Of Myths and Parables…

Are we fighting dragons, slaying them like Saint George? Do we dismiss the ancient Greek or Mesopotamian myths as the fiction of peoples not as enlightened as we are today? If we do then where do we stop in rejecting past myths as pre-modern fables?

I am reading an excellent book by Andy Angel entitled Playing with Dragons: Living with Suffering and God. Starting with the Enūma Eliš - the Mesopotamian myth of creation - and comparing it to the similarities in the Biblical account in Genesis, Andy argues that the rich and sometimes bizarre text in myths offers insight into our spiritual lives in a way that modernist writings sometimes cannot. I highly encourage people to read his book.

What he seems to omit however is the relationship between myths and parables. Myths are generally fictional narratives attempting to make sense in a spiritual world of physical historical events. Parables are fictional narratives attempting to bring spiritual truths to influence a physical world in the future. They are, as such, mirror images of each other. Whereas many Christians in the 21st century are comfortable embracing parables they simultaneously reject myths. In doing so they lose something of the richness of mythological language.

So to start with let me offer this as a modern myth, trying to make spiritual sense of a recent past that created suffering and indeed for some people still does: 

The story of Lehoia

The goddess Hegoadlea was very beautiful, taking the form of a fish swimming in the deep ocean or the rivers. She had big fins allowing her leap into the air and skim over the waters like a bird. One day she was swimming in the big river and Iparraldea, the bull god, standing on the muddy bank of the great river drinking, saw her. She was indeed very beautiful and so, being a powerful god, he took her for his wife saying ‘Oh Hegoadlea, you who are the most beautiful of all the gods, come with me who is the most powerful of the gods and we shall procreate a family of gods to rule and bring peace in our lands’.

Indeed they had many children, Fidagarria was like a hunting dog, loyal and true, Harrokia was like a goose, or a rock sitting there not doing anything looking down on those who passed, Errukitsua like a rodent, though appearing dirty showed empathy and compassion above many and one, Lehoia, we know as the great sea serpent, and he above all showed independence enjoying the waters in which he swam. 

Unlike his mother Hegoadlea, Lehoia had no wings and could not fly but he controlled the sea with his power. He was passionate about gold and collected it wherever he could, storing it in the sea cave where he lived. Over the years the gold pile grew and he would sometimes bury himself in it enjoying the touch of the metal against his body.

As he lay there in his cave looking out he became jealous of the eagle, seeing it soaring above. He could not even skim the waters like his mother. So he hatched a plan. He would cut off her wings and sew them to his body then he too would fly. Then he would not be limited to the water. 

Now gold is a valuable but very soft metal, so he spent many years folding and hammering a sword to make it hard and sharp. All the while he was still laughing and talking with his mother, so she would not suspect his plan.

One day, while she was sleeping, Lehoia cut off Hegoadlea’s wings and as he slithered back to his lair carrying the wings in his jaws he left a trail of blood over the land. He stored her wings in his sea cave thinking he too would then be powerful like the eagle, when later he sewed them to his own body.

Iparraldea seeing his wife bleeding and crying licked her wounds and gently cared for her. Her wounds soon healed and over time new wings grew in their place allowing her to skim the waves again. Lehoia, angry at this, sent floods, hoping to drown Iparraldea, but he found a high mountain above the floods. 

Seeing how Lehoia had rebelled against them, when the waters subsided, Iparraldea assembled all the gods and they banished Lehoia to be imprisoned in his sea cave and so not hurt them again.

Meanwhile the dragon god Ekialdea was jealous of Iparraldea for his beautiful wife Hegoadlea. He had been flying over and watching all that was going on, biding his time. Seeing that Iparraldea was injured he thought ‘Now is my time, I will cause destruction and Iparraldea will be weakened and I can take Hegoadlea for my wife’. So he breathed fire over the land causing a great famine. 

Lehoia got very hungry in his isolated cave, so he ate his mother’s wings, spitting out the bones; so now he would never fly or skim the waves. Instead, Lehoia lay, half buried in gold… plotting. 

