Undeception

An amusing example of Christianese getting misappropriated in an inspirational context showed up in our office newsletter. One of these things is not like the other…

What Makes a Dad

Author Unknown

God took the strength of a mountain,
The majesty of a tree,
The warmth of a summer sun,
The calm of a quiet sea,
The generous soul of nature,
The comforting arm of night,
The wisdom of the ages,
The power of the eagle’s flight,
The joy of a morning in spring,
The faith of a mustard seed,
The patience of eternity,
The depth of a family need,
Then God combined these qualities,
When there was nothing more to add,
He knew His masterpiece was complete,
And so, He called it … Dad

Most of us glanced through it and passed on. But one co-worker without a Christian background sent out an email asking, ”What the heck does ‘faith of a mustard seed’ mean?”

Most of us who are familiar with the phrase missed this bad formulation — “of a mustard seed” here implies possession, not a comparison or other association. When we understand the original context (Mat 17.20), it becomes apparent how nonsensical this particular line is. Even understanding it not as a mustard seed’s faith but as a mustard seed’s worth of faith is problematic: who would include “has a bare minimum, but adequate, amount of faith” in a list of otherwise hyperbolic attributions of virtue?

This is a reminder of the human tendency to take the familiar for granted when it suits us. Mr. or Mrs. Unknown, being only vaguely familiar with the now cultural expression “faith of a mustard seed,” apparently reproduced the phrase in an almost stream-of-conscious way without parsing it. It also underscores, as my blog often does, the value of taking every chance we get to reexamine our assumptions and presuppositions from the outsider’s perspective. How many of our theological constructs need reexamination of context?

Last week I read an abysmally misleading article from Pastor Jim Wallis arguing for political involvement in social justice concerns thusly: “Amos instructs the courts (the government) to ‘Hate evil, love good; maintain justice in the courts’ (Amos 5:15).” Only problem is, “courts” here refers to a gate or courtyards, manifestly not the courts of justice with judge, jury, etc. Whether this undermines Wallis’s point is immaterial: he’s clearly been misled by an ambiguous translation of the Hebrew sha`ar, represented as courts in the NIV, for instance.

Yet from what I read of the various bibliobloggers hailing this article’s progressive political agenda, which are the same group of people typically most critical of outright dumb biblical interpretations, I didn’t see any of them point this out. I have to wonder, though, would I have pointed this out if Wallis were arguing in favor of something I agreed with, for fear of undermining the larger point?

Would pointing out the small error, mentioned almost in passing, be a worthy endeavor? In this case, I think so, because if there’s anything that we should be wary of, particularly if we’re as allergic to using the Bible to motivate politics as progressives generally claim to be, it’s convenient but erroneous prooftexting.

Related posts:

1. An (ancient) introduction to “faith in Christ” vs. “Christ’s faith” Originally inspired by this recent post by Doug Chaplin, I exhumed a paper I wrote in third year Greek while an undergrad (I estimate this...
2. Justice and the demands of the law Here’s a little thought experiment. Let’s say you heard tell of a ruler of a foreign country who decreed that all citizens of his country...

June 7th, 2010