Reader James S. pointed out something from one of the articles Terry linked to in his last Da Vinci post. It comes from Owen Glieberman’s piece in Entertainment Weekly:
Yes, a soupcon of research reveals that the Priory of Sion is a hoax invented in 1956, and surely it can’t be proved that Jesus and Mary Magdalene were ever intimate (though Martin Luther believed so).
Martin Luther believed what? That Jesus and Mary Magdalene were intimate? What hogwash. Unfortunately, the lie is getting some traction. CNN republished it. Time made the claim in 2003. I even spoke with a copyeditor last week who removed it from an article during the fact-checking process.
Since I’m Lutheran, I’m quite familiar with many of the wonderful things Luther said and wrote. I’m also familiar with many of the stupid things he said. But it takes willful misunderstanding of Luther to say that he believed Jesus was intimate with Mary Magdalene.
Only by putting Luther in the worst possible light can you make this claim. Luther thought about a lot. And most of it was written down. The most complete collection of Luther’s writings is the Weimar Ausgabe, consisting of 101 large folio volumes. While only a fraction of these writings have been translated into English, the majority of these translations appear in the 54-volume American edition of Luther’s Works. Luther wrote about everything from vocation to Scriptural canonicity; from the Doctrine of Justification to civil administration.
So from these 101 volumes of Luther’s voluminous writings we have Luther’s consistent preaching of Jesus as sinless. And then on page 154 of the last volume of the American edition — edited by none other than the recently deceased Jaroslav Pelikan (pictured) — we have a statement attributed to Luther by John Schlaginhaufen. It’s from a section of the Works called Table Talk and collects freewheeling conversations Luther enjoyed with friends.
“Christ was an adulterer for the first time with the woman at the well, for it was said, ‘Nobody knows what he’s doing with her’ [John 4:27]. Again, [he was an adulterer] with Magdalene, and still again with the adulterous woman in John 8 [:2-11], whom he let off so easily. So the good Christ had to become an adulterer before he died.”
The editor points out that the quote lacks context. Other Luther scholars have pointed out that the quote, read without interpretation, would not fit with anything else Luther said about Jesus. But that doesn’t stop Time, Entertainment Weekly, CNN and other media outlets from repeating this ridiculous statement that, if taken seriously, would contradict thousands of sermons, hundreds of speeches and hundreds of pages of collected writings. Readers who are interested in explanations that match with Luther’s thousands of other teachings about Jesus may be interested in what this Lutheran pastor has to say:
So what in the world was he talking about at dinner that day in 1532? The Biblical context, Christian theology, and a knowledge of Luther’s way of thinking lead us to one or two possible conclusions …
Luther may have been examining Jesus from the perspective of His First Century witnesses, who were shocked that He ate and drank with “sinners” and that He’d sit and talk one-on-one and in public with a woman …
The other logical conclusion the total evidence allows is that Luther was speaking theologically. Talking with, granting forgiveness to, and allowing anointing by these women was emblematic of Jesus’ entire earthly ministry. He was no passive bystander of the human condition, but He lived among us. While sinless, He took our sins upon Himself that He might fully forgive us. Paul summarized this work in 2 Corinthians 5:21, saying, “For our sake [God] made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God. (ESV)”
Speaking of the great Church historian Jaroslav Pelikan, his death last week was not marked nearly enough in newspapers. The Washington Post’s obituary about the man, who converted to Eastern Orthodoxy in 1998, also had a surprising error:
Jaroslav Jan Pelikan Jr., the son of a Lutheran minister who had emigrated from what is now Czechoslovakia, was born in Akron, Ohio, on Dec. 17, 1923.
Czechoslovakia — forced together in 1918 — split peacefully into the Czech Republic and Slovakia in 1993.
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Comments (52) |
May 23, 2006, at 1:56 am
Thanks for helping to keep things straight and not letting the press have a free pass, Mollie. I’m doing a couple of Jesus and marriage follow-ups this week at Ask the Pastor, also.
Judging from the hit counters on my blogs and web pages, a number of people have been reading these reviews with at least some degree of discernment: Search strings including such words as “Jesus,” “Mary Magdalene,” and “Luther” have been quite popular over the past few days.
Pax Domini!
wps+
May 23, 2006, at 2:48 am
That’s a lot of protesting with very thin support. Pelikan merely says “Luther *may have been…*” and “the other logical conclusion…”—not “the *only* other logical conclusion. Another logical conclusion is that Luther meant what he is represented as saying in that text quite literally, or you could speculate that something got lost in the transmission of all that table talk. How do you know which is right? Isn’t it the best you can do to present “both sides” and note that reasonable people disagree?
Go back as little as 50 years, or just poke through certain old Lutheran church libraries, or talk to the right people, and you will find a culture in which Dan Brown can’t hold a candle to the crazy, nasty things Protestants (and others) have taught about Catholics. (And especially the Jesuits. And Calvinists too.) Same thing coming from the Catholic side, where I bet you can find polemicists for five centuries picking that Luther text as a clear sign of heresy and damnation. The ecumenical Christian anti-Brown reaction we see today is part of a very recent cessation of hostilities and to an extent a minimizing of abiding difference and conflicts between Catholics and Protestants. Outside of that context—in which GR is well ensconced—the question of Luther’s view on “Christ’s adultery” (of which no objective resolution is possible) would be covered in a “balanced” way by noting the two opposed sides and no resolution in sight.
