexual persons … does not concern issues of justice and injustice, but rather concerns the more elemental issues of purity — cleanness and uncleanness. This more elemental concern is evidenced in the widespread notion that homosexuals must be disqualified from access to wherever society has its important stakes and that physical contact with them is contaminating."Theology of the Old Testament: Testimony, dispute, advocacy, Fortress Press, 1997, p. 194.