Although I usually appreciate John Buchanan's editorials, his adoption of Rohr's interperpretive principle -- “If you see God operating at a lesser level than the best person you know, then the text is not authentic revelation--” is a dangerous combination of latent supersessionism, bad speculative theology and anthromorphic projection.  It is latent supersessionism because it requires labelling those vast portions of Hebrew Scriptures in which God operates "at a lesser level than the best person you know"  as "not authentic revelation", while retaining most of the Christian Scriptures as authentic revelation, since Jesus Christ usually acts much "better" than God does in the Hebrew Scriptures. It is bad, although ancient, speculative theology because it assumes that God must be immutable throughout time despite the numerous passages of the Hebrew Scriptures and New Testament in which God changes his mind and his character over time.  It is anthromorphic projection because it assumes that Buchanan and Rohr's view of "the best person you know" in our particular time, place and culture  is properly projected not only on to past cultures, but on to God.   And, it is even bad for Christian soteriology and hope, for if God has never been violent, how is it possible that he understands our violence and can redeem us?   

It seems to me that several alternative hermeneutic strategies are possible: 1)  God's appearance as love in the form we now know him -- Jesus--, would not have been recognized in ancient times as "love," but as immorality and weakness, at least until the prophets and other scriptures against unjust uses of power in the Hebrew Scriptures had developed; 2) that, as Jack Miles has argued his works, the God of the Hebrew Scriptures changed his mind about violence as he saw the harm his authorized violence inflicted on innocents, which although initially for the greater good in his covental love with Israel, no longer was when Israel's power became greater, the propthets' critiques more trenchant and Job's questions of God about justice more probing; or 3) God wants us to blame him for judgment and violence if it "saves" us from inflicting it on one another and creation in a never-ending cycle of revenge.  

In any event, the flawed editorial indicates just how much the church needs, as former Archbishop Rowan Williams stated (in particular reference to debates on human sexuality and committed gay relationships in the Anglican communion), to focus its efforts on developing hermeneutic principlesof Biblical interpretation and application to modern theology, ethics, economics and politics.  We must move beyond Biblical "proof-texting" (or "delete-texting" in Buchanan and Rohr's case) to support our own individual predilections about what the Bible means, what God is like, and the pursuit of God's will for all of creation.  Only the church, and God, can help us do that together.

Dan Orfield

Houston, TX

Buchanan chooses one proof text as his hermeneutical principle, 1 John 4:16. A good rule it is; but he ignores the scripture principle (openness to the whole Word of God, not just selected parts of it) and the christo­logical principle (God’s self-

revelation in Christ). Surely there is more to Christ than “God is love.” The Beatles could have told us that. Is God not just?

Buchanan also ignores the rule of faith, the respect for the church’s past and present interpretation of scripture. If “most of us” means “today’s people who are right about these things,” then he dismisses not only the saints of the past but those who disagree with him today. In effect, he elevates his own personal convictions above the witness of the church universal.

Stuart Gordon

Nashville, Tenn.

Although I usually appreciate John Buchanan’s editorials, his adoption of Richard Rohr’s interpretive principle about understanding violence in the Bible (“The Bible’s violent God,” April 17)--“If you see God operating at a lesser level than the best person you know, then the text is not authentic revelation”--is a dangerous combination of latent supersessionism, bad speculative theology, cultural hegemony and anthropomorphic projection.

It is latent supersessionism because it requires labeling those substantial and significant portions of Hebrew scriptures in which God operates “at a lesser level than the best person you know” as “not authentic revelation.” It is bad, although ancient, speculative theology because it assumes that God as love is immutable throughout time, based on his “perfection,” despite the numerous passages of the Hebrew Scrip­tures and the New Testament in which God changes his mind and the nature of his “love” over time in response to human concerns and problems. It reinforces Western cultural norms because it assumes that “the best person you know” in our particular time, place and culture is the minimum standard for God, even though “the best person you know” would likely share few if any qualities with the best person an ancient Israelite or members of some other culture would know. And it is an anthropomorphic projection contrary to Genesis, for God declared his creation “good” even though violence has been an essential element of creaturely existence since well before humans appeared on the scene. 

The editorial thus points to the church’s need, as former Archbishop Rowan Williams stated (referring to debates on human sexuality), to develop hermeneutic principles and apply them to modern theology, ethics, economics and politics. We must move beyond biblical “proof-texting” (or “delete-texting” in Buchanan and Rohr’s case) which merely supports our own individual predilections about what the Bible means, what God is like, and what the pursuit of God’s will for all of creation entails. We need the church, and God, to help us do that interpretive work together.

Dan Orfield

Houston, Tx.