When the Bible is dangerous and when it brings life - An interview with Gerald West

The Bible is a source of great inspiration, encouragement and blessing for millions of people. However, for many persons, communities and contexts, it is also the source of great suffering and struggle. While the text and narratives of the books of the Bible can inspire, encourage, and bless, they can also be used to destroy, to deny, to harm and to support human rights abuses, the destruction of creation, and the perpetration of injustice.

Today’s VLOG is one of the most important I have done to date - it is a conversation with Prof Gerald West of the University of KwaZulu Natal, and the Ujamaa Centre for Biblical and Theological Community Development and Research. Gerald is widely regarded as the world leader in this field, and Ujamaa is considered the foremost centre of its kind. They not only pioneered the work of Contextual Bible Reading in South Africa, but Gerald, and the Ujamaa teams and the communities they have worked with, have served to help Christians, theologians, community workers, pastors and other interested parties, to engage the Biblical text with care and responsibility. Their work is a testimony to the importance of the Bible, and the necessity of doing careful, community based, and scholarly credible, readings of the Bible.

You can find out more about the work of the Ujamaa centre here, and as Gerald mentioned, there are a lot of free and helpful resources.

• Ujamaa centre: http://ujamaa.ukzn.ac.za/Homepage.aspx
• Here is Prof Gerald West’s academic page: https://ukzn.academia.edu/GeraldWest/
• Here is a link to Gerald’s latest book, published by Brill: West, Gerald O. The Stolen Bible: From Tool of Imperialism to African Icon. BRILL, 2016. https://brill.com/view/title/24146.
• Prof Charlene van der Walt’s book: Van der Walt, Charlene. Toward a Communal Reading of 2 Samuel 13. Elkhart, IN: Institute of Mennonite Studies, 2014.
• And here is a link to my new book: Forster, Dion A. The (Im)Possibility of Forgiveness? An Empirical Intercultural Bible Reading of Matthew 18:15-35. 1st ed. Vol. XI. Beyers Naudé Centre Series on Public Theology. Stellenbosch, South Africa: SUN Press, 2017. http://www.africansunmedia.co.za/…/Product…/498/Default.aspx.

Thanks for watching! As always, I would love to hear your comments, suggestions, ideas, feedback and questions!

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The launch of 'Restorative Readings: The Old Testament, Ethics and Human Dignity"

This evening we launched the book of my colleague and friend Prof L Juliana Claassens, "Restorative Readings: The Old Testament, Ethics and Human Dignity" which she co-edited with Prof Bruce Birch.

Among the contributors are a foreword by Walter Brueggemann, and chapters by Charlene Van Der Walt, Esias Meyer, Gerald West, Ntozake Cezula, Douglas Lawrie, Jacqueline Lapsley, and Cheryl Anderson.

I was privileged to write a little piece on the Bible and Ethics as hospitable conversation at the end.

Julie very kindly included me in this project and has opened many doors for me since then.

I am so grateful to her and can highly recommend this important text for anyone who wishes to read about the Old Testament and engage issues of human dignity and ethics.

Read more about the book here: http://www.amazon.com/Restorative-Readings-Testament-Ethics-Dignity/dp/1625647212

A chapter published in 'Restorative Readings The Old Testament, Ethics, and Human Dignity'

A new book for which I wrote a section has been published! The book is called ‘Restorative Readings: The Old Testament, Ethics and Human Dignity’. It was edited by two wonderful friends, Professors Julie Claassens and Bruce Birch. This is a magnificent collection of chapters on issues related to reading the Old Testament text within the context of issues related to Christian Ethics and the Human Dignity discourse.  

You can order your copy of the book here (Wipf and Stock), or from Amazon.com here.

Congratulations Juile and Bruce! This is such an important book!  I have read the chapters a number of times and am so excited about the voices that will be added to the discourse.

The foreword was written by Walter Brueggemann.

Here is some additional information about the book:

The Bible has the unfortunate legacy of being associated with gross human rights violations as evident in the scriptural justification of apartheid in South Africa as well as slavery in the American South. What is more, the Hebrew Bible also contains numerous instances in which the worth or dignity of the female characters are threatened, violated or potentially violated, creating a situation of dehumanization in which women are viewed as less than fully human. 

And yet the Bible continues to serve as a source of inspiration for readers committed to justice and liberation for all. But in order for the Bible to speak a liberative word, what is necessary is to cultivate liberating Bible reading practices rooted in justice and compassion. Restorative Readings seeks to do exactly this when the authors in their respective readings seek to cultivate Bible reading practices that are committed to restoring the dignity of those whose dignity has been violated by means of racial, gender, and sexual discrimination, by the atrocities of apartheid, by the HIV/AIDS pandemic, and by the dehumanizing reality of unemployment and poverty.

Ancient laws, contemporary controversies

My friend Prof Cheryl Anderson, who I first met at Garrett Evangelical Seminary in beautiful Evanston Illinois - right on the Northwestern University Campus, in 2005, has just published a fantastic book entitled 'Ancient laws, contemporary controversies:  The need for inclusive Biblical interpretation.' (Oxford University Press, 2009).

Cheryl is a Professor of Old Testament who has done some wonderful work on contextual hermeneutics.  Her approach to reading the Bible responsibly is well worth studying!

Cheryl, thanks for sending me a copy of the book!  It looks fantastic!  I can't wait to read it!  It will help me to gain a better understanding on how we treat the text with integrity when there are so many elements of it that we no longer accept as morally or theologically binding (e.g., slavery, incest, polygamy etc., are no longer deemed acceptable because of shifts in culture.  We can't simply dismiss them without having some clear reasoning for passing over these elements while holding on to others)!  Anyone who is serious about the Bible, as I am, should read this book!

Here's the link to the book if anyone reading this blog would like to buy a copy.

Here's a description of Cheryl's project:

The Ten Commandments condone slavery, and Deuteronomy 22 deems the rape of an unmarried woman to injure her father rather than the woman herself. While many Christians ignore most Old Testament laws as obsolete or irrelevant-with others picking and choosing among them in support of specific political and social agendas-it remains a basic tenet of Christian doctrine that the faith is contained in both the Old and the New Testament. If the law is ignored, an important aspect of the faith tradition is denied.

In Ancient Laws and Contemporary Controversies, Cheryl B. Anderson tackles this problem head on, attempting to answer the question whether the laws of the Old Testament are authoritative for Christians today. The issue is crucial: some Christians actually believe that the New Testament abolishes the law, or that the Protestant reformers Luther, Calvin, and Wesley rejected the law. Acknowledging the deeply problematic nature of some Old Testament law (especially as it applies to women, the poor, and homosexuals), Anderson finds that contemporary controversies are the result of such groups now expressing their own realities and faith perspectives.

Anderson suggests that we approach biblical law in much the same way that we approach the U.S. Constitution. While the nation's founding fathers-all privileged white men-did not have the poor, women, or people of color in mind when they referred in its preamble to "We the people." Subsequently, the Constitution has evolved through amendment and interpretation to include those who were initially excluded. Although it is impossible to amend the biblical texts themselves, the way in which they are interpreted can-and should-change. With previous scholarship grounded in the Old Testament as well as critical, legal, and feminist theory, Anderson is uniquely qualified to apply insights from contemporary law to the interpretive history of biblical law, and to draw out their implications for issues of gender, class, and race/ethnicity. In so doing, she lays the groundwork for an inclusive mode of biblical interpretation.