Another thought experiment: imagine the anomaly od a fair, balanced, and accurate journalist of the Rosenthal variety back in Luther’s day. This journalist has to write about the latest controversial Luther statement, now on Christ’s adultery. Without a Jaroslav Pelikan to refer to and th eonly “Luther scholars” being clearly biased apparachiks like Melanchthon and rival factions like Calvin or Zwingli, would the journalist give Luther as much presumptive credit as you do? Remember, this is a guy who not only said he saw the devil and worried about being possessed but who many people were sure was possessed. What non-subjective facts have changed since then to make treatment of a controversial figure come so naturally—at least to some? Do you have the same level of credulity toward similar claims about Joseph Smith that explain away a more radical teaching or idea as a “metaphor” (“theological language,” aha!) making a point most people now will find inoffensive?
Perhaps journalism only ceases being substantial fiction and creative writing when it’s done by historians.
May 23, 2006, at 3:00 am
This also reminds me of an old professor friend, a man very much of the right, who once argued against something I said that was construed by him as being pacifistic, i.e. overly skeptical about the self-evident and great good of nuclear weapons. He made the point that the Beautitudes (or another radical gospel text) was an example of classic Semitic hyperbole.
Sure, maybe.
Please indulge the smart idiot question: How do you know?
Pelikan somewhat seems to tell me so? I think he’s suspect, like all Protestant converts to Orthodoxy.
May 23, 2006, at 3:41 am
The past? Luther lives, or blogs from Purgatory, and these arguments (with the DVC tie in) rage on today between Reformation partisans. On early Lutheran divines interest in astrological magick:
http://lutheratthemovies.blogspot.com/
http://socrates58.blogspot.com/2006/05/strong-enthusiasm-for-astrology-of.html
http://beggarsallreformation.blogspot.com/
May 23, 2006, at 4:15 am
I agree with dk. It takes an intellectual sleight of hand to pass off this blatant contradiction as a contextual mix-up. Unless, of course, the attributed statement is a complete fabrication, which it very well might be. But we don’t know that, and it’s no proof either way that Luther wrote publicly of Jesus’s lack of sin. I don’t need to point out the banal truth that the things we say in public are not necessarily reflective of what we say in private.
As for Glieberman’s review—which is obviously not journalism; and Glieberman is not a journalist in the same vein as Mollie or tmatt—one can argue that using a disputed quote to make a quick point is in bad journalistic form. But I repeat; Glieberman is not a journalist. Right?
Methinks Mollie doth protest too much.
May 23, 2006, at 7:13 am
Reasonable people don’t disagree. Even to suggest that Luther considered Jesus Christ a serial adulterer is laughable at best and a malevolent misrepresentation of Luther at worst. There are no “two opposing sides” when one looks at the quote taken in the context of everything Luther confessed about Christ. When you do that, especially when one considers that Luther often tries to unravel the mystery that Christ bore the punishment of sin while himself being sinless, the only “reasonable” assumption is that Luther is speaking in a spiritual mode. He is saying that Christ took the shame and punishment of adultery upon himself by “consorting” with these women.
This is not a matter of theology, but bad history, and to say “present both sides” is simply the reduction of anything anyone says to “that’s your opinion.” Believe Jesus slept his way around Galilee if you want, but don’t drag Luther into it.
Um, and yes, even a cursory examination of Luther’s works will tell you that he wrote publicly about Jesus’ lack of sin. As he might say, unglaublich.
May 23, 2006, at 7:30 am
OK, the last paragraph of my above comment is based on my misreading of Libertine’s comment. He’s saying that Luther did write publicly about Jesus’ lack of sin, but that it has no bearing on the interpretation of his comment that Jesus committed adultery.
But that leads me to another rant: Sure it does! If Luther writes about Jesus’ lack of sin, andhe considers adultery a sin, then which interpretation of Luther’s statement is more likely — the “literal” or the “spiritual” interpretation?
May 23, 2006, at 7:52 am
I would like to know what DK has against Protestant converts to Orthodoxy. Perhaps he’s jealous that some people can think for themselves.
May 23, 2006, at 9:27 am
When one considers the full totality of Luther’s writings, it’s very clear that there’s something odd going on in that statement. That’s the great thing about Luther, it’s not like his writings/statements are undocumented. We have a good chunk of the load, good and bad. So, when you read a statement that so utterly contradicts his other writings, you are left with only a few choices. In the abstract, yes, one of them is that Luther is secretly admitting what he wouldn’t normally preach. However, considering Luther’s style of speaking and writing, and the way he would make points, either of the two above possibilities are far more likely than that.
May 23, 2006, at 11:43 am
When I first saw the title of this post, I thought for sure someone dug up Luther’s lectures on the Gospels where the risen Christ meets Mary in the Garden and she exclaims “rabonni.” Several scholars state that this was more term of endearment than respect. Doesn’t prove or even claim Jesus and Mary slept together. Mary may have had a crush (and don’t start humming that ridiculous tune from “Jesus Christ, Superstar.”)
I would like to know the context of the Table Talk. Alas, is it possible that the statement was ripped out of context? Unfortunately I don’t have my set of “Luther’s Works” handy. Remember, the “Table Talks” were conversations Luther had presumably at his supper table with family, students, guests, and the like. Maybe I can Google for that passage and see what I get.
Yes, people want to remember Luther as they see fit. WHo can ever forget the classic “On the Jews and Their Lies”? Yes, Luther should not have written or published it, but he did. Like every one of us he was sinful and in need of a Savior. Even he wouldn’t deny that. It doesn’t make the basic message of Christianity invalid—it just goes to show that even the “great men of faith” have weaknesses and blemishes (King David committed adultery and murder, Abraham pimped his wife—TWICE, even Moses could not enter the Promised Land for disobeying God). However, did you ever read Luther’s earlier treatise, “That Jesus Christ was a Jew”? In this treatise he speaks of treating the Jews with love and charity in the hope that they come to faith in the Promise given to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob and fulfilled in the Prophet from Galilee. I would that everyone take to heart these words of charity and kindness—you draw more flies with honey than with vinegar.
