Are You Calling Me a Relativist?

I was with a group of Christians in Toronto this past weekend and I introduced them to a practice called, "Dwelling in the Word." I often describe this process as group lectio divina. It is a more passive approach to Scripture that refuses to turn the text into an "object" to dissect, and treats it more like a living voice that resonates throughout the perceptive abilities of practicing communities of faith. Phew, that's a mouthful.

Dwelling in the Word is not the only way to approach Scripture. Nor is it a refutation of more "objective" strategies seated in a certain expertise or competence in history and languages. It is an augmenting, a necessary one, that allows Scripture to shape a communal consciousness.

When I introduce this to a new group, I am not surprised to be challenged by someone who thinks this is simply a practice in shared ignorance, a way of making the Scriptures mean just anything. Everyone's interpretation is just as valid as another's. In short, I am susceptible to the charge of being a relativist. Gasp!

This past week, a very thoughtful participant contrasted this approach with that advocated by Fee and Stuart in their influential book on reading Scripture. They make the strong claim that Scripture cannot mean anything other than what the author intended. This kind of approach to Scripture would frown on a practice like Dwelling in the Word. They attempt to fix meaning in terms of the original context (one that we have to reconstruct from a massive historical distance, usually with considerable conjecture) and guarantee our access to this through an exacting process. Anything else, it is implied, is playing fast and loose with the text, leaving it open to abuse.

I simply don't agree with Fee and Stuart at several places (though I do use many of the reading strategies they advocate). The Bible itself reveals that texts can mean something other than what they originally meant. Biblical writers use and reuse texts in ways that change their meaning. In some instances, the very same text quoted in two different texts can mean very, very different things in their new context. In fact, I would argue that it is precisely a text's ability to speak across times in new ways that allows us to recognize it as sacred. All texts have a dynamic range of meanings, and this might be even more true for particularly powerful texts.

I also disagree with Fee and Stuart related to their implied confidence that localizing a text in relation to the intentions of the author can produce a single meaning. In other words, methodology (in this case, historical-critical) is often not strong enough to overcome the existing commitments of the readers of Scripture. In other words, it is not only possible but likely that two interpreters using exactly the same methodology will still produce two different readings of the text, much less its context.

This, however, does not leave us to the perilous pit of relativism, of all interpretations being equal, etc. Though a text can mean different things, it can't mean anything. And some interpretations are clearly more viable than others. Moreover, certain rigorous or critical readings of Scripture can shed enormous light and prove extremely fruitful in discerning better readings. So, however, can reading in a community. My big point here is that letting go of confidence in an exacting methodology does not leave us only with relativism.

I ran across this statement by a philosopher of science (Feyerabend) that I think says it well.

"The real issue is not between people who think one view is as good as another and people who do not. It is between those who think our culture, or intuitions, cannot be supported except conversationally, and people who still hope for other sorts of support."

In other words, the only option beyond a methodological positivism is not relativism. Those bogeymen simply aren't out there. The practice of Dwelling in the Word, alongside other approaches, is a commitment to the long conversation about the dynamic meaning of Scripture by a historical community of committed readers.