In comparing and contrasting Biblical accounts with ancient myths Andy Angel brings in some interesting insights. Biblical accounts include Leviathan, a sea creature considered total fiction in today's world, and in doing so demonstrates the writers knew and understood the ancient myths and their meaning. However in creation, for example, whereas the Mesopotamian myth sees human beings created as playthings for the gods, the Biblical account shows humans created in the image of God for a relationship with Him. 

He uses references to the Psalms to show how the same myth could be seen in a different light when viewed not in a world of chaos but in a world fashioned out of chaos by the one true God. So let us look at the myth above as if a psalm:

The Psalm of  Lehoia

The LORD is a great God
He is mighty in all his deeds
All the people of the earth worship you
They come together as one

Oh LORD, why then have you deserted me?
Why have you left me crushed and defeated?
My enemies have conquered me
They have taken away my freedom

They removed all truth from their mouths
They only told lies; lies upon lies
Our enemies plotted against us
So the people would not know the truth

They showed us the eagle
And told us we too could fly
Like Hegoadlea the winged fish
Who could skim over the waves

Then people believed those lies
They trusted Lehoia the serpent
He gave control to the people
While taking all power for himself

We called on them to return to you
But they would not listen
We called on them but they could not hear
Because they were deaf to your voice

But you are the one great God
Who chastises his people
With famine and flood
To bring his people back to him

So now we are rich
But we cannot eat gold
We are sick and dying
But precious stones will not heal us

Come LORD and rescue us
Save us from ourselves
Bring us back into community
The family of those who love you

One of the problems we have in today's world is Fake News which I dealt with in a past blog post, where I suggested we need to become truth-tellers. Myths and parables are not fake news, not antithetical with promulgating truth. They are different ways of communicating truth. Brandon Sanderson put it this way, 'The purpose of a storyteller is not to tell you how to think, but to give you questions to think upon'. As truth-tellers, we bring myths and parables to give you spiritual questions to think upon.

Personal Saviour or Tribal decision?

In the 'west' and particularly in the USA among all churchmanships there seems to be a common language talking about Jesus as our 'personal Saviour'. Friends from Europe in Africa were talking to someone from a tribe that knew nothing of Jesus. He went away talked with his family and tribe and the whole tribe came back and said 'We've decided to follow Jesus'. 'Wait a minute… it doesn't work like that… you need to individually follow Jesus.'

Personal Saviour and Lord Jesus? Unbiblical?

One of the authors on the Patheos website argues that the concept of a personal Saviour and Lord is unbiblical.

Personal Jesus. Is he? Is Jesus your personal savior and Lord? Do you think that the Bible teaches we should think of Jesus in that way, and proclaim him to be that over our lives? Such is the claim belonging to an overwhelming majority of American Christian Bible readers professing to understand what the authors of Scripture wrote and meant to convey. But what if I told you that such a claim is ridiculous because 21st century U.S. Bible readers are culturally alien to the early followers of Jesus and their audiences?

The author is not from a fundamentalist Evangelical background…but does vociferously attack what many might perceive as such:

And what happens whenever we Americans open up our Bibles or hear the Liturgy of the Word?—I’m looking at you, fellow U.S. Catholics! Just as with our Netflix and Disney+ viewing, so too do we bring to these readings all our cultural expectations. Whether it be Moses, Elijah, Jesus, Paul, or Mary Magdalene, it’s just as with Luke Skywalker, Harry Potter, and Daenerys Targaryen—these figures must always be understood individualistically and psychologically. Outlandish? Yes. Common? Just as much. Disrespectful? Definitely!

The author argues two things: Firstly that the very personal Saviour attitude is at variance with the cultural context, both then and now of what he calls Mediterranean collectivist culture. Secondly, he argues from the Scriptures that this is what the Bible teaches.

Mediterranean Culture

I have lived for the last 23 years on a Mediterranean island and have travelled and worked extensively in the Middle East and North Africa. I was born in western Europe, in the UK, and have also lived in the USA. I stand in the gap between all these cultures. And I must admit, to a large extent, what he says resonates with my experience and with my reading of Scripture.

But at the same time the article made me uncomfortable. In part this was because the article seemed to be confrontational in its style, but also due to something that he missed about the Mediterranean culture, that most things are not black or white, but shades of grey. It is not either personal or collectivist but both personal and collectivist.