May 23, 2006, at 11:49 am
Well, I googled and I “came to the WELS” with this explanation:
So there is an element from the resurrection in there. Again, because Mary uses a term of endearment doesn’t prove anything. In fact, Jesus literally answers “Don’t cling to me.”
As for the Song of Solomon, likely the book would be fresh in the memory of not only Mary but Jews as a whole. The Song was read every Passover—because the rabbis have traditionally seen this as a picture of God choosing His people from Egypt and calling them out. Paul uses this same picture of Christ the Bridegroom and his Bride, the Church (i.e., the gathering of all believers regardless of denomination).
May 23, 2006, at 12:38 pm
First off, a clarification—One commenter seems to think that Dr. Pelikan is the “Lutheran pastor” who offered those speculations about Luther’s comments. Actually, those speculations come from a completely different person—Pelikan’s role here is just as translator. (Dr. Pelikan was never a pastor, and for the last years of his life he wasn’t a Lutheran, either.)
And to get to the matter at hand—This may be an overly simplistic reading. But is it possible that what Luther meant was, “Jesus was willing to be known as an adulterer”? Yes, it’s ludicrous to think that Luther saw Jesus as actually committing adultery. But it’s quite plain that Jesus didn’t care much about his reputation—He was willing to be in situations that would scandalize people of His time. Even being alone with a woman was morally suspect—being alone with a known adulteress or prostitute would be unthinkable. Yet Jesus was willing to put Himself in that situation—a situation where the local tongues would certainly wag, and people would speculate about just what he was doing with that woman—because His care was not for His own reputation, but for the woman’s salvation.
Is it possible that that’s what Luther meant?
May 23, 2006, at 12:44 pm
As a Reformation historian, I definitely would like to add my vote to the “Luther didn’t say that” crowd. I don’t have a copy of the Weimarer Ausgabe handy, but hey, I can Google as good as the next guy, or gal, can’t I?
Here’s the original quotation, according to a rather odd page that archives a couple of listserv discussions. As I say, I can’t check the accuracy of the transcription, but after long, long familiarity with the WATr (that’s Weimarer Ausgabe, Tischreden to the uninitiated), it looks and sounds very much like Luther’s spelling, language, and phraseology, so I’m inclined to believe it’s pretty accurate.
Remember, Luther had a mind that inclined towards paradox, and he loved to shock his rather stolid tablemates by making edgy remarks. This is the man who told his comrade-in-arms Philipp to “sin boldly, but believe yet more boldly.” (“Esto peccator et pecca fortiter, sed fortius fide et gaude in Christo, qui victor est peccati, mortis et mundi.”) Not to mention that he liked his gut’ wittenbergisch’ Bier, as he put it.
All this by way of saying that for the sake of shock value, I think Luther probably left out something equivalent to the phrase, “in the eyes of the world,” because from reading the original it seems pretty clear that his concern lay in how Christ’s actions were perceived by contemporaries. As I read it, Luther was saying that Christ became a sinner in the world’s eyes, and not only this, but he had to take on the burden of the dirtiest, most shameful sin, the sin of adultery.
It’s important to note that if you take Luther’s comment literally, he would be suggesting that Christ didn’t just diddle Mary Magdalene; he also slept with the Samaritan woman at the well and with the adulterous woman he saved from stoning — even more preposterous than an adulterous relationship with the Magdalene.
On the other hand, it’s the kind of claim that people love to think about, right? Not surprising, in a way, that Time et al. picked it up. And it’s not particularly easy to fact-check, given that the first thing you find when you go looking for information is that Luther said, in so many words, that Christ was an adulterer …
May 23, 2006, at 1:18 pm
Hey, that was a joke about converts. The system stripped out my tag, as in “grin”
.
I personally agree that the most plausible view is what Pellikan states; I am just trying to make a larger point in a running debate with Mollie by using this as an example.
I say that she downplays how subjective a “plausible and reasonable” case like this is because she is really sure, due to her own prior commitments, about the truth. It has nothing to do with overarching standards of fairness and accuracy that all reasonable people should be able to agree on.
Mollie has taken what is essentially an advocacy position about Luther—that there is no possible way he meant Jesus sinned. However, a true “fair, accurate, and balanced” journalist might note that, contra Lutherans and Lutheran scholars, some people disagree in their interpretation of this puzzling text, and that opinions of Luther and his orthodoxy have varied radically from his day to our own.
I think my point is made even better by the irritated commenter who declares “reasonable people don’t disagree” on this topic, indicating that anyone who disagrees is thus unreasonable and wrong, especially since Luther said the opposite in other places and would not contradict himself or temporarily and privately entertain a heresy except the true doctrines the Romanists consider heresy. And this is fair, accurate, and balanced? Ha!
People outside the religion ghetto look at these issues in exactly this way. All you can do is appeal to scholars and majorities and mainstream institutional infiltration your particular faction/s have acquired over time in an American where “fair play” has always been lauded amid numerous conflicting cultural and ideolgical blocs. That’s an appeal to authority, not to standards of fairness and accuracy. No doubt you could find another authority, maybe the Elaine Pagels of Reformation studies.
The WELS site explanation John cites is patently wrong in this respect: Luther was not some adolescent teaching assistant still mired in medieval papistry when he lectured on the Psalms. He had ben through seminary, his monastery years, and was now a professor competent in Latin and Greek. He used the best humanist texts available. He had a special edition of the Psalms printed for classroom use with extra wide margins for his students’ notes. He was under experienced and also highly educated supervision at one of the most cutting-edge schools in Europe. He wrote some things we find strange and troubling.
