It takes all voices to remember correctly

Blogging from the Association of Presbyterian Church Educators conference in Philadelphia:

If our memory of our heritage is the foundation of our faithful future, and it is, then it's important to remember properly. Frances Taylor Gench, plenary speaker at the APCE conference, suggested that was not an easy task. Like urban myths in repeatedly-forwarded notes across the internet, interpretive mistakes tend to take on a life of their own. Often, it seems, an eternal one.

For example, there is no biblical evidence that Mary Magdalene was a prostitute. So why, Dr. Gench asked, does that description seem to persistent and pervasive in popular imagination? Even Andrew Lloyd Webber (in Jesus Christ Superstar) has Mary respond to Jesus as just one more man among so many she'd been with. Why did this one scare her so?

Another example Dr. Gench offered was the woman Jesus met at the well in John 4. Okay, so she'd had an unconventional life and had been married many times. The text doesn't explain the situation, and Jesus doesn't use it as evidence of bad character. So why is the history of preaching full of sermons with salacious speculations about her character?

A more accurate memory of these and other stories about women in the bible would be very beneficial for the self image of women in the church. And Dr. Gench is probably right.

Though as I checked my memory of sermons I'd heard about these women. I couldn't remember hearing a minister preach myths like the reformed prostitute Mary Magdalene. And I do remember at least one or two being explicitly cautious about speculating where the text is silent. On the other hand, a news magazine had a sidebar to an article about the DaVinci Code detailing the history of preaching about her that mentioned it as a prominent theme, so somebody's preaching that way.

Dr. Gench had her own theory to explain why new insights into biblical characters had a hard time gaining traction in the church: the f-word. These interpretations came from Feminist Scholars. And people don't listen to feminist scholars. So she's on a crusade to get people to get over their negative opinions of feminist scholarship. After all, a feminist, she suggested, is just someone who thinks women are human.

If feminist scholarship is treated with suspicion, perhaps a better response is to ask why that suspicion exists. And here I see more than a little irony. After all, feminist scholars were among the inventors of the "hermeneutic of suspicion." That's an approach that presumes texts are written by people with an agenda. We don't trust what is written but stay alert for any signs of suspicious or unfair rhetoric.

And surely it is true some – and I repeat, some – feminist scholars have let their enthusiasm for the cause shape the way they have handled data. Some assertions have been shown to be based on rather thin support. If historic distortions by white males justifies a suspicious approach to their writings, surely it's only fair to apply it to all human writings. All people have agendas, prejudices, and axes to grind.

The best answer is not to "get over" our fear of feminism – or of evangelicalism, or of any other group who is "not like us". The best answer is to embrace truth wherever it comes and listen with an open mind. The best answer is to be fair in our discernment: no individual or group has a monopoly on truth. But no individual or group is completely excluded from it either.