What is Midrash?

Midrash has come up a number of times in our conversations over the last few weeks. Rachel Held Evans suggests the following link in her Reading Guide for Inspired on understanding midrash:

https://www.myjewishlearning.com/article/midrash-101/

Of note from the article: "Midrash responds to contemporary problems and crafts new stories, making connections between new Jewish realities and the unchanging biblical text."

Rachel Held Evans also suggests the following article from the Jewish Women's Archive as an example of midrash on Rachel and Leah:

https://jwa.org/encyclopedia/article/leah-midrash-and-aggadah

I have frequently found the Jewish Women's Archive to be a source of excellent, thought-provoking material. It's worth a look around if you have more questions or interest in how some stories, especially those about women have been understood over time. Since I mentioned the story of the concubine from Judges 19, here is the Jewish Women's Archive article on the midrash concerning that story:

https://jwa.org/encyclopedia/article/concubine-of-levite-midrash-and-aggadah

Rachel Held Evans interview on The Liturgist

In case you're interested: Rachel Held Evans was recently on the podcast, The Liturgist, and you can hear the episode here: http://www.theliturgists.com/podcast/2018/9/20/christian-part-1

Rachel Held Evan interview with Jen Hatmaker

Thanks to Candace for the link to another interview with Rachel Held Evans. From Jen Hatmaker's podcast, For the Love of Exploring Our Faith: Loving, Leaving, and Finding the Church with Rachel Held Evans.

Enjoy!

Rachel Held Evans interview with Pete Enns

For those of you who listen to podcasts, I found this gem of an interview of Rachel Held Evans on "The Bible For Normal People" podcast by Pete Enns: Unraveling & Re-raveling the Bible.

Honestly, this whole podcast looks like it's full of interviews with interesting people. Here are links to their interviews with several familiar voices:

Brian Zahnd: Violence in the Bible and What to Do With It
Greg Boyd: Jesus and Divine Violence
Jen Hatmaker: Changing Your Mind About the Bible
Brian McLaren: The Bible as a Weapon
William Paul Young (author of The Shack): Reimagining the God of the Bible

What Rachel Held Evans wants you to know about Inspired

Rachel Held Evans has a list of 8 things she'd like us to know about her book, Inspired, on her website here: https://rachelheldevans.com/blog/eight-things-inspired

Among the things listed is that she hopes people will read this book in a group, use her study guide, and really wrestle with the ideas. Looks like we're in another deep dive into scripture! I can't wait to begin this study with all of you!

If you'd like to know more about Rachel Held Evans, check out Morning Blend's previous blog post here: Who is Rachel Held Evans? Since we last heard from her, she has had 2 children and written 2 more books (Searching for Sunday and Inspired). You can learn more at her website here: https://rachelheldevans.com/about/

Inspired by Rachel Held Evans

What's brewing at Morning Blend? 

Starting September 5th, 2018 we will begin reading Inspired by Rachel Held Evans. We'll be taking this book at the slow pace of one chapter a week this autumn. A FREE printable study guide can be found on Rachel Held Evans website: here. 

From the website: 

If the Bible isn’t a science book, instruction manual, or position paper, then what is it? New York Times bestselling author Rachel Held Evans invites readers on a journey of rediscovery as she explores the magic of the Bible, engaging the old, familiar stories in new ways that honor the past and enlighten the present.

Drawing upon recent scholarship and literary analysis, Evans creatively retells our favorite Bible stories, explaining their contexts and possible interpretations, and then connects these ancient stories to our present-day ones. Using her well-honed literary instincts and experience in both evangelical and mainline Protestant traditions, Evans discovers a way of understanding that avoids noncommittal liberalism on one hand and strident literalism on the other.

Perspectives on the story of Job

I am not inclined to offer commentary on the following articles, but I do want to offer some perspectives from familiar voices (Rachel Held-Evans, Greg Boyd, Nadia Bolz-Weber) on the story of Job and the problem of pain/evil. If you have some time this week, these articles may inform your thoughts on this week's study.

Rachel Held-Evans wrote a blog post in 2013 called "The abusive theology of deserved tragedy..." In this post she tackles the particular evangelical response to suffering that declares, "Bad things happen because God is angry. This is God’ judgment on undeserving, sinful people. Repent. We brought this on ourselves." In her words,

This theology is, in a word, abusive, for it blames the victim for whatever calamity, abuse, or tragedy she suffers and says it is deserved.