Luther is just a great example of how journalistic fairness and accuracy standards crumble in a controversial issue. Most lay people don’t know that most scholars agree that the non-mythical Luther accepts indulgences in principle in his 95 theses, which were not originally nailed to a door, which was not at that time an act of public protest. He did not have a dramatic one-time conversion moment. The list goes on and on. Luther is a topic filled with sacred cows, old wounds, myths and legends that legitimate different group identities and ideas. Radically different views abound, yet Luther is now accorded more cultural stature and credibility than, say, Joseph Smith—at least for the time being. This has very little to do with standards of reasonableness and fairness.
May 23, 2006, at 1:56 pm
‘I personally agree that the most plausible view is what Pellikan states; I am just trying to make a larger point in a running debate with Mollie by using this as an example.’
At the risk of being pedantic, I want to note again that Jaroslav Pelikan is not quoted anywhere in this article. He edited the collection of Luther’s works, but the extended interpretation of Luther’s comments is not from him; rather, it’s from the Lutheran pastor who writes at http://aardvarkalley.blogspot.com/ .
It’s a small issue, but this is how misquotations and misinterpretations get going on the interweb.
May 23, 2006, at 3:25 pm
I’m reticent to feed our troll DK, but will make the mistake of doing so yet again on yet another post where he repeats the same arguments that have been rebutted elsewhere to no avail.
He writes: “I say that she downplays how subjective a “plausible and reasonable†case like this is because she is really sure, due to her own prior commitments, about the truth. It has nothing to do with overarching standards of fairness and accuracy that all reasonable people should be able to agree on.”
Not true. Yawn. I am not defending Luther’s ridiculous comments here, I’m talking about one very obvious misreading of his comments. I’m talking about how no respectable journalist could look at the facts on the ground and say, “Yep, Schlaginhaufen is clear. Luther — contra every other word he wrote and his entire confession of faith — believed Jesus slept around.”
That is blatant mischaracterization of this one graf we have in the last Table Talk.
Yawn. Please, DK, could you just take a brief respite from your sermonizing? I’m sure we’d all be much more willing to stomach you if you ever incorporated our responses into your angry trolling.
Otherwise, I’m not going to engage you. Unless you give me an incentive to.
May 23, 2006, at 3:57 pm
Sounds to me like Luther was being just plain scripture-quoting humorous. “Oh, yeah, Jesus slept with Mary Magdalene. Look, I can even quote a verse! Ha! You can quote a verse for anything! And he “knew” the woman at the well, too — knew everything she ever did! Ja, I kill me!”
May 23, 2006, at 4:44 pm
How dare you jackanapes talk about me behind my back! The assinine interpretations of my work! I can’t take it anymore! All of you, back to your jobs as swine herds, wet nurses, and certified public accountants! Do something useful for once instead of prattling on, demonstrating your ignorance! Vile, insolent wretches!
May 23, 2006, at 4:47 pm
This is the best day of my life here at GetReligion. Martin Luther (of the brilliant Luther at the Movies blog) has commented.
May 23, 2006, at 5:35 pm
You’ve rebutted nothing, Mollie, and now you’re resorting to name-calling, which is pathetically petty. (Or do you call it a rebuttal when you say you don’t understand perfectly clear sentences?) You get a few extended serious questions and critiques—what is the big deal? Ego problems? The other day Terry sent me an email demanding “call me!” Not his toll free 800 #. Come off your high horse. This is low.
Believe it or not, I’m actually interested in the subjects I’ve harped on and how you deal with them. But you’ve not been forthcoming with questions. It’s your choice whether to answer or not, but if you answer, how about making a real answer without insults?
Again, you have simply asserted an opinion that is self-evident to you and which you unwarrantedly believe must be self-evident to anyone who is not stupid or willfully ignorant. You utterly ignored my case for how it could look from another point of view. Well, in doing so, you’ve supported my theory that your agenda in religion reporting is to balance bias with bias and call it “balance.”
Again, I have no problem with that. I support it. I am just fascinated with your inability (and tmatt’s) to admit it, which I think is either a sign of dishonesty or self-deception. I am incorrigibly curious as to which it is—and why you can’t admit it. It’s not about you or GR personally; I just have an ongoing interest in how people, especially religious believers, deal with the incoherence and rickettyness of the positivist assumptions that undergird western modernity. Intelligent Design, for instance, tries to assert itself within a positivist framework to get a “Christian view” accepted as mainstream science. Quite analogous to your project here. GR too seems to maintain a division of “facts” from “values” while also noting the contradictoriness of this for people with outed particularist, non universalist religious commitments. How does it all hang together for you? I really want to know.
May 23, 2006, at 6:50 pm
Here’s an idea: Suppose Luther was thinking radically in the way of the cross. Suppose he was taking Moses and the Prophets- i.e., God- at His word. That is, if Christ bore the sin of the whole world on Himself to the cross, then did He not also take the sin of adulterers on Himself? Not by actual participation in our sin, but by actual participation in our death Jesus took our sin in His flesh- every bit of it including adultery. So in a very real sense He became The Adulterer for our sakes, though He never committed the sin itself. He became sin for our sakes in order that the power of sin might die in His flesh. That is the triumph of the cross over Satan and death itself.
So if Luther called Jesus an adulterer in one single place his comment must be weighed against the body of work in which where he confesses Jesus’ sinlessness. Evenso, it is not Luther and his words which are the final measure of all things, but Christ and His.
What the press reckons as truth I’ve never been ever to figger out.
May 23, 2006, at 7:51 pm
What Deaconess Carder said is also what the Aardvark Alley post stated. While the “in the eyes of the world” perspective fits, I think that the Christological interpretation is to be preferred (combined, if you will, with the earthly perspective). I say the same in the posts I earlier promised, one on this adultery quote and one examining in general whether or not Jesus was married.
