biblical blindspots

             

           I recently went to a conference for Christian international schools in Kijabe, Kenya. One of the highlights of the conference was the keynote speaker, Dr. Randy Richards. He has lived and served as a missionary in Indonesia and is a professor at Palm Beach Atlantic University.

                He spoke about culture as an iceberg, with the noticeable things we usually talk about -- clothing, language, food -- as the tip of the iceberg. The bulk of the iceberg is what is below the surface, and it is what "goes without being said." As we read the Bible, we miss what "goes without being said" and we insert our own culture's norms. As Westerners, we have blind spots when we approach Scripture.

                At the conference Randy made it clear that he is not merely criticizing the West; every culture has blind spots, but he wrote a book targeted to white Western males because he is a white Western male. He hopes that every culture tries to critically examine the blind spots they may have when it comes to Scripture.

                I bought a copy of the book Richards co-wrote, called Misreading Scripture with Western Eyes. I highly recommend it. It has helped me look at the Bible in a different way and, living in Uganda, helped me understand some of the deeper differences in culture.  When I have moments of "Huh?" even though we're both speaking English, it's usually because I'm unaware of the currents of thought running below the surface.

                The book begins by addressing more obvious issues such as language and race. The next section skims just below the surface, touching on the differences between collectivism and individualism, the concept of time, and honour/shame vs. right/wrong. (Retelling the story of David and Bathsheba through the lens of an honour/shame culture was very insightful.) The next section goes even deeper, into rules vs. relationships, what we consider to be virtues and vices, and finally how we in the West often perceive ourselves as at the centre of God's will. As the book goes deeper and deeper into "what goes without being said," I realized how near and dear some Western cultural values are to my heart, even if they are Biblically neutral or even contrary to Scripture.

                Some quotes:

                "We can easily forget that Scripture is a foreign land and that reading the Bible is a cross-cultural experience."

                "The most powerful cultural values are those that go without being said."

                "Church history is a two-thousand-year-long conversation about how the eternal truth of Scripture applies in different cultures at different times."

                [On the Western tendency to ignore Paul's verses praising singleness]: "... what goes without being said amongst Western Christians, especially in America, is that celibacy has no inherent spiritual value . . . Because we privilege marriage as God's preferred way of life for everyone, churches in America, on the whole, do a very poor job of ministering to single adults."

                "The highest goal and virtue in [Western individualist] culture is being true to oneself. The supreme value is on the sovereignty of the individual . . . The highest goal in [collectivist] culture is supporting the community."

                [Interesting note on collectivist culture: Indonesian Christians were shocked to learn that American parents allow their Christian teenagers to go on dates at night unsupervised. "For Indonesians, it seems unfair to leave an individual in a situation in which his or her only real protection is willpower . . . Indonesian Christian teens are relieved that someone else is responsible for protecting them.]

                [On Western tendency to see ourselves at the centre of God's will -- that chapter was hard to read!]: "When we realize that each passage of Scripture is not about me, we begin gradually to see that the true subject matter of the Bible, what the book is really about, is God's redeeming work in Christ. God is restoring all of creation (including me), but I am not at the centre of God's kingdom work. This is a much greater thing to be absorbed with than ourselves ." [Paraphrasing now]: Instead of reading the Bible and asking, "What does this mean to me?" find out what it meant to the original audience and ask, "How does this apply to me?"

                General tips for reading the Bible:  "We are likely misreading when our reading of the text requires us to ignore the context, to shorten the text to just this or that verse or part of a verse. We are likely misreading when our reading of the text requires us to lengthen the text, by pulling in verses from other parts of the Bible until we get all the pieces we need . . . Other times, though, we misread because we read alone. That is, we often hear only the interpretations of people just like us . . . The worldwide church needs to learn to study Scripture together as a global community."