And:

...the story of Job stands as an ancient indictment on those who would respond to tragedy by blaming the victim. That’s exactly what Job’s friends did, and the text is not kind to them for it, because Job is described as "blameless and upright, a man who fears God and shuns evil."

Greg Boyd gets into the particulars of the story of Job in his article The Point of the Book of Job. (It's a detailed article and worthy of a careful reading!) Boyd expresses a similar sentiment to Rachel Held-Evans here:

Sounding remarkably like many Christians today when they confront people in pain, and illustrating perfectly the complaint that satan originally raised against God, his friends insist that since God is perfectly just, Job must deserve what God is dishing out to him.

But also...

This is not to say that everything Job's friends say about God is incorrect. This book is far too subtle to paint everything in either-or terms. It artfully paints a thoroughly ambiguous picture of the cosmos...

In another article, Boyd responds to The 35W Bridge Collapse and the Book of Job. Here he draws our attention to how closely related the problem of evil/pain is to the question of free will/predestination:

If God was controlling everything, then there obviously would be no point for God to bring up the unfathomable complexity of creation or his warfare against powers of chaos. If God is controlling everything, such matters are utterly irrelevant.

Instead,

God’s appeal to the complexity and war-torn nature of the cosmos is significant precisely because it shows that God is not an omni-controlling deity, and that because we humans have next to no understanding of this complexity or the spiritual battles that engulf it, we should not be quick to attribute catastrophes to God.

Nadia Bolz-Weber, perhaps not surprisingly, suggests that perhaps we're not asking the right questions at all in response to the story of Job (from an interview with Religion and Politics).

This is what we see at the end of Job. Throughout Job there’s basically what we call theodicy: If God’s all good, why are we suffering? And Job’s friends end up going, “Well, either you did something wrong, you know, you’re bad and God’s good, and that’s why you’re being punished, or you’re good and God’s bad, and that’s why.” You know, there are just really simple categories. It’s either black, or it’s white...

We like black and white, dualistic categories, and we love nothing more than to project those onto God...

We’ve been struggling with this sort of dualistic thinking since the very beginning. You know what’s really weird? To be human and God. It kind of has to be either-or, right? No, it’s queer. It’s like being sinner and saint. Like Martin Luther said, imul justus et peccator. We’re 100 percent of both all the time.

And here's where I'll insert just a few of my own thoughts. One of the things that has guided me in my studies of theology, especially when it comes to questions of evil and suffering in the world, is the idea that if I find myself faced with an idea about God that is just too horrific to believe, it's actually ok to not believe it. Instead, I believe that there's something that I'm not understanding. There's a truth or a mystery that is beyond my grasp. But it simply does not make sense to believe evil of God. Rachel Held-Evan says it this way (in her article The Scandal of the Evangelical Heart):

It’s not enough for me to maintain my intellectual integrity as a Christian; I also want to maintain my emotional integrity as a Christian. And I don’t need answers to all of my questions to do that. I need only the courage to be honest about my questions and doubts, and the patience to keep exploring and trusting in spite of them.

*****************
For more of Greg Boyd's thoughts on Job, listen to his sermon here: Twisted Scripture: The Book of Job.

Sounding remarkably like many Christians today when they confront people in pain, and illustrating perfectly the complaint the satan originally raised against God, his friends insist that since God is perfectly just, Job must deserve what God is dishing out to him. - See more at: http://reknew.org/2008/01/the-point-of-the-book-of-job/#sthash.7eVHmz2Q.dpu

Sounding remarkably like many Christians today when they confront people in pain, and illustrating perfectly the complaint the satan originally raised against God, his friends insist that since God is perfectly just, Job must deserve what God is dishing out to him. - See more at: http://reknew.org/2008/01/the-point-of-the-book-of-job/#sthash.7eVHmz2Q.dpuf

Young Adults, Megachurches, and Meaning

Last week we discussed the third session of Ray Vander Laan's series, Dust of the Rabbi, and we had a conversation about how young people, especially young adults, feel lost in the current church culture. We talked about megachurches and the various technologies that churches are using to draw the younger generation...and how that fits into the context of making disciples. We talked a little about what we imagine the church "should" be and what it might have been at its beginning.

Coincidentally, I found that Rachel Held-Evans was on Minnestoa Public Radio speaking about this very topic just the day before our conversation! If you were with us at Morning Blend last year, you will recognize Rachel Held-Evans. She was part of the Animate:Bible series that we studied (see more about her by clicking her name in the right sidebar). You can hear the 11 minute podcast or read the transcript here: Where Church Goes Wrong for Many Millennials.

