I seem have entered into a card playing motif here. Odd, in that I don’t play cards!
Nevertheless, I’ve tried reading the debate over here. I’ve really tried. Matt+ and Dan and the rest are really really smart people. They really know all the stuff. Greek, History, Tactics of debate and presentation. Reading their argument makes my head hurt.
I am reminded of once visiting the research branch of the company I worked for, and one secretary was walking a new hire around giving her a tour of the place, an introduction to what it was like to work there, and she said something along the lines of “Honey, there’s some really really intelligent people here, but they’s stupid”.
Dan and Matt and Göran and all the rest are really smart people. They have great intelligence, great intellectual gifts. And yet, and yet, I just don’t picture Jesus arguing this way, finding the loopholes and intellectual arguments that make his case. Does Jesus say “Well, yes the law does say to stone this woman, but there’s a small parenthetical remark that the Rabbi from Bethlehem has made that in fact forbids this action” or “In order to understand stoning we need to review it’s use in the public square 37 years ago”?
Micah 6:8 tells me more about what is required of my Christian journey.
He has told you, O mortal, what is good;
and what does the Lord require of you
but to do justice, and to love kindness,
and to walk humbly with your God?
Seems like all the argument that I need. How about you?
Monday morning update: One additional thought occurred to me, and I’m sure it isn’t original, deep, or even probably correct, but why do we care what Paul said in every instance? Is Paul infallable? Maybe, just maybe he blew it. Didn’t know what he was talking about. Oh, I’m not talking in general. In general he’s spot on, but do we believe that every utterance from Paul is a golden nugget?
This is the true value in being an old dog, you get to simplify any and everything to a dog’s level! As I keep telling Mrs. Clumber, Jesus didn’t seek out people with PhD’s, he sought people who were common, in the best sense of the word. The people with all the education and training were missing the simple truths. Well, that’s it for today, back to the couch for a nap now. Maybe a dog biscuit or two later on. A dog’s life is pretty sweet!
One further Monday update, from the book Hidden in Plain Sight, by Mark Buchanan:
Smartness is a small accomplishment if you’re deficient in goodness. A big head on a small soul is ugly as an orc.
I have exactly the same problems with these clever types and with keeping up with their arguments. Over time I have developed a technique that works very well for me. Once the debate gets to an intellectual level above my capabilities I just start swearing a lot and calling every one else names. I don’t really think it would be your style so I suggest plan B - sarcasm and lots of it.
Now get back in their lad and fight your corner!
Clumbers are known for getting along with everyone… very bad fighting dogs, MP… so I shall just do as you have suggested.
I will admit to having been in meetings with this Matt+ character a few times, and what I can tell you is that he seems to be a very bad listener, a skill which we all need work on, myself in particular.
Re being a very bad listener….They don’t have to listen since they know it all! It’s like talking to a television set.
Clumber, what a wonderful post. You chose one of my favorites from the Scriptures, the quote from Micah. I will, like you, continue to simplify. The Gospels are for everyone, not just the learned. Like you, I wonder about Paul sometimes. Jesus, OTOH, is a God-man for all seasons. I center in the Gospels.
I put up my post about unlearned folks coming into the conversation and, right away, somethone comes in with a Greek word, which stops me cold. My favorite Greek is, “I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end.” I like that and understand that.
God bless us simple old folks.
Hi again, Mimi,
We sort of had parallel thoughts on the whole debate thing, didn’t we… I don’t claim to be a theologian, and those good old boys lost me at the first Greek they spouted. I don’t pretend to understand the nuances they propose. But then I’m not sure they matter to the average person all that much. I applaud their scholarship and ultimately their ideas and thoughts may have an impact on all of us, but put in front of me, it sounds a lot like “angels on the head of a pin” type discussions.
When I read the explanations of Scripture from Matt, Frederica Matthewes-Greene, Duncan, and any other number of people who want to just love us gays to death, I can’t help but think of my mother’s expression that they’re “going around their ass to get to their elbow.” Dan et al says: “temple worship: here’s why, why, and why.” Matt et al says: “Ah! But when you take it in context of the word ‘is’ as understood by the Greek fisherman of the Oygothumpem district of the town of Caesarea, and read that through the lens of what we expect the Jews of Lower Backwater, Galilee understood at the time at 4 o’clock on a Tuesday, maybe, and after having dragged the text through the wardrobe to Narnia, we see that it comes to something near enough to what I believe to suit me.”
I am the Dan from the Matt and Dan debate.
I don’t know if I am really smart or not (I am great at doing stupid things.)
But I also don’t think Jesus would debate like Matt and I did and find it hard to imagine that someone’s relationship with God or salvation hinges on the construct of a single sentence of an example of something that we don’t have anymore that is being used to make a larger point. (Does that make sense?)
But the reality is that it is important to a lot of people. They look at the Bible as a law book or encyclopaedia that they can turn to in order to figure out what God wants them to do. Many Episcopalians grow up in fundamentalist environments and carry that mindset into church. It’s a faulty mindset, but it is there and should be confronted.
I was living in Dallas when Gene Robinson was elected and to those folks the Church “went against” the Bible. If they had been shown other ways to approach these passages or shown that they are making certain assumptions when they read scripture a lot of the anger in the church wouldn’t have happened. These folks wouldn’t have felt betrayed.
I am sure I didn’t change Matt’s mind or those who agree with him as deeply as they do. And I don’t know how effective I was in the debate at all, but my goal was to get people to read the text more carefully, understand that everyone carries a worldview and agenda into the Bible, understand that faithful people can approach it and come to different conclusion and that God has room for us all.