Book Review – Part One
Jonathan L. Walton, Lens of Love:
Reading the Bible in Its World for Our World
(Louisville, Kentucky: Westminster John Knox Press, 2018)
Do
you find expressions of contemporary American Christianity intellectually
inadequate, personally distasteful, socially irrelevant, contradictory of your
values and principles relating to social justice? Is it a manipulative tool of
hypocritical persons to further longstanding oppression of vulnerable and
marginalized people? More frankly, do you despise the bastardization of the
Christian faith? Do you refuse to attend weekly services at local churches because
you fear The Reverend Doctor Charles Goodwill Cliché weekly erodes the Gospel
of Jesus Christ with motivational speaking? Do you forego affiliating with a
local congregation because you fear that it is not a resource to your local
community? Do you find it reprehensible that clergypersons, political
operatives, journalists and governmental leaders equate the Gospel and
Christian faith with conservative ideology?
Do
you respect clergypersons who defend a felon convicted of thirty-fours counts,
an adulterer who exploits porn stars, declares bankruptcy six times, constantly
ignores and violates the rule of law and never resists an opportunity to debase
women and people of color as Christ’s contemporarily chosen instrument to
establish the kingdom of God in the United States? Interestingly, this person’s
foibles, incapacities and character defects contradict and nullify every
principle that these clergypersons claim to hold dear. In exchange for a
majority of ideologically aligned justices on the US Supreme Court, these
clergypersons, their followers and allies were willing to compromise, if not
discard, every single principle and value that they championed for decades.
They ironically insist that their desecration of Christianity was done to
preserve it. These questions combine to create a fundamental question, “What is
the Gospel of Christ?” Practically speaking, how does one recognize an
authentic, reasonable and pragmatically applicable articulation of it?
Do
you lament the state of Christianity in contemporary America? Are you exhausted
by daily revelations of sexual assault and abuse scandals by celebrity clergy
people, megachurch pastors and denominational leaders? Does the systemic and
collective refusal of organized religious leaders to demand accountability of
these perpetrators disappoint if not disgust you? One of the largest Protestant
denominations in the United States, under fierce compulsion from its female
members, issued a multi-year report detailing sexual offenses by pastors and
leaders against women but concluded its polity did not allow the organization
any practical and effective means of accountability. In the same report,
denominational leaders violently excoriate local congregations for allowing
women pastors and they excommunicate churches that no longer characterize
homosexual, lesbian and other sexual preferences as “sinful” and inherently
contradictory to the Bible and a legitimate and acceptable lifestyle.
Incredulously, these Christian leaders look away from sexual abuse and in some
instances choose to blame the victims but forthrightly and unapologetically
criticize and condemn the personal choices of consenting adults. Have you tired
of homophobic and judgmental church teachings and tradition that assaults
LGBTQIAPAS disciples with the assurance that God will only love them if they
hate themselves and commit to a lifetime of self-condemnation and inauthenticity? Walton answers these
questions, employing the tools of higher biblical criticism inclusive of
historical, source, rhetorical and textual criticisms, by stating that divine
love when shared genuinely, justly and truthfully within the human family
resolves the foregoing challenges.
Recently,
I acquired answers to these questions in reading Professor Jonathan L. Walton’s
engaging, scholarly but not pedantic, accessible and provocative but not
polemical book, Lens of Love: Reading the Bible in Its World for Our World
(Louisville, Kentucky: Westminster John Knox Press, 2018). An unexpected gift
from a longtime friend, this book arrived serendipitously via the US Postal
Service. Being an avid reader, I left it on the shelf for a few weeks as I
plowed through my ever-growing and changing list of books to read. One day, I
read the cover and thoroughly skimmed the chapters. Next day, I put it in my
work bag and began a journey into a new and refreshing perspective for reading
the Bible and understanding the Christian religion in the twenty-first century.
In this volume of only 216 pages, Walton addresses the above questions from
several dimensions. He does not grind an axe; nor does he offer a polemic
wherein he condemns a grocery list of people with whom he disagrees. He forsakes
the quicksand of self-assured categorical statements that he proffers as “the
Truth.”
Instead,
he asks readers to examine their prisms of experience with their concomitant
ideological and existential myopia as they read the Bible and resist the
temptation to impose a twenty-first century outlook upon the people, history,
literature and religion of the Ancient Near East. He more straightforwardly
asks readers to allow the Bible to speak for itself. Adhering fiercely to the
integrity of higher biblical criticism and exegesis, Walton suggests that
readers step away from their formative assumptions, religious superstitions and
political persuasions. He posits that they will gain immeasurably from reading
the Bible if they first seek to understand the scriptures in their historical,
sociological, literary and anthropological context. Emerging within the Eastern
tradition and culture of oral transmission of stories, the Bible records the
sacred sayings, poems, narratives and discourses that people of the first
century heard from their religious leaders. What did they hear? What did they
understand? How did they allow these words to determine or influence their
daily living?
