In which he starts a new thread about presenting biblical stories in a culture which is losing them
Gamma Gamaliel
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in Purgatory
On the 'What's wrong with new translations' thread, the issue came up of how to present scriptural stories and concepts in contexts where they are unfamiliar.
I'm largely thinking of right here, right now. In the post-Christendom, post-Christian West.
Missionaries have always had to present things in contextual ways - with varying degrees of appropriateness.
For instance, I understand that Danish missionaries among the Inuit and other polar peoples had to make Hell a cold place as heat and warmth were always seen as positive. I'm probably over-simplifying there.
I sometimes wince when I hear the way some of the younger participants present things on Radio 4's Sunday worship for instance.
But then some of them impress me by the way they present biblical concepts in a way that an unchurched audience might understand.
How can we, whatever our theology or affiliation, frame biblical references and ideas in a way that connects with people who have largely lost familiarity with these stories and concepts?
I run a poetry group and am often struck how unaware people in their 60s and 70s are of basic biblical or theological allusions. It would be even more the case with younger folk.
I'm largely thinking of right here, right now. In the post-Christendom, post-Christian West.
Missionaries have always had to present things in contextual ways - with varying degrees of appropriateness.
For instance, I understand that Danish missionaries among the Inuit and other polar peoples had to make Hell a cold place as heat and warmth were always seen as positive. I'm probably over-simplifying there.
I sometimes wince when I hear the way some of the younger participants present things on Radio 4's Sunday worship for instance.
But then some of them impress me by the way they present biblical concepts in a way that an unchurched audience might understand.
How can we, whatever our theology or affiliation, frame biblical references and ideas in a way that connects with people who have largely lost familiarity with these stories and concepts?
I run a poetry group and am often struck how unaware people in their 60s and 70s are of basic biblical or theological allusions. It would be even more the case with younger folk.
Comments
I've been watching videos explaining aspects of Mormon life, which I previously knew nothing about. It's like hearing someone talking words I understand but with layers of meaning that are totally beyond me.
Similarly I can see that people in my Great-grandparents generation operated in an environment where the biblical narrative was part of the cultural vocabulary they used regularly. There is almost nobody in the community I live in that understands and uses that language.
"Kingdom" is possibly the most significant (along with related terms like "King" and "Lord"). We all live in nations which are either a republic or where the monarch is a mere figurehead without very much authority. We don't live in a kingdom even remotely similar to what would have been the everyday experience of the people who wrote and were the original audience for the books in our Bible. We don't have an individual who is undisputed absolute ruler of the land, who command absolute obedience and who's word is law. We don't have rulers who aren't subject to being re-elected on a regular basis and need to maintain the support of some legislative chamber. Even those nations where there is an absolute dictator, they usually rule by fear and intimidation rather than any generally recognised right to rule.
Most of us would struggle to comprehend living in a world where one individual owns all the wealth, and from his own riches issues currency (with his face on the coins just to make it clear who's benevolence has given people money to spend), on whom everyone depends for justice and to whom everyone owes everything (even the money you might have is actually his after all). Would any of us understand living in a world where if you owned property that's because the king had given it to you (or, your parents etc) and could take it back any time they wanted? Or, where if the king decides to build a new palace or go to war everyone just jumps to and does what they're told without complaint (at least, no complaints that the king might hear of).
How can we say "Jesus is Lord" without that basic understanding of lordship which that implies, without having the experience of living with Caesar as lord and the radical statement that Jesus has greater authority over our lives?
Even if you regard the stories as simply mythological bits of narrative, surely they have as much value as stories from Ancient Greece and Rome? An educated person should read Sophocles' Oedipus Rex at least once just because of its huge cultural impact, similarly for the ancient epics. The same is easily true about the stories in the Bible. Hell, one of the greatest works in the English language, Milton's Paradise Lost, is built out of the stories.
Similarly, learning about anything is good and valuable insofar as it gives us a greater knowledge of our world--in the broadest possible construal of the term.
Well, I suppose people exist who get value out of all kinds of narratives. So what you say is self-evidently true.
But on the other, I suppose the point I'm mostly making is that although British society was strongly influenced by the bible to the extent that it essentially became the main cultural vocabulary for a long time, it isn't now. And the common usage of biblical imagery as cultural vocabulary has been essentially lost.
