Through the Wardrobe with C. S. Lewis

A lot of people got their first introduction to C. S. Lewis over Christmas a few years ago when their kids dragged them to see the movie The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe. The film was based on the first of seven books penned by Lewis in a children's series called The Chronicles of Narnia. In the story four children travel through a magical wardrobe to emerge in the strange and mystical land of Narnia where animals speak and the world is locked in a perpetual Christmas-less winter while awaiting Spring that seems destined never to come. The second in the series, Prince Caspian, comes out May 16 when, no doubt, children will drag their parents back to the theatres for the second installment.

My own introduction to Lewis, however, goes back to my college days in the 70's when I studied English. A professor, knowing I was headed for seminary, suggested that I read Lewis as a model for the minister's primary task of helping people to make sense of faith in their day-to-day lives. I devoured his writings voraciously, and he became for me a life-long conversation partner with whom to discuss the “big issues.” Lewis’ writings have not only stood the test of time, but he himself has become for me, save Jesus of Nazareth, the single most important spiritual influence on my life.

And I’m not alone in this. This Oxford and Cambridge professor, though he died in 1963 (November 22nd to be exact, the same day JFK was assassinated), continues to be for many a significant voice well into the 21st century. His writings are more popular now than they were when he was alive. His non-fiction writings are for the most part all apologetic in character; that is, they are aimed at making Christianity credible to a thinking public. The most popular among them, Mere Christianity, The Screwtape Letters, The Great Divorce, and The Four Loves, continue to draw countless readers into a conversation about life, faith, what it means to believe in God, and what it means to be a “mere Christian.”

Why is Lewis so popular among serious persons who want to think deeply about the “big issues” of life? Well, those who have found Lewis to be a reliable guide into these subjects will have to answer for themselves, but my own experience with Lewis points up three things that he just does better than anyone else.

First, he may have the finest mind I’ve ever encountered. His commitment to careful and correct thinking (logic) is relentless and unremitting. He will not abide sloppy thinking, and he will anticipate and expose it wherever he finds it. That is to say, if you’re not “into thinking,” don’t read Lewis. If, on the other hand, you want carefully argued reasons for believing what you believe, Lewis will gladly guide you.

Second, Lewis has an uncanny knack for knowing just the right example, model, or illustration to help you understand what appears at first sight to be a hopelessly complex idea. For example, in explaining how salvation is both God’s gift to us and our work to do, Lewis quips, “God is easy to please but hard to satisfy.” Then, he goes on to say that every parent joyously celebrates their baby’s first stumbling efforts in learning to walk. But that same parent will never be satisfied until their child can stride confidently across the room. In the same way, he says, God welcomes our most meager stumbling efforts to be the persons he created us to be, but will never be satisfied until we in fact become the persons he created us to be.

Finally, Lewis is a passionate writer. He believes what he’s saying, and it comes through. Agree with him, or disagree with him, but you will not read Lewis with indifference. He draws you in with careful reasoning and homey illustrations, and then, before you realize what’s happened, you're hooked. That passion is in the service of his belief that God has really broken in and broken through to our world and revealed himself to us. That not everyone is aware of it is more a function of our closed-off, two-dimensional thinking than the credibility of God’s self-revelation. But for those who have the courage to “part the wardrobe” with Lewis, a mystical and magical world awaits through which Lewis is all too happy to act as guide.

Translations Continued

Well, you caught me. Lots of emails on the last blog. Many of you upped the ante on me by asking: “Okay, Stacy, which translation really is the best?” I thought I could slip this one past you, but you’re much too smart for that. So here’s my reply which, I’m sure, will satisfy no one and anger everyone. Hey, it’s what I do.

First, a bit of translation philosophy. Since the days of the late Gene Nida it has been widely recognized that there are two essentially different kinds of translations, each with its own strengths, each with its own weaknesses – formal and dynamic. It’s much more complex than what I’m describing (and the linguists out there will, I trust, forgive me), but essentially formal translations attempt to be literal by translating words while dynamic translations shoot for meaning and translate thoughts. The ESV would be an example of the former and Gene Peterson's The Message an example of the latter.

