One Sunday, my Methodist minister wife made a mistake in preparation. She didn’t glance at the assigned psalm text before she stood up, in worship, to lead the church in reading responsively.
Psalm 137 begins innocently enough, beautifully even: “By the rivers of Babylon we sat and wept when we remembered Zion.” This is the kind of language church people expect from the Bible: pretty, exotic, comforting””in short, religious, in the modern sense of dealing with feelings. But by the end of the psalm things have taken something of a turn: “O Daughter of Babylon, doomed to destruction, happy is he ”¦ who seizes your infants and dashes them against the rocks.”
From my pew I watched my wife’s expression change from that of the non-anxious presiding presence they taught us to be in seminary to that of someone who’d just swallowed a frog. Then the organ struck up the doxology, she turned to face the cross, and led the church in praising the God whose Word just blessed the smashers of babies’ heads.
What was that all about?
Thank you for posting this. The whole article is worth carefully reading.
A very worthwhile article. Some years ago, I had the opportunity to hear Walter Bruggerman lecture on the psalms at Trinity Institute. His take on “smash their skulls” was that the Hebrews did no sanitize their prayers as we do. They spoke honestly, knowing that in our fallen condition we humans are capable of very depraved thoughts (and deeds). Unless we can honestly confess them, God cannot redeem them. That has helped me pray Psalm 137 as well.
It’s a fantastic article indeed, thanks Kendall. Really interesting and provides a wealth of information about some great resources re: Biblical commentaries and interpretation. The excerpt above didn’t prepare me for what to expect in the article! Quite a tease, really! (by the author, I mean, not Kendall), but in the best possible sense in that it works to get our attention and draw us into the article.
After reading about such a great wealth of orthodox and evangelical resources for hermeneutics and Biblical interpretation, however, it was sad and startling to see the following section:
[blockquote]Braced by these historical works we can turn to the most modernist of our volumes, Engaging the Bible: Critical Readings from Contemporary Women. The title is truth in advertising: one white woman, one black, one Asian, one Hispanic, and one lesbian write about how oppressive Scripture is, shoring up “religious and social attitudes about gender, race/ethnicity, class, and colonialism.” Elisabeth Schüssler-Fiorenza of Harvard coined the term “kyriarchy” to cover all the various oppressions: “the domination/rule of the emperor, lord, slave-master, father, husband, or elite, propertied, educated man.” There’s a certain arrogance here, as women from what are indeed diverse personal backgrounds who now have the benefit of a Ph.D. and a professional teaching appointment describe for us how oppressed they are. Foucault would be quick to point out that all of us have power and oppress others in ways to which we’re blind, but these writers play themselves the victims only.
Carter Heyward of Episcopal Divinity School is the most explicit about this. Scripture simply is not the Word of God for her. It’s often just wrong, and to say so is liberating. For one cannot know God through dogma, creeds, or Scripture. Heyward is impatient with attempts to say homosexuality is not biblically prohibited: sure it is, and who cares? For “Our God loves strong, women-loving women; our sweet woman-loving God keeps opening the path before us.” That’s her dogma, and if Scripture doesn’t square with it, then Scripture be damned. Naturally Heyward praises those who’ve mustered the chutzpah to simply leave “the church and its bible and broken out of bondage to biblical authority.” Heyward concludes by quoting a previous book of hers for three full pages (!) in praise of the spirituality of equestrianism: a friend of hers and her horse “were generating this energy together, and it was sacred.” We are critical of everything but our own idols.[/blockquote]
Wow. Such a discordant note. It really made clear to me afresh just how far so many within TEC have strayed from Tradition and what the Church has always and everywhere believed. The intellectual arrogance is evident for all to see.
Getting back to the “tease” of Ps. 137, (which I hope won’t be considered off topic as the article in question is so much broader),
I decided to check what Matthew Henry has to say about the closing imprecations, and I was struck by what he wrote and it’s relevance to those of us orthodox Anglicans who are in a time of lamentation for what is happening in TEC and in the Anglican Communion.
[i]In singing this psalm we must be much affected with the concernments of the church, especially that part of it that is in affliction, laying the sorrows of God’s people near our hearts, comforting ourselves in the prospect of the deliverance of the church and the ruin of its enemies, in due time, but carefully avoiding all personal animosities, and not mixing the leaven of malice with our sacrifices.[/i]
I’ve always appreciated the fact that the Psalms are so honest and that the writers don’t hide their emotions. It has given me courage to admit even my ungodly desires and thoughts to the Lord and in so doing to allow Him to renew my mind and transform my heart and bring my attitudes and desires more in line with His. TEC, of course, (and I imagine other mainline churches too) routinely edits the imprecatory passages out of the Psalms. Thus I imagine it WAS a shock to Byassee’s wife and many others to hear the whole unabridged text of Ps. 137. Sometimes it is good to be so shocked. It reminds us of the evilness of sin in our hearts and the true horrors we are capable of without the work of Christ and the Holy Spirit in our hearts.
