Reading Gaps

Gaps.

Every text contains them. No matter how carefully written, no matter how much attention the author gives to fill in all the details, narratives always contain gaps. Whenever we read a text, we fill them in with our own thoughts.

And this includes biblical texts. The church is notorious for filling gaps in the biblical narrative. One cluster of examples surrounds the birth narratives of Jesus as told in Luke and Matthew’s gospels. Famously, we aren’t told how many wise men were there, though the church filled in this gap by assuming that there were three (and even naming them?!). Another example is the idea that the wise men and the shepherds visited the First Family at the same time. One gap from the Old Testament includes the misconception that the fruit of the knowledge of good and evil was an apple (I suspect that it was actually a kiwi fruit). None of this is in the text.

One big gap that has been consistently filled (and the precise example that triggered this post) concerns the story of Noah and the ark. We find this story in Genesis 6 and it relates the familiar story of the wicked world, the noble Noah and his kin. God tells Noah to build an ark, which he commences to do. Noah builds the ark while his neighbors mock him and deride him. But then when the rains come, his neighbors see the error of their ways and beg and plead with him to let them in. But he can’t (or won't) and they die along with the rest of humanity.

The gap in this story that has been filled in of course, is Noah’s neighbors. The Bible says nothing about Noah’s neighbors. Some are adamant that Noah preached to his neighbors who laughed at him for building an ark. But that view doesn’t come from the text. (I suspect that the view comes from children's Bibles.) So when a commenter on another thread says that “Noah was ridiculed to scorn” in order to explain why many people find Southern Baptists distasteful, he’s citing a story of his own devising.

Oftentimes, we fill in the gaps with our own ideas, which we call theology. Theology, at its most basic level, as our attempt to fill in the gaps in the biblical narrative. How does baptism work? What's the best metaphor for atonement? What does the sovereignty of God look like? 99% of theological disputation is probably reducible to arguing over what interpretation best fills the gaps. (And denominations form over how we fill these gaps). Perhaps this post will remind ME that these gaps exist and I would be better served exercising some hermeneutical humility as I recognize the gaps in my own reading of these texts.

SBC Primer

Several of the readers of this blog are lapsed former Southern Baptists. If you are curious what's been going on in your former convention over the last 18 months, check out the following article from the Texas Observer, an alternate magazine. I think it is the best journalistic piece yet I've read on the current controversies in the SBC.

(Of course, the controversies are probably among the reasons you left...)

HT: SBC Outpost

It's a Girl!!!!

On July 27, 1995 my life changed forever. On that day I became a father to a daughter. Scooter entered our world and not much of the world has remained the same. In addition to the typical changes I expected: wailing and crying, projectile vomiting, volatile mood swings (and that was me!) I underwent one change that I never expected.

I caught a glimpse of the world through female eyes.

On those evening when I was rocking her to sleep or walking her around the neighborhood, I realized how gender-specific my viewpoints had been. I began to wonder about the larger world and what it has to say to and about women. I began, to take one example, viewing beer commercials a bit differently. I found myself thinking “These women were once someone’s little girl.”

On those occasions when I advise female students, I think about how Scooter and Skeeter will one day be seeking advice and guidance from a professor in college.

I have also become more sensitive to how men talk about their wives, especially in public. Whenever I hear a disparaging or hurtful joke from a husband, I cringe and wonder what is said in private. I think that becoming a father to a daughter has made me a better husband.

It has also affected my preaching. I have often used Mother’s Day as an opportunity to have honest dialogue about the role of women in the New Testament and in the church today. Such conversation is necessary because the church has all too often become a place of difficulty and pain for many women.

Some of my interest has filtered through the blog a bit. The most-searched phrase that has brought people here is “minister’s wives” going back to this entry. I take it as a point of pride that at least one Christian women’s group links to this blog. I also expressed my concern about the view of women by society here.

All of these things are reflected in my concern for Dr. Klouda and her family.

I wish that Dr. Klouda and her husband were not going through this difficult time. But I especially regret that her daughter has to go through this. In the ABP article, Klouda is quoted as saying:

As a mother, Klouda said, she teaches her daughter to “think for herself” and
“look at what God’s Word says in light of herself.” But that doesn’t always
assuage the feelings of the 15-year-old who had to switch schools during her
teens because of the family's move.

“She’s a young person and has her own opinions,” Klouda said. “To her it’s just an injustice. She thinks it’s unfair. She thinks it’s wrong. She thinks this should have not happened. She thinks, ‘They ruined my life too….’” “I just don’t see how the decision was really thought through about the implications for me and my family,” she said. “It was really a decision made on principle, but it didn’t take into consideration many other factors."

Shortly after Scooter’s birth, my Methodist aunt gave me a sweatshirt with the logo from the picture above. She gave it to me, certain I would never wear it because I would find it too offensive. But I’ve worn it with much pride and enjoyment. She thinks it’s subversive, but it actually reflects paternal pride. The greatest gifts I have ever received are my kids and my first two are girls.

Above all, what concerns me about the Klouda affair is what it says about the SBC’s view toward women in general. I do not believe that women should be pastors, but I believe passionately that women will continue to contribute greatly to the cause of Christ long after the last SBC church has closed its doors.

What a Woman Taught Me

The SBC brouhaha over Dr. Sheri Klouda reminded me of the following:


Verna Miller looks like a grandmother.

