Humpty Dumpty Theology

In an opinion piece in the Hartford Courant, Davida Foy Crabtree described the United Church of Christ as a community of people and churches who “take the Bible too seriously to take it literally” (http://www.ctucc.org/news/dfconucc0604.html) When I read that, I felt like Alice in Lewis Carroll’s, Through the Looking Glass.

“There’s glory for you!”

“I don’t know what you mean by ‘glory,’” Alice said.

Humpty Dumpty smiled contemptuously. “Of course you don’t—till I tell you. I meant ‘there’s a nice knock-down argument for you!”

But ‘glory’ doesn’t mean ‘a nice knock-down argument’,” Alice objected.

“When I use a word,” Humpty Dumpty said, in rather a scornful tone, “it means just what I choose it too mean—neither more nor less.”

“The question is,” said Alice, “whether you can make words mean so many different things.”

“Impenetrability! That’s what I say!”

“Would you tell me please,” said Alice, “what that means?”

“Now you talk like a reasonable child,” said Humpty Dumpty, “ … I meant by ‘impenetrability’ that we’ve had enough of that subject, and that it would be just as well if you’d mention what you suppose to do next, as I suppose you don’t mean to stop here all the rest of your life.”

“That’s a great deal to make one word mean,” Alice said in a thoughtful tone.

“When I make a word do a lot of work like that,” said Humpty Dumpty, “I always pay it extra.”

Apparently, for Ms. Crabtree serious biblical interpretation implies paying words extra. Those of us who consider ourselves “evangelicals” or “conservatives,” whom she might call “literalists,” are unreasonable Alices. We want words to mean something. We expect texts to be important. And, we want to pay attention to what a text actually says.

We, too, as she admirably expresses the aspirations of the people of the UCC, do not want to “shy away from applying the faith to every aspect of our lives.” The difference is that we think “the faith” has content and meaning that is defined for us and which we look to discover, rather than to invent.

We hope and pray that our social, cultural, and political institutions do not share her Humpty Dumpty approach to interpretation of texts. We hope, for example, that the Supreme Court doesn’t take the Constitution too seriously to pay attention to what it actually says.