In his book Faith without Certainty, Paul Rasor identifies as a liberal "myth" the idea that moral stands are (or can be) arrived at purely through disembodied reason. In other words, liberals tend to do things because we have decided as the result of a rational process that these things are right to do.
But, Rasor points out, "moral stands can be understood as moral only within the context of a defining community." And that's where things start getting messy because the world has become increasingly complex and interconnected in new ways, which means that we are all members of multiple communities that overlap in various ways.
And when the going gets messy, liberals tend to get skittish. (As opposed to conservatives, for example who tend to get mean.) It's difficult to balance the reality of ourselves as social beings interacting with other social beings with the fact that we are also products of our own culture, even when we are critics of that culture.
But I think that this is the point at which an emphasis on embodied experience becomes really useful. When you bring a sense of community down to the fundamentals, you're left, I think, with something to which most of us can feel connected.
I understand the need for food and water and a warm place to sleep. And that's where real community begins. And that's where justice begins--when we recognize viscerally that many of us do not have adequate food, water and shelter.
Poverty and oppression are not abstractions when we live in deep community with others--not just a community of "like-minded" individuals, but a community that is really and truly radically inclusive.
And what does all this have to do with the Hebrew Bible? Most of what I've read in the Hebrew scriptures thus far has something to do with direct embodied experience. Think of the many provisions for those who are in the greatest need and the wayfarers (not to mention the obsession with bodily fluids).
Think, too, of the passage from Deuteronomy I quoted in another post about how the word is in our mouths and in our hearts. Moses didn't say the word dwelt in our minds, but in our mouths and hearts--right where we live.
But, Rasor points out, "moral stands can be understood as moral only within the context of a defining community." And that's where things start getting messy because the world has become increasingly complex and interconnected in new ways, which means that we are all members of multiple communities that overlap in various ways.
And when the going gets messy, liberals tend to get skittish. (As opposed to conservatives, for example who tend to get mean.) It's difficult to balance the reality of ourselves as social beings interacting with other social beings with the fact that we are also products of our own culture, even when we are critics of that culture.
But I think that this is the point at which an emphasis on embodied experience becomes really useful. When you bring a sense of community down to the fundamentals, you're left, I think, with something to which most of us can feel connected.
Poverty and oppression are not abstractions when we live in deep community with others--not just a community of "like-minded" individuals, but a community that is really and truly radically inclusive.
And what does all this have to do with the Hebrew Bible? Most of what I've read in the Hebrew scriptures thus far has something to do with direct embodied experience. Think of the many provisions for those who are in the greatest need and the wayfarers (not to mention the obsession with bodily fluids).
Think, too, of the passage from Deuteronomy I quoted in another post about how the word is in our mouths and in our hearts. Moses didn't say the word dwelt in our minds, but in our mouths and hearts--right where we live.