But that's somewhat misleading. Even so-called "literal" translations like the ESV are not literal in the sense that they translate the Greek words irrespective of whether or not they make sense in English. An example is the ESV's translation of Matthew 20:15 in Jesus' Parable of the Workers. The ESV renders it: "Am I not allowed to do what I choose with what belongs to me? Or do you begrudge my generosity?" But the Greek employs an idiom that, if translated literally, makes no sense to an English speaking audience. The Greek literally says, "Is it not appropriate (or lawful) for me to do what I wish with my things (literally "the my stuff")? Or is your eye evil because I am good?" Of course, the idea of "the evil eye" (wishing someone ill by giving them "the look" or "the stare") was (and is) a very common notion in that part of the world, but for most Westerners it is an expression that has lost its original referent and is, therefore, merely a quaint and arcane linguistic relic, nothing more. The ESV, even though it touts itself as a "literal translation," does not translate this idiom literally as well it shouldn't have. I do, however, find the ESV's "translation" curious. Apparently, the translators of the ESV have chosen to follow the RSV's idiomatic paraphrase of Matthew 20:15 rather than rendering the Greek literally. The RSV's paraphrase owes to the fact that the RSV's translation committee correctly linked up Matthew 20:15 with Jesus' earlier statements in the Sermon on the Mount about "generosity" and "greed" (see Matthew 6:19-34; esp. v. 23). The Greek of Matthew 6:22-23 literally says: "The lamp of the body is the eye; therefore, if the eye is open (Greek "haplous" from which we get our English word "half" and "halved;" that is, "open" and by extension, "generous," as opposed to "diplous" from which we get our English word "doubled" or "closed," and by extension "greedy") the whole body shall be illumined; but if your eye is evil, then the whole body shall be darkened." The RSV correctly understood that by use of the phrase "evil eye" a metaphor for "closed off, squinty-eyed ill will" was being employed rather than Jesus literally talking about an "open eye" and a "closed eye." However, they inexplicably translated Jesus' metaphor by means of the word "sound" rather than "generous" missing Jesus' point. But in Matthew 20:15 they correctly picked up on the metaphor from 6:22-23 and translated the "evil eye" idiom by means of the idea of "generosity." Apparently, the translators of the ESV, not recognizing the connection between Matthew 6:23 and 20:15 and not knowing what to do with the strange Greek "evil eye" expression being employed in both passages, simply retreated to the RSV's rendering of Matthew 20:15 without explanation or rationale. I'm sure that's WTMI ("way too much information") about the ESV's rendering of Matthew 20:15, but my point is that no translation can be completely "literal."

That said, formal translations have the virtue of being more linguistically accurate while the dynamic translations have the virtue of being more semantically sound. Both have their places and uses; therefore, I don’t think it fair to compare formal translations with dynamic ones in that they have very different goals in translation. If you ask me whether I prefer formal translations or dynamic ones, I prefer dynamic ones. The goal of dynamic translations is to communicate “the message” rather than just rendering “the words” of the text. If it’s verbal accuracy you want, learn Greek.

I know, I know, some of you are saying about now, “But you still haven’t told us which translation is best!” I’d hoped you wouldn’t notice.

Translating the Scriptures for All God's People

People who know me and know that I use the Greek New Testament exclusively for preaching and teaching often ask me which translation is best. It’s a tough question in that translations are governed by multiple factors only one of which is accuracy and reliability.

In recent years perhaps no issue has been more of a factor in Bible translation than “gender-inclusivity.” Three recent translations, the New Revised Standard Version (NRSV), Today’s New International Version (TNIV) and the English Standard Version (ESV), were all motivated by concerns (supportive or otherwise) over gender-inclusivity.

Today, feminist biblical scholarship has entered the mainstream, as has the push for gender-inclusive translations of the scriptures. For example, the revision of the Revised Standard Version along gender-inclusive lines (1991) placed a gender-inclusive translation into mainstream Protestantism. The TNIV seeks to do the same for mainstream Evangelicalism. Moreover, even the ESV, a self-described “conservative” translation (though I must confess that I don’t understand how translations can be “conservative” or “liberal,” just “accurate” or “inaccurate”) makes some concessions and accommodations to gender-inclusive concerns.