Even when Luther jested, he never denied faith in the sinless God-man Jesus Christ. Just like sinning boldly and farting in the devil’s face, so we must understand this adultery comment in light of his entire body of work and his confessed Christology. Just read his explanation to the Second Article of the Apostles’ Creed:
Are these the words of a blasphemer who denies Christ’s sinlessness?
May 23, 2006, at 10:45 pm
You see Mollie, the pastor prefers your “Christological interpretation.” Boy that sounds evangelistic and advocacy oriented.
May 23, 2006, at 11:15 pm
When one looks at the talks from Luther, Consider the context. Please note that while this Catholic loves Martin Luther like a brother, you can’t read him with Papal infallibility. He is speaking with people (in fact interacting with them). We only get a transcipt hastily recorded by a scribe who may only be a student. In any case he is explaining theology in terms the listener can relate to. One can’t use these talks to find Luther’s theological belief. Discussions may have led Luther to speak of Mary Magdeline in such terms for his audience at that particular time. Luther’s Table Talks must be verified by his other theological writings to make sense. It is very probable that Luther did mean that Jesus took on our sin for our salvation. In that case it would have been likely that he would have made examples of Mary Magdelene and the woman at the well. Perhaps not the best examples. Perhaps they were the best examples at that time for that audience. We’ll never know. One thing we can be sure of, one cannot use these table talks to refute the other more lucid writings of Martin Luther. Martin Luther was German and enjoyed good food and good beer. We cannot take what a scribe wrote down after a full meal and two or three rounds of “liquid bread” to usurp the grounded personal writings that this great man left us. These must be used along with other more lucid writings in order to get Luther’s full view of theology. You would be surprised at how Catholic his views were. But then I’m RC, what would you expect me to say
May 23, 2006, at 11:16 pm
DK, rather than attempting to incite Mollie to wrath, why don’t you give a cogent explanation that fits both the Luther quote and all the facts we know about him, his life, and his writings? The closest you’ve come was early in your first post, when you said, “Another logical conclusion is that Luther meant what he is represented as saying in that text quite literally, or you could speculate that something got lost in the transmission of all that table talk.”
You never went back and found any Luther quotes to support him holding such an heretical belief. I’ve quoted the Small Catechism and could proof-text this blog until the cows come home with similar expressions of orthodox Christian thought from Luther. Until you find something from Luther scholarship that clearly shows the contrary, I don’t see that Mollie, Emily, the Aardvark, or any others holding the Christological interpretation need to continue guilding gold or painting the lily.
May 24, 2006, at 9:52 am
Can reasonable people disagree over the fact of Christ’s ressurection? If so, how is that case different from the one currently at issue? If not, doesn’t the whole pluralistic “marketplace of ideas” and the notion of fair and balanced reporting within and on that market come crashing down?
May 24, 2006, at 9:57 am
Caleb,
This isn’t about whether people believe Jesus slept with Mary; this is about whether LUTHER believed Jesus slept with Mary. It’s not as if the reporter said, “Almost 100 percent of Luther scholars agree; one professor disagrees — Luther believed Jesus was sinless.”
The reporter said that Luther believed something that no reputable Luther scholar would agree with. That’s not presenting a marketplace of ideas — that’s willfully mischaracterizing Luther.
That was the point of my post.
May 24, 2006, at 10:53 am
Mollie, I understood the point of your post. And my questions are directly relevant to that point.
I am presenting a specific historical question (Did Christ rise from the dead?) in light of another specific historical question which you presented and answered (Did Luther believe Jesus had sex with Mary Magdalene?).
You said, in essence, that no reasonable person could come to the conclusion that Luther believed that Jesus had sex with MM. I think it is very pertinent to ask whether you would say the same thing with respect to Christ’s resurrection. You sense a trap and don’t want to answer the question, and you’re right, because I think this question exposes the weakness and contradictory nature of your position vis-à -vis reporting in the public square.
If you say that reasonable people can disagree about Jesus’s resurrection, ultimately, your explanation for the difference between the two historical question will boil down to something along the lines of: some things can be known by a positivistic methodology that is neutral and objective while other things can only be believed or accepted by faith. No person can disagree with the former without revealing themselves to be either wickedly dishonest or a brainwashed ignoramus, while disagreements regarding the latter fall into the category of “mere opinion.†Luther would not approve.
Or, if you say that reasonable people cannot disagree about Jesus’s resurrection, you essentially admit that the pluralistic realm of a “fair and balanced†search for the truth is a fraud and you participate in tearing it down.
May 24, 2006, at 11:16 am
Caleb,
We’re discussing journalism here, not theology. There is no way we can discuss this using Christ’s resurrection. A better comparison is to think about whether a reporter should write: “The Apostle Paul believed Christ did not rise from the dead.”
Now, is there someone out there who has written this? That Paul didn’t believe Christ rose from the dead? Perhaps there is. Perhaps there is someone who has made that claim. But certainly we can see that from a journalistic standpoint, this claim would be difficult to support.
So it is with the claim made by the reporter cited above — as statement of FACT — that Luther believed Jesus sinned with Mary. Has someone said that at some point? Perhaps there is.
Should a journalist write that Luther believed Jesus sinned with Mary — as a statement of fact?
Of course not. And, in fact, I’m surprised that some people’s partisanship against balanced reporting is clouding their ability to realize that.
I think that maybe this is not the best test case for your and DK’s view that fairness does not matter in reporting.
May 24, 2006, at 11:29 am
Mollie, you are dodging the question.
“We’re discussing journalism here, not theology. There is no way we can discuss this using Christ’s resurrection.”
This a very obtuse version of what I said you would say: that some things can be known by a positivistic methodology that is neutral and objective (journalism) while other things can only be believed or accepted by faith (theology).
There is no fundamental difference between the two questions.
