Thy Kingdom Come…

In the last post on Dale Martin’s Sex and the Single Savior, I discussed Martin’s attempt to expose the myth of textual agency – that is, the myth that somehow the text itself (apart from the activity of the reader) has the ability to “speak” to us. Related to the myth of textual agency, I also noted Martin’s effort to do away with textual foundationalism, the philosophical notion that the Bible is a secure, irrefutable foundation on which we can base all of our knowledge. That was the introduction.

In the second chapter, Martin continues his work of deconstruction by addressing the flaws in the modernist foundations of today’s biblical scholarship. To do so, however, he first takes us back several hundred years to the Great Reformation. For many Christians, the Protestant Reformation marks a period in church history when the Bible was finally freed from the shackles of hierarchy and tradition. However, the new so-called priesthood of all believers, the accessibility of Scripture made possible by Mr. Gutenberg, and increasing literacy rates together raised the question of interpretation. While the Protestants had replaced the authority of the Pope and the Roman Catholic magisterium with Scripture alone (sola scriptura), the question remained, how would people now interpret these sacred texts?

Before long, the original meaning of Scripture was understood as its correct meaning. But how would Christians come to know a text’s original meaning? This was determined by understanding its literal sense (sensus literalis). This literal or plain sense of the text’s meaning would then be defended by methods of historical study and research along with grammatical analysis. It was thought that, once the historical meaning of the text was arrived at, it would “eventually command consensus among all reasonable Christians of good will (17).” If you are not laughing at this point, I forgive you. It is no secret that, despite the best methods of historiography, we have yet to (and never will) arrive at such a consensus. The truth is that our methods “simply cannot provide the security or controls for reliable interpretation they have promised (17-18).”

Martin attributes this inability to arrive at a consensus to the complex nature of shared meaning derived from culture. “All human communities have culture,” says Martin. “Culture is the very way human beings make meaning of our existence (21).” Hence, when we are talking about reading texts, there is no reading that can be divorced from the shared meaning we have arrived at through culture. In other words, Martin believes that both sola scriptura and sensus literlis are myths. They simply break down when we recognize just how influential culture is on the ways we use language and thoughts to discern, or dare I say create, meaning. It should be noted that Martin not only attributes this to our reading of texts, but also of the ways we observe and interpret “nature” and reality. In fact, he goes so far to say, “all our notions of [both] nature and Christ are cultural (21).”

Lastly, it must be said that Martin is not against all historical biblical scholarship. After all, he himself is such a scholar. Instead, he is determined to expose the myth that, by way of better and more accurate methods, we can somehow arrive at what the text actually says, what the author’s intention was, or some nugget of truth hidden behind layers of interpretive bias. As we will see, this will be of utmost significance in his argument for how we apply our use of Scripture to sexual ethics. The focus in ethical debate will necessarily shift from the mythical meaning of the text itself to the activities of the interpreter.

As with the introduction, chapter 2 of Sex and the Single Savior leaves us with no foundations for truth or knowledge. Instead, it seems that Martin is opting for genuine uncertainty in our understanding of meaning. But if “all our notions of nature and Christ are cultural” are there some notions that are more “correct” than others? Or is that question misguided? Rather than placing emphasis on a “correct” meaning or interpretation, could it be more important that we arrive at a meaning and interpretation that produces lives of love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control (Galatians 5:22-23)? And maybe that is a false distinction to make. Perhaps the “correct” meaning is always the meaning that produces such character.

As you consider your responses to questions like these, please share them as we continue our journey through this thought-provoking book.