To what degree should a translator accommodate gender-inclusive concerns? Let me articulate three principles I employ when translating the scriptures for preaching and teaching, seeking to be inclusive of all God’s people and also faithful to the original intention of the biblical writer.

First, the use of inclusive language when making references to persons when the referent is not specifically male or female is not only acceptable but desirable. The use of generic “man” or “mankind,” or “he” or “brethren” when what was originally intended was “persons” or “brothers and sisters” is not only unnecessary but indefensible. Though their conventions regarding gender were certainly different from our own, biblical authors did assume that they were addressing both men and women, and it is altogether appropriate for modern translations of the scriptures so to indicate. Therefore, when scripture clearly refers to both men and women, I employ gender-inclusive (“men and women” or “brothers and sisters”), or better, gender-neutral (“persons” or “human beings”), language in my translations.

Second, I avoid the use of gender-inclusive or gender-neutral language when it muddles the original intention of the biblical writer or eliminates the use of technical language without which the meaning of the text is obscured. An example is the NRSV’s translation of bar ‘enash – “son of man” - in Daniel 7:13 by the phrase “human being.” “Son of man” in Daniel 7:13 is a technical term referring to a heavenly, messianic figure. Jesus referred to this passage when He called Himself “Son of Man” at His trial before the Sanhedrin. Inexplicably, the NRSV renders ton huion tou anthropou (Mark 14:62) as “Son of Man” (the capitals indicating that technical language is used), but in Daniel 7:13 translates bar ‘enash as “human being,” thus severing Mark 14:62 from its Old Testament moorings.

Third, I do not employ feminine language for God in my translations. Indeed, to describe what we call God as an “inclusive language” issue is to confuse anthropology, sociology and psychology for theology. I understand that for some women to employ exclusively male language for God makes them feel as though they have been left out of the conversation, or worse, conjures up images of an abusive father or other male. However, maleness is not the issue. God is neither male nor female. Both women and men are made in God’s image, not God in ours. Moreover, how biblical language for God makes us “feel” is not the issue. The Bible’s subject is God, not my feelings. The issue is whether when we talk about God we are talking about the God of the Bible - the God of Abraham and Moses and Jesus and Paul, rather than some other “god” we happen to prefer to the Bible’s God.

To be sure, the Bible does employ feminine language for God, but only in the form of similes (comparisons using “like” or “as,” e.g. “As one whom a mother comforts, so will I comfort you" from Isaiah 66:13), never metaphors (e.g. “Our Mother who art in heaven”).

Let me quickly dispense with one objection, often cited, that has no merit. A former colleague once objected that she, having graduated an English major at a prestigious Baptist college, was not taught such a hard and fast distinction between “simile” and “metaphor.” She was taught, she said, that analogies are analogies irrespective of the particular language employed, suggesting that I was making entirely too much of this distinction between “simile” and metaphor.” My response was that I don’t really care what you call them – you may call them “simile” and “metaphor” or “tweedledee” and “tweedledum” for all I care – but that two different kinds of analogies are intended is obvious to anyone irrespective of the nomenclature employed or the relative academic credibility of the institution at which one studied. “Men are like dogs” – simile. “Men are dogs” – metaphor. “My love is like a red, red, rose” – simile. “My love blossoms with crimson, thorny passion” – metaphor. Any questions?

The reason Israel eschewed feminine metaphors for God was not because Israel believed God to be male; rather, it was because Israel wanted to distinguish its God from the gods and goddesses of its neighbors who believed that a female deity had given birth to the world – nature religion, “Mother Nature,” etc. This view was characteristic of the pantheistic fertility religions against which Israel defended itself throughout its history. An example was Artemis, Roman Diana (see photograph above taken at the Ephesus Museum at Kusadsi, Turkey), who was the goddess of nature and the hunt and was the most widely worshiped of the nature goddesses in ancient Anatolia. But Israel’s God (YHWH) was different from these pantheistic nature goddesses, and to remind itself of that Israel never permitted its God to be referred to by means of feminine metaphors lest its God be confused with the nature deities of the pagan world.