And so now one has to ask whether biblical stories have any more utility as cultural vocabulary when there are many other competing stories in our culture. I'd say not.
Which is absolutely not to say that nobody can or should get individual value from them, but that they mean nothing to most people and there is no reason why they should.
If there is a principle at work here, I think it is incarnation. You can’t really expect any culture to understand Christianity, its values and stories, without entering into the values and stories which are important in that culture. The other issue is about the right to be heard and listened to seriously. That requires engagement and practical support.
I think it’s very difficult for some parts of the Christian rainbow to come to terms with the truth that the words themselves and the stories and values they are used have no power without cultural translation. There is a kind of idolatrous belief in the intrinsic power of the words and a corresponding discounting that translation is not just a literal language thing.
We call Jesus the Living Word. Which only makes sense if we acknowledge that the Word needs to be lived out in terms which the hearers can understand and relate to.
I think that a lot of missionary training these days has moved into the incarnation zone, and away from the didactic zone. I know a number of missionaries well and they are well into this view.
But you could say the same thing about other major influences on the cultural vocabulary of different eras; Shakespeare, Monty Python and Star Trek have all contributed in different ways.
This is less and less the case, widespread biblical literacy hasn't been the case for a couple of generations at least, and people who aren't literate in a specific cultural language aren't going to reproduce it culturally/institutionally.
As @KoF says above; these days you'd be looking at a range of different things - including films, TV series, popular fiction etc.
I think that story is in a book called the peace child. Iirc in that particular culture treachery and getting one over other folk (especially other tribes/villages) was seen as a good thing, presumably because it gave you and your group an advantage.
One of the biggest problems I observe with Christians generally is that we aren't great at really listening to other people which means we don't easily enter their worlds and communicate well. Which is I guess a way if articulating the incarnational perspective.
Yeah, it's a book by Don Richardson about his work among the Sawi people, the Peace Child of the title refers to another practice that culture had of settling a peace treaty between two tribes by mutual adoption of a pair of infants of the same age (I have no idea how accurate either practice is rendered).
I dunno. I think I get the general idea of Robin Hood, even though I've never lived under a monarch who had the type of power wielded by King John.
And here's a fun game...
Think of something you could buy, or a general category of products, and type that into google followed by the word "king". Almost guaranteed that a business will turn up under that name.
So far, I've done...
stereo
pizza
furniture
bathroom
garden
computer
book
shoe
ski
wallpaper
condom("Condom Kingdom", in Philadelphia, birthplace of the American Republic.)
Granted, "Book King" was some sorta software, and "Ski King" some sorta recreational device. So, not actual stores.
(I'm taken to understand that Burger King retired their beloved mascot over a decade ago, but it seems more related to a backlash against questionable ads in which His Highness was looking through people's windows and whatnot.)
Yeah, but the Burger King ads worked in the 1970s because Americans had a collective memory of a king being a highly exalted figure, and could transfer that to the redheaded guy, exalting him for his supposed expertise in delivering delicious fast food. I think the same thing should be possible for monarchial imagery in the bible.
There's a Sofa King. They make great play of that on their branding and advertising slogans.
No. I just specified the 1970s because that's when the Burger King was in his heyday. I'm sure if they hadn't effed up by portraying him as a bedroom voyeur in their revival campaign of the 2000s, he could still be in the ads today.
Meanwhile, I saw a burger outlet called 'Burger Priest' recently. I don't know if it's a chain or an independent.
I thought it was an intriguing tire, suggesting that the flipping of burgers were some kind of mysterious and transcendent art.
Whatever does that tells us?
The fact that the word "king" is used in corporate trade marks has zero association to the Sultan of Brunei for most people who know little of Brunei.
Similarly the contemporary use of the word 'king' has almost nothing to do with any religious or historical teaching about monarchs. Because that's silly.
I think it's enough that most people have a residual idea, these days filtered mostly through pop-culture, of a king as being an exalted, all-powerful guy, for them to respond positively to the imagery in advertising. There's a reason a waterbed shop is going to call itself "Waterbed King", rather than "Waterbed Citizen".