Bible readers today should recognize that ancient Mediterranean believers had zero comprehension of individualism. Therefore, neither Jesus nor any character or author of Scripture should ever be imagined as individualistic or personal the ways we are. 

No ancient disciple or Christian would understand Jesus as their personal Lord and Savior. Neither first century nor fourth century Mediterraneans would see that because they simply could not do so. While typically Americans do experience a personal, individualistiic, self-concerned focus in human life, first century Mediterraneans were unaware of anything like that. Moreover, if anyone behaved like Americans do in the villages Jesus preached and healed in, they would be labeled extreme social deviants and dangerous. Such dysfunctional people would be an existential threat to group survival.

It is most certainly true that ancient and modern Mediterranean people see the community as central, and in the case of Cyprus the Greek Orthodox Church as central, within the context of family and extended family. This is similarly true within Islam in the Middle East and North Africa: Islam emphasises community and indeed the worship is extremely collectivist, with everyone doing the same and saying the same at the same time. Mediterraneans and Middle Easterners do indeed emphasis the community over the individual.

But that doesn't mean we have zero comprehension of individualism, more that it is balanced within the context of community.

The Parable of the Wedding Banquet

One parable that always confused me growing up was the parable of the Wedding Banquet. It is found in two places in Scripture: Matthew 22:1-14 and Luke 14:15-24. Almost inevitably people in western Europe and the USA speak from the Luke version of the story not the Matthew one or stop at verse 10 in the Matthew version.

The story is of a king throwing a wedding banquet for his son. When it was the time for the banquet, and remember this was before individual watches or clocks, the king sent his servants out to tell the guests the time was right and they should come. But they didn't. So the king said that since the feast was ready and those invited declined to come so his servants should go out into the streets and find people… good and bad it didn't matter… and bring them into the feast.

And that's where people stop. We the good and bad who are not part of the 'chosen people' are invited, individually and personally to the feast which is heaven.

But the story doesn't stop there. The king comes down to greet his guests and finds one of the guests not wearing wedding clothes. The king is annoyed, to put it mildly, and to tie him up and throw him outside into the darkness! And it ends on another phrase people use 'for many are invited but few are chosen' suggesting that this is again about individualism.

Well… I was sitting in a café on the bank of the river Nile in Egypt and mentioned this to a friend of mine from Egypt. He explained that what we didn't know as westerners was that at that time it was customary for wedding guests to be provided with wedding clothes as a gift by the person throwing the feast. So the person not in wedding clothes was not being unfairly put upon, as I had thought, since he'd been grabbed off the street, but had decided to reject the free gift of the king!

This story exactly demonstrates the mix of community and individualism understood in the Mediterranean and Middle East. From the community the VIPs are invited as individuals. They reject it so the wider community is invited as a community, not individuals, but within that context everyone is expected to accept the free gift as part of that community. If, as an individual, they reject it then they too are rejected as an individual.

Abnormality?

The author of the article suggests something different:

Let’s contrast how differently Americans and ancient Mediterraneans explain some adult whom they judge as being abnormal. Immediately the U.S. person uses psychology—we explore his or her childhood experiences to link these to the kind of personality he or she exhibits. We scour the personal past of the abnormal person, looking for some watershed event that psychologically shaped the adult we study… 

And how does this compare to ordinary Mediterranean persons, whether past or present? These people, in contrast, are not at all psychologically minded and, indeed, are anti-introspective! Ancient Mediterranean elites believed that a human being’s basic personality derived mostly from ethnic characteristics taken from the native air, water, and soil of the ethnic group’s home land…

For that to be true in this story told by Jesus, as a Mediterranean Middle Easterner, then something about the person thrown out should demonstrate he or she was not a native of that region. But specifically Jesus does not either point to something psychological or to something foreign but just lets it stand as someone from the community not accepting the gift the rest of the community had accepted. When something is offered to the community it is expected that the community, or family, as a whole accept or reject that offer.

The author confirms his belief that it is geographic rather than psychological with a reference to the book of Titus:

Note how the inspired author of Titus writes—“Cretans are always liars, evil beasts, lazy gluttons” (Titus 1:12). There is nothing psychological there! 

