Proverbs 3:5 "Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and do not rely on your own understanding."

My name is Dean Simpson. I'm from a little town in Wisconsin somewhere near the center of American Lutheranism in the U.S. Fact is that I'm a Lutheran clergyman myself. The center of my concern in starting this blog is that religion seems to have become such a divisive force in the world and in our own country. This should not be - don't all enduring religious Scriptures contain something like the "golden rule"? So just what is the problem anyway? Why all the anger and conflict?

The problem (as if there were only one) is, in large part, our literalism - what Marcus Borg has called "fundamentalism, both in its hard and soft expressions." Christians tend to think the Bible is about what happened, more or less. But what if the Bible (to use the Christian example) isn't about "what happened" as much as it is about what matters? What if it's about what is ultimately true and real, even though these are "unseen things" (2 Corinthians 4:18)?

When we're dealing with things unseen, our method of speaking will not be the one we use about daily material concerns and events. So Scripture may be a wholly different kind of speech-act. Starting with this assumption might make us read the Bible with new eyes - less pompously perhaps, less as a way to prove ourselves "right" about God while proving others "wrong" (doesn't that sound familiar?) and MORE as a way to open ourselves to what is most real, enduring, meaningful and...holy.

Such things may be a little harder to think about and express. They may not lend themselves to the style of bombastic preachers, full of certitude and of themselves. (I'm confessing now!) I need to speak with great care here, but I think that's what Jesus was after, and that's what this blog should be after - a Way to hold our faith that actually promotes peace and unity and even openness in this world among people of differing points of view. The Pentecost story in Acts tells us, for instance, that when the Spirit of Jesus Christ was poured out upon those first believers, people from many different places and cultures heard the voice of God in their own language. The differences and distances between them were overcome; people came together! What a dramatic difference from the results of so much "religious" speech in our world today. Where did we go wrong?

My suspicion (maybe even my conviction - if you can combine the words "maybe" and "conviction" in the same sentence like that) is that the way we read Scripture is at the heart of our problem. We think what Scripture says is "true" - but we need to be clear about what we mean by that. There is more than one possibility. Think about it: if (as Scripture says) Jesus is the Truth, then all our others truths are only true relative to him. Yes, "truths" can, therefore, be said to be relative. Scripture is "true" only relative to Jesus - that is, relative to what he would do and say and value in any particular situation. "Truths" of Scripture actually point to a Truth beyond mere grammatical meaning. That larger "truth" is necessarily somewhat ambiguous. It's not scientific truth, or even historical truth, but more like the truth of being - like "true grit" or "true north." Jesus spoke of Nathaniel as a "true Israelite" - but what kind of "truth" is that? It's a little ambiguous, but in the case of this kind of truth, ambiguity is good and necessary.

We believers should be humble and necessarily open to understandings that are different than our own. The Bible itself leads us to this deeper understanding of truth...and to much more. It wants us to be less certain of our own understanding (Proverbs 3:5-6) and more confident of the character of God; less full of ourselves, and more full of the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of Jesus Christ.

Well, enough for an introductory "hello." More later...