Tag Archives: hermeneutics

Individualised Subjects

There is a trend in America — and likely elsewhere — to decontextualise events like the mass shooting last week by turning the perpetrator into a completely autonomous, loner, mentally disturbed, ‘sinful’ individual. I’ve heard this from both religious and non-religious people over the weekend. However, I’ve begun to wonder about such a move — especially the last one (the ‘sinful’ part). In discussing this with ministerial figures, they were quick to differentiate ‘killing’ (especially that ‘sanctioned by God’ in the HB/OT) and ‘murder’. For him, at least, there is a prior commitment to accept the literal (well, literal in English at least) wording of the Biblical texts as being directly from God and, therefore, to reject seeing the language of ‘divinely-sanctioned murder’ as political insertions by religious and political leaders of the time. This person was also quick to declare the actions and life of the shooter as ‘sinful’ as a result of his final act. Yet, I wonder if the share of ‘sin’ extends far beyond simply the act of shooting children in a school room. Ignoring the additional argument that ‘guns don’t kill people’, I want to explore the ‘sins’ of the community which far outweigh the shooting of American children.

First, while the shootings occurred in Connecticut, the American military has been involved with an ongoing campaign of murdering people indiscriminately in Pakistan. This includes children just as innocent as those in American elementary schools. When this fact is brought up in conversation, most people shrug their shoulders as if it is an inconsequential number (as is attributed to Stalin: ‘if a person kills a dozen, it is a tragedy; if five million, a statistic’). Interestingly, there was another mass killing on Friday in China. While this did make mention in the news, it was lost soon after in the deluge of speculation about the latest shooting in the US. Apparently, it is only newsworthy to the media when American children are gunned down by posthumously ostracised ‘individuals’.

Secondly, there is the looming question of gun control. This shooting — like the many before it — has rekindled the debate regarding gun control. There is a liberal knee-jerk reaction every time which shuts down this debate in the name of ‘respect for the victims’ — as if it would not be respectful to discuss a way of preventing further instances. It is a myth to say that outlawing handguns and removing them from public access will not affect how ‘criminals’ can acquire weapons — as if there is a gaping hole in the government’s oversight of its borders whereby guns flow freely. I believe the issue stems from an American romance with the Wild West in which laws were suggestions and ‘individuals’ could interpret ethics and legalities by the gun. For these people, outlawing guns would be a tragedy because they think by giving a person a gun, that person is empowered as a defender, equipped with deadly force, trained as sharpshooter, and prepared to become a vigilante at a moments’ notice. Never mind the fact that the overwhelming majority of mass shootings are not stopped by average citizens with guns (and in fact, those who have tried to do so have become part of the body count) but by people who are actually trained and prepared to deal with mass shooters (i.e. the police and military). In other words, the general American romance with the mythological Wild West is one in which lawmakers and upholders of the law are also individuals decontextualised from their positions as government employees. They are freed from the constraints of the legal system and community mores in order to protect it. The same could also be said of the military. This kind of liminality makes the individual somehow superior to the urbanites who rely on civil services. It also implicates the desire to return to a post-civil society in which laws are relative to the individuals who are the sole and final arbiters of law (a la Judge Dredd).

Third, there is a meta-narrative which develops around each of these shootings whereby the assailant is a mentally unstable individual who must bear the complete guilt, shame, and sin of his actions against a ‘tight-knit’ community. Time and again, the police and the media work together to sell the story of the lone gunman who had serious signs of mental instability and was able to acquire (legally!) numerous weapons prior to his assault on the community. Rarely, if ever, does the ‘tight-knit’ community actually see the warning signs of such an individual, yet they are quick to excuse their own lack of care (how ‘tight-knit’!) for the assailant. In other words, if the assailant is an outcast of the ‘tight-knit’ community, it is mutually decided between the person and the community.

Fourth, the meta-narrative of ‘tight-knit’ communities is made to decontextualise the location from its embedded-ness in a city. Newtown, CT, for instance is a suburb of Danbury and part of the greater New York City region. Columbine is a suburb of Denver. Oftentimes, these ‘tight-knit’ and ‘non-city’ communities are part of an urbanised landscape. However, this decontextualisation is done to fabricate a fantasy of a Wild West town in which legal systems are superfluous and all the citizens of the town are as closely connected as can be without being related.