So whereas U.S. biographies are descriptions of psychological development, ancient Mediterranean biographies describe someone who fulfilled stereotypical roles. 

This would, however, seem at variance to Jesus telling the story of the Samaritan man who didn't fulfil the stereotypical role when caring for the person attacked by robbers on the road. (Luke 10:25-37)

Our Relationships

Although the author points to some things I disagree with his interpretation of, there are some which I think he hits right on the nail from my experience. 

(St) Paul considers abnormality not a problem within a person but rather something amiss outside a person. In other words, the ancient abnormal person is deemed abnormal because the web of relations into which he is embedded is abnormal!

The web of relations within the Mediterranean and Middle East is critical. I remember another occasion sitting with a friend in Cairo at 3AM and something came up that only his brother would know the answer to. It was quite normal to phone his brother at that time in the morning when he was in bed and wake him up to ask him that question. Try doing that in the west and it's a quick way to lose friends! (Or even lose a relationship with a brother!)

Function has taken over from relationships in the west.

Scripture - reading and understanding

One of the key issues is our reading and understanding of Scripture. Years ago I was giving the talk in a service on Bible Sunday. One of the key points I was trying to communicate is that we need to get to know the author and the subject of the books more than just the text of the books. The example I gave was if someone wrote a biography about my wife, the type of character painted by the author of the book would be affected by the author. Because I know my wife the book could tell as much about the author as it did about my wife! So it is with the Bible. With a relationship to God we do learn a lot through the Bible but we also learn about the authors' relationships with God through the Bible.

Now here's the point… in a modernist world we like to do all sorts of analysis on the text. Yes, that's helpful but there are two more poignant questions: What was the thought the author was trying to communicate? What was the thought God was trying to communicate through the author? In other words we need to think thought for thought as much as word for word.

Does that mean the words are irrelevant? Not at all! Words help us understand the thoughts of the author, though sometimes they obfuscate too. Understanding etymology, context and culture are frequently more useful than a dictionary.

Added to which, and this is where I disagree with the original author, simple answers to complex issues are usually the wrong ones. So when he says

Bible readers today should recognize that ancient Mediterranean believers had zero comprehension of individualism.

Complex not simple

He has simplified a complex issue and in the process creates an equally inaccurate answer. Having lived in the UK, USA and Cyprus the cultures are radically different, but when asked to quantify what those differences are it is difficult to do so. It is absolutely true that we have a greater emphasis on community and the web of relationships we have, but does that mean we don't experience any individualism? Not at all. It is indeed complex and not simple.

There are boundaries to the individualism and boundaries to collectivism within the Mediterranean communities as there are too in the Anglo and northern European world.

When I was thinking about this I was thinking about the rise of populism within different cultures. In some ways populism is the ultimate collectivist expression. Except it is not. It can be, but recent populist movements are expressions of manipulation of people longing for a collectivist culture but without the true community to experience it. True collectivist cultures are open and welcoming, as can be experienced by the immense emphasis on hospitality among them. Populism breeds pseudo collectivist cultures which are the inverse of that; putting up boundaries and excluding rather than inviting.

'Undifferentiated Ethnic Ego Mass'

The author asserts that:

Mediterraneans like the anonymous Psalmist define themselves exclusively in terms of their ingroups (i.e. those groups, in which they are embedded). Because of this, it is group embeddedness on which their total self-awareness depends. Thus Biblical people like the Psalmist (and Jesus and Paul!) are so immersed in their ingroups that they share an “undifferentiated ethnic ego mass.” 

Hmmm… yes… sort of… I would prefer he had said:

Mediterraneans like the anonymous Psalmist define themselves primarily in terms of their ingroups (i.e. those groups, in which they are embedded). Because of this, it is group embeddedness on which their dominant self-awareness depends. Thus Biblical people like the Psalmist (and Jesus and Paul!) are so immersed in their ingroups that they share an “undifferentiated ethnic ego mass.”

It's not exclusive but is dominant, so he is primarily correct but not completely. As I say, it's complex, not simple!