Another objection, frequently cited but equally without merit, is the notion that Israel’s language for God can be explained merely by the fact that Israel was a patriarchy. “Of course Israel thought about God exclusively in male terms,” so the argument goes; “men were running things!” Sorry, all of Israel’s neighbors were patriarchies too, and most worshipped female deities.

And so, if we are talking about the God of the Bible and not some other god, we are not free to make the Bible’s God whomever we wish Him to be, or to describe Him with whatever language that happens to garner a majority vote at any given time. He is that very specific personality that is rendered in the Bible, the one whom Jesus taught us to call “Father.”

In short, I support the use of inclusive language in translation when the subjects being rendered are persons, unless it violates the intention of the biblical writer to do so. However, what we call the God of the Bible should not be decided on the basis of inclusive-language concerns. In Bible translation God-language should be chosen on the basis of a theology appropriate to the “God” we’re talking about.

Wright is Wrong

What I’m about to say requires two caveats lest I be misunderstood, or worse, misrepresented. First, I have no intention, or interest for that matter, of endorsing anybody for president, for two reasons really: (1) nobody cares, (2) nobody’s business. That said, I do want to comment on the Rev. Dr. Jeremiah Wright’s (Senator Obama’s pastor) highly publicized statements made in sermons over the past few years, not so much as to his politics as his theology, which for Dr. Wright seem to be the same. And that’s what troubles me. In theological terms, the particular constellation of ideas that Dr. Wright espouses in his sermons typically goes by the name “liberation theology.” Simply put, liberation theology understands the Christian doctrine of “salvation” exclusively in terms of “justice” – social justice, economic justice, gender justice, racial justice, environmental justice, etc. The means of creating this “justice” is power; more specifically, a power shift – taking the power away from those who have it and giving it to those who don’t thereby putting the power in the hands of the “right people,” rather than the “wrong people,” thus creating “justice.” I think you know my policy on “power” (see my blog “Pagan Power”).

What I want to comment on is the reductionism at work in all these theologies that wants to reduce the New Testament concept of the “Kingdom of God” to achieving justice (in whatever form) in this world. Anyone who takes the New Testament seriously cannot escape the fact (though some, like Marcus Borg, try) that when Jesus talked about the Kingdom of God he meant “another world” that was breaking in and breaking through into this world, but which should never be confused with this world. (If that needs to be defended to you, you need to spend more time reading “the words in red”!) Jesus’ disciples, then and now, are those who have caught sight of and been captured by this “other world” he called the “Kingdom of God,” and even though they are yet in this world, they are no longer “of” it. As Will Willimon and Stan Hauerwas termed it in their groundbreaking book some years back, the Church is a “colony” of the Kingdom of God, and Christians are “Resident Aliens,” in the world but not “of” it. What that means, among other things, is that Christians can never again feel “at home” in this world because we believe that this world as we know it is doomed and that another world called the “Kingdom of God” is already dawning which will not so much “fix” this world as replace it with a whole new one, at first attitudinally, and eventually (in God’s good time) actually. Therefore, any theology of the Kingdom of God, the Church, and the Christian life that reduces the agenda to “fixing” this world is reductionistic and wrong-headed.

Now the second caveat: That doesn’t mean that Christians don’t have a stake in “justice” issues. Of course we do! Christians, because we’re Christians, must be concerned with social justice and economic justice and gender justice and racial justice and environmental justice, etc. But not because we believe that if we can achieve these things we will, thereby, have brought about the Kingdom of God. Rather we work for these things solely because we’re Christians and that’s what Christians do.

I love the story Jesus told in Matthew 25 about the “Sheep and the Goats.” He said that at the final judgment it will be like a shepherd dividing sheep from goats ¬– sheep on the right, goats on the left (no sublimated political message intended). And the criteria for judgment? “I was hungry and you fed me (or didn’t feed me); I was thirsty and you gave me to drink (or you didn’t), etc.” What strikes me in this story is the fact, usually overlooked, that neither the redeemed nor the damned knew they were redeemed or damned. They were merely being what they were. “When did we see you hungry, or thirsty, or in prison, etc. and we didn’t (or did) help you?” When you stand in the Dock, faking and feigning won’t get it, and it’s too late for reformation – you are what you are. Find a stray cat, bring him into your house, bathe him, feed him, give him a name (call him “George”) and after a while you start to feel as though George is a member of the family, not really a cat anymore at all. But bring a mouse in the house and put it in front of George and you’ll find out what a cat is every time. Jesus says, “Put an injustice in front of a Christian and you’ll find out what a Christian is, or isn’t, every time.” Of course Christians are concerned about justice. We’re Christians, for heaven’s sake!

