“Double listening and Hermeneutical Methodology”

1. “Double listening and Hermeneutical Methodology” Simon Vibert 14th June 2012

2. Double listening • Hermeneutics ---- Homiletics • NEAC 1977 in Nottingham • Anthony Thistelton – “Two Horizons”

3. Double listening • Our cultural imprisonment • The Bible’s cultural conditioning

4. Double listening • “We have little difficulty in distinguishing between a person and the particular clothing which he or she happens to be wearing. Most of us have several sets of clothes at home. Sometimes we dress up in maximum finery, for a wedding or a party perhaps, or in our national costume. At other times we put on more sombre clothing, as when we attend a funeral. Occasionally we dress up in archaic garments, when playing charades or going to a fancy dress party. We also have our work clothes, our sports clothes and our night clothes.”

6. The ancient word & the modern world • I believe we are called to the difficult and even painful task of ‘double listening’. That is, we are to listen carefully (although of course with differing degrees of respect) both to the ancient Word and to the modern world, in order to relate the one to the other with a combination of fidelity and sensitivity.

7. The ancient word & the modern world • We state and commend the faith only in so far as we go out and put ourselves inside the doubts of the doubters, the questions of the questioners and the loneliness of those who have lost their way. (Michael Ramsey, Image Old and New (SPCK, 1963), p. 14)

8. Luke 18:9-14 • 9 To some who were confident of their own righteousness and looked down on everybody else, Jesus told this parable: • 10 "Two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. • 11 The Pharisee stood up and prayed about himself: 'God, I thank you that I am not like other men — robbers, evildoers, adulterers — or even like this tax collector. • 12 I fast twice a week and give a tenth of all I get.' • 13 "But the tax collector stood at a distance. He would not even look up to heaven, but beat his breast and said, 'God, have mercy on me, a sinner.' • 14 "I tell you that this man, rather than the other, went home justified before God. For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted."

9. Implications for Preaching • “Some are concerned almost exclusively with the past. They become experts in ancient Israelite culture, but their “applications” to the present often seem contrived and artificial, or else highly formal and generalized. Others live in the present, and seem to use the Bible simply as a quarry from which they can gather material in order to construct their own buildings. The second group accuses the first of antiquarianism. The first group accuses the second of irresponsible or ‘pneumatic’ interpretation of texts. The first seems to be locked up in the ancient world; the second seems to make claims to be speaking in the name of biblical writers which are barely honest.”

10. Cultural Relativity • “The Bible does indeed come through the minds of men who belonged to an ancient culture, and sometimes the ways in which this conditions what it says are clear and obvious. It would be a mistake, however, to imagine that modern man stands outside his own culture. There is no neutral ground on which one can stand to interpret the Bible as if from a non-cultural standpoint. We have said already that the modern reader, no less than the biblical text, is conditioned by a given place in history. This is where there must be both distancing and engagement, and why a merging of horizons between the text and the reader must be carried out intelligently and responsibly. The Holy Spirit works through the kind of means which we have been discussing in this chapter, in bringing man to the place where he hears in the Bible the voice of God who is beyond any one cultural form. A doctrine of the Spirit is not therefore an alternative to hermeneutics; it is an assurance that hermeneutical endeavour is worthwhile.”

11. 10 Theses • It is urgent that the church does both “distancing” and “fusion” • Understanding the biblical text requires careful investigation into the cultural, literally, historical and theological context • This requires biblical scholarship but it is not out of the reach of the “ordinary” reader • BOTH the ancient text AND the modern reader are conditioned by their place in history • Historical distancing is required to ensure that I don’t read my own ideas into the text • True understanding is a fusion of the two horizons • The readers prior frame of reference is both a help and a hindrance • Understanding the text requires careful studying and listening; reflection and response • The bible conveys information, but more, it requires obedient response • The Holy Spirit works through means, and appealing to the Spirit does not exclude us form hard hermeneutical work.

12. Double listening & bridge building

13. Double listening & bridge building • The herald • The sower • The ambassador • The Steward • The Pastor/Shepherd • The Workman

14. Double listening & bridge building

15. Double listening & bridge building • “In conclusion, let me summarize the principal features of a preaching ministry which is conceived as an activity of bridge building between the revealed Word and the contemporary world; such preaching will be authoritative in expounding biblical principles, but tentative in applying them to the complex issues of the day. This combination of the authoritative and the tentative, the dogmatic and the agnostic, conviction and open-mindedness, teaching the people and leaving them free to make up their own minds, is exceedingly difficult to maintain. But it seems to me to be the only way on the one hand to handle the Word of God with integrity (declaring what is plain, but not pretending that everything is plan when it is not) and on the other to lead the people of God into maturity (by encouraging them to develop a Christian mind, and use it).”

16. Questions • Is double listening a good model, and is building the correct way of understanding the homiletical task for today’s preachers? • How do the reader response theories fit into this scheme? Or reading the bible from the perspective of women, the poor, the marginalised (e.g. some Feminist Theology or Liberation Theology)? Is double listening the same thing? • What “checks and balances” might we want to add to “double listening” to ensure that we are indeed truly letting the Bible Speak Today?