To speak, then, of the ‘sins’ of the shooter is misleading at best. Had the community been as close to its fantastical utopian narrative as it claims to be, the event of violence which actually occurred would not have happened. The ‘sins’ of the community may be that of the narcissist whereby nothing and nobody is of a concern except for the ‘tight-knit’ community which has a bad history of excluding people who do not fit the orthodoxy of the community. Adam Lanza, for example, was a stranger in his own community, alienated by the very narratives which construct Sandy Hook and Newtown as ‘tight-knit’ communities. If that is the case, then his violence was more than just violence for the sake of violence but also a cry of desperation for the community to see its narcissistic reflection. To put this in terms of ‘sins’, Adam Lanza was the sacrificial scapegoat by which Newtown and Sandy Hook can continue their ‘sinful’ practises of alienating those who live within their borders. Please do not misinterpret me here: yes, Adam Lanza shot and killed dozens of people; however, it is short-sighted to blame him as an individual for the sins of the community which produced him as the alienated individual.

Hermeneutical Jujitsu

One of the intriguing aspects of Trayvon Martin’s death is the hermeneutics implicit in Zimmerman’s ‘self-defence’. For those unaware of the story, here is the oversimplified play-by-play: Trayvon Martin, a teenager, was walking from a convenience store through a neighbourhood in the rain wearing a hoodie. Zimmerman, a late-twentysomething civilian neighbourhood watchman, thought Martin was suspicious and phoned the police to report Martin. Zimmerman then, against the recommendations of the police, followed Martin. There was a confrontation which ended with Martin being shot by Zimmerman (who was armed) and Zimmerman having minor injuries. The case was not investigated at the time because Zimmerman claimed self-defence (he said that Martin, a hundred pounds lighter, knocked him to the ground with one punch then began bashing Zimmerman’s head against the pavement).

Florida has a ‘Stand Your Ground’ law which states that people who feel threatened and are not engaged in a criminal activity have the right to use as much force as necessary to protect life and property. This is what Zimmerman used. However, the theological importance here is hermeneutical. Such a law and application of it reflect the general American evangelical ethos of interpretation, namely that of radical subjectivity and situationalism (contrary to their claims to objective and/or absolute truth). Notice that the law is about how one feels — that is, how one interprets one’s situation — and then authorises the person to act as jury (of their interpretation) and executioner (of the offending object). The only objectivity allowed because of this law is how others would act in the same situation, devoid of any relationship to other laws and ethics. In other words, they argue that because representatives of the legal community (police, judges, etc) are unable to see the event unfold firsthand, those legal figures are also unable to reconstruct them accurately. Therefore, it is up to the individual who feels threatened and non-criminal to decide justice.

This is exactly how American evangelicals treat biblical interpretation: since no human living today was there to witness it, there is no way we can reconstruct reliably the biblical narratives and contexts. Therefore, it is up to the individual who feels spiritual to decide its meaning. This is exactly why beliefs such as premillenialism (e.g. Tim LaHaye’s and Jerry Jenkins’s Left Behind series, Hal Lindsey’s Late, Great Planet Earth) persist despite scholarly work which has discounted (if not disproven) such. The proponents of these beliefs are, in effect, standing their ground against the threat of the scholarly community. Which is why the scholarly community as a whole is seen with contempt (e.g., they’re not real Christians) because their work which seeks to construct theology and biblical studies through less subjective (though not necessarily objective) means is seen as a threat to the evangelical belief in sola scriptura – radically interpreted to include individual, divergent interpretations — because it means interpretations can be measured and found wanting (we’ll ignore the fact that evangelicals already practise this, though with the understanding that their interpretation is always already ‘correct’). The real threat, perhaps now obvious, is the loss of individual absolute authority over one’s faith to some kind of communal faith (i.e. tradition).

To return to Trayvon Martin, the issue is the same: do individuals have absolute authority to determine that they are threatened and what amount of force is constituted as necessary? States like Florida have argued that individuals do have this authority* to both determine one’s situation as threatened and that no usage of force is too excessive even if the event can be reconstructed to show that both are demonstrably false. As long as Zimmerman remains free without scrutiny, the state of Florida, and perhaps the federal government, believe that individual absolute authority is more important than any kind of social whole such as the state or country which has been created to protect the life, liberty, and property of those who might otherwise be mistreated because of such individual absolute authority. In other words, ‘Stand Your Ground’ laws make it explicit that it is more important for one to feel threatened than for any threat to be proven. They imply that it is more important for one to react with any force necessary to erase such perceived threats than for authorities to protect people’s lives.  Or, in the frame of the Trayvon Martin case: it is more important for Zimmerman to be proven as the victim of a non-crime who acted in ‘self-defence’ than for the ‘Stand Your Ground’ law to be revealed for what it is: the authorisation of untrained individuals to perform the duties which were previously reserved for personnel trained in law enforcement.

 

*NB: Interestingly, police officers acting both on- and off- duty do not normally have this authority. If they shoot someone who they suspect of criminal activity, they are still investigated by other police officers to see if they used excessive force.

