Margaret Mitchell on Richard Land's Hermeneutics

Margaret Mitchell, Professor of New Testament and Early Christian Literature at the University of Chicago, has written an outstanding essay on "How Biblical is the Christian Right?" She examines the hermeneutical method of a host of Christian Right leaders. Her analysis of Richard Land's use of the Bible is telling:

Southern Baptist Convention minister Richard Land presents no such ambivalence about his role as interpreter of the Bible. His "For Faith and Family" web site presents the reader with a link to something called the "Ethics Scripture Index," defined as "a listing of Scriptures that relate to various ethical issues," from "Abortion, Adoption, Bioethics, Homemaking/Domestication, to War, Wives, Women." For a student of biblical interpretation, this is a simply fascinating document, both in form and in effect. It is both like and unlike the ancient "testimonia" lists, such as we find at Qumran (4 QTestim), which contain a chain of excerpted quotes about the nature and identity of the true prophet, for instance. But, tellingly, this list is inconsistent in form. Let me explain. First off, there is no explanation of what topics or which passages are chosen or why, and in the vast majority of cases all one sees is a citation, not the text itself (that also has the nice effect of not confusing people who read their Bible in a different translation, and hence might find rather different wording which might call into question the aptness of its place there). And this method presumes that the whole column speaks with one voice about the issue, which means that there is already a pre-determined decision about the "biblical view" on the given issue. No hermeneutical rule of thumb or guidance is given on such issues as the relationship between the Old and New Testament in Christian law or regulation, nor about how different biblical genres relate to divine teaching and biblical truth (law, narrative, parable, and proverb are all treated the same). But one gets some glimpses of the interpretive work behind this list (and the rhetorical effect it is designed to have) because sometimes a paraphrase or explanation is appended to one or more items in each categorical list.

If we take these as indicative of some higher level of interest, investment or possible debate on the topic, it is quite interesting that under "Hunger," for instance, only fifteen citations are given, but no comments (obviously not an important issue). Astoundingly, Luke's second beatitude ("Blessed are those who hunger now" [Luke 6:21]) did not even make the list. By contrast, "Gambling" receives double the references "Hunger" has (thirty -- Land does not have the same problem as the Dobson site in acknowledging that the Bible does not mention gambling), as well as some interpretive comments (my favorite: next to 1 Cor. 16:1-3, Paul's instructions to the Corinthians on putting money aside each week for the saints in Jerusalem are glossed, "can't give to a collection if your money is gambled away"!). The category that had by far the most listings was "Money": 123 citations, but not a single interpretive comment.

The contemporary significance of these strategically-placed comments seems clear when one looks at the category "War" (there is none for "Peace"). Of sixty-six citations, fully fourteen were singled out for comment:

Gen. 14:13-16 Abram rescues Lot through warfare
Deut. 2:5, 9, 19, 32-35 God's sovereignty in war
Josh. 6-12 aggressive in God's plan for victory
1 Sam. 15:1-3 total annihilation of enemy
2 Sam. 5:17-25 preventative, consulted God beforehand
Luke 6:27-36 [sic; possibly 7:2-10] Jesus did not command the centurion to abandon his job now that he was a Christian

While it is easy to think of this as a literalistic proof-texting, it is not just that, but a highly creative rearrangement of selective pieces of the biblical record to justify a previously reached conclusion (in this case, apparently, the invasion of Iraq). Sometimes Land does include passages that might complicate the picture, but his own interpretive comments draw attention away from them. For example, we read "Rom. 12:2 our ways are separate from the world's ways," but would hardly realize that under the listing Rom. 12:17-21 lies a text that contains both the actual word peace (Rom. 12:2 does not) and a command related to it: "if it is possible by your agency, live in peace with all people" (Rom. 12:18). It bears noting, in relation to my larger thesis, that it is Christian peace-makers of various stripes -- not the Christian Right -- who are the literalists when it comes to the latter verse.