You are saying, in essence, that there are some things about which reporters can write “statements of fact” and other things about which they cannot. I am merely challenging that distinction as Luther most certainly would have.
Again, just answer the question: can reasonable people disagree about Jesus’s resurrection? Or if you want me to make this more specifically about journalism, you obviously believe it is jounalistically acceptable for you to report as a statement of fact that Luther did not believe Jesus slept with MM. You also appear to believe that it would be journalistically unacceptable to report as a statement of fact that Christ rose from the dead. How do you justify this? Is it that in your view the “evidence” for Luther’s belief is stronger than the evidence for Christ’s resurrection? If so, this suggests that you, or more properly, the journalistic ethic you seek to defend, has a positivistic and impoverished understanding of “evidence” and what counts as such.
May 24, 2006, at 11:54 am
Caleb, this clearly is about something much larger than our mission at GetReligion. It’s also clear that you have misread me.
I do not view theology as a collection of things that are believed or accepted only by faith. Neither do I think journalists should view theology as such.
Far from it. To take your Jesus example, then, I and other journalists should note that the Gospel writers went to great pains to substantiate the claim that Jesus rose from the dead. In fact, the Gospels read like a legal case more than anything. There are witnesses after witnesses after witnesses. These cases are so strong that some Gospel writers seem to have anticipated claims that would rise centuries later. Journalists should also note that the world was changed within very short order by the conversions of countless individuals over a large geographic area. Journalists should note that, at the very least, the resurrection of Christ was believed by very large numbers of people.
Believing that Jesus was raised from the dead is not based only on faith, then. It is only because of the ignorance of most journalists about the facts surrounding Jesus’ life, death and resurrection that they do view widespread belief in him as a matter of faith.
Having said all that, let me share with you an idea that I wish more journalists would understand. That idea is vocation. Luther talks a great deal about this and I am sure I will not do it justice. But the way to look at it is as this: I’m a daughter, I’m a fiancee, I’m a Christian, I’m a reporter for GetReligion. I’m a reporter for a newspaper. I’m also a freelance reporter where I write about a variety of topics. In each of those roles, I have different roles and responsibilities. Sometimes those roles cross and sometimes they don’t.
For instance, as a Christian, it is my desire to share Christ’s life, death and resurrection with people who do not know him. Sometimes, since I’m a writer, I get to write pieces as a Christian. Sometimes I write for a media outlet which forbids me from writing overtly as a Christian. That media outlet asks me to write fairly about a variety of topics in the federal government. My vocation at the time I’m writing about those topics is not to proclaim Christ crucified — even if it would (for some reason) be able to be horned in there.
It’s a confusion of vocation that makes it hard for some Christians to see their role in a given time and place.
So, for instance, if I’m writing about Jesus, I simply must know my vocation. As a mainstream reporter, my vocation is different than my vocation if I’m a theologian, pastor or evangelist.
I’m no science fetishist, then. Neither am I someone who believes theology is based on faith alone. The better way to understand my approach is through vocation.
Now, does any of that help?
May 24, 2006, at 12:35 pm
Mollie, what facts surrounding Jesus’s life, death, and resurrection? How do you know they are facts? If they are facts does that mean reasonable people cannot disagree regarding Jesus’s life death and resurrection?
Your resort to vague and compartmentalized notions of vocation is just an attempt to have it both ways.
May 24, 2006, at 12:43 pm
Wow. Try again, Caleb.
May 24, 2006, at 1:03 pm
See? You are completely uninterested in getting into a discussion about the “facts of Jesus’s life, death, and resurrection” (as you put it) because you already have an a priori commitment to their truth. Just as you downplay the possible differnet interpretations of the Luther quote due to your prior commitments. The point is that this does not square with GR’s official understanding of what it means to be a journalist. Because GR has been trained as a good citizen of the pluralistic public square it must hide its prior commitments at every turn which forces you into one of two possibilities: either 1) you operate from a positivistic view of fact and evidence and divide the world you report on into two halves, one consisting of “facts” and no reasonable person can disagree with these, and the other half consisting of “opinion,” and no reasonable citizen of the public square is permitted to gainsay another’s opinion with anything but his own opinion; or 2) you can simply take the approach that EVERYTHING is opinion and “you report, we decide,” which of course begs the question of what you decide to report.
When it comes to a question at the very heart of your prior comittments (Christ’s resurrection), you balk because you can’t fit that question into either of these two categories and maintain both your fidelity to its truth and your fidelity to the pluralistic order you are a part of. This is the dillema GR seems desperate to avoid. Thus witness recourse to soft-selling oneself as wearing different vocational hats. Fiddlesticks!
May 24, 2006, at 1:11 pm
Caleb writes:
Your resort to vague and compartmentalized notions of vocation is just an attempt to have it both ways.
May I remind our friends from The New Pantagruel that we strive for civility in this space.
I will consider any further second-guessing of Mollie’s motives sufficient cause for deleting a comment.
May 24, 2006, at 1:21 pm
Caleb,
I’m glad we had this discussion about positivism and vocation. It enables me to see why you are so flummoxed at our goal of encouraging fair, accurate and robust reporting of religion.
I must say that it disappoints me that you accuse me of things that I already rebutted, but there is nothing I can do about that.
I am VERY happy that I finally understand why you and DK are so opposed to GetReligion’s mission.
I must also add that while I don’t agree with you that fairness and balance in religion reporting are impossible, I do agree with you that journalists tend to fetishize positivism without realizing they are doing so.
Perhaps we can draw out the problems with this approach in future posts.
May 24, 2006, at 1:24 pm
Caleb:
If a serious controversy came up in the public square about the Resurrection, I am sure that (a) Mollie’s skill and track record as a journalist would allow her employers to feel comfortable about allow her to take part in the company’s coverage of that controversy, in which the key would be accurately representing the views of the people involved in the debate. I also think that (b) it would be wise for the employer to cover this controversy with a diverse team of reporters of varying viewpoints. That would be a wise strategy and I know Mollie would endorse that.
