MetaCatholic

I’ve just finished ploughing my way through marking a bunch of assignments on an exegesis of Romans 8. They’re all at a fairly elementary level, but the ones that had been reading Tom Wright’s Paul for Everyone: Romans basic commentary leapt out immediately. Aha! I said to myself, you’ve been reading Wright, and sure enough, checking their bibliographies, they had.

Wright’s emphasis on a basic narrative encoded in a range of metaphors is quite a powerful idea. These students had simply swallowed it whole. It was a forceful reminder to me of just how straightforward, and compelling the idea can be, and clearly helped people make some sense of what they were studying in new ways. Wright is, actually, a very good teacher.

But the problem is, I’m simply not convinced that every metaphor that draws some of its shape from this overarching narrative (and is there really only one?) actually bears the whole weight of that narrative. Can it really be possible, as these students seemed to think was (post-Wright) obvious, that  “all who are led by the Spirit of God are children of God” .(Romans 8:14) is meant to immediately call to mind the Israelite wilderness experience, led by the cloud and pillar of fire on their way to the promised land?

The problem with seeing this omnipresent narrative in every metaphor, it seems to me, is similar to the problem caused by agglutinating every connotation a word may have into one great globule of meaning, and then reading that whole meaning into every context in which the word appears. Sometimes an image is just an image!

I’d be interested in knowing what others think.

My attention has been drawn to this story in the Seattle Times. Andii Bowsher seeks to interpret it charitably, whereas Targuman slams it, and Jim West uses it to score cheap points. While I appreciate what Andii is trying to feel his way towards, I have to say that I’m with Targuman and Jim.

Ann Holmes Redding is, to be blunt, an idiot, and her views complete bollocks. Rather than welcome this as inter-faith pioneering, her bishop should inhibit her immediately. Her views show an almost complete ignorance of Christian doctrine, a total lack of awareness of the traditional resources of Christian spirituality, and an amazing misunderstanding of the core teachings of Islam.

You can refer to God as Allah – if Arabic is your native tongue – whether Christian or Muslim. You can appreciate, and reflect on, spiritual authenticity and human fulfillment in the prayer and hagiographic traditions of both faiths. You can, whether of either faith or none, learn from the culturally specific teachings of Jesus and Mohammed a great deal of wisdom that needs careful reflection. But you cannot confess the triune God and the divinity of Christ as a Muslim, and you cannot not confess them as a Christian.

For me, the most revealing statement in the news report is this this one:

In Redding’s car, she has hung up a cross she made of clear crystal beads. Next to it, she has dangled a heart-shaped leather object etched with the Arabic symbol for Allah.

This is fluffy dice theology, full of fuzzy warm feelings and totally devoid of intellectual integrity. Both faiths are distorted by the egocentric misunderstanding of “what feels good to me.” It might make your commute to downtown Seattle more pleasant while bland musak pours out of your radio, but it will not further either submission to the will of Allah (if you are a Muslim), nor the fullness of the kingdom of God (if you are Christian). And where, may I ask, are the Jewish people in this abomination, to say nothing of Sikhs, Hindus and Buddhists?