Why I am no longer a fundamentalist - Part V: The Unified Experience

We cannot turn back the clock. We are stuck in the modern world. Sticking our head in the sand like the fundamentalist cannot produce a unified experience. Putting our head in the clouds like the moralizers of Liberal Protestantism cannot produce a unified experience either. We have to have genuine religion in order to be a unified person. We cannot reduce faith to moral conviction. In our postmodern world it is generally accepted that man needs spiritual nourishment. What I am proposing is that for the Christian our spirituality should unify us as a person with our faith. I think that the Higher Criticism of the Bible through the structure of Neo-Orthodoxy can do this.

What do I mean by a unified experience? Fundamentalists look for a unified experience by claiming that their beliefs are similar to those of the early believers. They use their beliefs about the Bible to unite themselves with a perception of what they believe is ultimately important in their spiritual lives. This is a common religious practice, and one that I do not deny. I seek a unified experience as well, and I think many people do not understand the unifying experience that can happen if we change the way we read the Bible. It makes sense that if we change our method of interpretation then our unifying experience of the Bible must change as well. It makes sense that many would appear resistant to this change, thinking that maybe they are loosing a part of themselves, because the unifying experience integrates itself into our meaning-structure. But I assure you that this is not the case. Not only does Higher Criticism offer a valid unifying experience, I believe it offers one that is more effective then fundamentalism.

The fundamentalist focuses his unifying experience upon his orthodoxy. The Liberal Protestant focuses his unifying experience on orthopraxis. The Neo-Orthodox is able to blend the two together. For the fundamentalist it is important to believe what the early believers, believed. For the Liberals it is important to act like the early believers. For the Neo-Orthodox it is important to be like the early believers. Fundamentalists give attention to an object. It is an object of belief. It is a "what" not a "who". Liberals give attention to a behavior. It is subjective with no content. It is a "who" with no soul. Neo-Orthodox give attention to what the early believers were like and how we can imitate their lives in our modern world. It possess an object and a subject.

Neo-Orthodoxy seeks a unifying experience by reading the Bible like the early believers read the Bible and understanding it in our modern world, like the early believers understood it in their "modern" context. All interpretation is re-interpretation when it comes to religious texts. The Neo-Orthodox believes that Higher Criticism can best engage the believer in the same, or similar, process that the early believers engaged in when they read the scripture, and that is a meditative process.

Meditation is not a rational endeavor. It is not about compartmentalizing or dividing up themes and models. To meditate upon scripture is to absorb it into yourself, to make it a part of your identity without it entering into your rational faculties. The early believers meditated upon scripture in order to fuse it into their lives without the mess of rational and practical considerations. This is most confirmed by the ancient practice of lectio divina, which is the earliest known practice of how early Christians read the Bible, but we know from the Old Testament itself that meditation was major practice in ancient times of understanding Scripture.

When I say that meditation is not a rational endeavor I mean that in a particular manner as it concerns the Western practice of reason. Meditation does not follow any propositional or syllogistic reasoning pattern. It is not about premises and conclusions. It is simply about absorbing the information. Repeating it to yourself over and over again, and contemplating upon the various connections the object of your meditation creates, and when these connections reveal the inner workings of your life as it compares to the scripture you resolve in prayer to model your life by those patterns. The standard is the Bible, but the application emerges from a union of meditation and reflection.

Modern man has a difficult time connecting with the meditative process. We desire to grasp and understand the objects of our attention. To simply accept and absorb information seems elementary, juvenile, or weak minded. Fundamentalism is superficial and objective. It is far removed from the meditative process. But Higher Criticism does open us up to an experience that is similar. Higher Criticism lays bare the content of Scripture. It removes the impossible elements that cause our mental defenses to reject it and allows the message to penetrate our minds, making it able to become a part of our contemplative process. Man cannot contemplate on miracles and wonders in this day and age, because we are removed from them. That is the simple reality. This is not a denial of the miraculous, but a modicum by which modern man is able to contemplate upon the word of God.

For instance, if a fundamentalist were to meditate upon the phrase, "He will rise in three days". He will be limited by the depth his contemplation can take him. He can certainly be enlightened by all the cultural dynamics that took place in ancient times concerning the eschatological significance of "three days", but ultimately these insights will be blocked by the reality that for the fundamentalist this information is an addendum and has no real impact on the reality that in three literal days someone rose from the dead.

But the neo-orthodox is able to accept this information more intuitively into his meditative process. The phrase "three days" can become a center piece of interpretation and allow ourselves to experience the world that the early believers would have experienced. We can see how significant it would have been to say that a person rose after three days, and that this would have had to of been a watershed for such a community. Whoever this person was he has enormous eschatological significance. The literal meaning of the "three days" becomes insignficant. It is not denied, because it no longer becomes important, and it is no longer allowed to block our contemplation and integration of the object of our meditation. Through this we can see how important this man would have been to the believers of his time, and how important he can be to us.

Higher Cirticism allows for the background cultural influences to become apart of the narrative, and because of this it is allowed to enter into the contemplative process, which is able to integrate the more personal information into our spiritual development. And the mind can accept the results because it is not barricaded by presuppositions of the past or authority.

Higher Criticism allows for a spiritual unified experience and it does so without betraying the modern spirit of man. Fundamentalism rejects this spirit and resorts to authority and fear in order to do it. In the process it adopts the methods it rejects in order to interpret its own Bible. The fundamentalists seek a unified experience through orthodoxy, but cut themselves off from the depths of contemplation. It is because of this that I believe Higher Criticism and Neo-Orthodoxy provide a more genuine and authentic Christianity then fundamentalism.