To
receive biblical wisdom in an intellectually respectable way, twenty-first
century readers must respect the culture, people and history of their first
century counterparts. Reading with integrity and allowing biblical texts to
speak historically, contextually and authentically erases distortions that
emerge from formative views that contemporary disciples uncritically accepted
from grandparents, parents, teachers, pastors and other people whom they
respect. Whether a conservative evangelical, liberal progressive or centrist
moderate, American disciples can benefit immensely from Walton’s cardinal
answer to the dilemmas that plague Christian expression. Employing the
profundity of simplicity, Walton straightforwardly recommends that they read
the Bible through the lens of love. Interestingly, Walton’s book encapsulates
one of the most quoted verses in the Bible, John 3:16. The Fourth Evangelist
contends that God’s faithful and unquestionable love for humankind is the
essence of the Christian message. As disciples read the Bible, develop
personally and progress spiritually, they should make love a foremost priority
in their interpretation and choices in interpersonal relationships. Should one
be confused or err as it relates to taking biblical and theological position,
one should err on the side of love. Undoubtedly, the approach of emphasizing
and relying upon Christ’s example of love translates to a disciple’s positions
upon public policy and social affairs.
If
you love the Bible, “the Word of God,” your admiration for this sacred
literature will expand exponentially after reading Lens of Love. Whether you read the Bible for religious
purposes, academic study or personal pleasure, this book will open your eyes to
myriad dimensions which you may have missed previously. Walton’s writing and
perspective will help you to adjust your personal lens in reading scripture. Pleasantly,
the Bible contains countless other examples of spiritually significant and
existentially empowering myths and symbolism. Walton reminds us that “Truth,”
if even determinative and definitive, is not limited to material verification
and proof. He warns against an uncritical acceptance of the scientific method
as the most reliable means of defining truth. Doing so results in a rank
reductionism thereby imprisoning “Truth” and revelation to petri dishes,
microscopic slabs, DNA samples other items in a laboratory. Walton demonstrates
the power of the Bible to delineate truth for daily human living beyond the
methods of science and math. It is neither a scientific nor mathematical
textbook. It deals with other questions of human existence and offers pragmatic
answers within any human context or historical era. Walton’s prose, methods,
historical analysis and emphasis upon reading the Bible through the lens of
love reintroduces disciples to the Bible’s multidimensional majesty and
magnificence.
Walton’s
framework additionally yields a new appreciation for the debt that English and
Russian literature owe to the Bible. Arguably, the pious, humble and faithful
character, Levin, overshadows the protagonist in Anna Karenina as he
struggles with faith and religion. He does not understand the necessity to
yield to orthodoxy, doctrines and religious institutions. Levin posits that a
genuine and progressive search to encounter and relate to the divine suffices.
In The Brothers Karamazov, two of the brothers, one a monk and the other
a businessman, have a frank and provocative conversation about God’s existence,
the human invention of religion and juxtaposing the prevalence of evil with
popular religious observance. The latter brother asks the monk why the
invention of a divine being and religion were necessary to human existence.
What is its worth given the treatment of children and other vulnerable people.
Essentially, is there any worth to any religion as it has been historically
incapable of resolving human evil. More significantly, people use religion to sanction their evil.
In addition, the main plot of Thomas Hardy’s The Mayor of Casterbridge
mimics the strife that unfolds between King Saul and David in the book of 1
Samuel, chapters 15 to 19. Michael Henchard and Donald Farfrae as jealous
rivals and potent antagonists in the novel appropriate the biblical story.
Shakespeare, Twain, Douglass and countless other authors resort to biblical
stories as foundations for stories. In redirecting our attention to the
importance of love when reading the Bible, Walton empowers us to find divine
truth and wisdom in unexpected places.
The
book contains four intellectually sweet delights. First, Walton supports his
main points with allusions to the vast evidence of ancient and recent religious
history. Avoiding the professorial tendency of slipping into the quicksand of
being needlessly pedantic, Walton succinctly references five very respected
scholars of American Religious History. Raboteau classically crystallizes the
religious world of American slaves. They saw that “peculiar institution” as
irrefutably contradictory with the Bibe and God’s will for humankind,
generally, and them, especially. Per Leon Litwack, author of Been In the
Storm So Long: The Aftermath of Slavery, and other secular historians, the
slaves prayed fervently and faithfully for abolition of the institution and personal freedom. Both
books possess funny stories like the myths of John Henry Bunyan, Br’er Rabbit
and other components of African American folklore that reflect the oral
tradition in combatting oppression. Walton additionally cites George Marsden
whose books examine the idea of American evangelical intellectuality, The
Outrageous Idea of Christian Scholarship and The Soul of the American
University Revisited: From Protestant to Postsecular. Professor Nathan O.
Hatch’s compelling book, The Democratization of American Christianity,
details an inverse relationship between burgeoning democratic ideals and an
American iteration of Christianity which tolerated the annihilation of Native
Americans, chattel slavery and subjugation of women. Lastly, he includes Jon
Butler, author of several considerable works on American religious life, within
his bibliography embedded within his prose. For students of History and more
specifically American Religious History, Walton offers a short list of good
books for further consideration.
A
second delight that Walton offers is a short list of reliable biblical scholars
whose books are widely read and used by academics, clergy and laity alike in
research, sermon preparation and weekly Bible studies. Professor Raymond E.
Brown was one of the world’s foremost authorities on the Gospel of John. Walton
recommends Brown prevailing commentaries as sources to understand the “Sitz
im Leben” (setting in life) of the Fourth Evangelist’s definition and use
of divine love.
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