It's Time for a Courageous Word from the Pulpit

by

Special to United Methodist Insight

There is adequate documentation that clergy are more liberal than laity. That is primarily because clergy have a clearer understanding of how Scripture came to be.

While laypeople don’t spend a lot of time studying the issue, they are content with the belief that Scripture is inspired by God. When they are told there are seven biblical passages that clearly condemn homosexuality, they care little about the context of those passages nor the fact that there are 30,095 other verses in a book containing writings gathered from 800 years before the birth of Jesus to 200 years after.

Few laypeople are introduced to the documentary theory of Julius Wellhausen nor more recent fragmentary and supplementary hypotheses related to the Old Testament. They are likely to believe Moses wrote the first five books of the Bible and David wrote each Psalm.

While seminary students are generally required to understand the complex evolution of Scripture, lessons related to JEDP* sources do not make for stirring sermons or inspirational Bible studies.

Most laity never encounter verses such as “Happy is the one who seizes your infants and dashes them against the rocks” (Psalm 137:9) or “Got a rebellious kid who doesn’t listen? Take him to the elders and to the end of the gates and stone him to death!” (Deuteronomy 21:21). They are not likely told that God commanded Saul’s troops to kill Amalekite men, women, children, and infants along with oxen, sheep, camels and donkeys (1 Samuel15:3).

Passages such as these are not included in the lectionary, so most laity do not have to struggle with them.

Moreover, seminary students who try to share a contextual understanding of Scripture in their student charges quickly learn that is not what people in the pews want to hear. Seminary graduates don’t make the same mistake when they receive their first full-time appointment.

Preachers receive appreciative strokes and appointments to increasingly larger churches when they ignore what they have been taught in seminary.

It’s time for clergy to help their laity gain a contextual understanding of Scripture and ways to use reason, tradition and experience to test passages of Scripture.

It’s time for a courageous word from the pulpit.

* JEDP refers to the “documentary hypothesis,” used by biblical scholars to determine the sources for the first five books of the Old Testament. JEDP stands for Jehovah, Elohim, Deuteronomy and Priestly.

Longtime United Methodist communicator the Rev. Rich Peck is a retired clergy member of the New York Annual Conference.