Beyond Criticism

A few days ago, after our class discussion of the presentations by people who are reading the commentaries, I posted on my tumblr. You can read that post by clicking the link provided. It will give meaningful context to what I am about to say.

In all of our discussion, along with some of my discussions with Dr. Reid after class the other day, I was intrigued by the way contextual readings of Scripture conflict with the ideals we purport to follow, with our critical methodologies, our "modern sensibilities," our alleged-enlightenment; all of which seek objectivity, the removal of context and cultural biases. And yet here is a group worth reading, who admit- up front- that they are reading from a context. They have biases. The liberationists even go so far as to speak of God's "preferential option" for the poor.

I think what I love about contextual reading and contextual theology is this willingness to admit that they don't read "objectively"- as if that were even possible. And so with all honesty we have to admit that we all read from our context; just as any theology is by nature contextual, so any reading of scripture is done from context. I believe that this is okay, because it recognizes the limits of criticism. We should not, and indeed cannot afford to completely dismiss critical method, however criticism's insistence on "authorial intent" and what the "original audience" would have "heard" seems to presuppose that the only meaning we can derive from the text is a meaning that has little bearing on our lives today. It means that the text has nothing to say to us today. It means the text is dead.

This is why we must take what criticism can give us, and then move beyond it.