All I'm saying is that the same residual memory that allows people to get the basic idea of "Waterbed King" should also allow them to get the basic idea of Christ being the "king of kings".
I don't think anyone in most nations has any real notion of what a king was in Biblical times. The last British king who came even close would have been Charles I, but even then he had to fight Parliament to get his way - until Parliament fought back. The Kaiser in Germany and Tsar in Russia at the turn of the 20th century might have thought they had that sort of absolute authority, but probably most of their subjects didn't. A few people would have studied medieval history to a great depth, most of us never got much further than naming kings and maybe a bit of a slow down for the Tudors. Henry VIII is probably as good an example of Biblical concept of kingship in relatively recent times - commander in chief of the army, head of the church, absolute control of the country ... but even then he had a Parliament of people who could, and did, plot against him. But, we get stuck on his wives in school and don't delve deeper into just what it was like for an ordinary person, even some lesser peers, to live under the rule of a king who has power of life and death over anyone. I certainly never learnt that in school, nor have I ever come across any documentary or non-academic book that does that beyond how awful their houses were, how common diseases etc. Anyone have any idea how the nation would be with a king with the powers of Henry VIII but with all mod-cons of quality housing, modern medicine, schools, TV and internet, food enough for everyone etc?
With the greatest respect, @Alan Cresswell I can see what you are driving at but think you are over-egging things. Heck, every drama I've seen set during the reign of Henry VIII from Bolt's 'A Man for All Seasons' downwards to bodice-ripping costume dramas gives an indication of him as a dangerous dictator of almost Stalinist proportions.
And that's without getting onto the serious history books ...
Another common one is ninja
Kichenninja
Sharkninja
Ninja decks
Ninja workouts
Do you really think that the presence of the word 'ninja' in the cultural vocabulary means that anyone has even the slightest understand of the historical reality of the thing the word describes?
I likewise don’t think the relative absence of those historical realities in our contemporary cultures necessarily indicates a lack of understanding of those historical realities.
I don't precisely know what ninjas are, but I know they have something to do with physical fighting and martial affairs. Hence, I assume that a "ninja workout" would involve exercises that are physically demanding.
And I'd say there are a LOT more portrayals of old-school kings in our popular culture, everything from Robin Hood to The Wizard Of Id, than there are of ninjas. So most people are even more likely to know what sort of attributes they are supposed to imagine the Burger King as having.
Sure, in the stories, he's a nice modest young man and they live happily ever after, but come on!
This was a huge problem teaching university sophomore lit, as you had such limited time and you had to decide whether you spent it explaining the allusions (which were EVERYWHERE) or just ignoring them and leaving the students to miss something like 70% of the emotional impact of the whole thing, not to mention the theme... It really kinda sucked.
And I'm not talking Shakespeare, this was short stories, poems and plays from the last 100 years.
Yeah, but this is very much arguing for an 'ought' rather than an 'is', you can't just conjure up a background knowledge of the Bible as literature without the attendant culture to match.
[Bearing in mind that this is a somewhat anglocentric argument, and that the high point of this knowledge was probably somewhere in the middle of the 20th Century due to mass education - and that prior to that understanding that language was restricted to the relatively few]
In Greek political theory the contrast was with tyranny, which was the result of a strongman taking over by force and which did not have the sanction or limitations of custom.
Could well be. But, then, what powers was King John ceding by stamping the Magna Carta?
I grew up into my own beliefs, which didn’t include a lot of what I was taught in Catholic school. (those were the days we were taught the sinfulness of such things as attending non-Catholic services).
Despite my very early and ongoing skepticism, I appreciate learning early that goodness and beauty are basic to a good life.
I was raised on Bible stories and narratives since before I was born. In my late teens I encountered people who had never heard the stories before and who were hearing them for the first time. I was a bit envious, because I could never have that same experience of a first meeting with the stories.
