| Suspicious underwriting
and Christian Scripture
Over-text is sustained by the church. Under-text is identified by voices not represented in over-text; these voices are more indigenous to a text. Exposing over-text inscribed on a text is the task of suspicion as a mode of interpretation. The reasoning might seem plausible to some but too many assumptions are made about the nature of over-text, under-text and Scripture. First, there is an assumption that over-text and under-text are each homogenous realities—that a clear over-text is identifiable; a clear under-text is present. Which version of deputed over-text is identified? Which under-text is present and by what means is it deciphered, for under-text by definition, must be made visible? Second, it is assumed that under-writing an under-text is not problematic. Under-writers are invariably over-writers, for there is little point in under-writing if there is no possibility of re-writing a text that presumably, has been over-written by an over-text. This introduces partisan over-writing in the guise of under-writing. Third, an under-text is underwritten by someone, requiring adjudication on the context of a text whereby its implicit but “real” story can be ascertained. This requires a long forensic gaze to reconstruct what a text “really said,” when Scripture already speaks from the future in every today. The quest to glean an under-text from a text risks bolting down an arbitrary hypothesis of context and its presumed impetus. This also occurs within an interpretive apparatus that alienates reading from a text’s plain sense. Fourth, an ideological reading can be assumed as encoded within an under-text, while evangelical readings are resisted with suspicion. Can a partisan ideal that is inimical to Christian faith be more transformative for others than its obvious evangelical sense? Instead of invoking anticipation toward intimacy with God who calls to be things that are not in grace, a text can be used as leverage to promote a tacit form of social legalism. Authoritative over-texts have been generated. Belligerent under-texts have also been spawned. A cohesive Christian vision of transformation in testimony to grace and truth in Jesus Christ is not some fault in hearing a text but apocalypse or revelation as gift that orientates Christian Scripture for all. v With suspicion of over-texts there is also suspicion of texts. Something sinister has supposedly intruded into a text by stealth—a surreptitious motive or an implicit value inscribed within a text harbours some form of imposition on human dignity that summons our suspicion. A “hermeneutic of suspicion” is used for unpicking a text assumed not to be benign. A suspicious approach has no desire for a text to be credible as incredible—to credit its capacity to astonish. Suspicion is guarded against any possibility that the seemingly incredulous may invoke surprise or a new venture in understanding. By suspicion, an interpreter assumes a position of superiority, adjudicating when Scripture is permitted to speak and when it must remain silent. In the name of “gospel,” suspicious reading segregates what is supposedly indigestible for contemporary consumption. Christian testimony is pared down by means of a tacit “fifth gospel” as a new over-text forged from gospel fragments according to acceptable social ideals—political, social or religious. This tacit over-text becomes a definitive prism for suppressing indigestible texts. Christian gospel can be stripped down to mere clichés that advocate general but vaguely conceived ideals, such as global harmony, pruning out distinctive good news within a religious relativism that neutralises any claim deemed to be offensive to the relativity of truth within an assumption of religious equivalence. By use of selected texts and fragments as adjudicative criteria for determining what can be excluded from our purview, “Jesus without Christ” as an example and “Christ without Jesus” as a symbol are deemed to be acceptable. Jesus or Christ conjured from gospel fragments merely complies with an amenable profile or ideal already sought. A prime example of this phenomenon is the assertion that Jesus was supposedly racist and sexist until instructed otherwise*—an insinuation that ignores the sweep of biblical testimony and relativises Christology to a comparative religious possibility within another gospel that represents selected ideals instead of good news. A fifth gospel invariably generates conflict. A furtive fifth gospel suppresses the dynamic capacity of Scripture to speak with surprise from unexpected aspects of its testimony according to the future of God becoming present—its pervasive impetus. It is easy to focus on “problem” texts, eclipsing the transparent evangelical sense of Christian Scripture. Texts assumed to be either redundant or indigestible within suspicious criteria, can ignite human hope in anticipation of this reality. As Scripture, such texts will also endure beyond our lives. As Scripture, a text can speak otherwise about life and humanity through which the word of God questions the self-justifying presuppositions and assumptions that generate suspicion. In its plain sense, a text can make each of us, as fallible and sinful, a focus of its suspicion. Scripture refers to this as conviction and repentance toward the possibility of trust in God as our integral source of human life, identity and righteousness. v To make a virtue of suspicion is to be spooked by other uses of Scripture that, in common human sinfulness, can always be sullied by some even as for many, an excess of grace from the same pages continues to invite anticipation of a reality otherwise than our own. To make a virtue of fragmentation is a decision not to listen for Scripture’s testimony to a transforming reality that surpasses human possibilities laundered through ideals forged from conflicted social values amid anxiety before the horizon of death. An interpretive approach that makes a virtue of suspicious reading and fragmentation of Christian Scripture within relative currents of shifting opinion will only become a convoluted end in itself as continual partisan contests, posturing and conjecture. There are possibilities otherwise that are offered in the saving and transforming focus reiterated and offered in the impetus and excess of biblical testimony and evangelical joy. The testimony of Scripture invites us to trust in a unique word by anticipation of God who calls to be things that are not. This invitation to participate in another reality, beyond our existing possibilities, is heard in trust not suspicion or presumption. This reality is given definitively in Jesus Christ in whom the glory or beauty of God is presented in tangible expression as grace and truth. As apocalypse, Scripture is anticipatory toward this end. By hearing in anticipation of wholeness that is received and sustained as a gift in Jesus Christ, grace surpasses any pretext for suspicion. Listening for this word is indigenous to Scripture. Christian testimony to a word otherwise offers its own validating assurances as it discloses a possibility of transformation beyond human construction, adjudication and conflict. Whatever we might encounter in this testimony to arouse suspicion, may also be comprehended in our willingness to hear and to respond. There is a sovereign claim on our lives that necessitates humility in deferring to this claim, in order for it to be heard as sovereign and trustworthy in testimony to grace and truth given in excess.
*See Was Jesus racist and sexist? See this same webpage www.cctc.edu.au for articles on Scripture and interpretation. Selected resources: Jenson Essays in Theology and Culture; Marion In Excess; von Balthasar Seeing the Form Glory of the Lord Vol. I. |