One of the things that he totally misses is that both in ancient times and today there is a huge amount of movement of people around the Mediterranean region. I live in Larnaca and I have friends living here in Larnaca from Cyprus, Greece, Armenia, Germany, France, UK, USA, Estonia, Syria and yesterday I met a Latvian. Yes, there are closed Cypriot family communities that I am not part of, but the Mediterranean and Middle Eastern culture is very welcoming and so long as you wish to fit in with the collectivist community embracing too.

Just read the Acts of the Apostles chapter 2 and you see that in the ancient world it was much the same!

'how is it that we hear, each of us in his own native language? Parthians and Medes and Elamites and residents of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the parts of Libya belonging to Cyrene, and visitors from Rome, both Jews and proselytes, Cretans and Arabians—we hear them telling in our own tongues the mighty works of God.'

Collectivism and Communism

Now I can almost feel steam coming out of the ears of some of my American and northern European friends with the use of the word collectivist, which they hear as close to communist, which is considered anti-Christian by them since culturally they have embraced capitalism.

I'm going to say it again… it's complex, not simple!

When we read in chapter 4 of the Acts of the Apostles:

All the believers were one in heart and mind. No one claimed that any of their possessions was their own, but they shared everything they had. With great power the apostles continued to testify to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus. And God’s grace was so powerfully at work in them all that there were no needy persons among them. For from time to time those who owned land or houses sold them, brought the money from the sales and put it at the apostles’ feet, and it was distributed to anyone who had need. 

That sounds an awful like theoretical communism! When I say theoretical communism that is to separate it from the Marxism/Leninism today labeled as communism.

People write off the Amish as an out of date fringe group in their expression of collectivism. But I have Mennonite friends in downtown Chicago who practice exactly what we read about in Acts chapter 4.

Almost nowhere in the Mediterranean and Middle East will one find a truly collectivist community. But at the same time it's frequently a lot more fluid with people helping people and not allowing the abject poverty one can see in some American cities. Though sadly that is changing.

In summary…

So in summary, it is true that not only were the early believers and today's Mediterranean and Middle Eastern cultures very different to northern European and North American culture, but to see this a binary is to miss the reality of it. That we, as followers of the Messiah, should embrace a more Mediterranean and Middle Eastern culture, wherever we live, is certainly something I believe God is calling us to. And that closed culture populism is the antitheses of this.

What does it mean to be Anglican?

Anglican – From ulta-reformed dispensationalist to charismatic – from evangelical to liberal. Is it all things to all people or is there something about being Anglican?

Richard Hooker is an interesting person who wrote a series of books which have influenced Anglican thinking down through the ages, yet is infrequently quoted or studied outside those studying theology. I've read extracts of what he wrote and commentary from others about him and my intention now is to read more of his works. This will be a seven-part mini-series blog of my journey into Richard Hooker.

It's important to see things in context and seeing Richard Hooker in the context historically and theologically is an important part to understanding where on the journey he fits in.

We know why it started – because King Henry VIII wanted to divorce (read that have the marriage annulled) Catherine of Aragon and the Pope refused so he separated the Church in England from the Church of Rome.

Thomas Cranmer was as much a liturgist as a theologian and pretty much a 'yes man' to King Henry. He did establish an English (as opposed to Latin) liturgy creating the now famous Book of Common Prayer. Though it might seem archaic today, it was certainly revolutionary in it's day. Of course, that wasn't the end of it, because Mary, a devout Catholic, became queen and Cranmer was executed as traitor and heretic.

But that is only part of the story. At roughly the same time as all this was happening in the UK, on the continent there was another separation from the Roman Catholic Church in what we call the Reformation. Cranmer made accommodations to many of the reformation changes, which were however rolled back when Mary came to the throne but swung back again when Elisabeth became queen. It was into this mix of theological separations taking place on the continent and in the UK that a person called Richard Hooker, who is described by some as the 'Prophet of Anglicanism', wrote and formed what is, by many, considered 'Anglican theology'.

This blog entry is an introduction, then I will write three entries based upon what I so far have gathered before reading him more extensively and deeply and will then write three more based upon what I read.

Why threes?