Diverse, committed teams of journalists can do amazing things when their employers use this tactic.
Will the coverage be perfect? No. Will it be better that the same voices preaching to their respective choirs in small niche publications? If you are committed to the American model of the press, in which you attempt to do worthy work in a creation that is both glorious and fallen, you answer “yes.” GetReligion answers “yes.”
May 24, 2006, at 2:13 pm
Mollie, Doug, Terry,
Thanks for your responses (I think). Let me say up front that none of this is meant as a personal attack or accusation against you or GR more generally. I agree that civility is important, and I do not think anything I have said has been uncivil. The line of questioning may be, and is meant to be, uncomfortable, but that is not the same thing as uncivil. Being threatened with having my comments deleted does not exactly inspire my confidence in GR’s ability to hold up its end of this conversation.
Look, the points and questions being made are very simply, very straightforward, and still there is no satisfying answer or even attempt to make an answer other than to say “as a journalist” I view things one way and “as a Christian” I view them another way. Leaving aside the question of desirability, I question whether such a thing is even possible.
Terry, you talk as if a serious controversy in the public square concerning the resurrection is unlikely, or at most, an intermittent occurrence. Surely such serious controversy is ongoing and ever-present as much of GR’s own work will attest.
I understand and can appreciate your ideal approach of a diverse newsroom, but doesn’t this contradict, implicitly if not directly, Mollie’s assertion of “facts that no reasonable person can deny”? Aren’t you then taking the position, as a news organization, of “we report, you decide” and buttressing the commitment to that principle by assembling as diverse a newsroom as possible? How diverse? Who decides?
Mollie, I would like to know what I am accusing you of that you have rebutted?
May 24, 2006, at 5:39 pm
No threat intended, Caleb, just a reminder that we have standards on this blog, and if you do not abide by them, there may be consequences. I delete very few comments from GetReligion, and I prefer to err on the side of vigorous but respectful discussion.
I suppose it’s considered perfectly civil, in some segments of our culture, to make accusations about what’s going on in another person’s mind, or to assume some level of evasion, even when that person disputes your perception of their interior life.
It’s not considered civil here. Whether your future comments stand has nothing to do with the ability of this blog’s editors to hold up their end of any conversation. It has everything to do with whether you will respect our clearly expressed standards.
May 24, 2006, at 6:31 pm
“I suppose it’s considered perfectly civil, in some segments of our culture, to make accusations about what’s going on in another person’s mind, or to assume some level of evasion, even when that person disputes your perception of their interior life. It’s not considered civil here.”
Ironic, isn’t it, given that this post began by making assumptions about what was going on in someone’s mind and then calling those assumptions facts which no reasonable person could disagree with, eh?
Your “clearly expressed standards” (by which you mean objective and fair standards) don’t look so “clear” from where I sit. That’s fine. As far as I’m concerned you should just treat this media space as you might treat your living room and chuck people out who tick you off for any or no reason whatsoever. It’s when you begin to gloss this legitimate desire to rule your own roost that it becomes apparent that to do as I suggest would rub uncomfortably against your commitment to an “open” and “pluralistic” climate of “free” exchange of “opinion.” So you shoe-horn your non-objective non-neutral communal standards which always depend on authority, history, and some measure of control, into an allegedly objective concept of “civility.” I’m not buying it.
May 24, 2006, at 6:42 pm
Your “clearly expressed standards†(by which you mean objective and fair standards) don’t look so “clear†from where I sit.
No, Caleb, I mean “clearly expressed standards.” I have made no claim to objectivity, and fairness is often subjective. You are attacking a caricature of what I believe.
Respond to this comment if you like. I am done.
May 24, 2006, at 6:52 pm
As a fairly new reader to the blog, it seems like maybe the bloggers themselves may want to take a look at that civility pledge. Calling posters “troll” doesn’t seem especially civil.
May 24, 2006, at 7:19 pm
Mollie’s 100% right. I’ve got an opinion and I’ll give it. These people that wrote the gospels knew how to write. In fact they wrote these gospels for reasons. But they all said Jesus rose from the dead. He is risen! “Is” is and that’s that. They stated a case. They wrote to state a case. They were closer to the date of Resurrection than I am, so I just gotta believe ‘em. They reported. But they all reported the same thing. All four news channels said exactly the same thing! I gotta buy it. I gotta believe that Christians back then bought it. But that’s just me.
May 24, 2006, at 7:50 pm
I would just like to repeat again that I am not making assertions for myself about what Luther did or did not believe. My comments were supposals, hypotheses, thought experiments—how a reasonable person could conclude things Mollie and I are both inclined to instantly regard as stupid and unreasonable.
I think it is less stupid and more reasonable for people today to read Radio’s comments and say, of course the synoptics state a case for the resurrection. That’s their agenda. Their early composition has some weight when putting them against later rival texts, but it is a non sequitir to say one must believe early or the earliest witnesses. Surely you can think of a counterfactual—early witnesses falsified by later ones. The skeptic could also say in all accuracy that there is no way to say what ALL Christians believed early on, and it did not take long for them to divide over the nature of Jesus, and what/who exactly was crucied and what/who was resurrected.
If you really follow a standard of fairness and accuracy based on “just the facts,” the more non-controversial the facts are, the less of a story you have, and the further you are from dealing with the beliefs people actually have. If you’re stating facts about what some people accept as fact, that too is irrelevent and not news unless you are talking about people who other people feel threatened by. And in that case, the big question will always be, is it true what these threatening people believe?
May 24, 2006, at 9:03 pm
dk:
Just a point of reference.