Common Sense

Perhaps I’m the only one who thinks this, but we give too much weight to facts. In many conversations — politics, science, religion, you name it — one often suggests that if we could only get down to hashing out the facts, they would speak for themselves and only one interpretation would be possible. I’m not so sure.

When one speaks of these facts, one actually means quantifiable and verifiable observations (how scientific!). While I readily accept that, such sentiment often misses the more important part of the equation: one still reads and interprets those facts, removing them from their original contexts and placing them in a ready-made context which often reinforces one’s own viewpoint. This is why, for example, those who claim that Obama was not a ‘natural-born’ citizen of the United States (and therefore disqualified from being President) continue to insist the truth of their claims despite the evidence provided precisely because they consider that evidence (birth certificate forms) to be fabrications on the basis of his not being born on U.S. soil. While the people who either don’t care or don’t agree with these ‘birthers’ accept the evidence as factual proof that Obama was a ‘natural-born’ citizen, the ‘birthers’ take that evidence as factual proof that he wasn’t.

This kind of logic has developed from two different psychological effects which are based in the Common Sense Realism of the eighteenth century. The first effect is the belief that one will change one’s beliefs when sufficient evidence is presented. The second is the belief that one welcomes divergent views. Both are illusions. Together, these two create the understanding that one has more knowledge of the subject at hand than other dialogue partners and, if only those partners were rational, they would change their minds by the sheer force of evidence presented. The harsher reality is that all the participants in the dialogue are enmeshed in their own reality and refuse to accept evidence contrary to their beliefs as facts. Either the science is biased, the presenter misinterpreted, or the context from which those facts were ripped is inaccurate (or unrealistic!). Whatever the case may be, people (including myself!) do not take new, contrary facts easily (if it is even possible).

The real result of these effects and the presentation of facts is that the very definition of facts is up to interpretation. Take, for example, the general scientific consensus that there is sufficient evidence to support the claim that modern human activity has contributed significantly to global warming. As far as scientific evidence goes, this is confirmed observation, but yet those who disagree speak about believing in climate change. The same also goes with the general scientific consensus on evolution. In other words, even evidence facts must be believed for them to have any degree of truth.

Where this leaves human dialogue, then, is in the realm of debate between orthodoxies. In many (if not all) cases, we have two or more dialogue partners who have their own ready-made realities and every discussion of substance without agreement is a clash of these realities that can never be harmonised. Instead, what normally happens is that the partners end their dialogue (at best, by ‘agreeing to disagree’) with further confirmation of their own set of beliefs as truth and their partners’ set of beliefs as heterodoxy (which is also often equated with heresy).

If this can be overcome, it is through the embrace of pluralism which doesn’t just welcome divergent views but expects them. Such polydoxy can be found in some ecumenical dialogues which find an important point around which agreement can be centered and friendly relationships established. It can also be found in religiously plural environments where people practise multiple faith traditions simultaneously (e.g. Buddhist Christians) as well as in religious groups like the Marranos and Messianic Judaism which also hold two different faiths in tension. In other words, the way out of entrenched orthodoxies is to become, in essence, a Marrano and find a new harmony in the discordance of beliefs.

A Tale of Two Reactions

This is part 5 of 5 in the Sunday responses series

Now that we’ve gotten past the advent season, I did want to raise a few questions from my reading this time around. It seems to me that one of the ‘common’ readings within the birth narratives adds to them in order to validate a particular interpretation. In particular, the ‘common’ interpretation I want to explore is the one which reads the angelic announcements to Zechariah and Mary quite differently.

For this ‘common’ reading, Zechariah does not believe and is struck mute while Mary graciously and willingly accepts her future. Zechariah is an ‘old man’ by the time the angel appears to him (Luke 1:5-25), and has quite likely gotten past the years of unanswered prayers regarding a child. The angel appears and says that his wife will bear a child soon; and he is — like many people would be in his situation — sceptical. Zechariah’s response is straightforward: ‘How can I be sure of this? For I am an old man, and my wife is old as well’. Yet the angel’s response to this question treats Zechariah’s scepticism as utter disbelief and quite contrary to praise heaped on him in verse 6. Zechariah is quickly cursed to be mute until his child is born and Zechariah names him.

The ‘common’ interpretation reads Mary’s story (Luke 1:26-37) quite differently; however, I am not convinced that such is the case. Again, an angel appears. This time, rather than an old couple who are sceptical because of their many years of not having children, the person in question is reportedly a virgin. Unlike Zechariah, though, her questioning response (‘How will this be, since I have not had sexual relations with a man?’) is treated innocuously, and the angel answers her quite differently.

In each case, the two people respond with scepticism — both justified for their own reasons. However, in Zechariah’s case, the angel quickly responds harshly. What separates the two figures? Is it that Zechariah should ‘know better’ because he is old and the bitterness of being childless for years should be ignored? Or do we, perhaps, add to the story of Mary being told of her pregnancy to make her calmer than Zechariah? Both protest their revelations, but Mary is given a second chance that Zechariah does not have. What separates Mary from Zechariah?

