outWORD by Matte Downey

Many of our interactions in this day and age are via video screens or through written messages. This at-a-distance type of interaction can be challenging, not just because it is always mediated (done through a medium) but because the distance requires both parties to do some extra work. This is especially true when it comes to written texts. Words have the wonderful ability to engage our imaginations, to enlarge our understanding, and to create narratives and connections which help us make sense of things. Words also have the capacity to be misread, misunderstood, and misrepresented. Have you ever mistaken the meaning of someone's email or text or had your own message misinterpreted? I certainly have. Because the writer is not face to face with the reader, there is no body language or vocal inflection or facial expression to help the reader understand the nuances behind the writer's words. Often, the reader is not privy to the specific situation or context in which the wor...

I have been re-reading some of the most violent books of the Bible. In Judges, we have stories of mutilation, mass murder, war, assassination, stabbing, familicide, crushed skulls, human sacrifice, gang rape, dismemberment, slavery, and abduction. It is not a pleasant read by any means. Surprisingly, some of these brutal stories have made their way into the Sunday School curriculum. The story of Gideon and his mighty men (found in the book of Joshua) is told as a lesson in relying on God's strength, not on human might. The Sunday School version highlights marching around the city, using torches and horns to disorient the enemy, but downplays Gideon rousing an army to kill men and women, old and young, cattle and sheep, and burn down the entire town (except for Rahab and her family). The story of Samson and Delilah is often told as an illustration of God giving superhuman strength to a man in order to accomplish divine purposes. Sometimes it is also framed as a tale of warning aga...

The Hebrew Bible, also known as the Old Testament, sometimes gets a bad rap. So much violence, so many harsh judgments and prophecies, so much bad behaviour, so much patriarchy. At first glance, it seems to paint a rather unattractive picture not only of the people of God but of God himself. But if we look a little closer, we find that things are not always as they seem. Take patriarchy, for example. Patriarchy is a societal and familial system in which the father and the eldest male are the authority figures. The first-born son dominates the family in power, wealth, and privilege. It is a system very unfriendly to women and anyone not lucky enough to be the firstborn male. And this objectionable, unjust system seems to lie at the very foundation of Judaism and Christianity. What is one to do with those pesky patriarchs, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob? The first thing we can do is note that while patriarchy is the context of the story of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, it is not t...

I am a reader. The stacks of books in my bedroom, living room, and office, many of them still waiting to be cracked open, testify to this fact. I love to read, but I also know that not all reading is the same. Some is more work and some is more pleasure. A light work of fiction requires little of me but to engage my imagination and be carried away by the story. Online reading requires a bit (or a lot) of discernment to make sure the sources are reliable and the facts check out. Academic reading requires me to reason through the arguments being made and connect them to what I already know or have read in the field. Reading an ancient text requires that I suspend my 21st century perspective as best I can and learn a bit about the worldview and language of the time. Acknowledging a text's context, intent, and genre enables me to hear the words and ideas in such a way that my view of history and the world are enlarged. Reading, interpreting, and understanding the Bible are importan...