During Pope Benedict’s recent visit to France, he spoke at the College des Bernardins in Paris to “representatives from the world of French culture.” In his speech he spoke out against Biblical Literalism and fundamentalism. He stated:
Scripture requires exegesis, and it requires the context of the community in which it came to birth and in which it is lived. This is where its unity is to be found, and here too its unifying meaning is opened up. … It perceives in the words the Word, the ‘Logos’ itself, which spreads its mystery through this multiplicity. This particular structure of the Bible issues a constantly new challenge to every generation. It excludes by its nature everything that today is known as fundamentalism.
In effect the word of God can never simply be equated with the letter of the text. To attain to it involves a transcending and a process of understanding, led by the inner movement of the whole and hence it also has to become a process of living. Only within the dynamic unity of the whole are the many books one book. God’s word and action in the world are only revealed in the word and history of human beings.
The transcending of the letter and understanding it solely from the perspective of the whole is forcefully expressed by St. Paul with the phrase: ‘the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life.‘ But the liberating Spirit is not simply… the exegete’s own vision. The Spirit is Christ … Who shows us the way. With the word of Spirit and of freedom, a further horizon opens up, but at the same time a clear limit is placed upon arbitrariness and subjectivity, which unequivocally binds both the individual and the community and brings about a new, higher obligation than that of the letter: namely, the obligation of insight and love.
Well, thank God he cleared that up—because I have been operating from the understanding that Pope Benedict wanted us to read the Bible literally. I suppose now that he has come out against biblical literalism we can all sit down and take a look at some Church practices and teachings that rely on biblical literalism and fundamentalism.
I guess now we can consider the context of Leviticus 18:22—the oft-quoted passage condemning homosexuality—and realize that the next chapter decrees that men never trim their beards. As Pope Benedict reaffirms—it’s context people!
And I suppose while we’re at it we can look at the context in which Paul wrote his letter to the Corinthians stating: “Women should keep silent in the churches, for they are not allowed to speak, but should be subordinate, as even the law says.” Now that the Pope has sworn off Biblical literalism, I assume the next step will be finally understanding Paul’s context and granting women equal rights in the Church.
Now, I know what you may be thinking—well, the Pope may have said that the Bible is not to be taken literally, but he said nothing of taking ancient and irrelevant Church teaching literally. True, he didn’t mention this specifically, but I think he made a good argument for it nonetheless. If we have to understand the context in which the Bible was written, don’t we also have to understand the context in which any text, including Church teachings (such as the Just War Theory or teachings on divorce), were written? Can we take these antiquated teachings literally while reading the Bible contextually? That would be a bit—well, hypocritical—don’t you think?
Thank you, Pope Benedict, for finally coming out as a Biblical contextualist.I hope we can count on you to do the same with Church teaching because—as you say, this is where we will find unity.