She has short grey hair, blue eyes and glasses with frames from the 1970’s. She was always one of the dependable folks at Lone Oak Baptist. Mrs. Verna’s home was a good 20 minutes from the church and we would often see her little blue Ford make its way through the Hill Country and out to the church. Her family came from the country and had moved “into town” some thirty years before. But she was loyal to that little church and drove the opposite way of most folks, heading from the town out to the country every Sunday morning and Sunday night.

We had been there a few weeks when I heard someone mention her husband. I was surprised and had assumed that she was a widow. Her husband suffered from back pain and he could never come with her to church. (Although tongues often wagged that he could go out and play a game of dominoes or talk to friends at the local feed store.) But Verna said only positive words about him. She did encourage me to visit them at home which I was honored to do on many occasions.

To be completely honest, the visits were more for her than for him. She asked me to come, but he really didn’t care if I did or not. He wasn’t the most pleasant person around. He was gruff and often told her to get him this or that rather than asked her to do so. But she never failed to show him anything but honor and respect. She simply adored him and I always left their house shaking my head. Frankly I, wondered how he was fortunate enough to marry her???? [Something I’m sure Kadie’s friends often wonder about me too, by the way!]

After we left the church in 2000, I heard that Verna’s husband, never in the best of health, took a turn for the worse. Alzheimer’s began its slow ravaging attack on his personality and his memory. Verna could no longer take care of him at home, but did see that he moved into a comfortable assisted living facility. Some of her fellow church members whispered to me that Verna would be better off after her husband moved out of the house.

But something amazing happened.

Despite the fact that the staff at the nursing home was well equipped to feed and care for her husband, Verna began to go to the home every morning, every afternoon, and every evening. At the cafeteria, she would patiently feed her husband each and every one of his meals. She did this as the Alzheimer’s worsened to the point where he did not even realize who she was anymore. Although she had been a fixture in Lone Oak worship services for decades, she stopped coming to church on Sunday evenings because she was spending the dinner hour with her husband.

She went to the nursing home every day for the next five years of his life.

I have shared Verna’s story on two occasions prior to this post. First, I shared it in a church service at my home church while going through the book of 1 Timothy. When we got to the passage of 1 Timothy 2:11-12 I told Verna’s story. I shared that I was certain, even though we were a state away, that at that same instant on Sunday evening, I knew that Verna was at her husband’s side, feeding him and honoring her vow to him and to God. Verna taught us all something that day.

The second time I shared her story was this last summer when I was asked to return to Lone Oak and conduct her husband’s funeral. I shared her story with her church family and as we lamented her husband’s passing, we celebrated her faithfulness to him. And we also celebrated her faithfulness to Him. Because her husband’s illness lingered, we saw Christ through her life of grace.

I know more of Christ and of His love for us through her sacrificial actions. I know more about what it means to be with someone through sickness and through health because of her actions.

This old woman taught this man a lot.

Is Oklahoma more than OK?

Something has recently come to my attention. I got started along this little blogging adventure last winter when I Googled “intentional interim” and "blog" and received numerous results. Among other web pages, it turned up Bowden McElroy’s site. He has worked as an intentional interim and founded his site as a way of keeping in touch with the church where he served. (Although now he writes about contemporary controversies like Olympic snowboarding). He lives in Oklahoma.

From Bowden's blog, I started to follow the travails of Wade Burleson on his web site. He too is from the state of Oklahoma. Hmm, I sense a trend developing. From there I started reading Wes Kenney's (counter-conventional blog wisdom) thoughts. He is also from that panhandled state.

But the straw that broke the camel’s back was the shocking news that Art Rogers is heading out west!!

So why does Oklahoma wield such tremendous power in the blogosphere? (Some might proffer the explanation that there’s little else to DO in Oklahoma, but I wouldn't say that.) But as native (though now former) Texan I never gave Oklahoma a great deal of thought. (Except on those all too frequent occasions when OU spanked Texas in the Red River Shootout). But I need to rethink these deeply held prejudices. After all, Oklahoma does host the world’s greatest fast food chain, and was the college stomping grounds of my favorite Dallas writer and one of my favorite theologians.

Full disclosure: I was saved some twenty odd years ago during summer camp at the gorgeous Falls Creek encampment. I was baptized by a current faculty member at Oklahoma Baptist University, and my father-in-law is a non-attending member of the Emmanuel Baptist Church in Enid, a fact I discovered only yesterday. My bride, Kadie, was also born in Enid, though quickly left the state afterward. That is the extent of my Oklahoma-related ties.

So what gives? Has the geo-political-theological center of Baptist life shifted from Nashville to Shawnee? And is that a good thing?

Greensboro

I am not going to Greensboro, North Carolina this weekend. Family responsibilities and summer school have conspired to keep me from making the trip. But while I remain behind, my thoughts and prayers are most definitely in Greensboro. (For a summary of the import of this SBC convention, please see here).

For years I have been out of the SBC fold, largely unconcerned with being active in more than my local church. I had given no further thought to the convention in the years past.

But that changed this year. With the attention of the blogsphere shifting to the next generation of SBC life, I see much good remaining. The blog community has convinced me that there are still good, godly people who have chosen to remain in the SBC. In particular, the work of the International Mission Board is unparalleled in the history of Christendom. So I will pray for the convention.

With some more work, I am becoming increasingly convinced that there is much in the SBC that is still of value.

That is why Carolina is on my mind and in my prayers these next few days.