How People Filter Ideas
My cousin who is a pastor here in Florida recently posted on Facebook something I made reference to in my commentary of June 23 -- the Slave Bible. He found out more about it than I had known.
Its actual title was: “Parts of the Holy Bible, selected for the use of the Negro Slaves.” It was published in Britain for missionaries to use in the West-India Islands (West Indies) that were part of the British Empire. It eventually found its way to use in America too.
That Bible’s editors removed 90 percent of the Hebrew Bible, because of the many references to freedom and ending slavery. They also removed half of the Christian Scriptures, especially those referencing oneness in Jesus and equality among groups. The slave Bible contained only 232 chapters. The standard Protestant Bible contains 1,189 chapters. References to submission and obedience were highlighted. Only a few copies of it remain. One is owned by Fisk University in Nashville and is pictured here.
You know who else made a highly edited version of the Bible? Thomas Jefferson!
With all the talk these days about the Christian purposes of the nation’s founders, I found this information very interesting. Jefferson used scissors and a razor to excise the texts from the Bible he wanted to save and then glued them together in an 88-page binder. To be fair, he never called his version a “Bible,” but rather “The Philosophy of Jesus of Nazareth.” He made this in 1804. Then in 1820, he compiled “The Life and Morals of Jesus of Nazareth.” He excluded any references to the resurrection or to Jesus' divinity or miracles. He never published them during his lifetime. They were published afterward. He removed anything that offended his Enlightenment-era sense of reason. In a letter from 1801, Jefferson noted, “The Christian religion … is a religion of all others most friendly to liberty, science, and the freest expansion of the human mind."
Christianity as friendly to free thinking, science and expression of the human capacity for thought and imagination? That is not the filter through which Christianity is portrayed by those who advocate for theocracy over democracy. Jefferson would be scolded for omitting Jesus’ divinity from his way of thinking and believing in these times.
We need to admit we have filters through which we read and through which we see the world. They may not be actual scissors and razors, but they function in the same way. Others may not share our views and may be mystified as to how we could believe and think the way we do.We get into conflict when we make snap value judgments or when we can’t listen to what someone else is saying. We can try to superimpose our lens over another’s, but that generates anger, resentment and conflict. And rightly so. No one wants to have another run roughshod over them.
One example comes to mind from my pastoral experience. It was the early 1990s and I was a consultant to churches of my denomination in the greater Boston area. The issue of acceptance of LGBTQ people in the church was starting to cause conflicts. Some churches were seeking the dismissal of others from our association over this issue. Clergy group gatherings were tense instead of cordial. This was in an area where churches of this denomination had been in fellowship together for 300 years! I didn’t get it. I didn’t understand why they could not agree to disagree, and remain in fellowship. There was room in God’s house for everyone, wasn’t there?
A pastor who held more conservative views than my own took me aside after one difficult meeting. He was kind and understood my confusion and dismay at this conflict. He said, “Linda, we feel we HAVE to take a stand on this. We are afraid we will lose our salvation. God will disavow us if we do not disavow this. We could lose our salvation.”I have to admit, I was aghast. I had no idea that anyone thought or believed this about God. No wonder they were so adamant. I also have to admit that I did not change my views. But I gained a new compassion for those who thought and believed differently from me. I took their pain more seriously, even though we remained in disagreement.
Fast forward to 2024. I recently attended a city commission meeting and listened as others spoke to issues and concerns very important to them. I saw frames of reference at work. The views expressed were different between those on the dais and those in the seats or at the microphone. The gulf was much wider than the physical distance. In my comments, I tried to encourage active listening to help bridge that gap so trust could develop between constituents and elected officials, which would make future interactions go more smoothly. I honestly don’t know how much of what I said was heard.
I have an idea. Let’s put our razors and scissors back in the desk drawer or the craft room!
Let’s take our frames apart and put them back together in new and interesting ways. Let’s look at the whole as more than the sum of its parts. Let’s make an effort to see a whole issue, a whole person.Will it feel awkward and difficult? Yes. Will there be times of confusion and frustration? Yes.
Even Jefferson left alone these words of Jesus: “Do not judge, so that you may not be judged. For the judgment you give will be the judgment you get, and the measure you give will be the measure you get.Why do you see the speck in your neighbor’s eye but do not notice the log in your own eye?” (Matthew 7: 1-3, New Revised Standard Version)
