Doing RE Hermeneutically – Learning to become interpreters of religion
Dr Robert A. Bowie
bob.bowie@canterbury.ac.uk
(Published in REToday, Autumn 2016, Vol. 34. No 1,Birmingham: RE Today, pp.60-62)
This is an old piece I wrote a couple of years ago but I never posted it here so have made a link possible.
All we read and see around us is interpreted through a lens made up of many filters: previous experiences of similar situations, traditions, ways of thinking we have adopted, loves and hates. To be bitten by a dog one days leaves one wary of them the next. It is difficult and maybe impossible to access the outside world, except from behind our interpretative lenses. How we make sense of things does not stand neutrally apart from a particular story and this is particularly true for religion as. Maajid Nawaz in a dialogue with Sam Harries discussing difficult texts says:
“Religious doesn’t inherently speak for itself; no scripture, no book, no piece of writing has its own voice. I subscribe to this view whether I’m interpreting Shakespeare or interpretation religious scripture.” ((Islam and the future of Tolerance: A dialogue, 2015, USA, p.5)