As I currently understand it Richard Hooker was looking for a 'via media' or middle way between the Roman Catholic Church and the new Reformed Church on the continent. That there was no discussion about the Orthodox Church (Russian, Greek or Coptic) demonstrates how Western Europe was already separated from Eastern Europe (the Great Schism 1054). 

In this 'middle way' there were, assuming I've read him right, and we will see in the coming weeks and months, three basic principles upon which he believed the Church of England stands: the Bible, Reason and Tradition.

For those that accuse the Anglican Church of being 'liberal' that the first principle is the Bible might well be a surprise, but it was the first and foremost thing that he started from. How he understood the Bible might be at variance to some in the Fundamentalist Evangelical church and to some in the 'liberal' church, though defining what the 'liberal' church is might take some doing since for Fundamentalist Evangelicals it's binary – all those who are not Fundamentalist Evangelicals!

When I read the third principle being tradition I get an earworm of Tevye singing the song Tradition from Fiddler on the Roof. The story of that musical is really one of seeing tradition within the battle between tradition and progression… the unstoppable march of time! But that is to miss what I see as the core context of that issue, being that of community, and tradition merely an attribute of community.

My biases

Seeing Hooker in context includes seeing my own biases. So I will start there, with my initial biased response to his three basic principles of the Bible, Reason and Tradition.

Born and raised Anglican with some time attending a Vineyard Fellowship and some time a Community Church this journey into Anglican theology will be interesting to see to what extent Hooker convinces or dissuades me.

Coming from a Charismatic Evangelical background my initial reaction to the Bible being a core principle is one of a pleasant surprise. But then the 6th and 7th of the 39 Articles of Religion established in 1801 lock in the Bible as…

'containeth all things necessary to salvation: so that whatsoever is not read therein, nor may be proved thereby, is not to be required of any man, that it should be believed as an article of the Faith, or be thought requisite or necessary to salvation'

Reason

That Hooker saw Reason as a core principle is both encouraging and worrying to me in my biases. I've seen too many people throw out reason as being the antithesis of faith. The whole 7 day creation vs guided (creation) evolution being one such argument. If we were created in the image of God then to deny reason a part in faith is to deny God is a God of reason.
So why is it worrying? Man's reason is imperfect…

we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known.

Nevertheless I do find reason is being useful in redressing the balance which has tended towards irrationality in faith.

Tradition

What we have lost in the late 20th and early 21st century in much of Europe and the west is community. Community has been replaced with alienating cities and, as we move forward, both community and tradition are increasingly irrelevant to most people. This leaves a void. Filling that void with historic tradition may help some but will certainly not satisfy the majority. However, I would argue that finding some way of building community within the 21st century is essential if society is to continue. And building that community is part of the prophetic role of the church and in this case the Anglican church.

So if I'm rewriting Hooker I see the three principles as Bible, Reason and Community.  But that is the start of my journey. The next step is to unpack his ideas as I see them now in the next three blog posts, starting with what I understand to be Hooker's approach to the Bible. Then read more deeply and see how my perception of each has changed.

POSTCRIPT

I scan-read Hooker and realised that the more I saw the more uncomfortable I became. Not because of his theology, but because of his meta-theology. He was not taking a proactive approach, but rather a reactive approach. He didn't want to throw Rome (Catholicism) out with the bathwater but also didn't want to fully embrace Geneva, so created this via media.

Whereas there is some validity in this middle way, I was left feeling he didn't bring anything helpful to the table because he was too comfortable in his ecclesiastic structure. He was reading Scripture through the tinted glasses of centuries of the structural church having a position of importance in society. 

Maybe what he said was good, but it carried way too much historic baggage to make me feel that this was authentic to the way of Christ. Maybe in his time it was. But not in 21st century Europe.

So what does it mean to be Anglican? Many things. But for me the lifespring is not in the past tradition but in the Fresh Expressions movement. 'Fresh Expressions is a growing movement of everyday people forming new, vibrant Christian communities in every ordinary nook and cranny of life.' 

It's not about finding a middle way to hold back the new to the old, but about embracing the new, because as sojourners in this journey we call life, to quote John Bunyan in Pilgrims progress 'Do you not still carry some of the baggage from the place you escaped?' We do indeed, 'but against my will'.