But notice, the purpose of feeding the hungry, visiting the sick, etc. was not to “eliminate poverty in our lifetime” or “to redistribute the wealth” or “to bring about the Kingdom of God by means of establishing social justice;” rather, the redeemed feed the hungry and visit the sick and help the poor because that’s who they are; that’s what “redeemed” do.

He who has ears to hear, let him hear.

"Ecclesiastical Orphans"

Preaching guru Fred Craddock, retired from Emory’s Candler School of Theology, often quips: “Anyone who can’t remember any farther back than his or her own birth is an orphan.” He was speaking about the postmodern penchant for individuality and concomitant lack of interest in history and context that tends to disconnect and detach us from any corporate, collective, or contextual sense of the self. We’re like orphans isolated and independent, experiencing the world without family, without memory, without history, without perspective. His point is that humans require context, historical perspective, to know who they are. We are not sui generis creatures, isolated, insular, independent. We are contextual creatures, connected in a nexus of relationships that includes both the living and the dead. Lose the context, forget those connections, and we forget who we are, what we’re about, why we’re here, and where we’re going.

When I was a boy one of my favorite memories was spending the night with my Granny Stacy. She was already succumbing to the glaucoma that would eventually take her sight, but she turned it into a game that both entertained me and educated me about who I was. After dinner, she’d take out the photo album and have me leaf through its pages reading the names and describing the scenes in the pictures (Uncle Buster, Granddaddy Stacy, Great Granddaddy Costner, and on and on). Then she’d tell me the stories behind the pictures, and slowly, inexorably I would position myself in the nexus that was “Stacy” and learn who I was and what I was about. When in the morning my father would arrive to collect me, he’d always ask what we did, and I’d tell him that we played “Stacy,” and he’d say, “I remember that game.”

I had a similar experience recently at a little church where I was doing a Winter Bible Study. A beautiful little church set out in the country, the forefathers and foremothers of the faith, though poor farmers mostly, thought it important to place stained glass windows in the sanctuary depicting events and persons of their biblical and communal heritage. It was interesting in that the windows mixed scenes both from the ancient biblical story and from their own congregational story with the result that you were surrounded by The Story that reached back to Abraham and Moses and Jesus and forward to today. The effect on the worshipper was unmistakable: You were positioned in a nexus of relationships and values and events that began long before you arrived and would, God willing, continue long after you departed. It was impossible in such a setting to feel “orphaned” when, as the writer of Hebrews put it, you were “surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses.”

The implications for the Church are far-reaching and broadly applicable, but nowhere are they more critical than in the way contemporary Christians handle the Scriptures. The proliferation of translations and “designer Study Bibles” has made many Christians think of the Bible exclusively as “my Book.” The only question contemporary Christians ask of the Bible is “What does it mean to me?” as though what it means to me is what it means. Unlike those Christians in that little church surrounded by a corporate ecclesiastical and biblical context, contemporary Christians have no sense of the Bible as a shared Book in which we are engaged in timeless conversations with Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, Jesus, and Paul. We don’t care what it meant to Matthew, we only care what it means to me. There are all kinds of problems with this, not the least of which is the dilution of the doctrine of inspiration to mean nothing more than the pagan notion of the “muses.” Moreover, the Bible is reduced to a religious Rorschach inkblot where the only relevant question is, “What do you see?” – where the reader rather than the Bible is really being read. Don’t get me wrong. “What does it mean to me?” is an appropriate question, but only after one has positioned himself/herself in the Christian nexus, the Christian Story, the Christian family album and asked the prior question, “What did the inspired author mean?”

To do otherwise is to be an ecclesiastical orphan.