Will Green: What book are you reading right now?
Laura Lee: I usually have several going at any given moment. I’m on a theology kick right now. I’ve been reading The Restored New Testament by Willis Barnstone (a translation of the New Testament) and The Return of the Prodigal Son by Henri Nouwen. I’ve been reading through the New Testament of the Bible in chronological order, the order in which scholars think it was written. I’ve been reading a lot of books on Biblical interpretation, the development of Christianity and the historical Jesus as well. After writing from the perspective of a Christian minister in Angel, I’ve become very interested in reading about Christianity. What I take away from it is probably idiosyncratic and unconventional. Then again, I think we all have our own internal theologies. It’s conventional to be unconventional.
Will Green: See I’ve tried to read more than one book at a time, but it just doesn’t work for me. It seems like it takes so long to get through just one if I do that. I prefer to concentrate on one and get through it. But you take the cake, you’re reading those deeply religious books at the same time. I agree it is “conventional to be unconventional.”
Now without getting too heavy into the subject would you agree or disagree that there are some contradictions in the story of the Bible?
Laura Lee: Of course there are. There are supposed to be. I would just note that there is not a story of the Bible, it is a collection of works. The different books of the Bible have different perspectives. They are in dialogue with each other. My way of thinking about God is that he did not make a man in his image, he made mankind in his image, and to get as full a picture of God as possible you need to listen to many different perspectives. In fact, the people who compiled the New Testament chose to include the same story told four ways. (The Gospels) They were not stuttering. They were trying to include a richness of perspectives. It frustrates me when people try to “debunk” the Bible by showing its internal contradictions or by saying that this or that wasn’t historical or scientific. To me, that is not the point. Whether Jesus was born in a manger in reality is not the point. You can believe that he was and that it is important that he was, or you can believe it is mythological. In either case, the important question is why people are telling this story and what it means. Why have people been telling this story for years? What are we supposed to take from it? Is “that it happened” really the moral of something like the resurrection or Noah and the flood? No, I don’t think it is. I don’t think that is really the importance of those stories for the people who believe that it literally happened, nor should believing that it didn’t literally happen be a reason to abandon those stories or assume they have nothing of value for us today. To me the literalists and the atheist “debunkers” are arguing within the same framework and it sometimes misses the point.
Will Green: That is a very intelligent and well informed response, thank you for that. It’s refreshing to know you are so open minded about all things religion. You don’t seem to let yourself be too strict in any one area of religion.
Laura Lee: I see it as a process of discovery. I don’t expect to come to a final conclusion. I don’t want to stop exploring. When it comes to questions of the nature of the universe, I am not sure we’re equipped to say we, as human beings, know it all. Every time you decide you have the absolute answer, you’ve closed the question. For most of the big questions, I tend to find that the truth doesn’t come down to an either/or question. The answers tend to be a matter of balance and context. I do think that the type of religion that speaks to a person has something to do with his personality. Some people are comfortable with things being more open ended, and some people are not comfortable unless they have things resolved. I am fine with things being more open ended.
Story and Self 