Yes, one can say that Mary is chosen as the mother of God, is younger, etc. However, that seems to contradict the impartiality clause about God. Or perhaps, the angel had the freedom to be cruel to Zechariah but God caught on and banned that attitude in future angelic engagements. Whatever it is, the ‘common’ reading takes its cue from the angel’s responses rather than the actual story — surely the angel must know more than we readers! However, this asks the question as to why not explain that in the text. That is, if the angel’s reaction has some kind of insider knowledge that the text doesn’t make explicit, why didn’t Luke or later redactors make it explicit? Instead, we are left with implications that Zechariah is somehow spitting on the angel’s face while Mary calmly and graciously accepts what the angel says in addition to a text which does not quite bear that out. In any case, we have two quite similar reactions from humans and two quite different reactions from the angel, yet we are often committed to a reading which is based more on the reader’s interpretation of cues and implications rather than a somehow ‘objective’ story. In other words, the ‘common’ reading of these two stories excludes the possibility of an ‘objective’ reading. So much for the claim that the Bible contains objective, absolute propositional statements that ‘single, definite, and fixed’ (as is suggested in the ‘Chicago Statement on Biblical Hermeneutics’ which is taken by many as a bedrock for evangelical theology).

Expanding Religion

The conservative columnist George Will wrote an article last week criticising Vanderbilt University’s ‘sanction’ against one of its student organisations for its constitution violating the university’s nondiscrimination clause. This was apparently a consequence of one of the university’s fraternities (BYX) expelling members on the basis of their sexual orientation.  Central to Will’s argument is the claim that the fraternity — a ‘religious’ one at that — was doing so in order to ‘protect’ its own contribution to Vanderbilt’s diversity (i.e. the very thing that ‘sanction’ underscores).

The organisation, a chapter of the Christian Legal Society, states in its constitution that homosexual practise is ‘biblically forbidden’ and disallows any homosexual members from holding office. Will agrees with the CLS (and Vanderbilt for that matter!) that both this clause and the fraternity’s actions this are based on religious belief and (therefore) good for the diversity Vanderbilt wants to foster.

Yet this begs the question: is sexual orientation a religious belief? Clearly, there are large Christian organisations which disagree with the CLS (e.g. both Presbyterian Church USA and Episcopal Church USA accept the ordination of gay clergy). So it seems difficult to place sexual orientation as a necessary belief for the religion in question (i.e. Christianity). The CLS’s discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation may be against the society’s constitution, or perhaps the beliefs of some Christians (namely, evangelicals), but it doesn’t seem like a truly religious belief. After all, one can be homosexual (or heterosexual for that matter) without any religious beliefs at all! If it were about religious beliefs, the case would be more interesting if the discussion was about a Jewish or Muslim member being barred from holding office in the CLS. There we would have religious beliefs to question.

Instead, what we have is actually a debate on the acceptance of divergent interpretations within the same religious group — i.e. ‘orthodoxy’. The CLS (and perhaps BYX) define ‘Christianity’ in narrow terms and, at least in part, by recent interpretations and issues, rather than by historical theology (even though they may claim such). In the case of BYX, the expulsions were on the grounds of individual practise rather than belief because they expelled practising homosexuals rather than those who believe it to be acceptable. Reducing the issue to belief fails to acknowledge the possibility of diversity because it is an attempt to define religious ‘orthodoxy’ in terms of an exclusive disjunction (i.e. either A or B but not both) based in nonreligious language in a nonreligious environment. Perhaps this is acceptable to Will in his championing of ‘individual rights’, but it is an action which tramples upon the distinction between religious and ‘secular, belief and practise.

Note also that Vanderbilt’s nondiscrimination clause is also not about beliefs but practises – any organisation can believe whatever they want as long as they do not discriminate (a practise) against certain human qualities in appointing their leadership. George Will ignores these distinctions in order to foster a sense of injustice against the ‘rights’ of university-affiliated organisations. What he seems to ignore (or forget) is that Vanderbilt’s policy is no different than the federal government barring non-profit religious organisations from endorsing political candidates — the organisations are free to believe whatever they want as long as their practise is kept in check. Likewise, Vanderbilt’s nnondiscrimination clause is a necessary part for an organisation to affiliate with the university — groups are free to believe what they want as long as their practises do not transgress the affiliation ‘contract’. If BYX or CLS want to discriminate on the grounds of sexual preference (or race, gender, nationality, etc), they can’t do so while affiliated with Vanderbilt University. It’s got nothing to do with religious belief and everything to do with political practise.