I am fighting the despair our current political scene creates by reading the best history of theology I have encountered in years. Unfortunately, it brings me back to our current situation again and again precisely because it presents a way of thinking and living Christianity that is rooted in our life. The encounter between life and Scripture, between our experience and the testimony of ancient witnesses can create cognitive dissonance.
There are a variety of options for responding to this dissonance. One is the fundamentalist option of granting normative place to scripture, denying the reality around us in favor of a Biblical hermeneutics of reality. Another is the modern/post-modern secular/atheist option of simply denying Scripture any place whatsoever. This is attractive precisely because it cuts off the possibility of conflict within oneself and between individuals by tending to business as it comes up.
For myself, the first option is ridiculous. While there are times in my life I have flirted with the second option, it is a non-starter as well. I find myself dragged back, again and again, to the reality of "something more" that is always just outside my own ability to either define or explain. I find Scriptural language helpful as an entry to understanding this "something more". It is just an entryway, however. I believe it necessary to put our contemporary reality up against Scriptural testimony, as well as the history of the Church and its doctrines to try and figure out a way of understanding who we are. This interpretive jumble, in which the only "norm" is a recognition that we will never come to any firm conclusions, can be confusing and occasionally confounding. There is this "nevertheless" that pushes us to continue down this road, if for no other reason than we need to make sense of it ourselves.
By doing so, I am brought again and again face to face with our current catastrophe, and am asked again and again, "What to do?" Taken outside any larger frame of reference, the despair I have voiced on more than one occasion seems not only appropriate, but the only rational conclusion. On the other hand, despair is the last refuge of those who believe they have it all figured out, and can see the end as clear as day. While this isn't an answer, it does offer the opportunity to refuse to buckle under the pressure of events, because we know them to be fleeting.
So, while it might seem nice to be able to hide inside the covers of a book, in fact I am pushed outside those covers again and again as I confront our current reality.
I just wish I had an answer.