I think a knowledge of some of the main Bible characters, the Gospel narrative, and particularly the parables, unlocks an awful lot of Western literary and dramatic works. Even an inaccurate folk memory can be helpful. How many Brits are surprised when the events of Joseph's story in the Bible don't quite match up to the Technicolour Dreamcoat version we all performed in at school? But at least we all know who he is, even if he probably didn't look like Donny Osmond.
https://ffrf.org/about/getting-acquainted/item/13492-the-pirahae-people-who-define-happiness-without-god
One story I think of in this regard is the Return of the Prodigal (Luke 15: 11-32). At certain historical periods this has been read as a moral lesson about inheritance and family; often since the late 20th century it has been read as a commentary on addiction and recovery: the son or daughter who runs away from home, makes bad life choices, who wastes money, who ends up on the streets, eventually gets clean and finds their way back because they have nowhere else to go. And his elderly father runs to meet the lost child, restores all that seemed to have been lost, is overjoyed to have the Prodigal home. The elder brother is the figure some focus on, those 'good' obedient adult children who are overlooked or have their place usurped, are taken for granted and not given their due. It is sometimes read as the wistful dream of those queer or transgender family members who are not welcome at home and long to be able to return and be accepted for who they are. It's a revelation on the solicitous, generous, or even maternal nature of fatherhood, unbounded love and forgiveness. While the patriarchal family might come across as outdated or jarring, the tenderness and element of surprise inherent in the story (who could be more amazed than the penitent, undeserving and broken Prodigal?) will always speak to us from so many angles.
So there's no strong argument for wider use of the bible than for the koran or the gita or anything else.
In my view, the point is still about cultural vocabulary and how some feel bereft when their special book no longer has much resonance.
The fact that people in the past read it in a completely different way, lived lives according to a code that today almost nobody accepts based upon it, etc doesn't seem to come into it.
Why would anyone be interested? Outside of the narrow bounds set by particular religious groups, it is essentially meaningless.
Fascinating.
Well, given that I actively participate in a group (church) where the Judeo-Christian scriptures are taken seriously then it's hardly surprising I'm exercised about these issues.
If I were a Muslim or Hindu I might very well feel the same about the Quran or the Gitas.
I'm no Billy Graham but Christianity is a 'missionary faith' and in that context the scriptures have a higher place and importance than the works of Shakespeare or Tolkein or the cultural influence of Star Trek - which is not to knock or disparage any of those.
Nowadays I often worry about hearing portions of the Bible being read out loud
( whether in a service in church or on the radio) without ANY context at all, especially some more obscure passage - and I have grown up knowing the Bible from a child.
If we are to convey anything meaningful of the Christian faith to those with no background or knowledge, the language and context has to be understood. If this means retelling a story in a 21st century context, so be it.
So, you mean, John wasn't really exercising those powers in the first place, and the Magna Carta just made that lack of power official?
I believe that was roughly how the barons framed their case. It was how Magna Carta was understood in the seventeenth century by opponents of the Stuarts.
Ha ha - yes.
A A Milne was, of course, riffing with an older tradition of chapter titles derived from 18th and 19th century picaresque novels. That adds to the humour.
We are losing so much context.
I know I can sound like a grumpy old git at times, but I do find this worrying.
I heard a Methodist minister and historian speak at a conference a year or so back.
He recalled how when he started out 'on the circuit' as a young man in the late 50s/early 60s Yorkshire Dales the old fellas who led the prayers would do so with allusions and language drawn from the KJV, the Anglican Book of Common Prayer (they all had copies at home), Milton, Bunyan, Shakespeare ...
Now what do we get?
'Lord, we really just ...'
And, 'I was like no way and he was like wow!'
Rubbish in. Rubbish out.
I spend a lot of time in cities and hear many languages I don't understand. Why would I think that was worrying?
Seems like the same thing.
I don't see any 'threat' in hearing languages different from my own or seeing different faith or ethnic communities grow up.
That's not what I'm addressing here.
As I've said upthread, I'm no Billy Graham but Christianity is a missionary faith. It's not the only one, of course. Other models are available.
If our faith is important enough to want to share it with others - and not necessarily by thrusting tracts into their hands - then it is a cause for concern that the general awareness and 'vocabulary' available to do that is eroding.
It's not a matter of concern, of course, if you have a different viewpoint on that. Which you are perfectly at liberty to have of course.
But because it doesn't cause you concern doesn't mean it's not a cause of concern to anyone else.
I don't understand why you think it is desirable to have that here. When the vast majority of people are not Christians and are not interested.
Why is is worrying that the UK is now like a large number of other places where Christians live?