In journalism, we strive not to try to read the minds of the people that we interview or that we hear speak in, oh, pulpits or public meetings.
It is considered fair to ask them follow up questions in which you probe the meaning of their words.
It is not considered fair, once they have answered, to continue to look inside their brains and say, “Behold, they are still not saying what they really mean.” It is especially bad, in journalism, when the people being quoted complain over and over that the very words that they did speak were quoted inaccurately or somehow messed up. This is a major issue, when it comes to MSM religion coverage.
But, as a rule: I am not the expert on what is in your head. You are not the expert on what is in my head. Or Mollie’s. When it comes to people who lived long ago, we read, we ask experts and we take our best shot. And we debate.
May 24, 2006, at 9:03 pm
Oh, and I’m done on this thread, too.
May 24, 2006, at 9:18 pm
You raise a fair point, Susan. I have updated “Civility in this space” accordingly.
May 24, 2006, at 11:38 pm
Are commenters on this blog supposed to act as journalists doing interviews? I thought earlier you said this is a blog, and thinks like “snark” are OK, because it’s not journalism, or not normal journalism.
It seems you are saying that there are experts on people who lived long ago—and that’s OK, because the dead can’t complain about being analyzed. But no one is allowed to pursue expertise in analysis of the living, because that is presumptuous and rude?
I do not claim to be an expert on what is in anyone’s head. I may be wrong about what goals and motives are behind a certain view or statement. Arguing that I am wrong in this way is one thing; saying it is wrong to ever discuss someone’s possible goals and motives is another.
In the course of a discussion or debate, when it is evident people are working from very different premises, assumptions, philosophies, etc., and their goals and motives inform their premises or assumptions, then goals and motives are relevant to the debate. If you don’t like that, you don’t want a real debate. Which is precisely what I think this is all about.
Is it possible you don’t want extensive debating going on here? Yes it has an unseemliness to it. It suggests a lack of control, perhaps a lack of authority. Unanswered critics, or insufficiently answered critics—critics who some readers might agree with—all unpleasant stuff. I can relate; we have very limited and more conventional channels at TNP to direct this sort of thing in a different way. Forums with screened admissions (regulated multiuser debate) and publicly accessible staff email addresses (personally accountable one one one direct access) for instance. Lacking devices like these, GR may need to state a policy against extended debate, however you want to define it. If you are so moved, tack on a rationale suggesting how this comports with journalistic values of fairness, balance, accuracy, and taking account of all points of view.
You can do all that, it’s your website. Debate can go on elsewhere, other blogs for example. And those blogs, if they reference your posts here, will post trackback comments on your posts unless you turn them off or selectively delete them. Such a turn of events would however prove my overarching point that journalists (and all media creators) decide what to exclude and not tolerate.
In that event, I hope at least some readers would agree that a reasonable person could conclude that these (as yet hypothetical) censorious moves reflect bias, self-interest, and partiality that, at best, secures some goods (e.g., removing pesky critics) at the expense of others (e.g., the somethimes useful insight of pesky critics).
May 25, 2006, at 11:40 pm
To be as clear as possible: fairness and balance in reporting -as an absolute standard- is a myth.
Bias enters the second you select some facts as relevant and exclude others.
Appeals to fairness and balance in reporting as context to help identify extremes of rhetoric makes more sense, but is still an expression of previous commitments.
I think Dan’s and Caleb’s point is clear and simple: only those with a positive, orthodox Lutheran commitment to Luther would view Luther’s comment as something needing explanation. Those with no such commitment could take it at face value.
Is this so very hard a thing to admit?
I’m not a Lutheran, am a Christian, so my view from “within” is that the words “Christ became an adulterer” refer to an outsiders’ views of Christ, not Christ’s own actions: he became an adulterer “because they said,” you should notice.
So the sentence should read, to be fully clear, “Christ was perceived as an adulterer by observers for the first time when…”
But believing this does not keep me from seeing how someone could take these words at face value and run with them.
Similarly, to say that there are facts supporting Christ’s resurrection, making belief in the physical resurrection of Christ a matter of simple recognition of the facts is incredulous to me.
I believe in Christ’s resurrection because of an experience with God in the present — on a merely factual basis, it is impossible to rationally accept.
May 31, 2006, at 4:07 am
I believe in Christ’s resurrection because of an experience with God in the present — on a merely factual basis, it is impossible to rationally accept.
Then why did God go through the bother of making His son drag all those witnesses around for His years of public ministry and then keep Him on earth for over a month following the resurrection so “over five hundred” witnesses could testify to the fact that the dead Jesus was alive and well?
June 1, 2006, at 10:50 pm
Orcyeropus — Do you believe everything people say? Just imagine that people began to make similar claims today about someone else. Imagine this someone else had his own disciples who served as witnesses to his miracles, death, and then resurrection. And then suppose 500 people did claim to have seen him ascend into the sky?
If all this was in the NYT tomorrow, would you believe it?
No, because you have faith in Christ.
And because your faith in Christ is not arrived at by reasoning from factual evidence. It’s a response, as the NT teaches, to an experience with God in the present. Faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God — faith does not come by the cold examination of physical evidence. That is not faith. That’s simply being reasonable. Faith is not reasonable. It is simply -not- reasonable to believe that someone rose from the dead. It’s -not- reasonable to believe Abraham’s wife Sarah could give birth to a child. It’s not reasonable to believe that some people are able to heal others of blindness and other serious diseases with a mere touch.
Do you think the people upon whom the Holy Spirit was poured out during Peter’s preaching had time to examine the evidence? They immediately responded in their hearts in faith, and God immediately responded with His Spirit.
If you have a faith based upon objective study of history and a close examination of the evidence, you do not have a Biblical faith.
June 2, 2006, at 12:56 pm
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