Re 3 Karen B’s quote (thank you for it!), I simply cannot ignore the possibilities. Was the generated sacred equestrian energy experienced by the observer or the participants? What might PETA think about that?
By God’s good grace My mother enrolled me in a LCMS day school when I entered second grade. Third grade required my having my own Bible and, because it was my habit to read through all of my textbooks as soon as possible, I read it. No, I did not understand a lot of it, but I read it. I was also blessed with teachers who honestly answered my questions, sometimes with, “That is a difficult question, but I am sure you will understand it better when you are a little older.” That kept me reading the Bible over and over to see if I was yet “a little older”. I was also taught to interpret scripture with scripture, to compare related passages. In college I was required to own a commentary and, if all else failed, to consult it.
I have an undergraduate major in Bible History and Interpretation and additional training to teach Adult Bible Study. For the past twenty years I have read through the Bible each year. It is still my favorite read and there are still things in it that I hope to understand better when I am a little older. I am distressed that the common lectionary leaves out so much of Holy Scripture and that so many people honestly believe that what little they read/hear in church is ALL of the Bible or ENOUGH of it.
Sometimes taking an honest look at the background historical information surrounding the events recorded in the Bible helps a great deal in understanding it. The imprecatory verses of Psalm 137 are not so much about the destruction of the Temple as they are about the way the Babylonian’s treated the small children when they captured the citizens of Judah. War is a terrible thing and it was a terrible war. The honesty of the Psalm allowed the captives a way to grieve honestly before God. It was up to God to deal with that grief.
Like driver8 (#1), I am interested in the marvelously rich and creative patristic interpretation of Holy Scripture, and so I found several of the books reviewed here enticing. I hope to get around to reading some of them eventually.
I’ve already read the volume on Anglican Approaches to Scripture by one of the my teachers at Yale Div. School, Rowan Greer. It is a helpful introduction to a very important subject, but I was surprised at how selective it is. Greer chooses to deal with only a few key representative figures in any detail. And sadly, the article chooses to highlight an unfortunate point: Greer’s broad church insistence that at the heart of Anglicanism is a horror of absolutism and infallibility. Well, there is certainly an element of that in our tradition, but I think he greatly exaggerates the point.
But the book by the feminist authors gets off far too lightly and easily. After all, this review was written for the liberal rag, The Christian Century. This review is enough to warn (implicitly) any orthodox Christian to avoid the book like the plague. But more explicit and harsher words were in order.
And as for the gruesome imprecatory ending of Psalm 137 used to frame this article, I’ll just remind everyone that by asking God to bless those who take vengeance on the Babylonian’s by viciously murdering their children, the ancient Hebrew Psalmist (and his hearers) were venting their anguish and anger appropriately. God is surely big enough to handle our vengeful thoughts and desires. Expressing those things in prayer and even liturgy is one thing. Taking matters into our own hands and trying to carry out that revenge ourselves is a whole different matter. And that makes all the difference.
David Handy+
The author of that psalm endured slavery, lost his home, and was forced to sing for the entertainment of the people who murdered his children before his very eyes. Was there ever a truer picture of human anguish than that psalm? Can anyone with a heart blame his cry that his tormenter should suffer the same anguish?
New Reformation Advocate might take notice: the article appeared in Books & Culture, not Christian Century. You seem to like my perspective, then insult my employer (the Century), before saying I should’ve been more clear than I was when I called them idolators.
Jason (#9),
I stand corrected.
I do indeed like your perspective on the whole (in this book review). And I am worlds apart from “The Christian Century” as a whole, despite the fact that people I admire (like William Willimon) have written regularly for the magazine. I guess it’s just that I utterly despise Carter Heyward and her ilk. FWIW, I strongly support WO or women’s ordination as biblically justified, but the kind of radical feminism that Hayward, Rosemary Ruether and so many other influential writers represent seems blatantly post-Christian to me.
I’m sorry to have written hastily and somewhat carelessly. Your wide-ranging review tipped me off to some interesting books I hope to find time to read someday.
David Handy+
It’s alright. Willimon was my teacher at Duke and baptized my kids. I’d encourage you to take another look at the Century.
Jason (#11),
Thanks for being gracious. You were privileged to have Willimon as a teacher and pastor at Duke.
As for perusing magazines, I guess we all find or make time for reading the ones we want to read. FWIW, I used to subscribe to Sojourners during my younger days when I was theologically conservative but politically liberal and regarded Jim Wallis as a hero. Now my journal of choice is First Things, and I regard Richard John Neuhaus as my hero now. I sometimes browse in Christianity Today, but almost never at the Christian Century. I’d be more likely to check out The Atlantic Monthly than the Century.
Such is the polarization of our times. ‘Tis sad, but true.
And don’t worry, Elves, I think this little off-topic detour is about over.
David Handy+