The MPR interview resulted from an article that Rachel Held-Evans wrote, which was featured in the Washington Post: Want Millennials Back in the Pews? Stop Trying to Make Church 'Cool.' Evan points out:

"According to the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life, among those of us who came of age around the year 2000, a solid quarter claim no religious affiliation at all..."

The church has responded by...

 "...focusing on style points: cooler bands, hipper worship, edgier programming, impressive technology." 

However,

"Recent research from Barna Group and the Cornerstone Knowledge Network found that 67 percent of millennials prefer a “classic” church over a “trendy” one, and 77 percent would choose a “sanctuary” over an “auditorium.”

And, perhaps, my favorite quote from the whole article:

"You can get a cup of coffee with your friends anywhere, but church is the only place you can get ashes smudged on your forehead as a reminder of your mortality. You can be dazzled by a light show at a concert on any given weekend, but church is the only place that fills a sanctuary with candlelight and hymns on Christmas Eve. You can snag all sorts of free swag for brand loyalty online, but church is the only place where you are named a beloved child of God with a cold plunge into the water. You can share food with the hungry at any homeless shelter, but only the church teaches that a shared meal brings us into the very presence of God. "

 I highly recommend checking out both the article and the podcast. Enjoy!

Understanding Old Testament Stories

I know it's late to get this in for this morning's discussion of the Testaments, but I wanted to post the following links anyway for those of you who want to go back and read some more.

This is an article by Crystal Lutton, mother, pastor and author of Grace-Based Living and Biblical Parenting. Her response to the difficulties we find with the Old Testament Bible stories attempts to shed light on the cultural and spiritual context of those stories:

Atrocity in the OT
 
Ms. Lutton wrote her article as part of a continuing online discussion of the blog article by Rachel Held-Evans:

The Scandal of the Evangelical Heart

Preparing for Discussion - Testaments: One Story, Two Parts

On Wednesday this week, we'll be discussing session three of Animate: Bible, entitled:  "Testaments: One Story, Two Parts." The DVD presentation for session 3 is by Rachel Held-Evans.

This week's facilitator guide asks us to consider our favorite Bible stories from childhood and what we notice about those stories now that we are adults. We are challenged to think about how we present Bible stories to children and whether or not it is appropriate to simplify stories to make them more child-friendly.

* Take a minute to think through the Biblical stories that are meaningful to you AND the those that don't sit so well. Write a list!

If we clean up and create sanitized versions of the Bible stories for children, what does that mean about how we view God? Are we pitting the "bad" God of the Old Testament against the "good" Jesus of the New Testament?

Rachel Held-Evans uses this quote in her presentation:

* How does this relate to the stories of the Old Testament? What is the point she is trying to make? Does it help you harmonize the two testaments?

* Where do you see God at work, even in the dark places of our current world? 

Scriptures to read (all links go to the English Standard Version at BibleGateway.com):

• Genesis chapters 8-9 
• 1 Kings 6:3
• Leviticus 21:17-20
• Ezekial 5:1-2
• Exodus 16:1-16
• Matthew 4:1-11
• Romans 3:9-20

* Think about what place these scriptures have in the Bible, what they tell us about God and how they link the testaments.

If you'd like to leave a comment, click where it says "comments" below.  Feel free to ask questions or begin the discussion early!

Who is Rachel Held-Evans?

The third session of Animate:Bible, Testaments, is presented by Rachel Held-Evans.

Rachel is considered the preeminent Christian blogger in the world. Her blog, which has thousands of readers every day, is challenging and comforting—covering topics from the role of women in the church to poetry.

She also speaks and writes books. Her first book, Evolving in Monkeytown, is about growing up in the city made famous by the Scopes Trial. Her second, A Year of Biblical Womanhood, is a bestseller about her attempt to live out all of the biblical commandments directed at women for one year.

Five fast facts

1. Lives with her husband in Dayton, Tennessee
2. Loves Alabama football
3. Dressed up as an author for career day in third grade
4. Was named one of Christianity Today’s “50 Women to Watch”
5. Has been featured on NPR, Slate, Washington Post, Huffington Post, and Oprah.com

(bio from: http://wearesparkhouse.org/adults/animate/bible/voices/rachel/)

See Rachel Held Evans' blog at: http://rachelheldevans.com/blog/