Miguel De La Torre ignited a Southern Baptist blog firestorm Monday with an iconoclastic reading of Matthew 15:21-28. That passage has Jesus responding to a Canaanite woman's plea that He heal her child. In the key phrase Jesus says:
I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. It is not good to take the bread of the children and throw it to the dogs.
Jesus' comparison of the woman of color to "dogs" strikes De La Torre and many before him [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7] as an arguably racist remark.
His conclusion in the Associated Baptist Press (ABP) opinion piece, not a new one to the world of progressive Christianity, strikes the fundamentalist bloggers as saying that Jesus committed a sin: racism. Yet Jesus is God incarnate, argues J. Thomas White of Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary. Perfect. Sinless. Some therefore suggest that De La Torre is heretical when he writes:
To deny this woman a healing and call her a dog reveals the racism his culture taught him. But Jesus, unlike so many within the dominant social structure of today, was willing to hear the words of this woman of color, and learn from her.
Passions run high. They call the piece "tripe," "heretical trash" and so on. Some swear off the ABP for presuming to publish a "false teaching." They wonder at the competence of the ABP editors and want the piece deleted. Only a couple gently defended open debate.
Quietly reasoned explanation of the text, the sort of explanation which might be heard by skeptics and others whom our angry ministers would regard as unsaved, was rare.
Should we wonder whether there is a relationship between this occasional Baptist blogger preference for heated expostulation and the report in this year's National Council of Churches' Yearbook of American & Canadian Churches that Southern Baptists are declining in number?
Posts
I was gratified to see your reference to my blog article "Toss the children's bread to dogs" (http://practicaljesus.blogspot.com/2008/08/toss-childrens-bread-to-dogs.html) and to your description of that article as "reasoned." I would invite all who describe themselves as "Christian" to read closely and test the Bible for themselves, just as the Apostle Paul urged us to do.
ReplyDeleteJesus was many things. But, a racist he was not. On the other hand, the acceptance of "tradition" in place of reasoned exegesis is perhaps more dangerous to our faith than racism. If Mr. De Le Torre is wrong, then so be it. God bless him. If he makes us think and opens up our minds to the truth that lies buried inside the texts of our Bible, then he has done us a great service.
God Bless
Mark Thomas